Catholic and private school leaders in Minnesota had long expressed deep concern over the safety of their students, but their warnings reached a particularly urgent pitch in 2023, when they formally cautioned Governor Tim Walz that nonpublic schools were in what they described as “urgent and critical need” of security funding.

Their plea, delivered nearly a year before the tragic shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school that left two people dead and seventeen injured, became newly relevant as communities and lawmakers revisited past requests that had largely gone unanswered. The April 14, 2023 letter—signed by Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, and Tim Benz, president of MINNDEPENDENT—painted a stark picture of the vulnerabilities facing the state’s religious and private educational institutions.

“Our schools are under attack,” they wrote, a declaration meant not as an exaggeration but as a reflection of the real and growing danger they believed their communities faced. The letter was made public when the Daily Wire released it and remains available on the Minnesota Catholic Conference’s website, serving as a reminder that the concerns expressed were not new reactions to a recent tragedy but part of a sustained attempt to broaden the state’s commitment to school safety.