Thousands of students across Minnesota skipped school on Friday to rally for action at the state and federal level to combat climate change.

At the Minnesota Capitol, about 6,000 student activists, parents and other advocates rallied as part of a global push to reduce the emission of heat-trapping gases that spur warming temperatures and more extreme weather events. They hoisted signs and banners and chanted, “we skipped our lesson to teach you one.”

The event coincided with rallies around the state, including youth-led strikes in Baudette, Bemidji, Center City, Duluth, Grand Marais, Grand Rapids, Mankato, Moose Lake, Morris, Rochester, St. Cloud, St. Peter, St. Joseph, Virginia, Willmar and Winona.

The push to raise awareness about the effects of climate change comes days ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City. Around the world, millions of climate activists took to the streets Friday to support the international effort to make countries promise to reduce carbon pollution beyond levels agreed to as part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

At the State Capitol, the advocates called on Minnesota lawmakers to pass legislation that would transition the state’s electric utilities to all carbon-free energy sources within decades and refuse campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. They urged the Walz administration to declare a statewide emergency on climate and block the construction of a proposed Enbridge Line 3 crude oil pipeline.

“We are done staying silent. This is our democracy,” Juwaria Jama, a state Youth Climate Strike leader, told her peers. “We aren’t Generation Z. We aren’t the last to live and we won’t let this crisis be.”

Protesters also staged a “die-in” in the Capitol rotunda and took a moment of silence to remember those killed in natural disasters.

Several Democratic state lawmakers met the demands with words of support on Friday, re-upping their commitments to pass legislation addressing climate change during the 2020 legislative session. A day prior, four Democratic-Farmer-Labor legislators announced their formation of the Climate Action Caucus, which they said was forged in an effort to show support for the youth climate strike.

“Young people have told us that they’re scared, even terrified,” Chair of the House Energy and Climate Committee Rep. Jean Wagenius, D-Minneapolis, said in a news release. “They know they will experience the impacts from climate change for their whole lives. We must build a successful clean energy economy so young Minnesotans will have the future they want and we want for them.”

The Walz administration said climate change poses an “existential threat” and brought a proposal earlier this year to move the state’s electric utilities to 100 percent renewable energy sources by 2050. The bill didn’t make the cut as legislative leaders and the governor hashed out state spending and policy bills in a series of private meetings this spring.

But the measure has faced vocal opposition from Republicans, who said the plan would put the state’s electric grid at risk during extreme weather events and drive up costs for consumers.

“Minnesotans count on safe, reliable, and affordable energy to protect us from some of the nation’s harshest elements,” state Rep. Chris Swedzinski, the lead Republican on the House Energy and Climate Committee, said in a prepared statement. “Proposals House Democrats pushed in the 2019 session would have taken us backward in all three of those areas, heaping expensive tax increases, fees, requirements and policies on people in our state.”

Lawmakers have also floated a proposal that would require electric utilities to prioritize clean energy resources when building new power plants or replacing retired facilities. Exceptions would apply if the clean energy alternative can be proven unaffordable or can’t meet the need of the facility.

Yeah, it wasn’t quite right.

That’s essentially how the new University of Minnesota president described the hiring of a Democratic state lawmaker that brought scrutiny on the U’s hiring practices, non-partisanship and use of donor funds.

“In this situation, our hiring practices put at risk a core value of the Institute on the Environment, the University, and many of our stakeholders and partners,” President Joan Gabel, who was inaugurated Friday, said in a written response to the situation Friday.

The hiring practices in question surrounded first-term Rep. Jamie Long, DFL-Minneapolis, who was hired in July to a temporary paid fellowship at the U’s Energy Transition Lab. The entity “engages university and external experts to catalyze solutions to rapidly reduce carbon emissions and create Minnesota’s clean energy future,” according to its website. It operates under the Institute on the Environment, whose stated mission is “to lead the way toward a future in which people and the environment prosper together” by highlighting research in areas like renewable energy and ecological economics.

“To do this work, the Institute must take steps to avoid even the appearance of partisanship or a conflict of interest,” Gabel said in Friday’s written response to questions from a Republican lawmaker. “Learning from what happened, IonE will be implementing additional measures to hold its hiring practices — even for temporary positions — to a higher standard.”

Long’s hiring was orchestrated by Ellen Anderson, who was the executive director of the Energy Transition Lab — and also a former Democratic lawmaker. According to internal emails and records originally unearthed by a different Republican lawmaker, Anderson allowed Long to write much of the job description himself, including a schedule to accommodate his work as a lawmaker during the period when the Legislature is not in session.

“Asking a candidate to assist in creating a job description is not a common practice,” Gabel wrote in her response to a series of questions from Sen. Paul Anderson, R-Plymouth, who chairs the Senate’s Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee.

FALLOUT

The fallout to Long’s hiring began last week, soon after the media reported on it when Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, the ranking Republican on the House energy and climate committee, publicly exposed the situation via a public records request.

Long resigned from his fellowship. He also denied doing anything wrong. He said he applied to the post like any other job candidate and cast the issue as an attack on climate science, calling Swedzinski’s inquiry a “politically motivated data request targeting my work.” (Swedzinski is a skeptic of human-caused climate change — a phenomenon that an overwhelming consensus of climate experts agree on.) On Friday, Long did not respond to a request for comment in light of Gabel’s thoughts.

Anderson was reassigned to a position that involves no supervisory responsibilities. Her title is “senior energy researcher.” She has declined to comment.

On Friday, Jessica Hellman, the institute’s executive director and Anderson’s superior, issued the following statement: “Like President Gabel, I also hold dear our values and connection to the citizens of Minnesota. IonE exists to serve the public good by providing evidence-based information and analysis about environmental issues. We understand that even the appearance of partisanship risks undermining that purpose and the work we do in service to our state and the world.”

On Friday, Gabel offered that the U is “reviewing the placement of a question regarding conflicts of interest on its job application to ensure that potential conflicts of interest are addressed early in the process and raise at appropriate levels of authority for review.”

HORTMAN  TAUGHT CLIMATE, TOO

Last week, House Speaker Melissa Hortman, DFL-Brooklyn Park, said she would take “several days” to review Long’s hiring before offering any comment. Long is an assistant majority leader of the House Democratic-Farmer-Labor caucus.

Then on Friday, she announced that nonpartisan House staff will hire outside attorneys to look into it — because she taught climate courses with Anderson at the U.

According to a statement from her office: “Hortman taught “Climate Change and Energy Law, Science and Policy: Local to Global Perspectives” with Ellen Anderson in the fall of 2015, “International Climate Change Policy: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP 22)” with Ellen Anderson in the fall of 2016, and “Pathways to Renewable Energy” with Paul Imbertson in the Spring of 2017.

In a statement, Hortman said: “Due to the fact that I taught three courses at the University of Minnesota between the fall of 2015 and spring of 2017, I have asked House Research to retain outside counsel to respond to Representatives Swedzinski and Daudt’s inquiries about Representative Long’s employment at the University of Minnesota.”

There are currently two lawmakers who are employed by the University of Minnesota system, according to Gabel. Both are Democrats. Rep. Jennifer Schultz of Duluth is a tenured faculty member who teaches health care economics — a post she held prior to being elected in 2014. Rep. Frank Hornstein of Minneapolis, who is serving his ninth term, has been a lecturer in the College of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resource Sciences since 2016.

GOP PRESSES ON

Anderson said he appreciated Gabel’s “thorough” response, saying it showed she took critics’ concerns seriously.

Swedzinski issued a statement saying, in part, “Based on the university’s own responses, it appears this hiring process was improper.” He said he’s awaiting “appropriate actions” from Hortman.

