Legislative Platform & Priorities Archive

View the 2026 platform here!

Ensuring Ongoing Support for Public Education​

The Minnesota Association of School Administrators values the hard-earned legislative change that now ties the per-pupil formula to inflation, a vital step toward keeping school funding stable and predictable. Protecting this progress is critical.

While strengthening the formula remains a top priority to support Minnesota’s schools, staff, and students, we are mindful of the state’s difficult budget climate. However, we want to remind the legislature that the formula is underfunded and continues to fall short of covering the real costs of educating students.

Recognizing the budget challenges ahead, MASA urges the legislature to act on the three priorities during the 2026 session, ensuring Minnesota schools can continue to fully support both students and staff.

Click here to view the full 2026 MASA Legislative Platform

Prioritize Essential Funding

Fiscal sustainability

• Extend the compensatory hold harmless provision
• Maintain full funding for special education cross-subsidy aid by repealing the contingent $250 million reduction enacted in the 2025 session
• Address physical school safety and cybersecurity needs by increasing the safe schools levy and expanding LTFMR to include safety and security measures
• Increase Local Optional Revenue to $979 per pupil; link future increases to inflation and equalize the formula

Maintaining existing funding streams

• Fund newly enacted mandates
  • Ongoing funding for hourly school employee unemployment Insurance
  • Fund school districts’ share of Paid Leave costs
  • Fully fund READ Act requirements

Flexibility in use of district funds 

• Expand eligible uses of the food service fund, allowing capital levy to support training related to capital purchases
• Expand eligible uses of student support personnel aid
• Allow school boards to renew a capital levy through board approval, ensuring stable funding for facility and technology needs
• Allow time-limited fund transfers, provided they do not increase state aid obligations or expand district taxing authority

Advance Excellence and Stability in Education

• Strengthen the Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) and Online programs to ensure accountability and rigorous academic standards
  • Require students to take equivalent courses at the home district, if offered
  • Allow districts to set eligibility criteria
• Allow up to three-day K–3 dismissals for disciplinary incidents within non-exclusionary discipline requirements
• Improve superintendent retention by permitting school boards to offer contracts up to five years
• Protect the confidentiality of superintendent candidates during the interview process
• Establish state-level technology leadership

Expand Teacher Licensure and Mobility

• Allow out-of-state enrollment in approved teacher preparation programs for Tier 2 teachers to support ongoing development
• Permit Minnesota to join the Teacher Mobility Compact, enabling teachers to move between states and continue teaching with fewer barriers
• Create additional flexibility within licensure areas to help schools meet staffing needs
• Extend out-of-field permissions to maintain adequate staffing levels and ensure continuity of student learning

Key Contacts

View the platform here!

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2025 MASA Legislative Priorities

Continued Commitment: Ensuring Ongoing Support for Public Education​

During the 2023 legislative session, meaningful progress was made in addressing the financial challenges faced by Minnesota’s school districts. We are grateful for the strides taken to support our students, educators, and communities. However, our school districts continue to struggle due to years of underfunding, persistent staff shortages, and the introduction of new mandates.

For the 2025 legislative session, the Minnesota Association of School Administrators (MASA) urges the legislature to build on that progress by continuing to close the remaining funding gaps, fully funding the new mandates passed over the past two years, and granting schools the flexibility they need to effectively support students and expand the educator workforce.

Click here to view the full 2025 MASA Legislative Platform!

Adequate Funding

• Provide a 3% basic formula increase over current law.
• Permanently fund summer term unemployment insurance.
• Establish a district-level hold harmless for compensatory funding and direct a study group to recommend a long-term solution.
• Eliminate the cross-subsidies for English learner programming and special education.
• Increase local optional revenue to $974 per pupil.
• Increase long-term facilities maintenance revenue and provide additional flexibility in its uses.
• Expand access to voluntary pre-kindergarten.
• Provide funding for staff training for non-exclusionary discipline and restorative practices.
• Increase Safe Schools funding to provide resources for addressing cybersecurity concerns.

Educator Workforce

• Improve pension benefits including establishing a career 60 and 30 rule, reducing the early retirement penalty from 7% to 5%, and removing the TIER II retiree cost of living adjustment delay.
• Increase funding for programs that expand the educator workforce and broaden pathways for hard-to-fill subject areas such as science, special education, and career and technical education.
• Expand alternative pathways to teacher licensure, including movement between tiers and paraprofessional-to-teacher training programs.
• Remove caps on out-of-field permissions and remove posting deadlines.
• Support restorative practices and student discipline through locally determined policies.
• Require teacher preparation programs to train teacher candidates in the science of reading.

Local Control and Flexibility

• Allow districts to design school calendars aligned with community needs.
• Focus on learning outcomes instead of seat time.
• Permit school boards to renew existing capital project levies after a public hearing.
• Enable school districts to recover expenses for staffing and legal fees tied to data requests.
• Refine earned safe and sick time (ESST) and Paid Leave (PL) to ensure alignment with locally negotiated contracts.
• Support non-exclusionary discipline and restorative practices through locally determined policies.
• Establish a study group to review and recommend updates to state laws concerning homeschooling and the Post-Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program.

Key Contacts