SF3986

Purpose

Clarify and expand how schools count students for state funding during disruptions, and provide a temporary rule for the 2025-2026 school year to maintain enrollment counts despite attendance interruptions.

Main Provisions

• Allows counting students in average daily membership (ADM) even if they miss school for more than 15 consecutive days in the regular year, or five consecutive days in summer/intersession programs, when the absence is due to justifiable causes such as epidemic, calamity, weather, fuel shortage, or other similar disruptions.
• The commissioner must approve, on application, continued ADM counting for districts or charter schools under these circumstances.
• A lawful employees strike cannot be used as a justifiable cause to delay attendance or affect ADM counts.
• For the 2025-2026 school year only, the commissioner must allow districts or charter schools to count in ADM all students who were enrolled in the school before November 1, 2025 and have not reenrolled in another Minnesota school.

Effects on Existing Law

• Introduces a new mechanism to consider “justifiable causes” for counting pupils in ADM beyond normal attendance, potentially increasing ADM during disruption periods.
• Clearly excludes strikes from qualifying as justifiable causes.
• Creates a temporary, one-year provision to preserve ADM for students who were enrolled before a cutoff date and did not transfer to another Minnesota school.

Transitional/Effective Provisions

• Applies specifically to the 2025-2026 school year, with a requirement that the commissioner implement the counting allowance for eligible pupils upon request.

How to Interpret for Schools and Families

• If a school district or charter school experiences a prolonged disruption due to defined causes, it can apply to the commissioner to keep affected students counted in ADM.
• The rule recognizes that some disruptions are outside students’ and schools’ control and adjusts funding calculations accordingly.
• The temporary 2025-2026 provision provides a broader continuity measure for students who stayed enrolled but could not attend.

Relevant Terms

• average daily membership (ADM)
• justifiable cause
• epidemic
• calamity
• weather
• fuel shortage
• extended student absence
• commissioner
• school district
• charter school
• reenrolled
• Minnesota school
• 2025-2026 school year

Relevant Terms (plain list) average daily membership, justifiable cause, epidemic, calamity, weather, fuel shortage, extended student absence, commissioner, school district, charter school, reenrolled, 2025-2026 school year.