001of the respondents who are from less represented groups. And so this data was weighted on zip code and that's with respect to areas of Anchorage. Um age, race, gender, education level, party affiliation, uh who people voted for in 2024 runoff election that was between uh Lef France and Bronson. And then we also applied a special weight only to people's um this this was a special weight based on people's likeliness to vote. How likely we think they are to vote. We applied this weight only to the questions that ask people how they would vote in the future. And that's to better simulate uh the conditions of a real election. Demographically, these this profile should look very similar, if not exactly the same as the overall Anchorage population of people age 18 and older. Uh the mean
002age in this survey is 47 years old. 33% of respondents had one or more children. 21% had a union member in their household. The median income was $80,000. We had slightly more males females in this in our sample and that's again representative of Anchorage as a whole as our sample was 66% white. >> So at the beginning of the survey we gave people a long list of all the bonds that are going to be on the election in April. And the reason we gave them all the bonds and not just the two ASD related bonds is that we know these are uh often perceived as competing priorities by the public. And so we wanted all of the bonds to be able to influence each other like they would in a real election. And to further
003promote it being similar to a real election, we had them all on the same page so the respondents could see them all and change their responses as they went through. We didn't give people a not sure, I don't know option because you don't get that on a ballot. And we explained what each bond was and how much it would cost the taxpayer for each of these things. And I'm going to give you an example of that in just a second. Um, the most popular bond overall was the bond that will allow the district to buy, not the district, the municipality to buy more fire trucks for the fire department. Uh, the roads and drainage improvement, public safety and transit, and community facilities improvement bonds were also over 50% of people said they would vote yes
004to those. The next three, Anchorage Parks, trails, and recreation facilities, access trail improvements at Chugat State Park, and the one-time levy to retain teachers. Those three were all within our three and a half% margin of error of 50%. So, if this were a real election, we can't say for sure whether those would pass or not. And then the Anchorage school bonds, that was at 46% yes, 54% no. That one is outside the margin of error. So that would have failed were this a real election. This is the um example I promised you. This is how we worded the school bond question. And it's it's now Proposition one on the ballot, but that ballot hadn't been released at the time when we wrote the survey, which is why it's referred to as Proposition E here. All
005right. >> So, we I just gave you a second to hopefully read through that. Um, we give them the explanation, how much it will cost, and then we ask people if the election were held today, how would you vote yes or no on the proposition? >> We did that for all the bonds. >> So, after we asked people about all the bonds, we asked people about their opinions about the Anchorage School District. First, we asked them how they felt about the school district overall. And about 45% of people had either a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of the school district, while 48% of people had either a somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable opinion. And it's worth noting that those unfavorable opinions tended to be a little more extreme. We also asked people how they
006felt about the Anchorage School District specifically with regard to financial and budget management. And those opinions were more negative with about 28% of people having a favorable opinion and a much greater percentage having an unfavorable opinion. This is uh one of the demographic breakdowns I thought was interesting on the bond votes. This is breaking down the bond vote by people who reported that they had children in the Anchorage School District and people who didn't have children in the Anchorage School District. And what you'll see is that the people with children in the school district were less likely to vote for all of the bonds with one exception. That exception being the one-time levy to retain teachers. They were more likely to vote yes on that issue than people without children in the school district, which
007is not too surprising. So, after we asked people about the bonds and their opinion of the school district, we asked them about school consolidation. And I'm just going to read this whole question to you. It's rather long. So, >> faced with education budget pressures, the Anchorage School Board is reconsidering the issue of school consolidation. School consolidation would combine the students from two or more underutilized neighborhood elementary schools to save resources and produce more even class sizes. Buildings whose students are moved other schools could be repurposed for charter programs or returned to the municipality for redevelopment. While the consolidation of schools is an effective way to reduce the ASD budget in the future, particularly long term, there could be significant impacts to students and families, including the upheaval of redirecting students to other surrounding schools and
008increasing transportation times for some affected families. Which of the following comes the closest to your view on how ASD should approach school consolidation? university. >> So we gave the respondents three options in regard to this question. We gave them the option that ASD should immediately consider consolidating schools and redirecting students to reduce operational expenses. Uh that's sort of our yes do it now option. We gave them also the second option. Consolidated schools should only be considered in the context of long-term population shifts and require additional community engagement before any action is taken. So that option is sort of like a maybe, I don't know, we need to talk about it some more before we make a decision. Then lastly, consolidating schools a drastic and irreversible step and shouldn't be a method of addressing a budget
009shortfall. That's a no, don't consolidate response. And so about 40% of people well 40% of people said that ASD should immediately consider consolidating. 42% however said that it should be we need to talk about it more. Essentially we need more community engagement and only in the context of long-term population shifts. Many fewer people selected the no opinion or consolidating shouldn't be done options. After that, we decided to put the question of consolidation in the context of other budget cuts. So, this question asks, okay, now consider this more specific hypothetical scenario. Recent budget cut pressures have forced the school district to make unpopular cuts to certain core programs and services. Let's say the school district is considering the option of consolidating a couple of elementary schools that are somewhat under capacity and redirecting students to neighboring
