According to The Daily Wire, Minnesota Catholic schools begged Gov. Tim Walz for more security for private schools two years ago after a transgender attacked a Christian school in Nashville.
Walz did nothing.
The Minnesota Catholic Conference (MINNDEPENDENT) President Tim Benz and Executive Director Jason Adkins sent the letter on April 14, 2023, a few weeks after Audrey Hale murdered three adults and three children at The Covenant School.
Benz and Adkins reminded Walz that Minnesota has “72,000 students enrolled in Independent, Catholic, Jewish, Christian and Muslim nonpublic schools.”
“The latest school shooting at a nonpublic Christian school in Tennessee sadly confirms what we already know – our schools are under attack,” added Benz and Adkins. “In Minnesota, nonpublic schools, particularly our Jewish and Muslim schools, have experienced increased levels of threats, all of which we must take very seriously.”
Benz and Adkins requested Walz assisted the state legislature to pass his “budget recommendation of $50 million to establish the Building and Cyber Security Grant Program.”
The men also wanted Walz to push the legislature to add all schools, public and nonpublic, to the program.
The letter shocked me because the Safe Schools Program does not cover nonpublic school:
Since 2020, nonpublic schools have been advocating to be part of the Safe Schools Program that provides funding to school districts for emergency response training, security upgrades, mental health services, and security resources. The legislation supported by our collective organizations provides state aid to school districts, intermediate school districts, charter schools and nonpublic schools for this program. Unfortunately, this program currently does not cover nonpublic schools, charter schools and intermediate school districts and it is a levy-only program for school districts.An attack on any school, whether it is a public, nonpublic, charter or another school site, cannot be tolerated or allowed to happen in Minnesota. We want to make sure Minnesota is doing everything it can to ensure that all our students are safe and secure. We ask you include $50 million in the final Education Finance bill and allow nonpublic schools to apply for funding.
Granted, I believe the private schools here in Oklahoma City cover their own security measures.
Walz agreed with the bishops “that people should feel safe in their schools and places of worship.”
Adkins told The Daily Wire that Walz also agreed with a program that “would have ‘created a consistent funding stream from the state budget on a per pupil basis for all students, not just those in Catholic/private schools.'”
The state legislature never made the appropriations.
So did Walz ever suggest the ideas to the lawmakers? Did he even fight for the nonpublic schools?
Adkins said “that Minnesota had an $18 billion dollar budget surplus in the 2023-24 session and this was not funded.”
MINNDEPENDENT asked for $50 million but it seems Minnesota had at least some money it could have appropriated for the nonpublic schools.
Grant programs are a way for private schools to receive government money and remain private.
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