"Should so much come too short of your great trespass /As but to banish you, whither would you go?"

If you haven't yet seen Sir Ian McKellan's delivery of the Sir Thomas Moore monologue on Stephen Colbert's show, please do watch and listen:

 

Minnesota educators sue to keep ICE away from their schools and bus stops

 Yesterday, two Minnesota school districts (Twin Cities suburbs) and Education Minnesota, the teachers' union, filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security¹ to keep ICE agents away from their schools and bus stops. From K-12 Dive:

“DHS’s presence in and near school property has created an atmosphere of fear, for native-born citizens, naturalized citizens, and legally present immigrants alike,” the lawsuit, filed by Fridley Public School District and Duluth Public School District, said. “Parents across the state are afraid to send their children to school, and schools have had to adjust their programs.” 

The grounds for the suit, per The New York Times:

The lawsuit argues that the policy change usurped decades of federal precedent. Since the 1990s, the lawsuit says, the federal government had instructed immigration agents to minimize impact in places with children present and to get special permission and operate discreetly if necessary.
The suit asserts that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that requires certain notice and procedures when making a policy change.

Never rule administrative procedure out. 

____________
¹ The name always feels ironic, but particularly here.

Worcester School Committee starts talking about FY27

I'm not able to attend this evening--training another committee!--but I did want to note that the Worcester School Committee is receiving their first look at FY27 (next school year's budget) at tonight's meeting. You can find the presentation here. 

This has now become when we also get the first look at the cover art of the budget book, which I always appreciate: 

enjoying the spooky overtones here; are we foreshadowing FY28?

we have a federal budget

 And when it comes to education funding, well, I'll let Mark Lieberman of EdWeek take this: 

You can read Mark's coverage (which I recommend) here. The highlight: 

Ultimately, Congress comprehensively rejected the Trump administration’s proposals to slash billions of dollars from federal education investments. Schools nationwide can expect roughly similar year-over-year funding levels this fall for key programs like Title I for students from low-income households, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act for special education services, Title II for professional development, and Title III for English learners.

The final legislation doesn’t require the Trump administration to halt efforts to shift Education Department programs to other agencies, and it doesn’t explicitly prohibit the administration from taking further steps to diminish the Cabinet-level agency.

It does, however, include requirements for the department to consult more closely with Congress on the status of its efforts to shift responsibilities to other agencies. It also includes nearly $400 million for Education Department staff compensation, only slightly less than for the previous fiscal year despite recent staff reductions that have nearly cut the agency’s ranks in half.

The legislation also supplies funding for several smaller agencies the Trump administration had already moved unilaterally to defund, including AmeriCorps and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Remember, we're now talking about next school year's funding: 

Most education funding is forward-funded, which means allocations for the current fiscal year will hit schools in the upcoming school year. Typically, formula funds for schools start flowing to states in July. Grant program competitions can happen throughout the year.

Do remember that both how much goes to each state and how much then goes to each district has to be recalculated each year based on the factors in the formula for each grant, so how much your district gets may not be the same as last year. But we aren't seeing the deep cuts that Trump campaigned on and continued to promise once elected.

They aren't popular. 

one for the Open Meeting Law fans

 The Office of the Attorney General, Division of Open Government--aka, They Who Oversee The Open Meeting Law--filed their annual report with the OML Advisory Commission late late last week. State House News Service coverage is here. 
Of note: 

During 2025, 395 OML complaints were filed with the Division for review; 9 of those complaints were subsequently withdrawn by the complainant. Many more complaints were filed with public bodies in the Commonwealth but not filed with the Division for further review, likely because either the complainant was satisfied by the public body’s response and remedial action taken, or because the complainant understood from the public body’s response or from communications with our office that the issues raised did not fall within the scope of the OML. In total, the Division received notice of 703 complaints filed with public bodies in 2025.

And: 

The most frequent violations found were: 1) insufficiently specific meeting notice; 2) inaccurate or insufficiently detailed meeting minutes; 3) deliberation outside of a posted meeting; 4) convening in executive session for an improper purpose; and 5) meetings not accessible to the public. 

Only six were found to be intentional violations (good!), and yes, they are listed in the report by name.  

MSBA 2025 statewide school building survey

 for your reading and activism

Do note: 

Site visits at recently completed schools established a baseline for comparison in future assessments. Site visits were not conducted at schools in the MSBA’s Core Program pipeline unless construction had been completed

You can download the full survey results here. 

And while I knew this--it's true here in Worcester, after all!--I'm a little mesmerized by where this timeline starts: 

 

ICE activity around schools

 Now being tracked by K-12 Dive here

A DHS spokesperson later clarified to K-12 Dive that immigration enforcement activity in schools should be “extremely rare” and would first require “secondary supervisor approval.”

K-12 Dive filed another request for records in January 2026 and is awaiting a response on their release. DHS has also not responded to multiple requests for comment.