010schools. Doing so would reduce costs enough to be able to partially reverse several potential budget cuts across the district. For example, cuts the sports programs and school nurses. What would you do if it was your decision to make? Here we ask people to either lean towards consolidating or lean towards keeping the schools as they are or tell us they had no opinion. Interesting thing here is remember on that last slide about 80% of people either selected the um yes do it immediately or maybe options and that 40% about 42% of people selected the maybe option. Here we see that over 76% of people leaned towards consolidating the schools. It's also interesting to break down those two questions in the context of each other. So on the top we have that first question, the general view
011of how ASD should approach consolidation. On the left in the green we have the question um that puts it in the context of sports and school nurses cuts. And so we were really interested in this because we wanted to see how those people who on the first question selected the maybe I don't know more community engagement option how they behave once you introduce the idea of restoring cuts to sports and school nurses. And what we see is that the vast majority of those people 80% or so lean towards consolidating the schools. It's also interesting to look at the last column. Uh those these are the people who selected no we shouldn't consolidate school consolidation is not a solution to budget problems on the first question. And then on the second question where we put it
012into the context of sports and school nurses. Most of those people did still lean towards keeping the schools as they are, but a substantial minority, 28% of them actually leaned towards consolidation once they knew that sports and school nurses were on the line. So to sum this all up, the putting the question of consolidation in the context of sports and school nurses makes a definite difference in improving people's making people have a more favorable view of consolidation. They think it's worth it. After we asked people about the sports and school nurses and consolidation, we had a special question just for people who had voted no on the onetime tax levy back on that question. So we explained what the levy does again and then we asked them if the school board were to approve a
013school consolidation proposal which reduced operational expenses, would you be more inclined to support the tax levy? And our reasoning in asking this question was we know a lot of the resistance to funding the school district comes from people's negative opinions about ASD's financial and budget management. And so we were curious whether seeing the school district embrace a fiscally responsible policy like consolidation would make people more likely to support the levy. The results showed that 62% of people said they would no, they would still oppose the tax levy. 27% of people said this might make them reconsider supporting the tax levy. And 5% said that the seeing the school district move towards consolidation to reduce the budget would move them to support the tax levy. And so 5% doesn't sound like a lot, but that tax
014levy was pretty the margin on that was pretty narrow in our original vote. It was 49% in favor of the tax levy, 51% against when we asked people how they would vote on that question. And if 5% of those people who said they would vote against it actually voted for it, that would move it on this survey from uh failing 4951 to passing 5149. >> All right. The key takeaways on this survey are that the ASD school bond would fail if the election were held at the time when we gave the survey. Uh the one-time levy was within the margin of error. Uh the public has a very evenly split opinion of the Anchorage School District, but a much more negative opinion specifically of the school district in regard to fiscal management. And we also
015learned that most Anchorage voters support school consolidation and they especially support school consolidation when you put it in the context of restoring cuts to sports programs at school nurses. I'd like to thank both Carl Jacobs and MJ Thim for their help on this survey. You know, we're uh we're survey researchers at the last survey research. We know how to write a good survey question, but we don't always know the most about education policy. And so their expertise was helpful in writing those questions. And now I'm going to open it up to questions. >> So before we start questions, can we finish introductions if you would introduce yourself? Great. Thank you. Sorry everyone. I'm a little bit late at 12:30. But my name is Laura Mors. I'm the mayor's communications director. Thank you so much for
016having me here. I also just came from an educational world. So Steve is so welcome. Thank you for coming. >> And America, do we have anybody online? Uh yes, the member Paulin also joined. >> Okay, awesome. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> So, any questions on this survey? >> I'll just just add there is, you know, the intent here for for us was to really get a temperature check because we have two things on the ballot uh related to um the school district. Um uh one of the unique piece here is the uh is the levy um uh from the mayor's office u that got passed with the assembly. But um because of where we are historically with the bonds on the ballot um I wanted to just get a temperature check from the community on
017kind of how they were feeling and how that and that information will help us as we move forward um with um you know the needs for getting the information out about what's on the ballot um for this spring. So, that was the intent here and uh just huddled up with Ivan's team to come up with a quick survey and also coordinated with the mayor's office with their partnership with the levy to really just kind of give us some current and sound data to help us um with next steps um with that. And as we can see, we do have some headwinds with bond um but the levy looks to be um in a good space for um you know, for wind. So, Ivan, I'm going to uh pitch it over to you if you have
018some uh just general comments um and feedback for us. >> Looks like we have a raised hand from Pat Higgins. >> Mr. Higgins. Oh, >> Pat just joined as well. >> Do you want to call? Sure. >> Pat, did you have a question? >> Yes, I do. What? the survey. >> What was the what >> when was the survey taken? The survey. >> What were the dates again, Everett? February 7th to 11th. >> February 7th through 10th. >> 10th. >> Okay. Thank you. So that's before we close schools, which could be an issue as well. Thank you. Um, Ever, do you want to pull up that slide that shows, you know, where when we did it, you know, that piece? And maybe just since um, member Higgins joined us, missed that piece, if you could
019re, um, state, you know, the the weighted piece about that, just kind of fill me Higgins in on on those pieces. >> Yeah. All right. So, um, we fielded the seventh through the 10th. We had a sample size of a little over a thousand. The margin of error on these results is three and a half%. and waiting. The data was weighted. Um, and that means that we like subtly manipulate the um the impact of everybody's response based on their demographics to make people with less represented demographics have more more say on the questions. And so that was weighted by zip code. That's in regard to where they live in Anchorage, their age, race, gender, education level, party affiliation, who they voted for in 2024 when it was Bronson versus Le France, and then we also