READ GABEL’S LETTER

Police in Inver Grove Heights shut down a homecoming dance at Simley High School on Saturday night after a report of a possible weapon at the event.

In a Facebook post, the police department said the school resource officer, who was at the event, along with high school officials were unable to substantiate the rumor but decided to shut down the dance early anyway.

“We take an incident like this very seriously and in the best interest of safety for all attending the dance the Inver Grove Heights Police Department along with Simley High School Administration decided to shut down the Homecoming dance early,” the post said. “The Inver Grove Heights Police Department will be working with Simley High School Administration to further investigate the situation.”

WORTHINGTON, Minn. – It was the first day of school, so Don Brink was behind the wheel of his bus, its yellow paint glistening in the drizzling dawn. Wearing jeans and a John Deere cap, he turned the radio to an oldies station and, with hands callused thick by 50 years of farming, steered the vehicle toward the edge of town.

He stopped in front of familiar farmhouses surrounded by fields of soy and corn, where blond children boarded the bus, chatting in English.

“Morning,” the 71-year-old Vietnam veteran said.

This was the Worthington he knew.

But then Brink headed back into town, past the meatpacking plant that was the area’s main employer and into the neighborhood he called Little Mexico, even though most of its residents were Central American.

This was the Worthington he did not know – the Worthington he resented.

At the corner of Dover Street and Douglas Avenue, a handful of Hispanic children were waiting. At Milton Avenue, there were a few more. And at Omaha Avenue, a dozen students climbed aboard – none of them white.

Brink said nothing.

“I say ‘good morning’ to the kids who’ll respond to me,” he said later. “But this year there are a lot of strange kids I’ve never seen before.”

Those children, some of whom crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone, have fueled a bitter debate about immigration in Worthington, a community of 13,000 that has received more unaccompanied minors per capita than almost anywhere in the country, according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Five times in just over five years, the district has asked residents to approve an expansion of its schools to handle the surge in enrollment. Five times, the voters have refused – the last time by a margin of 17 votes. A sixth referendum is scheduled for November.

The divide can be felt all over Worthington, where “Minnesota nice” has devolved into “Yes” and “No” window signs, boycotts on businesses and next-door neighbors who no longer speak. A Catholic priest who praised immigrants was booed from the pews and has received death threats.

The driving force behind the defeats has been a handful of white farmers in this Trump-supporting county, including Brink, the bus driver.

Even as he earns a paycheck ferrying undocumented children to and from school, Brink opposes the immigration system that allowed them to come to Worthington.

“Those kids had no business leaving home in the first place,” Brink said. “That’s why we have all these food pantries, because of all these people we are supporting. I have to feed my own kids.”

Now he pulled up to the same high school where he and his wife had walked arm-in-arm as teenage sweethearts, and watched his passengers step down into a stream of dark-haired children, among them a pregnant 15-year-old from Honduras and a 16-year-old girl from Guatemala who’d arrived months earlier.

For the two unaccompanied minors, their first day of school was an opportunity.

For Brink, it felt like an affront.

‘THEY ARRIVE EVERY DAY’

Inside Worthington High, more than a thousand students were scrambling to find their classrooms before the morning bell, their sneakers squeaking on the freshly polished linoleum.

A dozen Hispanic boys crowded silently into the office, looking confused. One wore soccer cleats with jeans. They were among the 129 kids who’d arrived in the district over the summer.

“You guys know where you’re going?” an administrator asked. “You need help?”

Since the fall of 2013, more than 270,000 unaccompanied minors have been released to relatives around the country as they wait for immigration hearings. Many have ended up in large cities: 16,000 in Los Angeles; 18,000 in Houston; 20,000 in the Washington, D.C., area.

Thousands more, however, have ended up in small towns like Worthington, where their impact is dramatic.

In those six years, more than 400 unaccompanied minors have been placed in Nobles County – the second most per capita in the country, according to ORR data.

Their arrival has helped swell Worthington’s student population by almost one-third, forcing administrators to convert storage space into classrooms and teachers to sprint between periods, book carts in tow.

“All of our buildings are over capacity,” said Superintendent John Landgaard.

“The school district is busting at the seams,” added Mayor Mike Kuhle.

School districts don’t track immigration status, but they do keep tabs on English language learners (ELL), who are generally more difficult and costly to educate.

The number of ELL students in Worthington has nearly doubled since 2013, to 35 percent of students. In the high school, where most unaccompanied minors are placed, it has almost tripled.

“They arrive every day, all year long,” said Julie Edenborough, director of migrant services for Guymon Public Schools in Texas County, Oklahoma, the only place to receive more unaccompanied minors per capita than Nobles County. “We’re talking about kids who couldn’t write their own name, who couldn’t hold a pencil.”

School districts like Guymon and Worthington have scrambled to hire Spanish-speaking teachers, who are part educators, part parents, part therapists. Many unaccompanied minors live with unfamiliar relatives who offer little support. Teachers often fill the void, arriving early, staying late, even buying their students groceries.

“A lot of these kids suffer horrible trauma on the journey to the United States,” said Perla Banegas, who until recently taught newcomers at Worthington High. “Some were sexually abused. Others were almost murdered by a gang or left in the desert.”

Many students feel pressured to work to pay off their debts and contribute to household expenses: rent, electricity, WiFi.

One 17-year-old asylum seeker from Guatemala said he cleaned a meatpacking plant by night, attended class by day and milked cows in the afternoon before grabbing a few hours of sleep.

But he could never fully repay the Worthington relative with whom he was living. Now 18, he’s dropped out of school, moved to another state and works in construction. His asylum hearing is scheduled for March in Minneapolis, but he fears he won’t have the money to attend, forfeiting his already uphill battle for asylum.

“I didn’t think the United States was going to be like this,” he said recently. “So hard.”

This school year didn’t start easily for the 16-year-old from Guatemala or the 15-year-old from Honduras. The older girl misread her schedule and arrived 45 minutes late, then had to leave to get vaccinated. The younger one arrived on time only to be scolded.

“You can’t wear shirts like that,” the attendance secretary told her in English, pointing to the Honduran’s floral blouse, which hung off her shoulders and exposed her bra straps. As a family friend who’d driven her to school translated, the girl tugged up her shirt.

The two headed toward the girl’s classroom, and the morning bell rang.

But the girl kept walking.

“You have to stop and show your respect,” the friend whispered in Spanish. “They do this every day.”

“Ah, OK,” the girl said as she stared at the students with their hands on their hearts.

‘IT IS RACISM’

When Don Brink attended high school in the 1960s, Worthington was almost entirely white. But by the end of the century, the population was 20 percent Hispanic: primarily Mexicans drawn to the area’s poultry farms and meatpacking plant.

In 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 230 undocumented workers at the plant. Immigrants kept coming, however, mostly from Central America. Today the town is almost two-thirds minority. Hispanics outnumber whites.

While nearby towns have shrunk and their schools have closed, Worthington has grown. Signs in Spanish and Lao now line downtown, where Mexican restaurants compete with a new microbrewery. A Guatemalan flag flies in the window of a store selling soccer jerseys and baby blankets. On a recent afternoon, “Hello” was written on the sidewalk in chalk in 11 languages.

Even as Worthington has changed, however, its tax base still depends largely on white farmers like Brink, pitting the town’s future against its past.

In 2013, when the school district first asked voters to pay for new classrooms amid the influx of unaccompanied minors, those farmers feared they would bear the brunt of the $39 million. The bond referendum failed.

Three years later, when the school district asked for $79 million, some locals felt insulted.

“They shot for the moon,” said Dave Bosma, who transports livestock for a living. He voted for the referendum the first time around only to join Brink and others in opposing it in 2016. They called themselves Worthington Citizens for Progress, raising money door-to-door and distributing “Vote No” fliers at the town’s annual turkey race.

