St. Paul Schools considers teacher cuts

And now to our top story. St. Paul Public Schools facing a difficult decision tonight. They need to plug a nearly $5 million budget deficit and are considering cutting some teaching jobs mid-year to fill in the gap. Fox 9's Soyoung Kim is in St. Paul for us at this hour, where the school board meeting is still underway. As I understand it, Soyoung, what can you tell us about what's happened so far? Randy Kelsey, that's right. It's a packed meeting. It started on time. It's been going on for more than three hours. There were many heated moments. And the room is mostly packed with people supporting teachers and hoping to save those jobs from being laid off in the middle of the school year. The district says the issue they're trying to solve is enrollment for English learners has shrunk by 542 students. The district says they correlate a lot of that timing, more than 60 percent of that decline to happening during and after Operation Metro Surge. They point to another major factor of just changing immigration policies, and as you know, enrollment is directly tied to funding, so that represents nearly $5 million of a budget gap that district officials are trying to solve. And the superintendent says this is a very tough decision, but some level of drastic measures is necessary in this school year, and they need to make that decision soon. again the board is set to vote on that recommendation to lay off teachers who serve english learners tonight again that packed room giving it their best effort packed public comments they had to extend public comments and kind of fight for that extension they're trying to at the very least get that vote delayed tonight we'll send it back to you all right so young thanks we will follow it as we know you will we appreciate it thank you also new details tonight following the firing of a Minneapolis police officer who used confidential department intel to tip off a shooting suspect, a man who turned out to be her own brother. City records obtained by Fox 9 state that Officer Chanika Hall saw a restricted police bulletin about a masked gunman who shot a man in the stomach during a robbery in northeast Minneapolis in an apartment complex there. Apparently recognizing her brother in the surveillance photos she stayed quiet and instead sent him a picture of the confidential flyer her brother Jeffrey Rogers Jr spent seven weeks on the run before his arrest on felony assault charges investigators also learned hall had hidden his criminal past from her police background check