020applied a special modifier to their depending on their likeliness to vote to the vote. I I saw the results of the P of the different bonds. I didn't see the result of the voting on our additional funds on that issue. That's important obviously to me >> on on which funds Pat? Sorry. >> The the additional the the MUN set aside so they can do a one-time tax kind of thing. We get 11 a.5 million or something like that. How did that one go? >> Uh it failed 49 to 51. So very close within the margin of error. Um the school bond itself $79 million bond uh was failing by um 46 to 54. So both of them were failing but the tax levy is close and I think uh in answer to your question earlier
021MJ I think what is telling to me is that when you first approached us at the beginning of the month to discuss doing this I remember you saying that you were concerned that the tax levy which had just been approved I think by the assembly or the school board or however it went down um might kind of be a drag on the bonds, right? I think it's act I think it's actually the other way around. >> Um that uh the uh tax levy certainly as far as these results show is probably more likely to pass. it's easier to sell and it might be the thing that if we push it well enough um might help drag the school bonds across the line. Um so I don't think it was that way around. I was actually
022surprised when I saw it to the extent like I always do when I'm looking at data is to make sure it's the way round that I thought it was. in other words that the uh tax levy was doing better than the school bonds were. Um and that was uh indeed the case. >> I thought what I was focused on was not the bond. I was focused on the school closures, what the effect that is because we've got emails back from from and talking to them in both um um both uh you know Lake Otis and Campbell that there were people there saying I will not vote anymore for the bonds or for the funding. I am mad. And those are the ones that could be swing uh both ways because they're normally voting in favor
023they said. So Pat, I don't think that question I I think I hear what you're saying, but I don't believe that was one of the questions that was I >> I know that I'm just I just thought I even made a comment that I thought was was uh I see why it may come out that, but I was focused not on the on the bonds, but on the school closure. I think it's always I think it's always a a uh um inherent problem of doing something like consolidating schools is that you're going to create a uh very vocal local minority of people um who are connected to the schools uh who don't like it uh and complain and come to schoolboard meetings and make their opinion uh clear to you. Um but I think what
024the uh poll results show is that for every one of those people um there are uh dozens of people who would be positive would view consolidation positively from a um a budgetary standpoint. Um so it's something that you schoolboard members need to um withstand uh and hear. Um but there are uh many more people who view it positively. >> No, thank you. >> Uh like homeman Andy Holman's got his hand up. >> Andy question. >> Um well it probably more of a comment. Um number one just that that we need to emphasize I think to the the question to me is is said they didn't want to vote for us because they don't really like the school district that much if the fact that we have taken steps to try to fit into a smaller
025footprint uh which was a popular notion we we need to get that message out. Um, the other thing I also gonna say is that, you know, it's a snapshot in February and hard to say how that plays out in late March, early April. I I won't be around to suggest it, but if we did these surveys every year, I I think that would give us more of a longitudinal study rather than trying to do some guesswork on how this plays out. Obviously, there's been a lot in the press. There's been a lot of comments on the school district and budget in between when the survey was done and when people are going to fill out their ballot. I think if we did these regularly, we they would mean a lot more to us. Um so
026I would encourage the future board, which I won't be a part of, >> consider that next year. >> We'll miss you, Andy. >> Indeed. >> I I apologize. I just realized we did not have our guest introduce himself as well. >> I'm with anchor news. >> So sorry about that. >> Okay. Um, any other questions? >> Okay. >> Thank you so much for your work on this. I appreciate it. It's It's great information. So that's awesome. >> You're You're welcome. Thanks. Uh uh appreciate the good work that Everett did and uh um appreciate MJ's and Carl's assistance like Everett said and uh look forward to doing it again next year. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> And if there's anything we can help with uh kind of moving forward between now and the election, please let
027us know. >> Appreciate that. Thank you. >> All right. See you guys. >> Bye. We had four in now. >> Yes. >> I cannot share it. >> Yeah. Just a second. >> No, I can share. student has to be good. >> All right, now I can share. >> Okay, can you see? >> There we go. >> All right. So, I am a Mac user and it doesn't like Adobe. So, there you go. Uh, all right. So this is I wanted to just uh brief the board that this is the materials that will be hitting the streets uh starting next week for the bond. Uh we are back at proposition one for security and safety. Uh this is uh the billboard that will be placed in front of the schools that are on the bond and
028then a generic a more generic one without the yellow banner uh will be placed in front of hightra area uh campuses for that. Um this is the flyer and the poster. This will be sent to the schools that are on the bond. Uh this is the poster version and then a smaller version in terms of a flyer will also be sent to the schools so they can share that with staff and families. A version without the yellow banner will go to the nonbond schools so they can share the information with their staff and families as well. This is the first mailer that will hit mailboxes next week. uh we're leaning into the cost of the taxpayers uh because of the significance with uh this um projected tax in uh impact uh in more than 10
029years. So that's what we're leading off with. Um on the back you'll see just a general description of uh the bond. I do want to point to the uh bottom portion of the uh mailer uh that says election day is April 7th. Um, I made a mistake uh when we put this together last week um and had had it changed to uh vote by April 7th. We know we caught that mistake yesterday. Uh we were not able to get the correction made before these mailers went out. I'm just drawing your attention to it because technically the language that is on the mailer that says vote by April 7th is a call to action and notformational. Um, I'm hoping that it doesn't uh result into any issues, but I do want to be transparent and upfront
030that a mistake was made. I own it. Uh, we did catch it yesterday, but the mailer for this one has already uh going to hit the mailboxes, so it's going to go out as is. The rest of the mailer um that you'll see here, this is the second one that'll hit mid-March. It's a hyperfocus on the uh school entrances uh project. Uh we have a photo in the front and then again on the back uh is a a hyperfocus on that specific uh need for those schools. And then again here is the flyer for the nonchools uh that'll be the general one. This is also the one that will be shared with board members. So you can take those to community council meetings um uh etc etc. So that just is um just look at
