Teacher Tenure Act; Cities of the First Class (Minnesota Statute 122A.41)

Minneapolis is a Minnesota "city of the first class", which means a city with more than 100,000 residents. There are only two "cities of the first class" in Minnesota (Minneapolis and St. Paul), but these two cities have a separate teacher tenure law than all the other school districts in Minnesota. The teacher tenure law that applies to all other Minnesota districts (122A.40) is generally similar to 122A.41, but there is one notable difference. 122A.41 subdivision 14 paragraph (a) states in part that "In the event it becomes necessary to discontinue one or more positions, in making such discontinuance, teachers must be discontinued in any department in the inverse order in which they were employed, unless a board and the exclusive representative of teachers in the district negotiate a plan providing otherwise" [emphasis added].

PELRA (Minnesota Statute 179A)

The Minnesota Public Employee Labor Relations Act (PELRA) structures many elements of how teachers and district administrators negotiate labor agreements in Minnesota.

Two notable parts of PELRA:

Section 2 states that "A public employer is not required to meet and negotiate on matters of inherent managerial policy. Matters of inherent managerial policy include, but are not limited to, such areas of discretion or policy as the functions and programs of the employer, its overall budget, utilization of technology, the organizational structure, selection of personnel, and direction and the number of personnel".

Section 14 describes negotiation procedures and states that "All negotiations, mediation sessions, and hearings between public employers and public employees or their respective representatives are public meetings"

Open Meeting Law (Minnesota Statute 13D)

The Minnesota open meeting law describes public meetings, and is clear that the same things can be expected of the negotiations as is of School Board meetings (publication of meeting notices, sharing of printed material, and opportunities for public input). The State of Minnesota has developed a document clarifying details of the open meeting law.