The group also hired a controversial consultant named Paul Dorr, who for decades has worked to defeat public school referendums across the Midwest. Dorr’s aggressive tactics, which once included burning LGBT children’s library books in another town, only deepened the divide.

The second referendum was defeated by a 2-1 margin on Nov. 8, 2016 – the same day Donald Trump won 62 percent of the vote in Nobles County.

Attitudes have hardened since then, as three more referendums have failed. Citizens for Progress tried to oust the superintendent, and a former teacher who shared students’ private information with the group was charged with a crime. Accusations of racism have become commonplace.

“White people here don’t want to pay for people of color and undocumented children to go to school,” said community activist Aida Simon.

The rising tensions reflect broader shifts in the state. Last fall, some Republican candidates called for Minnesota to stop accepting refugees, many of whom are Somali Muslims.

“There was concern among citizens as to the cost of refugee resettlement,” said Jeff Johnson, the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate who supported a suspension. “Often the answer was ‘you’re racist.’ It shut down the discussion.”

In Worthington – where the congressional district flipped Republican in 2018 – the discussion has centered less on Somali refugees than on Central American asylum seekers, who Trump warned were “invading” the United States ahead of the midterm.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, Father Jim Callahan took to the pulpit at St. Mary’s Church to defend the migrants. As he delivered his sermon, boos echoed off the stained glass windows. A parishioner’s son, in town for the holiday, was heckling him.

Another man approached Callahan after a different sermon on immigration and threatened to kill him, the priest recalled. And a stranger at a gas station spit in his face.

“They can call it whatever they want,” Callahan, 69, said of the opposition to expanding the school system, “but the bottom line is that it is racism.”

Members of Citizens for Progress says their concerns are purely financial at a time when farmers are already hurting from flood-damaged crops and the trade war with China.

“On a weekly basis I’m told I hate children,” said Bosma, 37, whose kids go to a private Christian school. “I’m just a young guy trying to make a living for myself and put food on the table for my family. I look at the bank account at end of the month and say, can I afford another $200 in property taxes this year?”

Brink also insists he isn’t prejudiced. His own grandparents were immigrants from Holland, and his parents spoke some Dutch. But he doesn’t believe Worthington should be a destination for the undocumented.

“I wish they would have another ICE raid,” he said. “They need to get rid of the illegals.”

‘HALF THE TOWN IS ILLEGAL’

The 15-year-old sat near the classroom window, her belly nearly touching the desk in front of her.

She hadn’t known she was pregnant when she left Honduras in February, after the father who’d left her behind as a baby called to tell her to join him and his new family in America. Then she’d started throwing up in her hotel room in southern Mexico.

She’d thought about turning back, back to the boyfriend who had begged her to stay.

Instead, she continued north, crossing the Rio Grande in a raft before spending two days in a Texas Border Patrol facility and a month in a Florida shelter.

Now she was 3,000 miles from home, back in school and about to give birth.

“I want to learn a little bit more about you guys,” her teacher said, first in English, then Spanish.

When it was her turn, the girl gave her name and said she’d arrived four months ago. She didn’t mention that her child was a boy or that she wanted to name him after the dad he might never meet.

She had worried she’d be surrounded by kids who didn’t speak her language. Instead, she found herself in a class with 14 Guatemalans and two Salvadorans.

Sitting across the room, the 16-year-old from Guatemala was one of the last to speak.

She was the shy youngest child of maize farmers in the western highlands who were too poor to send her to school. It had been three years since she sat in a classroom. Asked about the best part of her first day, she would later say simply: “Learning.”

She lived in what had once been a nice house near the school where the intricate crown molding was now crumbling and the wallpaper was coming off in sheets. But instead of sharing her bed with siblings, she now had her own room. The older sister who’d brought her here had decorated it with paper orchids to remind her of home.

The teacher asked the class to create name tags emblazoned with words representing them.

The pregnant girl wrote “Math,” her favorite subject.

At 1:15 p.m., she left early for a medical appointment. The doctor told her the baby was healthy, but the girl cried anyway, thinking of her boyfriend.

At 2:50 p.m., the 16-year-old walked out of school with a new friend. The two girls had grown up a few miles from each other in Guatemala but only met in America, where they now live a block apart.

As they strolled home, they passed Guatemalan ladies in lawn chairs waiting for their children and an elderly white couple sitting on their porch. They oppose the referendum to expand the schools.

“We can’t afford the taxes,” the woman said later; she works part-time at the middle school and knows the classrooms are overcrowded.

“Half the town is illegal,” added her 80-year-old husband, an oxygen tube in his nose.

He earns $83 a day from the bus route. But as he drove through the town that immigrants had revived, listening to oldies, he thought only of what has been lost. And he worried that this time, the referendum would pass.

– – –

The Washington Post’s John D. Harden contributed to this report.

The St. Croix Valley Civil War Roundtable gathered at the Lowell Inn in Stillwater on Monday night to eat a buffet dinner and listen to a lecture on the Battle of Fredericksburg.

The group’s members, almost 50 in all, were carrying on a tradition started almost 30 years ago.

The Civil War Roundtable has met the fourth Monday of the month from September through May since 1993. Roundtable members discuss battles, listen to lectures and socialize. Five years ago, they took a field trip to Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Penn.

The members who gathered this time to hear historian John Cox were men and women in their 60s and 70s. Organizer and founder Steve Anderson said the group is working to attract younger members.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing the average age is 70,” said Anderson, 72, of Hudson, Wis. “We’re looking for some younger folks, to get new blood in.”

Anderson, an antiquarian book dealer and publisher, founded the roundtable with the late Washington County District Judge Howard Albertson. He said lessons learned from the war are still applicable today.

“Many things that have never been settled — such as racism and slavery,” he said. “The tragic part of the war is the brother-against-brother concept — the civil war. It split the country, and then it comes back together again.”

The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, according to Anderson.

“Down south, it’s still a big deal,” he said. “In other parts of the country, they’re not even sure what you’re talking about. It runs these extremes, but I think most people who are interested in it are interested in it because of the tragic situation of the Civil War.”

Former Washington County Attorney Doug Johnson said he became interested in Civil War history when he read a book about it in junior high. He joined the roundtable at Albertson’s urging and has presented programs on Grierson’s Raid and British-American diplomatic relations, 1861-1862.

“I think right now, our country is as divided as it has ever been since the Civil War,” said Johnson, 74, of Lake Elmo, wearing a “Civil War Nut” T-shirt. “People keep talking, ‘We should do this, we should do that.’ If you don’t get anything else out of the Civil War, it was damn bloody, and a civil war right now would be even bloodier.”

The war, which was fought from 1861 to 1865, was a “critical point” in American history, said the Rev. Jerry Doherty.

“It kind of formed our country, and we still haven’t gotten over it,” he said. “I think some of the contemporary issues and attitudes are because of that. In a way, we’re dealing with the same thing again in some ways today.”

Doherty, 70, of Stillwater, said his family was thrilled when he joined the roundtable a few years ago.

“They got tired of me talking about it,” he said. “I can come here and talk about it endlessly, and everybody loves it. It’s the one place you can go and talk about history with people who know a lot more than you do.”

Roundtable topics this year include: “Chickamauga, September 19-20, 1863,” “Civil War Medicine,” and “U.S.S. Queen City and the Skirmish at Clarendon, Arkansas.”

Cox, an author, historian and former licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg National Military Park, lectures every year.

The Battle of Fredericksburg, which was fought December 11-15, 1862, is considered one of the most one-sided battles of the war, with Union casualties more than twice as heavy as those suffered by the Confederates.