031what we're going to be uh doing. The um website is live. Uh, we are doing a briefing. Am I out? Am I stop sharing? Am I out? Yeah. I just want to make sure the echo's gone. Um, I'm still in has a question as well. >> I don't think >> I'm out. I got out. There you go. Um, so, uh, we are are going to brief. We're going to do a joint presentation. The annual presentation we do with the, um, uh, chamber I'll make it Monday. It'll be uh with the mayor's office and us. Uh the mayor is going to go first talk about um her their bonds and then end with the levy. Norah, correct me if I'm wrong. >> Uh and then the mayor will hand off to the superintendent to take the
032rest of the levy conversation and then uh he'll transition into the bond and tee that up and then hand it off to Jim Anderson for the rest of the presentation around the bond and then we'll take uh Q&A. Um and then later uh next Friday, the chamber is supposed to take a vote uh on uh supporting publicly supporting the levy or not. We briefed their advocacy committee a couple weeks ago with in partnership with the mayor's office um around the levy uh and then next Friday they'll take the formal vote. Um we do have a I call it an alternative uh version of school board's yes. It's hyperfocused on the levy. Uh but we've got a bunch of um organizations that have come forward wanting to support the levy. And so we've had separate meetings
033um here in the last several weeks in coordination with the mayor's office. And so we are just going to have everybody get together uh later on this afternoon and have a discussion uh about how we can work as a team and really support getting the information out about both um uh pieces that are on the uh uh on the ballot. So, um, Laura, did you want to add to anything about that? >> Uh, I mean, we're also doing a similar education campaign. Obviously, we can't do any advocacy work, but we're doing a similar education campaign around our bonds, and then we're kind of splitting that campaign in two to have like one half talk about the bonds and some specific road projects, etc., etc., um, firefighters. And then we're doing the second half all about
034the levy. Um, and talking about the need for the levy, really hitting the 80 plus teachers and the class sizes. Um, we're doing two mailers as well, one dedicated just to the bonds, one that's half bonds, half ASD levy. Um, we're also doing the community council road show and talking about things. Uh, we started a little bit early and it the property taxes issue took up a lot large portion of the room, but we're kind of doing the second sweep to make sure people hear the information again. Um, and I know we have some teams going out to PTAs and PTSOs. So, we're doing kind of a similar two- toned approach and our messaging because NJ and I have been working closely is kind of aligning. So, hopefully it'll be like repetitive to voters who
035are seeing both of our work. >> And an example just one of the organizations that has come forward is great Alaska schools and they've already started their messaging around the levy um as well. So, we've got a lot of community support um um developing. So, very very encouraging. River lessons. >> Thank you. Um I really appreciate all of that. One question I have and I realize there's a fine line to be aware of. Um to what extent are we equipping our principles who I believe are highly trusted um you know members of the community and and messengers quite frankly. To what extent are we equipping our principles with factual information, not calls to action, but uh really to say, you know, not only maybe this school is or is not on the bond, they can
036share basic factual information about bonds, but I'm really thinking about the levy, right? If we know that 80 teachers and and a few pair of prof pair professionals would be um reinstated through passage of the bond, maybe this is a question for our CFO to help with, but can we say, okay, I'm the principal of school X and if Proposition 9 passes, we will receive one and a half or two or whatever number of additional teachers in this school. that will, you know, minimize the three combo classes that we're scheduled to have. I mean, I guess I'm looking for granular information to give to principles that would be factual and empower um families who might be voters uh to to be ready for that election. So, I guess to what extent are we empowering principles
037with factual information pertinent to their school? uh they will uh they'll start receiving the bond stuff that we showed earlier uh starting um next week and then uh they will receive the same similar information about levy. >> So it's good feedback for that. >> Okay. I guess then the follow-up question is can if if Andy Ratliff can help, could they also be equipped with information about their school specifically and the number of teacher positions that they might receive from the passage of the bond? >> Yeah, we can work on that. >> Okay, thank you. Any other questions, comments? I appreciate all the work. Yeah, just real it's just real encouraging of the partners the excited about. Um and I just I I was tell I was talking to the superintendent and the chiefs earlier this
038morning that my hope is that with this um you know newly formed support for the district that it will carry through the next, you know, after this for additional bond support um over the next couple years. So just real encouraged by it. Um this feels real good and I'm excited about in the meeting this afternoon. I appreciate that we have community organizations that are also >> Yes. >> And you are you'll be >> member member Hollowman. >> I did want to dovetail in on on what member Wesson said. Um perhaps just a word of encouragement to principles. I I say this having you know been active in Aea advocating for the district and and other times you don't see principles stick their head above the crowd but it's it's really rare. Um encouragement might be
039um encouragement might help them be a little bit more out there in terms of commenting in a public way. Um, we don't see them at community council meetings very often with just a few exceptions. We don't see them online very much, but I I agree with member Wessons. I I think a lot of them following. We made a little bit better use of that. I think we would get a lot of out of it. >> Yeah, of course. >> Yeah. Um, Madam Chair, uh, and member Hollowman, I think that's a a great point and I I've been speaking to principles about this issue and one of the things that I've gathered is they tend to refrain from participating because some, especially the newer principles need to be reminded of the the lane and the hard
040line. So, one of the things that I did request was that all principles being made aware of what can they say and what absolutely they should not say. And I think that clarity will help them feel more comfortable to actually speak to the positive impact this levy could have if it were to pass. >> Excellent. >> Did you have Yeah, I think too if you all are able to provide that granular information like these schools will keep X number of educators, whatever it may be. We're running digital ads that are super easily manipulated and I think that information will be really really relevant to the public. So, if you're willing to share some of that, too, I think that we could tweak what we're doing to make the impact a little bit more for people
041>> getting their ballots. >> We can work on it. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's great. This is good feedback. It's good feedback. Thank you. >> Great conversation. >> Any other comments, suggestions, questions on the bond. >> Great. >> Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yes. Thank you. >> All right. So, we're >> Are we moving into community outreach now? >> No. I got one more thing for uh I just got one more thing for comms here. Uh just uh something um >> Lisa. >> Yeah, I just want to real quick brief here. >> Have it up. >> What are you doing? >> Yeah. So, um thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. So, we just wanted to start something uh new that we're going to be doing here on a regular basis for you. Just to catch you
