Senator Michael Holmstrom (R–Buffalo) this week pushed back against legislation that fails to provide equal school safety funding for private school students.

“All students deserve equal school safety aid, whether they attend public, private, or tribal schools,” said Sen. Holmstrom. “Minnesota Democrats and Education Minnesota have consistently neglected to provide meaningful school safety funding for private schools. This two-tiered system unfairly puts a minority of students at risk and has real consequences. We saw that last year in the tragedy at Annunciation Catholic School. It’s time to put student safety ahead of politics and union power."

This week, Senate Democrats introduced Senate File 5000, a bill that increases school safety aid for public and charter schools on a per-pupil basis. However, nonpublic schools would be forced to compete for limited competitive grants, with no guarantee of receiving funding. Priority for those grants would go to schools with lower financial capacity.

There are approximately 653 nonpublic schools in Minnesota and less than 5% have endowments. Under the bill’s structure, private and religious schools will compete for limited competitive grants, with priority given only to those with the lowest financial capacity. As a result, many schools are likely to receive no funding at all.

Sen. Holmstrom offered an amendment to include nonpublic schools in the same per-pupil safety aid formula as public schools, rather than making them apply for limited grants. Senate Democrats voted down the amendment.

“The very same students that lived through the horrors of the Annunciation shooting will be disadvantaged by this bill,” said Sen. Holmstrom. “It’s shameful to leverage their tragedy as a political talking point and then to force them to compete for school safety aid that should be available to all students.”

SF 5000 was heard in the Senate Education Finance Committee on Wednesday, April 8, and advanced out of committee. It now heads to the Finance Committee.