“It is a very misunderstood battle,” Cox said. “Most people think that Ambrose Everett Burnside, the federal commander of the Army of the Potomac, was an idiot, right? I don’t think Burnside was an idiot. I was president of the George McClennan Fan Club, but now I’m president of the Ambrose Everett Burnside Fan Club, and I’m the only member.”

The battle served to strengthen the Army of the Potomac’s resolve, he said.

“Every Yankee in the Army of the Potomac now realizes one thing: it’s going to be a long war,” he said. “ A Yankee by the name of George Meade writes to his wife and says, ‘I don’t care what happened, but I want a chance to give those rebels one good licking.’ I think that speaks to the entire Army of the Potomac. They know it’s going to take more, and it’s going to take a while.”

Journalist Cliff Buchan, of Forest Lake, a longtime member of the roundtable, said Cox’s lecture changed his thinking about Burnside.

“For most of us amateur or casual historians of the Civil War, we no doubt long ago believed that Burnside was the goat of the Battle of Fredericksburg and the Union’s lopsided defeat,” he said. “But in reality, after hearing Cox, it was made clear that Burnside was not solely to blame. A series of screw-ups, that did not involve Burnside, were equally to blame for the debacle that would come.”

“History repeats itself, literally, and you can learn a lot from the past,” he said. “Human beings keep repeating stuff. They forget the past really quick, and in this country, they forget it in 10 years.”

But Johnson said he has never forgotten a lesson he learned from his 10th-grade history teacher at Wadena, Minn., High School.

“I remember Mr. Willis saying, ‘America will never be invaded. If it falls, it will be because of internal problems,’ ” he said. “All of a sudden, he looks a lot smarter than he did in 1960.”

TO KNOW MORE

The St. Croix Valley Civil War Roundtable meets on the fourth Monday of the month at the Lowell Inn in downtown Stillwater. The meetings are open to the public. For more information, contact Steve Anderson at 715-386-1268 or send email to rossandhaines@comcast.net.

At Cretin-Derham Hall’s 2018 graduation ceremony, Jackson Crawford was handed an empty case without a diploma.

Crawford responded in kind, giving the school’s president the middle finger instead of a handshake.

More than a year later, Crawford, once a well-regarded football prospect, still is fighting for both his diploma and acceptance from the St. Paul Catholic school.

The school says he never turned in his work to earn a required religion credit. Crawford says the school failed to accommodate his disability, which relates to unspecified behavioral health and chemical dependency issues.

The St. Paul Department of Human Rights said in May that Crawford could sue, finding probable cause that the private school discriminated against him by withholding the graduation certificate.

Last month, Crawford filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County District Court, demanding a diploma, money and that Cretin-Derham Hall treat him like an alum.

RECOVERY JOURNAL

According to public records from those cases, Crawford began inpatient treatment in Florida in February 2018 after missing a lot of school and struggling academically.

He would take a required English course online, and Cretin-Derham Hall’s guidance counselor told him he could satisfy his religion credit by keeping a detailed journal of his time in treatment.

Two months later, after completing treatment, Crawford visited the high school to prepare for graduation and to show the journal to his religion teacher. However, the teacher had already left for the day, and Crawford decided against leaving the journal with another staffer because its contents were private.

Neither party followed up about the journal.

When Crawford was given an empty diploma case at graduation, his mother figured it was because she hadn’t yet paid the final tuition bill. She learned four weeks later that the religion credit was the problem.

“At no time did Cretin-Derham Hall inform my parents or me that I would not be eligible to receive my diploma,” Crawford wrote in his July 2018 complaint to the St. Paul Department of Human Rights.

Cretin-Derham Hall said Crawford “was afforded every opportunity to earn a diploma by granting him accommodations and exceptions to its requirements to allow him to graduate,” the human rights department said in a memo summarizing the arguments.

The department sided with Crawford, writing that the school knew about his disability and should have made contact after he failed to turn in his journal.

The school, the department said, “should either waive the religion requirement and issue the diploma or adhere to its position that a journal must be turned in and arrange a meeting with (Crawford) to review (it) allowing the diploma to be issued promptly.”

RETALIATION

In the same memo, the human rights department said Crawford has made a plausible case that Cretin-Derham Hall’s refusal to award the diploma amounts to retaliation.

In April 2018, Crawford filed a separate human rights complaint after Cretin-Derham Hall barred him from attending prom, senior lock-in or graduation. The school said his attendance would “compromise his recovery.” The parties resolved that complaint.

But then, at graduation, after getting an empty diploma case, Crawford gestured toward President Frank Miley with his middle finger instead of shaking his hand, according to the human rights memo.

Crawford suggested the school was continuing to withhold the diploma as retaliation for the vulgar gesture and for filing the initial discrimination complaint in April.

COLLEGE TROUBLE

Crawford, who played quarterback for the school’s football team, was considered by one outlet to be the state’s No. 6 prospect in his class after a standout junior year, but Cretin-Derham Hall moved him to defense as a senior.

He planned to attend college in September 2018 but couldn’t do so without a diploma, so he completed his GED instead. His Facebook page says he attends the University of St. Thomas, but the school said he’s not currently enrolled.

A Cretin-Derham Hall spokeswoman declined to comment on the dispute.

The school filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which a Ramsey County judge will consider at a hearing in November.

Things get eerily quiet in the moments leading up to Farmington football home games.

It’s part of the tradition, the mystique, the magic.

“It makes my heart pound,” senior offensive lineman Jake Nelson said.

It’s dead silent as Farmington’s players begin to make their way down the path toward the field. The bass drum starts to play. As it beats, so, too, in near unison, do the hearts of players.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Finally, the players make their way past the student section and it all hits a grand crescendo. The students roar and stomp their feet as the team files past the bleachers and onto the field, signaling the official start of another Friday night game.

“It just erupts,” senior linebacker Hunter Hedlund said.

“I don’t even know how to explain it,”  senior defensive lineman Jack Baumbach said. “It’s so loud, it’s like the craziest feeling you could ever feel.”

It’s a feeling so good, the Tigers wanted to share it. Specifically, they wanted to share it with Andy.

‘TRUE WARRIOR’

It’s a tradition for a member of the student body to serve as the flag bearer charged with leading the football team onto the field at home games. In past years, those students seemed to be chosen from the “popular” crowd.

This year’s captains — Nelson, Hedlund, Baumbach and senior defensive back Luke Weierke — aimed to change that. Baumbach talks about how blessed he is, and how he wants to share his life, and his platform, with others; the captains recognized this as one way to do so.

They had one person in particular in mind for the honor.

Andy Welter was born with myotubular myopathy, a muscle disorder that causes problems with the tone and contraction of skeletal muscles, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

The Farmington senior uses a wheelchair, cannot breathe or swallow on his own and has had so many surgeries that even his mom, Amy, has difficulty keeping an accurate count of them all.

But don’t think for a second any of that will keep him down.

“He’s the happiest kid,” Amy said.

Welter wasn’t supposed to live past 18 months. He’s now 18 years old.

“He’s the strongest guy I know,” Nelson said.

Who better to lead the Tigers into battle?

‘LIKE A MAKE-A-WISH’

Amy was approached in May about the possibility of Andy leading the team onto the field for a game this fall.

“I would never say no to that,” she said.

Andy was in, too. So, there Welter was prior to the team’s first home game of the season, Sept. 6 against Osseo, wearing a Tigers jersey and carrying the flag with the help of his mom — leading his high school football team onto the field.

“Walking up at the front, seeing Andy up there, was awesome,” Hedlund said.

Amy, too, experienced what it was like to be engulfed by the atmosphere. As they walked out onto the field, she could hear students yelling out her son’s name, but she was fixated on Andy’s smile.