042up from January and February. These are just some areas um uh tide level where we were working on our key projects uh where we got the lottery. The lottery um just extended to the end of uh of March. So we've got that information and we've just got these um pieces of communication support um set up. Uh the program this year on teacher apprentice is moving forward. So there's where we are uh with that and then so on with ready set kindergarten will be coming out here uh as well. uh the continuation of attendance matters that we do every year starting at the beginning of the school uh school year and then just um where we are with schoolboard goals and then of course uh what we've been dealing with with right sizing and the uh
043FY27 budget um the events that are coming up um are listed um there during spring break um excited you know we've got a community fair over at uh Clark um but here's some of the events that have happened um already in uh in February and this is what we are got uh forecasting for um you know the rest. So that's just a little high level look and then we'll be producing these for you every month for these committees. >> UAA educator appreciation night gymnastics are they opening up? >> That was uh last week. >> Oh, okay. But did I should say did they did they allow people to attend? Is that what >> I did? I was I don't know. >> Okay. I was just curious. I think it was free. >> It was free
044for educators. Okay. >> Um, and that's it for communications. General questions. >> No, thank you for all that work, but I know we're pivoting back to you for >> I am. Yep. I am representing Tony Riley today. Um, so, uh, just to, uh, to brief the board when I was talking about the fair. It's going to be on March 11th uh next uh in two weeks um at Clark Middle School during spring break. Uh this is our third annual. Uh Jim Anderson is lead on this project working with Vanetta over at uh Clark. Um is that me or you? Oh, good. That's you. >> Yeah. So, this is just uh one things that uh uh Tony wanted to share uh with the team uh today. Uh just get that on everybody's radar. Um and then
045of course my uh um uh America has it for you. Um, but we've got uh um student nutrition, uh we've got child and transition, you know, um bike and education, um and a bunch of other teams that are going to be there uh supporting us on uh on March 11th. >> And this I think I went to this one last year. This is not the first year that we're doing. >> This is year number three. >> Okay. All right. >> Yeah. This is our third our third annual >> and attendance has grown every year. >> Yes. So, >> and shout out to folks that do the graphics. Graphics are always beautiful. >> Oh, well, there's it is definitely a team effort. >> Yeah. >> Did anybody have any comments, questions about media outreach or anything
046you wanted to add? >> Okay. >> All right. Yes. Thank you. >> You are off the hook and on to themies of Anchorage update. >> All right. Just verifying there's no >> No audio. No video. Okay. >> Should be able to ask me to I'm not sure. >> You're a little straight. >> Be able to, but I will share if I need if you need me to glitching out there. So, good afternoon everybody. Um, we just wanted to update everybody with our briefing formies of Anchorage, give a update on some of the budget impacts and grant strategies that we have moving forward. Some of the expanded access to career pathways will probably be reduced when we look at the middle school CTE course offerings as we have moved away from the middle school model to
047a 506 schedule. It's also going to be some likely reductions to CTE technical courses because of the increased PTR to classrooms. The expanded access to work-based learning through community partnerships is also under constraint right now as we have um eliminated the funding for our United Way uh Anchoragemies of Anchorage specialist position. Our guarantee experiences are on also under constraint as the freshman first day budgets are limited as well as the transportation funding to our career expo and college campus visits. Um the transition program for freshmen we don't have any specific impact because of recent budget decisions. And then themies of Anchorage steering committee also does not have any specific impacts because of our recent uh budget decisions. Devin, did you want to talk about grant funding? >> Yeah, so um we wanted to just um
048communicate uh about uh various grant funding opportunities um that are recent. Um one we did put in we partnered with UAA for the FIPSY which is a fund for the improvement of postsecary education grant. Um our project was focused access to short-term training or fast. Um that was uh it was we did apply with UAA. We did not end up receiving that grant, but it was one that would have supported a number of different things in themsel transformation project uh going on across the state. Um we have as a district we have a couple two different projects. We were given the green light to put two letters of interest in. One is outside of Anchorage. It supports project awareness some of the PBIS work that's going on in the district is my understanding. It's not
049my my area, but um one of the ones that I worked with our development and grants department. So, shout out to Savannah. She's amazing. And um we put in a project called From Classrooms to Care, Alaska Health Pathways, in order to help um focus and develop on our allied health pathways specifically for like medical lab assisting, pharmacy tech, uh maybe expanding ENT, ET training outside of King Tech so we can broaden it out, get get even more students involved in it. So those are some of the highlights um of that project. That application actually is complete. The letter of interest was submitted um when the portal opened on February 17th and I think we have to wait till the portal closes on the 11th and then they will reach out to projects that they want
050the application or the grant actual the grant application to be submitted and that's been finalized. So we we have that ready to go. Um the uh the next one is that's just came through our office. I think it was like yesterday or the day before and it's traveling around the congressionally directed spending CDS. That's where our congressional delegation will sometimes seek or receive federal funding in order to support projects around the state. Um the ASD has I think somewhere in the neighborhood of seven or eight different asks for CDS. Anchorage is one of those seven or eight asks. um it specifically would help if we did receive that funding. Um some of the things that are worked into that would be restoring transportation for the college for the guaranteed experiences. So, um there's a many
051other things. That one's kind of interesting because the FDS is a was the federal the fostering for our schools grant which did get pulled in year after year two um was a federal funding and so there might be special consideration for providing CDS funding for that as a result of it getting pulled if that makes sense. Like there may be a little more attention being paid to it. We'll see. um our congressional delegation was very supportive of attempting to try and get that decision reversed. So, we'll it'll be interesting to kind of watch and see this as one plays out. That application is in pro progress. Um and our again our development and grants department is is ready to roll. They're seeking approvals from various departments for the different asks. Um and I think that'll
