Legislature passes rules to end ‘lunch shaming’

by MinnPost staff 07/06/202102/06/2024

Shame this took so long. The Star Tribune’s Anthony Lonetree reportw: “State leaders hope to have put a halt once and for all to incidents of lunch shaming in Minnesota schools by making clear which actions will not be tolerated when students fall behind on lunch payments. … No pulling back of meals, no affixing of stickers or pins, and certainly no in-your-face throwaways. … The details are part of a new state education finance bill passed last week that put a finer point on 2014 legislation saying schools could not ‘demean or stigmatize’ students over unpaid lunch debts.”

Rename Columbus Avenue? At The Circle News, Hannah Broadbent writes: “‘I don’t know how to talk about what it’s like to live on “Columbus Avenue” without standing on a soapbox talking about everything that is wrong with colonization,’ Quito Ziegler said at the Oyate Avenue information sharing and community meeting in Minneapolis. … ‘Oyate Avenue’ is the name that a group of community members would like to change ‘Columbus Avenue’ to. ‘Oyate’ was given to them by Makoce Ikikcupi, a land recovery project based in Minnesota. It simply, means ‘the people’. … The group of community members heading the place-based initiative identify themselves as white-settlers from varied linages who live or have lived along ‘so-called Columbus Ave’. The avenue runs from 18th street to 62nd street and crosses 4 wards in Minneapolis.”

On the aftermath of the Chauvin trial. For the New Yorker, Jelani Cob reports: “…[O]n April 20th of this year, Chauvin was convicted of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter. On June 25th, Judge Peter Cahill sentenced him to twenty-two and a half years in prison. The three other officers will be tried next year, and federal indictments have been handed down against all four of them. Many Americans saw the verdict as a just resolution to a public tragedy. The Square’s reopening seemed part of a general spirit of relief and a desire to move on from the horror of Floyd’s death and the tensions that had turned Minneapolis into a microcosm of the national debate about race and policing. … But another view, held with at least equal resolve, considered the trial only one concern in a constellation of many that needed to be addressed before there could be anything resembling closure.”

Another tree plague to worry about. MPR’s Will Otuska reports: “A disease that kills oak trees continues to spread in Minnesota, and its latest discovery as far north as Crow Wing County is worrying foresters and landowners across the state. … Oak trees are some of the most abundant trees in Minnesota, and they’re valuable for wildlife, lumber, firewood and shade. But the disease called oak wilt poses a threat to these trees — some of which are stately, longtime landmarks in communities across the state.”