“He was just so proud of carrying that flag,” she said, “and he wanted to be out on the field with the guys.”

Andy soaked it all in, from leading the team out to serving as an honorary captain on the field for the coin toss. He stood alongside the players during the national anthem — one of his favorite things — and watched the game from up close.

“I had fun carrying the Farmington flag at the football game,” Andy said through his tablet this week as he joined the football captains for an interview. “Thank you for including me in the football game.”

Many in Welter’s family were in attendance that night to cheer him on during his moment.

“There’s no words for how amazing it was for us,” Amy said. “It was like a Make-a-Wish.”

She recalled seeing her husband, Matt, a former high school football player himself, tear up.

“He’s always wanted Andy to do that and be a part of it, so this was kind of his way of being a part of it,” she said. “He was finally part of a team.”

That won’t change anytime soon.

‘MY BOY, ANDY’

When the captains met at midfield for the pregame coin toss, Baumbach introduced Welter as “my boy, Andy.”

Amy’s heart melted. “I’ve never had somebody really respond to Andy like that, and it just meant a lot.”

Welter is a jokester who wears wild socks, loves horror movies and plays Call of Duty. In other words, he’s a teenage boy. That’s all he’s ever wanted, to be one of the guys, but it has rarely worked out that way.

In elementary school, Welter was in a “circle of friends” group that helped him to get to know other kids, and vice versa, but as he got into middle and high school, the student population grew and fewer kids became familiar with Welter. Still, Welter, joined by Sixl and aide Jeri Winchell, enjoyed having lunch with his classmates.

Until one day during sophomore year, when soon after Welter wheeled up to a table, all the kids got up and left. Welter was so upset he wouldn’t let his mother tell his dad. He didn’t want to talk about it.

“After that, he really didn’t want to always want to come to school,” Amy said. “We kind of starting struggling in 10th grade with him not wanting to come.”

She anticipated this year being especially difficult.

“Then these amazing guys came along and changed senior year,” Amy said.

After suggesting Welter be a flag bearer this fall, the four captains visited him at home to get to know him better. The five quickly bonded.

Welter is back to enjoying school. He loves saying hi to “the guys,” giving fist bumps as he rolls by.

“It just makes his day,” Sixl said. “The rest of his day is good if he gets to say hi to the guys.”

He now has friends to sit with at lunch — one of the highlights of his day — and the boys make a point to have a question for him ready to go to get the conversation started.

“It’s an awesome occurrence whenever he comes up to us and sits by us,” Hedlund said. “He chooses our table, and it’s something we take pride in. We love seeing him.”

Welter is now established as an integral part of the student body. After serving as a flag bearer, classmates know who he is and acknowledge him in the hallways. At a recent pep fest, he sat with the football team.

“The moment he put that jersey on, he’s part of the team,” Nelson said. “And he still is one.”

The captains made a point to credit their entire team with welcoming in Welter and noted the student body has embraced him. But Amy knows that only happened because four senior classmates got the ball rolling.

“I never thought that there actually could be high school kids that wonderful,” she said.

Hedlund’s mom is an assistant principal in Eagan who spent years working in special education. Growing up, he spent countless hours with her students.

“And one thing she wanted for me, and everyone, to take away is that even though they have a disability, they’re just trying to live life, just like you,” he said. “So, she pounded that into my head, just saying, ‘Hey, don’t think of them any differently.’

“So, when I first saw Andy, I was like, ‘This is awesome.’ I just try to view everyone as the same. When we see Andy, he’s just another kid going through high school like the rest of us.”

Baumbach’s mom is a special education teacher, and he hopes to be one, as well.

“There’s a saying: ‘The only disability in life is a bad attitude,’ and that’s what goes through my mind,” he said. “If I have a bad day, I still get to do so many things I’m blessed with. That’s what I admire about Andy; he still lives his life and he’s still passionate about everything. That’s what I love about him.”

“We all really are excited. That’s a huge thing, it’s really easy,” Baumbach said. “When everyone really wants to do it, and everyone wants to connect, then special stuff happens.”

St. Paul Public Schools will receive $78,000 from a charitable foundation to put toward a college-and-career support system for high school students.

That’s one of the 156 grants awarded by the Otto Bremer Trust, which is issuing $10.2 million to social service and charitable organizations across Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Roughly $1.5 million will go to groups in the Twin Cities east metro. The St. Paul-based trust is both a charitable foundation and the majority owner of Bremer Bank.

St. Paul-based grant recipients receiving roughly $100,000 to $200,000 include Goodwill Industries, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, West Side Community Health Services/Minnesota Community Care, Nexus Community Partners and the Jewish Family Service of St. Paul.

Organizations receiving $45,000 to $75,000 include Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Greater Twin Cities, the Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, the Hamm Memorial Psychiatric Clinic, St. Paul Youth Services and Small Sums, a nonprofit that works with the homeless.

Recipients of $10,000 to $20,000 grants include the Como Park Living at Home Block Nurse program, Exodus Financial Services and its efforts against predatory payday loans, and the JK Movement, which works with students.

In western Wisconsin, Otto Bremer Trust issued $872,000 in grants. The top three recipients include $100,000 to the Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire for a new hybrid operating suite, $100,000 to St. Joseph’s Memorial Foundation southeast of La Crosse, and $100,000 to the Bar River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians to create a new Head Start facility.

More information is online at ottobremer.org.

The mid-October Minnesota tradition known as MEA is such a big deal that an international airport needs to accommodate for it.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has adjusted its remodeling plan and is reopening Terminal 1’s south security checkpoint to all ticket holders about two months earlier than planned, in time to handle the expected rush of travelers for the long school holiday weekend. The checkpoint’s partial closure has led to some long wait times since it began in mid-August.

“Many Minnesota schools will close Oct. 16, 17 and 18 for the annual Minnesota Educator Academy (MEA) Conference in St. Paul, giving families a chance for one last trip before winter sets in,” the Metropolitan Airports Commission stated in a press release. “Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport will be particularly busy as a result, and plans are underway to help ensure travelers have a great experience.”

Actually, according to MEA’s website, it is now only a 1-day conference, held at Saint Paul RiverCentre on the third Thursday of October each year. “There are no longer Friday sessions,” according to MEA. However, whatever the official MEA schedule is, the third week in October has become an expected 4-day weekend for quick getaways as well as college tours (some schools take longer classroom breaks for conferences or other in-district needs).

At the airport, beginning Tuesday, all travelers will be able to choose either the North or South checkpoints in Terminal 1. Use of the south checkpoint had been reserved for travelers with TSA PreCheck since Aug. 19 due to a nearby construction project that was expected to continue until mid-December. MAC has “altered construction phasing” and is “returning both checkpoints to their pre-Aug. 19 status two months earlier than planned,” so that the project won’t affect checkpoints going forward, according to MAC. There will also be more staff available to direct travelers to the correct line.

In addition, Checkpoint 10, located between the Blue and Red parking ramps and opening onto the skyway connecting Concourses C and G, is now also available for passengers who only have carry-on bags, according to MAC.The checkpoint is open Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Delta Air Lines now has two check-in options on the east upper level roadway adjacent to the parking facility and across from Terminal 1. The airline moved Sky Cap services to the east curb, operating from 5 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. seven days a week. A new east-curb check-in facility is also available from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily.

MSP AIRPORT ATTRACTIONS

If you end up spending more time at the airport, at least it might be more fun: Between 4 and 7 p.m. Oct. 16, families can enjoy a balloon artist, face painting and giveaways in Terminal 1, outside Stone Arch restaurant in the airport mall. From 5 to 8 a.m. Oct. 17, there will be a balloon artist and giveaways in Terminal 2 near gates H7 and H8. From 1 to 3 p.m. that day, a magician will perform in Terminal 1 near Stone Arch restaurant. A balloon artist will also perform from 1 to 3 p.m. Oct. 18 in Terminal 1, again near the Stone Arch restaurant.

