Bipartisan bill would create interagency council on student attendance; amendment adds metro/greater Minnesota youth seats
Loading...
Summary
House File 35‑85, proposing an interagency council to coordinate statewide attendance efforts, was laid over as amended. Testimony from advocates, foundations, MDE and students stressed chronic absenteeism is driven by housing, health, transport and community factors and urged lived‑experience representation.
The committee considered House File 35‑85 on March 26 and adopted an amendment to require one Minnesota Youth Council seat from the seven‑county metro and one from greater Minnesota. The bill, sponsors said, would establish an interagency council to coordinate state agency efforts to address chronic absenteeism.
Sponsors described eight focus areas — including definitions of attendance, data sharing, transportation, family preservation and community engagement — and emphasized the council’s role in breaking down agency silos rather than creating a large task force. They said the interagency model is intended to leverage existing agency authority and coordination rather than layering new statewide bureaucracy.
Advocates including Matt Shaver of Ed Allies and Patrice Reliford of the Minneapolis Foundation urged passage, citing statewide data: in 2023–24 about one in four Minnesota students were chronically absent and 191,321 students missed a combined roughly 3,000,000 days, testimony said. MDE staff explained much of the council’s proposed functions are already carried out by the department’s Compass team, but noted that Compass currently depends on four positions whose funding is set to expire at the end of the next fiscal year.
Youth and community speakers including Kalik Rogers, Zuri El Buswill and student Lawrence Wells called for strong youth representation and for the council to include voices with lived experience of chronic absenteeism.
The committee laid House File 35‑85 over, as amended, for additional consideration.