052be submitted probably within the week. Um, another one that just came um that was uh passed on to us from the state um CTE department is the NASA aerospace skilled technical workforce hubs. It's kind of nicknamed um NASHub. Um and it is a smaller grant. It's about 1.5,500,000 a year over three years, but it specifically is a grant that would allow us to zero in on a specific STEM related or STEM related pathways as well as actually sort of build up um and maybe even serve as sort of a state hub um with with some information and outreach work-based learning opportunities. That one requires us to partner with um some people. We would certainly partner with the university as we often do, but in this particular case, uh there's Alaska Aerospace Corporation and we've made
053contact with them. We've developed a relationship with them. We've had some students go and actually watch their their launch site in Kodiak and some other things. And so we've got some feelers out. Um the discovery meeting status means that we're considering having a meeting with different stakeholders inside the Anchorage School District to decide whether we're going to pursue that one or not. So that's kind of where that >> Thank you, John. And then just we wanted to give you an update of someies of Anchorage recent and upcoming events. A lot of exciting things still being done at our schools around the district. We wanted to highlight some of the uh partnerships and then the work that's being done at individual schools. So, as you could see, themies of Anchorage, uh, they had an opportunity to
054tour the Wheeler brothers and brainstorm some exciting ideas and partnership about the Alaska Trucking Association, ATA, and see how we can work together um, and get involved in the Share the Road program that's coming up in the next few months. They I can add on they they're looking at bringing trucks and drivers around to the schools to increase their awareness about share the roads and driving safely, but it's an opportunity that we can capitalize on because students will meet people that are in the industry and be able to ask them questions and we'll be able to do some career awareness as a result. So merging those things together, >> right? So like soon to be graduate 18y olds that are looking at potential pathways of you know truck driving is a big thing in the
055state of Alaska you know a lot of stuff gets moved all the way up to Bay >> CDL drivers are highly sought out >> highly sought out and they're paid well >> yes >> uh the next thing we had is some work-based learning activities that happened at Eagle River um high school we had students that took um that were involved in a civil engineer engineering panel that took place at Beartooth. Um they also had an opportunity to do some uh career technical education with the health science uh coordinator um Tanya Mell. Uh she does a lot of certifications around the district for our students who are learning how to administer CPR and first aid. So, I think this is actually where we're seeing some of the kids that are uh getting certified in their CPR,
056which is always helpful if you're looking for a like a daycareer or like a kind of a side hustle, you know, babysitter when I was in high school. So, >> although I think even at the most basic level of education, it's really important for our students to be exposed who are interested in any health career, whether that's, you know, >> being a doctor or being a CNA or >> Yeah. just for awareness of the group. She does some that are behavioral health like team mental health first aid uh one that's like about uh deescalation that's good for anybody in customer care but definitely in healthcare called Mant training as well as basic life support CPR. She she has a lot of tools in her tool kit and she goes and certifies kids all those district.
057>> I meant certifies understand every year very >> it is it's very track. >> Uh the next thing was some work-based learning that happened at Bartlett High School. You know we had students that participated in an engineering and healthcare panel right there in their theater and then also upstairs in in one of their CTA classrooms. Um, again, this is just a great opportunity to speak with some uh hear from some people in the Whammy organization and get some advice on some pathways, career opportunities, and what could come next after high school. Workbased learning is South. Uh, they had quite a few different events. Um, you could see that the Alaska Resource Education Career Club continues to build their work right there. Um, IBW electricians were also there learning, helping people learn about wiring. They had
058their freshman academy UAA visit in in January on the 23rd where they got to tour the campus. They also had a lunch and learn for civil engineering. that was sponsored by University of Alaska Anchorage and then had some more localized uh interaction with GDAK Electric, you know, um and then Alaska Statewide Auto Sales came by. So, they're doing a lot at Eagle River or South, sorry, at South um to get connected in a bunch of different ways. Work-based learning at East High School. You can see they had a lot of guest speakers coming in and doing uh work with classrooms and students. So, you know, the college of business and public policy guest speakers, they had whammy um program for on boarding their med students and health sciences, biomed programs. I mean if you look
059around the board just the the amount of touch points again as we've mentioned many times industry community and employers coming into our schools and having real interactions with students and talking about like what is the pathway for you in your future what are you going to need to do if you need if you're thinking about this career how much college is required what kind of degrees should you be seeking if you're looking at employment right out of that right out of the gate you know what are your avenues to do that just creating a lot opportunities for students to really see the future that's in front of them. >> Yeah. One of the ones that was really high impact was Tiffany Codle from Lasco Works Partnership came and addressed a huge number of students in
060the auditorium and she now represent they partner with you know I don't even know do you know how many unions they partner with a dozen almost like significant. >> Yeah. So it was really great because they got to see like just all sorts of options works. >> Yeah. Yeah. So it was really great. >> Did you have a question? I was just going to say the nice part of Alaska works as well is the education free to sometimes our students and sometimes adults based on the classes so they can be exposed to different trades and actually try them before they start applying for jobs and start applying for >> member member lessons has their hand up. Oh, thanks. This is a question and probably not answerable here, but um is there a way we can
061understand how CTE FTE are going to be allocated across our secondary schools next year? I mean, we started this slide with um you know, the reality that because of our funding crisis, um middle schools and high school classroom sort of CTE availability will be down. Can you I mean can maybe this is a follow-up. Yeah. Can we get more information on um the number of FTE per school that our budget is projected to allocate? We can get you FTE per school member lessons. Um it won't be evident what CTE courses are available because we're kind of building the plane as we're flying it. So Tuesday night we found out what the PTR is. It's going to be a plus4. As we all know, um, we're going to hold on to as many teaching positions as
