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- Efforts to enhance and raise the standard of physical education classes in Minnesota’s schools passed the Senate as part of a major education policy omnibus on April 28. Included in the bill are provisions that would require Minnesota to adhere to national standards for PE, as well as require additional reporting of the time students spend engaged in physical education. A separate provision of the bill instructs the Department of Education to begin crafting ‘best practices’ for school-based swimming education.
- The hard work of negotiating a single spending bill for all of the state’s health and human service programming is underway. The House and Senate have passed dramatically different proposals, so a conference committee of five members from each body will meet to settle on a single bill. The Senate’s spending target is almost $1.4 billion higher than that of the House. While both bills contain funding for numerous mental health initiatives, the packages don’t line up in terms of programming or level of spending. The Senate bill includes significant reforms to the prior authorization process not included in the House bill. Also of note, the House bill contains provisions that would grant pharmacists greater authority to administer immunizations to pediatric patients.