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Dear Friends,
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I hope you enjoyed your summer! It sure went fast, and I have been enjoying getting around to our local communities for their various events and celebrations as I am able.
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I wanted to update you today on the current student resources officer (SRO) issue that is harming schools across Minnesota.
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Being a former teacher, it broke my heart this past weekend to watch a video where some Mankato students were beating on each other in the hallways of their school. The teachers couldn?t do anything while a student was repeatedly kicked on the torso and head. There were no SROs on site like there usually are. Why???Because of an ambiguous and unclear new law.
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Is this what we are coming to in our schools? While our students are falling apart and in danger, the activists on the left pretend that the police officers are the ones who are dangerous. That?s ridiculous. Are we going to wait until a student or teacher is beaten to a pulp before we do something?
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This?new law is ambiguous, lacks clarity, and changes what SROs are allowed to do to de-escalate aggressive or violent situations. It takes away important tools they can use to keep students and teachers safe. In response, over 40 law enforcement agencies have had to pull SROs from schools across Minnesota. More will be forced to do so if this does not get fixed.?
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Forty-four Democrat lawmakers have declared publicly that they do not support a fix to this new law.??While this segment of the DFL caucus does not think losing school resource officers is a problem, all 64 House Republicans do. The reality is, we only need a handful of Democrats who are willing to put student and teacher safety ahead of the wants of the radical liberals who hate police.
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The governor seems to pretend that he cares and wants a special session when he talks to Republican leadership. However, he then reports to the media that a special session is not necessary.??Which is it?
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Why are we playing political games with people?s lives? To top it all off, we are going to continue to lose our best teachers because they don?t feel safe, and our children will continue to fall further and further behind in important skills like reading and math.
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The latest beating took place this past Friday at a Mankato school. You can bet that if an SRO had been there this would have been put to a stop much more quickly. You can watch the video by clicking?here.?
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We need to fix this new law and bring SROs back to the schools that have lost them.?I call upon my DFL colleagues to do what?s right and work with Republicans on a commonsense solution for this law.??Let?s get a special session to fix this immediately before something worse happens.?
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I will continue to speak, write, and push to make our school safe. Our students deserve that, and our teachers deserve that. It?s time to stop the madness!
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Talk to you soon,
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Peggy
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