062possible until we know the outcome of that levy. If that levy passes, that also changes the trajectory of potentially schedules. So, we're just in a very delicate situation. So, anything related to what courses will be offered really needs to be taken with a grain of salt and I would not feel comfortable sharing that information right now today, but we're just within the first 48 hours of this budget being adopted. So, I hope that makes sense. >> Yeah. No, I I think um I understand we're farther away. We're too far away to understand the courses that will be offered. I'm just interested in um maybe overall FTE per school, right? You know, does Chooiak have two full-time, one full-time, you know, where like you know, two FTE, one FTE, does West, you know, how many does
063West have? How many does South have? Um, >> so remember >> me remember member lessons that >> as a high school principal over over a decade I was never given a dedicated CTE FTE. I was given my FTE aotment for the number of teachers that I had in my building and it was up to me to decide what courses could be offered and and where to where to put those people based on their strengths and their credentials. So, we've never really dedicated like you when you're a principal, you get a a a sheet that says you're going to have nurse, a librarian, you're going to have this many JOTC students, you're going to have this many counselors. We've never had a slot that says you have four CTE dedicated teachers at your school. That will
064remain solid. It's not been a directive. I I would say the best thing that we could come up with is the current amount of FTE that's being utilized as CTE in this year's master schedule. But to go to Dr. Bryan's point, it's all too it's in too much flux to be able to give you any sort of crystal ball about how what it's going to look like for next year until master schedules are built and finalized. I feel like I' I've been in enough schools and watched principles and staff stress over just a wall of trying to manipulate which class is going to fit where and when and if students are going to make sure they have all of the classes that they need. And that is I' I've seen that take months and even
065into the summer. So I I I can't imagine that any of that could be produced overnight. But I I think the thought process is just to continue to >> Yeah, absolutely. Now >> educate board as information's available. >> Go ahead, member lessons. >> Yeah, thanks. I mean, this is just a result. I'm asking specifically because in the budget on page 476 of the budget book, there's an appendix appendix B and it gives 5 years of personnel history and it is broken down. There is a subject called CTE teachers and you can see that it's gone down from you know over the past u number of years and that it looks like for FY27 there will be 30 CTE FTE. So I'm interested in how that will be allocated. It sounds like what I'm seeing and
066what I'm hearing are like two different things. So I hear what Mr. Prince is saying that as a principal you get 40 FTE but I guess I'm wondering if this dose of CTE teachers of there's 30 FTE positions >> sort of in addition to or maybe maybe it's part of I don't know >> my my curiosity member lessons is if if that number is being represented by the number of offerings that have been present in schools based on their master schedules after they've been developed and that those trends go down as funding goes down. Um because I can tell you that as you probably track on another page where you'll see the number of FTE going down in schools, you'll see that same kind of correlation and trend with CTE offerings because you know as
067member Wilson talked about it when you're when you're a principal and you're curriculum principal at high school, you're sitting down at the master schedule, you're looking at some projections, you start to think and develop your master schedule in in January and you start to do your um course request offerings and looking at what you can offer by who's in your staff. Then you get your staffing all allocation. You try to do your hiring and then you you work for months trying to get all the pieces to fit. And your pri your primary objective is to make sure that the graduation requirements can be met first and foremost and then you start to add in all of the other things. So teachers and and principles are well aware like if I'm teaching a CTE course that
068doesn't count for a core that's going to be required for graduation, then that class may be collapsed if we run out of FTE. And that's why you you'll you've heard over the last few months that constant refrain of electives are the first thing to go when we lose FTE. When we have a PTR increase and we lose teachers, we have to make the choices that will satisfy our graduation requirements first and then we start thinking about anything extra. Does that make sense? >> Um, thank you. Yes. I mean, the reality that you're you're speaking to is really at the forefront of of my mind and so I I appreciate that. Um, I think I'm still maybe it's a technical question that I'll I'll share I'll write up and and share offline just so I have
069a better understanding. Thanks. >> Yeah, because I'm I'm curious too as to if it's if it's written that we had 30 CTE in there. I I'd like to know where that was pulled from. I will say, and this might be a miscommunication to my boss who's sitting to the right of me, but I was asked by the I was asked by folks to calculate how much CTE was being utilized in this year's master schedule and provide that up the chain to leadership and that was very likely as part of the budget process. I was just told, hey, can you go through and figure this out? So I might have been the source of that information but um the only information I have is what CT is being utilized right CTE FTE is being utilized right
070now on master schedules. So somebody could have performed a projection on it but definitely follow up and we can we can see what we can >> I guess just to add the layer to that the reason why that request was made for that information is because I was concerned about students not being able to complete their programs of study that are currently in one. That's the group of students that are graduating at the rates of 94 plus percent. So it was a top priority for me to ensure that continuity. So I needed to understand what was kind of the lay of the land for the previous year. >> That makes total sense. >> Member lessons, did you have a follow-up question or do you want to follow? >> No, I I'm good. Thank you. >>
071Okay. >> All right. So again when if we look at Chiak High School we can see some of the you know their very strong culinary program um with ProStart which is won many you know national competitions. They had a college fair as well as the two kind of applied hands-on math classes which would be geometry and construction and then the Ampedon algebra classes which >> Can you just tell a little bit about ProStart back up for a second because it's a great program. Yeah. So, our our some of our culinary programs start with kind of a culinary foundations course, but then um like at Chugak and and service uh for sure, both of those have ProStart programs. ProStart is a curriculum um that uh and a program really. It's not a curriculum, but it's partly