A number of new food concessions have opened at Terminal 1 in recent weeks, including Leeann Chin, near the entrance to concourses C and D, Joe & The Juice near Gate C1, and The Cook & The Ox, on the north side of the airport mall, near the entrance to Concourse C. Travelers in a hurry can order online through two new apps for iPhone and Android: At Your Gate delivers food from participating restaurants, while Grab allows travelers to order their food before airline check-in and security processing and then pick it up on the way to their gate.

Former Gov. Mark Dayton has taken an unpaid position at the University of Minnesota, where he’ll meet with students and participate in classroom discussions.

Dayton, who did not seek reelection last year, is an executive leadership fellow for the 2019-20 school year with the Center for Integrative Leadership. Housed at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the center also is affiliated with the Carlson School of Management and the law, public health and education schools.

“Governor Dayton’s humility and dogged commitment to racial and economic equity, our natural environment and evidence-based policymaking fit perfectly with the Center’s mission of advancing regional prosperity through shared leadership,” said Vanessa Laird, the center’s executive director.

The former governor, U.S. senator and state auditor will have an office in the Humphrey School.

The U said his activities will include providing an oral history of his eight-year governorship for a team of students that previously interviewed his three predecessors.

Dayton, 72, also will work with a faculty member on a series of reflections on collaboration and leadership.

“Over his remarkable professional life of public service, Governor Dayton has served the state of Minnesota in so many capacities that are highly relevant to the Humphrey School community,” Humphrey school Dean Laura Bloomberg said. “Our students are eager to engage with him and seek his advice as they embark on their own careers in public life.”

Students in the Twin Cities Homeschoolers for the Arts production of “Fiddler on the Roof” moved very carefully Tuesday while practicing “The Bottle Dance,” trying not to knock off the glass bottle balanced on their heads.

Some productions cheat by using Velcro or magnets to hold the bottles in place, but choreographer Dana Piper was having none of that.

“TCHA is putting in the practice needed to pull off the real thing,” she said.

As homeschooling continues to grow and change in Minnesota, theater groups in Ramsey and Dakota counties with all-homeschooled casts are putting in the practice to perform professional-quality shows and are surprising their audiences.

“TCHA is working to shatter the misconception that homeschool productions are hokey and poorly produced,” said Mark Opseth, production manager of “Fiddler on the Roof.” “We regularly hear from first-time audience members how amazed they are at the caliber of talent in the homeschool community. The word is getting out, as seen in the increase in ticket sales from show to show.”

NOT YOUR PARENTS’ HOMESCHOOL

Homeschooling originated among progressive educational reformers in the late 1970s, and was adopted by evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in the 1980s.

The National Home Education Research Institute estimated that there were 53,247 homeschooled students in Minnesota in 2016. The Minnesota Department of Education doesn’t have exact figures, as parents are required to report to school districts but districts don’t always pass the figures on to the state.

Early perceptions of homeschooled students were just that — students schooled at home, never really leaving the house — which invited public criticism of homeschoolers not getting enough socialization.

But today’s homeschool is radically different in that home is just one of many places families do school.

“When I tell people I teach homeschoolers, they are very confused,” said Carla Barwineck, founder of CB Productions. She teaches drama at YEAH Academy in St. Paul. “They think I go to their house. I say, no, they let them out once in awhile.”

Homeschool parents are no longer isolated but part of a growing network of parents who, thanks in part to the efficiency of social media, often join together to do bigger things, such as theater.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Three area homeschool groups are working to take their theater craft to the next level.

TCHA got its start in 2013 when Jen Perdue, a former homeschooler and licensed K-12 music educator, started a girls choir called “Clara Bella” with 30 students, which included a musical theater class.

In the past six years, that program has expanded to 120 students, four choirs and two yearly drama productions.

Hannah Jackson is directing TCHA’s current production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” slated for seven shows in October at the Lakeville Area Arts Center.

“We have actors who are being challenged beyond their past performances and I am so proud of them and their work,” she said. “Audiences will not be disappointed.”

Barwineck, former founder and executive artistic director of SteppingStone Theatre in St. Paul, in 2000 founded CB Productions, a literature-based theater company for homeschooled teens. She said people are dubious about youth productions in general but often change their minds after seeing one of her shows.

“They’re shocked,” she said. “They just would expect really hokey theater. They don’t realize I hire professional designers. These kids are trained.”

Her cast and crew of 18 homeschooled students is currently rehearsing “Arsenic and Old Lace” for performances in November. Her larger spring shows have had 30-member casts.

Shakespearean Youth Theatre, founded in 2004 by two homeschool moms in St. Paul, draws area homeschoolers and alternative schooled teens to study and perform Shakespeare. What started as a handful of families doing everything themselves has grown into a nonprofit organization with its own space on Vandalia Street that brings in professional artists to tutor the students. The cast is currently working on “Hamlet” for a March production.

Despite the changes, SYT says it still retains what made it unique.

“It’s still a place where you can show up and be big and be you and belong,” said SYT program director Maria Signorelli.

BUSINESS MODELS AND BUDGETS

Both TCHA and CB Productions fill their budgets from students’ tuition and ticket sales.

Barwineck’s students are required to take acting classes at YEAH Academy in St. Paul before earning the right to try out for her productions. The cost is $250 per student per class. She offers five different classes during the school year. Her cast practices in class at St. Bernard’s Church in St. Paul and at a neighboring church and rents a stage twice a year at Neighborhood House in St. Paul.

TCHA follows a similar model, except its students come from all over the south metro, and some from the cities. It is a stand-alone operation that uses a Lakeville church for rehearsals and books stages in Dakota County venues, usually at the Lakeville Area Arts Center.

The group offers 13 classes such as choir, dance, drama, music and vocal classes, as well as private lessons in voice, piano, guitar, violin, drum and drama. They also put on a musical each fall and a play each spring. Costs vary for classes.

Shakespearean Youth Theatre depends more on patron donations, and as of 2016, when it became a nonprofit, gets funding from the Minnesota State Arts Board. The group holds fundraisers throughout the year, such as an upcoming 1920s-themed gala, to support its annual show.

For years, the group’s venues varied. For example, they once performed “King Lear” at the James J. Hill House, using the grand staircase as a stage for the first half and the basement for the creepier second half.

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS

Where homeschool troupes lack in budget for expensive sets and lighting, they strive to make up for in quality acting.

TCHA focuses heavily on the music and dance portions of their musicals, building on the skills learned in their classes.

CB Productions raises the stakes by requiring students to take acting classes.

SYT students spend six months studying one Shakespeare play, learning the context and meanings behind the 16th-century language so that the paragraphs of dialogue they memorize sound genuine.

“We like helping the kids to use the stories of Shakespeare to present their visions of the world to their adult community in a way that will be taken seriously,” Signorelli said.

The University of Minnesota’s governing board declared victory Thursday on its multi-year strategy to shift the tuition burden back to students who come from other states and countries.

Net revenue from nonresident, nonreciprocity students on the Twin Cities campus will be around $138 million this school year — up $32 million, or 30 percent, compared to four years prior.

In that time, the sticker price for nonresidents has jumped 53 percent, yet their enrollment has been steady, up 2 percent, due in part to increased recruiting.

“It’s been a success,” Vice Provost Bob McMaster told the Board of Regents, which has focused on raising nonresident rates in order to spare in-state families.

That $32 million in new annual revenue is the equivalent of a 10 percent tuition hike on in-state students.

