The reckless amendment effort to reduce school notifications, launched after the bill’s deadline, is a direct attack on the transparency of Minnesota’s public schools. This move not only undermines Minnesota’s open government spirit, but also threatens to hide important information from the public eye.
If passed, the Minnesota Senate’s omnibus education bill (SF3567) would give all school districts the power to remove public notices from widely circulated newspapers, heavily visited websites, and the Minnesota Newspaper Association Public Notices website. It turns out. This means that the majority of school district websites are often underutilized, poorly structured, and difficult to navigate, and are the primary source of district public announcements. .
The Minnesota School Boards Association is leading this proposal to reduce the transparency of local school boards in Minnesota. Yes, this bill would save school boards some money in public spending, but it would significantly reduce access for district residents.
Shame on the Minnesota State Board of Education.
If the bill becomes law, Minnesota newspapers would lose some of their revenue, but residents and taxpayers would be the biggest losers. The newspaper will continue to report on local school board meetings and school sports and activities, but the announcements will be posted on school websites with little web traffic and managed only by school officials and school board members.
Who will monitor the school board staff? After significantly increasing school funding last year, does Congress really trust all school boards to manage their spending fiscally and effectively? More importantly, can taxpayers trust school boards to effectively manage their budgets without transparent public announcements?
These public announcements include school board meeting minutes and financial statements. Taxpayers will no longer have quick and easy access to these public announcements.
One might wonder what the Minnesota State Board of Education is trying to hide.
The school board association argues that posting notices on their websites will save money, as some newspapers have closed down or reduced their coverage in recent years. However, the school’s website and social media often receive minimal traffic compared to local newspapers.
For example, the Brainerd Public School District Facebook page has just 5,700 followers, while the Brainerd Dispatch has 27,000 followers. Although traffic numbers for the district’s website were not available, Dispatch’s website, BrainerdDispatch.com, has 243,175 users and averages 1,086,048 page views per month.
The Minnesota Newspaper Association is supporting a House-passed bill that would give a temporary exception to school districts where local newspapers are closed, such as Scott County, where several newspapers closed this week. Newspapers believe it is a reasonable approach to a temporary news desert situation.
In addition, public notices published in Minnesota newspapers are also posted free of charge on the Minnesota Public Notices website ( mna.org/mnpublicnotice ) by local newspapers and the Minnesota Newspaper Association.
The Minnesota Newspaper Association opposes the proposal in the Minnesota Legislature. SF3567 goes too far and is “contrary to the spirit of transparency that underpins our democracy and Minnesota’s history of open government.” Additionally, the Newspaper Association believes the proposal has not been “thoroughly scrutinized or debated by Congress.” Finally, this proposal was not submitted by the parliamentary deadline and was instead added as a late amendment to the Omnibus Education Bill.
The newspaper’s editorial board and Forum Communications administrator have challenged local school superintendents, local school boards, and Congressional conference committees on the idea of reducing public access to public announcements by Minnesota school boards. We strongly urge you to reject it.
This editorial represents the views of the FCC Editorial Advisory Board and Forum Communications Manager.
The Mankato Free Press Editorial Board contributed to this Forum Communications Co. editorial.
