Senate Dems Push School Counselor Funding Proposal

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Senate Democrats are pushing to get more counselors in Minnesota schools.

Education Chairman Chuck Wiger and other top Democrats announced their education priorities Monday. Along with a matching grant program for school counselors, lawmakers said they would push for a voluntary preschool program and funding to recruit more teachers.

Lawmakers and education advocates have said Minnesota has one of the worst student-to-counselor ratios in the nation, with the DFL citing a ratio of more than 750 students to every one counselor. The American School Counselor Association has also reported a similar ratio in recent years.

Sen. Susan Kent's proposal would allocate $20 million for a grant program in which local districts would have to match or exceed the state funding. Schools could use the money to hire the school support staff they need most, like psychologists or chemical dependency counselors.

Kent, a Democrat from Woodbury, said allowing schools to use the funding where they need it most will help alleviate overworked counselors. She suggested that a school could hire an additional social worker to allow a counselor to focus more on academic needs.

"This is a long-overdue solution to a longstanding problem in Minnesota," Kent said.

It's unclear how much the Senate will push for in total education spending this session. Funding for school counselors was the only piece of the lawmakers' agenda with a price tag Monday morning.

Gov. Mark Dayton had unveiled a scaled-back proposal last week for a statewide preschool system, after his previous, more-ambitious push failed. His supplemental budget includes spending $25 million in the next year for a voluntary prekindergarten program that would allow about 3,700 more 4-year-olds to attend preschool. His budget also proposes $100 million for the program in the next two-year budget cycle.

Democratic leaders said Monday they support a voluntary preschool program for 4-year-olds, but won't say how much they're willing to spend.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk said many of the Democrats' proposals were "scalable" and that they hope to make progress on their agenda, even if they can't meet all of their goals. He said he would be surprised if their total request came in under Dayton's budget proposal for education.

"It's not a budget year, so I think that people's expectations need to be a little bit tempered out in the public as to what we're really going to be able to accomplish, but certainly education is high on our agenda," he said.

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