2008 DISCOUNT

In 2008, the U initiated a steep discounting strategy for new nonresident students, who would pay just $4,000 more than Minnesota residents. It helped diversify the student body and raise the U’s academic profile as enrollment applications poured in.

Five years later, the U began gradually stepping away from that game plan. The pace since has picked up, with double-digit percentage increases for nonresidents each of the last three years.

Today, yearly tuition is $31,616 for nonresidents and $13,318 for residents.

Nonresident tuition and fees at the U now rank eighth among the 14 Big Ten schools. That’s right around where regents want to be.

“I think we’re getting close to the end,” Regent Michael Hsu said.

President Joan Gabel has not yet made a nonresident tuition recommendation for next year, but Chief Financial Officer Brian Burnett said, “I don’t think we’re leaning towards another double-digit tuition increase.”

SUDDEN DECLINE

Officials fretted last fall that the plan was backfiring as nonresident enrollment fell by 26 percent in a single year. But this fall, those numbers rebounded:

• International freshman enrollment reached an all-time high, at 472 — 183 more than last year, which “none of us expected,” McMaster said.
• There were 770 new freshmen from nonreciprocity states, 44 more than last year.
• Meanwhile, the U welcomed 4,130 new freshmen from Minnesota, 218 more than last year.
• The number of freshmen from Manitoba or three neighboring states, who pay the in-state rate or close to it, fell by 144 students, to 906.

The concern now is that nonresident students might leave before they finish their degrees.

An annual student experience survey revealed anxiety among nonresident students about their attendance costs. Some said they’re considering a transfer.

“What’s alarming to me … is the sense that some of these students might bolt from the university,” McMaster said.

The U’s Chicago-area recruiter reported that high school counselors there have noticed the U no longer is as “generous” as it once was.

“If we’ve been generous in the past,” Regent Steve Sviggum said, “it’s been on the backs of Minnesota students or Minnesota taxpayers and families.”

The University of St. Thomas on Tuesday will host a panel discussion on media scrutiny, ethics and freedom featuring local and international reporters and editors.

The event, “Reporting in an ‘Anti-media’ World,” is free and open to the public. It will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center Auditorium on the university’s St. Paul campus. The audience will be encouraged to participate through questions and comments.

Panelists include A.J. Lagoe of KARE-TV; Jennifer Bjorhus, Star Tribune; Samara Freemark, senior producer of America Public Media’s “In the Dark” podcast; and WPI journalists Hamdi Baala, reporter for HuffPost Algeria; Saara Koho, reporter and columnist for Talouselama, a weekly business magazine in Helsinki; Sorana Stanescu, managing editor, for Decat o Revista, in Bucharest, Romania; and Kate Bartlett, correspondent for Southern and East Africa for Deutsche Presse Agentur (Dpa) in Johannesburg.

The program is being presented by the University of St. Thomas Department of Emerging Media and the World Press Institute.

University of Minnesota students better understand how their school responds to sexual violence, according to a new survey, yet one in four female students still reports having been a victim of sexual assault or misconduct.

Almost 13,000 students at the Twin Cities campus took part in the 2019 Association of American Universities Campus Climate Survey on sexual assault and misconduct, which first was administered in 2015.

Among key findings:

• For undergraduate females, the rate of non-consensual sexual contact — by force or inability to consent — increased to 26 percent. That’s up 2 percentage points from 2015.
• In terms of sexual harassment, 19 percent of U students say they have experienced some form since enrollment.
• A total of 38 percent of students said they experienced harassing behavior. That rate rose to nearly 50 percent for students who identified as transgender woman, transgender man, nonbinary/genderqueer, gender questioning or gender not listed.
• About 88 percent of incoming students completed sexual misconduct training, up from 40 percent in 2015.

DATA HELPS DEVELOP POLICIES

Data from the 2015 survey, as well as input from the President’s Initiative to Prevent Sexual Misconduct launched in 2017, helped officials identify issues and develop policies to address them in recent years, according to the university.

In a statement, university President Joan Gabel said she appreciated students taking part in the survey.

“Fostering a campus environment where everyone feels welcome, safe, supported, and free of harassment requires every member of our community to take responsibility for their actions and to do their part to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct,” Gabel said. “We will continue to use data, including survey results, to inform our work as we strengthen our culture together.”

LEARNING TO STEP UP

Following a series of high-profile incidents of sexual misconduct, the U in 2017 began requiring students, faculty and staff to participate in training that emphasized bystander intervention.

According to the 2019 survey, 76 percent of students who witnessed a situation they thought might lead to sexual assault said they took some kind of action, and 46 percent said they directly intervened to stop it.

The 2015 survey questions on that subject were worded differently, but students’ understanding of what to do and their willingness to take action seem to have increased.

In response to one 2015 question about seeing a drunken person headed for a sexual encounter, just 25 percent said they took action to stop it.

“Helping students understand how to intervene in an uncomfortable or potentially dangerous situation is an area we remain focused on,” said Maggie Towle, interim vice provost for student affairs and dean of students, in a statement. “The survey results indicate our work to date through education and training is having an impact. We will continue to engage student leaders from all areas of campus to enhance our approach and equip more students with these much-needed skills.”

As soon as next spring, nearly half of St. Paul Public Schools graduates could be wearing honor cords.

The school board Tuesday took the first step toward publicly recognizing every student who graduates with at least a 3.3 grade-point average.

Last year, 42 percent of graduates would have met that criteria — 979 students districtwide.

Instead, only about 100 students earned public recognition through a districtwide policy that identifies each high school’s top 10 students by grade-point average.

“It’s a big change. It’s a big increase,” family engagement director Heather Kilgore said.

The move to the Latin honors system was proposed last year by the Student Engagement and Advancement Board, a group of high schoolers chosen each year to advise the elected school board.

The school board on Tuesday agreed to start the formal process of changing the policy. The final vote would take place later this year.

Students last year said the top-10 recognition creates perverse incentives. Students who can’t make that list don’t try as hard senior year, they said, and elite students steer clear of courses that don’t include a weighting bonus that can send their GPA above 4.0.

One challenge for a Latin honors system is that the high schools don’t all grade the same way. But Kilgore said the principals support the proposal and are willing to make it work.

Board member Marny Xiong said many students work hard and more deserve recognition.

Board member Steve Marchese said the change is “absolutely the way to go,” but he wants progress on another concern the students raised last year — urging more students of color to sign up for the challenging classes that can boost grade-point averages.

If the proposal is approved, the district would cancel its annual top-10 “Celebration of Excellence.” Some of the savings would be spent on honor cords.

As proposed, students would graduate with honors with a GPA of 3.3 or better, high honors at 3.75, and high honors with distinction at 4.0 or higher.

When Kathy Glover visited two St. Paul elementary schools for some volunteer work last spring, she was stunned by the amount of waste generated by the school district’s free breakfast program.

Students grabbed plastic utensils and single-use plastics containing cereal, juice, yogurt and breakfast bars, then carried them to classrooms and cafeteria tables in disposable plastic bags.

Containers for organics and recycling were absent, so the trash piled up in garbage bins.

“Actions are so important in teaching children, and our messages about the environment and personal empowerment need to not be at odds with how we conduct ourselves in our schools,” Glover said.

“Mountains of garbage being generated by schools is teaching them a lot.”

St. Paul Public Schools says it produced almost 6,000 tons of waste last year. Just over half went to landfills.

The Breakfast to Go program, which uses packaged foods that students can take to their desks, generated about 600 tons of waste alone.

In a presentation Tuesday to the school board, district leaders acknowledged it’s a problem.

They’re working with a New Hope consultant to buy products that use less material and reduce what gets thrown away in schools.

