Greetings from Washington DC!

As I write this, we are in Washington, DC visiting with our federal legislators, legislative staff, AASA government relations staff, and representatives for the federal Department of Education. It has been a very productive trip and we are grateful to our hosts for their time and thoughtful conversations. One topic that has been high on the list has of course been the preparation for and prevention of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19. My key message for you today is that we continue to monitor this situation closely, and we are in contact with the Minnesota Department of Health and other state and federal agencies charged with monitoring this and communicating recommended responses. The US Department of Education will be providing guidance in the next few days. We recommend that we wait for federal and state agencies to provide recommendations, and I want to assure you that we are in close communication with those entities and we will let our members know promptly when we have information. We commend our members for your caring response to your district families and we know that accurate, timely information will be the best response to those people you serve.