In April 2023, leaders of private and faith‑based schools in Minnesota — including Minnesota Catholic Conference (MCC) and MINNDEPENDENT — sent a formal letter to Tim Walz (governor at the time) and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, warning of an “urgent and critical need” to secure nonpublic school campuses. In the letter, the leaders said that nonpublic schools — including Catholic, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and other independent institutions — serve roughly 72,000 students statewide. They cited rising threats across the country (notably including a recent mass shooting at a Christian school in Tennessee) as evidence that such schools could face violence regardless of their public or private status.
The 2023 appeal proposed specific measures: the letter requested that the state legislature include $50 million in the Education Finance Bill to establish a “Building and Cyber Security Grant Program,” and extend eligibility to all schools — public, charter, and nonpublic — so that private schools could apply for grants for security upgrades. The leaders argued that excluding nonpublic schools from such funding was “discriminatory,” since threats and security vulnerabilities do not distinguish between school types.
Despite these efforts, the proposed legislation stalled and was not passed. As a result, nonpublic schools remained ineligible to access the state’s security‑grant funds. According to reporting, even though the state enjoyed a substantial budget surplus in 2023–2024, the appropriation for expanded school security funding was not advanced. At the time, this lack of action by state lawmakers and the administration drew frustration from religious and private school leaders, who felt their communities’ safety concerns were being disregarded despite their readiness to comply with protective measures.
Fast‑forward to August 2025: a tragic mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis — a private Catholic school — left several people dead and many wounded. In the wake of the tragedy, the 2023 letter resurfaced in public discourse, reigniting debate over whether state inaction had contributed to the vulnerability of nonpublic schools. For many parents, educators, and community leaders, the earlier warnings now looked alarmingly prescient, prompting questions about why state funding — even as part of a widely discussed safety‑grant initiative — had excluded religious and independent schools.
In response to criticism, state officials defended their actions by pointing out that nonpublic schools already receive some forms of state support, and that they remain eligible for certain training resources provided by the Minnesota School Safety Center. But advocates argue that such measures fall far short of what was requested: training alone cannot substitute for physical security upgrades, technology-based protections, mental‑health resources, or emergency‑response infrastructure — all elements covered under the proposed grant program. They maintain that funding eligibility should not depend on the school’s public/private status, particularly given documented threats against diverse religious and independent institutions.
Today, many view the 2023 letter — and the failure to act on its recommendations — as a missed opportunity. For some policymakers and community advocates, the tragedy has become a turning point: a call to rethink how state resources for school safety are allocated, and to ensure that protections extend to all students, regardless of whether they attend public, charter, or private schools. The renewed pressure has prompted discussions about whether Minnesota should revisit its grant‑eligibility criteria and institutionalize broader, more inclusive school‑security funding — so that in the future no parent or student can say “we asked for help and were turned away.”