They soon will test reusable tote bags and are looking to buy recyclable juice and fruit cups, as well as reusable pallets, crates and baskets used in shipping food to the schools. And they have plans to start separating trash from recyclables and organic materials during breakfast.

The board report covered a variety of sustainability efforts the district has undertaken in recent years, with limited success.

The district made a modest decrease in energy use over the past decade but failed to meet a 10-year, 10 percent energy-reduction goal set in 2009.

The district uses less energy than the average cold-weather district, but “we need to do more,” energy coordinator Angela Vreeland said.

They’re working with Xcel Energy to make further reductions with the help of students and staff.

Major renovations across the district are helping to reduce energy usage, too, facilities director Tom Parent said.

Board members on Tuesday pressed facilities department staff to do more with renewable energy. Staff said, however, that they can make a greater impact by replacing lights and motors and changing people’s behaviors to reduce energy use.

Anyway, only three of the district’s 73 buildings make sense for solar technology, Parent said, and two already use it — Battle Creek Elementary, for electricity, and Creative Arts Secondary, to heat water. The rest have roofs that are too old or can’t handle the additional weight, he said.

However, an upcoming school project likely will use geothermal energy to heat and cool the building.

A St. Paul middle school postponed a daytime dance slated for Wednesday after staff learned of a threatening social media post.

In letters to Murray Middle School families, Principal Jamin McKenzie said that a recent Snapchat message included “threatening language about the dance.” The school resource officer and district security staff could not determine who posted the message.

McKenzie said staff decided Tuesday night to postpone the dance “to have a normal school day to promote a sense of calmness and safety.”

Additional security guards were posted at the school Wednesday.

No one has been arrested and the St. Paul police department is investigating, spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster said Wednesday afternoon.

Ernster said the dance was postponed “out of an abundance of caution.”

An Emmy-winning writer will be in Minneapolis on Nov. 15 for a staged reading to help raise money for youth storytellers.

Ken Levine, who has written for shows like M*A*S*H, will give a reading of his new play, “On the Farce Day of Christmas.” The reading will benefit StoryArk, a nonprofit that aids east metro youth in telling their stories through podcasts, films and other mediums.

The event will be taking place at the Grain Belt Apartments in Northeast Minneapolis. The reading will start at 7 p.m. with a question and answer session with Levine afterward.

Early bird tickets for $40 can be purchased through Nov. 1 on StoryArk’s website https://storyark.org/tickets. After that, the tickets will go up to $50.

Nearly a quarter of Minnesota students are struggling with mental health, behavior or emotional problems, according to a survey state leaders released Thursday.

In the 2019 Minnesota Student Survey, 23 percent of those surveyed reported struggling with those problems, up from 18 percent in 2016, the last time students were asked.

Overall, students questioned said they feel less engaged, supported and safe in the classroom, the survey found.

State leaders said one of the most troubling findings of the survey is the percentage of 11th-grade girls experiencing long-term mental, behavioral and emotion struggles has more than doubled since 2013. A quarter of female 11th graders reported missing school in the last month because they were sad, feeling hopeless, anxious, stressed or angry.

“Girls deserve to grow up seeing the boundless possibilities that lie before them — that so many are instead buried in stress and anxiety is unacceptable,” said Jodi Harpstead, state human services commissioner.

CHANCE TO HEAR MINNESOTA’S YOUTH

Minnesotans need to help students improve their lives outside of school in order for them to thrive academically and feel safe, Jan Malcolm, state health commissioner said. Students need better “sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness” and “a safe, nurturing environment, and caring adults.”

“We must focus on helping Minnesota’s kids in and outside of schools by strengthening the ability of families and communities to give our children the connections, supports, stable environments, and opportunities they need for a sense of well-being about their lives and futures,” Malcolm said.

State leaders noted the survey found a strong relationship between students feeling like their teachers care about them and whether they’ve contemplated suicide. Students who felt their teachers didn’t care about them were twice as likely to consider suicide, the survey found.

“Our students are talking to us and we must listen,” said Mary Cathryn Ricker, Minnesota’s education commissioner. “No matter what is happening in students’ lives outside of school, we must make sure that they feel supported, safe, and welcomed when they’re in the classroom so they can succeed academically.”

Ricker added that she was working with other state leaders to improve school communities and make students feel safer in class.

TEACHERS SEEK MORE SUPPORT STAFF

Ursula Becker, a teacher at Highland Park Senior High School in St. Paul, said more support staff, such as counselors, social workers and mental health clinicians, would help educators address student challenges.

Minnesota continues to rank near the bottom of the states in the number of counselors available per student. State lawmakers have worked to increase funding for those positions, but teachers say much more is still needed.

“We just don’t have the staffing or infrastructure set up to properly help all students,” Becker said. She added that the counselors that schools do have on staff have an expanding number of responsibilities.

“They still do everything they used to do, plus a hundred other things,” she said. “I think more staffing is what everyone wants.”

Becker is a member of the St. Paul Federation of Educators, which launched a website, www.supportstpaulstudents.org, Thursday to help struggling students. More support staff is one issue union members are pushing district leaders to invest in.

SURVEY TAKEN EVERY THREE YEARS

The Minnesota Student Survey is given every three years to fifth, eighth, ninth and 11th graders.

About 80 percent of the state’s school districts participate.

Earlier this month, state leaders announced the survey had found a significant increase in students using electronic cigarettes. In contrast, other risky behaviors like drug use, drinking and sex have declined. Ricker has said the survey questions are designed to encourage students to be honest about what is happening with them and their school community.

MADISON, Wis. — Students at a Wisconsin high school skipped class Friday and marched through the streets of the state capital to protest the firing of a black security guard who was terminated for repeating a racial slur while telling a student not to call him that word.

Scores of Madison West High School students walked out of class around 10 a.m. to protest the firing. Madison Police Department officials didn’t respond to The Associated Press’ request for a crowd count but told the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper that about 1,500 people participated.

A WISC-TV livestream of the walkout showed what appeared to be scores of students marching through the streets. They walked to the Madison school district offices and marched laps around the building, chanting “Hey-hey, hey-ho, zero tolerance has got to go!” and “Do Better!”

Security guard Marlon Anderson, 48, said he was responding to a call Oct. 9 about a disruptive student at West. He said the student, who is black, called him obscenities, including the N-word. Anderson said he told the student multiple times not to call him that, repeating the slur during the confrontation.

Madison schools have a zero-tolerance policy on employees saying racial slurs. Anderson was fired Wednesday.

Anderson said he was just trying to defend himself and that context matters. The Madison teachers union has filed a grievance with the district on his behalf.

During his time at East and West high schools, Anderson said students have used that slur against him “many times,” and that it has resulted in “restorative conversations” in which he explains the history, context and meaning of the word.

Last school year, at least seven Madison School District staff members resigned or were fired after using a racial slur in front of students.

West Principal Karen Boran said the zero-tolerance approach has been applied consistently.

The district school board president, Gloria Reyes, said in a statement Friday that she wants the board to review its policy on racial slurs as soon as possible. She said she also has directed district staff to handle Anderson’s grievance quickly.

“This is an incredibly difficult situation, and we acknowledge the emotion, harm and complexity involved,” she said. “Many people in our community and our district are grappling with that complexity, and we will continue to do so as we go forward.”

Superintendent Jane Belmore issued her own statement saying the zero-tolerance policy is designed to protect students from harm, no matter what the circumstances or intent. But she added that “different viewpoints” from the community are emerging and the district will review the policy in light of Anderson’s grievance.

The singer Cher weighed on the dispute Friday, tweeting in response to a news story about Anderson that if he decides to sue the Madison school district, she would cover his expenses.

A message left at the Madison teachers union for Anderson wasn’t immediately returned.

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Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/trichmond1