072curriculum, but there's support for it. Um it it involves training students based off of the standards that are in industry and in restaurants. And so it's it's really high caliber rigorous um training for students. Uh there are four different levels, four different semesters. There's a prostart one, two, three, and four. And then there's something called Protoar Pro. Um and two runs one of those pros, one of the most active pros. And so what's what's neat about that is the students are continuing to get it's back. It's also I should say it's back. It's the the the back of the restaurant and the front of the house. So it's restaurant management is a piece of that. All of the culinary pieces that go into that. There's some business aspects that go into that. There's media creation
073that goes into that. Lot of different amazing things. And then one of the really we love work-based learning in CTE because we feel like it really grows those portrait of a graduate skills in our students and those ProStop Pro classes are students who are going through that program who as a zero or seventh hour they basically perform catering functions. They go all over the Eagle River, Chewy Yak, Anchorage, Bowl area engaging in actually delivering, catering, doing doing it from start to finish the service, the whole thing. Um, and they have great reputations. So, it's a great program. >> I've interacted with our first students quite a bit in different different events and aspects and they're fantastic. >> Yeah, they're always they're >> Yeah, they're solid. >> Very professional. Food's great. >> Yeah. Amazing experience. the
074whole thing like you said front and back of the house is taken care of. >> Yeah. And I just wanted to also the geometry and construction um and the Amdon algebra. I have some comments but if you can explain. >> Sure. Um so we started the district really looking at geometry and construction. There's a lot of students where geometry can be very if you guys remember back to your high school experience geometry can be very abstract right can be very abstract. Dr. Brian as a former math teacher could probably tell you what it is. Yeah. >> So it's very so a lot of students really benefit from learning the math but then going and actually doing something with it. And obviously there's that wonderful relevance piece into it. So this is a it's an it's
075it's a program that's hard to stand up in schools because you basically have a math teacher and a CTE teacher, right? Who are working with the same group of students and and there's sort of a cap in terms of the numbers. But what they do is they they have the flexibility to say today we're going to learn the math and then tomorrow or they block. So period one you're you've got your math teacher and your CT teacher. Period two you've got your math teacher and your CT teacher. And so they can flex and be like today is a build day. But oftentimes in these programs what's really great is that they have to get their math done before they get to go do the answer. I mean, they have that ability to like, hey, you're
076going to stay back with this teacher and keep working on the math to make sure you've got that before you get to. But it's phenomenal. And the AMP on algebra is a very similar um pairing except that AMP and I it's a a long and convoluted acronym that doesn't make a lot of sense. Let's say that amped means that you're doing some engineering and some business that's algebra related. So, you're learning the algebra and then you're going and applying that in kind of a broader scope. It's not just construction. There's some engineering, some prototyping. Business is a lot of it. There's a lot of business that's math that's done with with algebra. So, what is that hands-on component? >> We've seen Amon algebra. This is the example you algebra at at West High School where
077they do a lot of um screen printing and making of uh memorabilia and watching the teacher talk with the students about like, okay, so knowing that we had this many t-shirts, we printed this many, but how many of them were errors where we weren't able to sell them? What is our profit margin? How are we, you know, what is our cost that we're losing? And you just see students really engaging like, oh, if I was actually going to run this as a business, man, I wasn't even thinking like when I make a mistake at the screen printing, that's actually costing me down the line. And like now, what do I do with this thing? It's not a complete loss. And then they talk about like, okay, so can you sell this for 50% because it's
078got a flaw, but it's still you want to recoup some of your t-shirt cost. And the kids are just right engaged. Super like, man, if you had shown me algebra that way when I was in high school, >> I would have paid way more attention. And my example, I was talking to a staff member, actually an ASD staff mover, and her son had taken the geometry and construction class, and that over the summer, he was walking up the back steps, and there was a loose step. And she said, "It's a student who's not very academically inclined, typically, but he brought out all his safety gear. He started doing the math. He fixed the steps." She said it was it was shocking and amazing all at the same time that her son did that and took
079the initiative to do that. That's great. What a good example. This is um I think one of our last slides for um showing West and just kind of showcasing some of the things that they had going on, you know, seafood industry, civil engineering, photojournalism, all being showcased for in various ways for West students. Um again, just great opportunities. And then the last slide that we have is is really just some upcoming things that we are facilitating asmies of Anchorage. So we've got a cyber security panel. We've got >> So the cyber security panel happened is that yesterday >> uh it happened yesterday. It was uh being host today. It's being hosted over at West, but but we're getting students from two or three other schools um over there in order to participate um in their
080auditorium. So, it's kind of a little bit more about what what's what's going on. So, and social media and stuff, you should be seeing some posts celebrating that and and um the I know our FBI has been an amazing partner this year at our local Anchorage office and uh they're participating in that as well. We got the Department of Labor, Youth Job Fair, Alaska Works Apprenticeship Expo, Skills USA State Competition is going to be later in March. King Techch hiring event April 1st, host the state conference. Again, uh the Inker School District always does really well in the state conference. Uh for our health um biomedical pathways that we have at our students that are very strong. Alaska Construction Career Day, April 8th. um our federal courthouse visits and then Alaskan Airline Aviation Day is
081a is a really big event. >> Yeah. And that's one where um Alaska Airlines actually pays for the transportation for our students to get to that one. And so we're hoping to create some dialogue considering our budget constraints and we've really been having some, but we sort of needed a couple years of runway in order to develop those business partnerships. But I think that there's going to probably be potential possibilities for us to make asks in order to assist with some of the transportation, but Alaska Airlines just stepped up and offered it. Um, and this is the second year we're taking students to aviation day. So, >> okay. And then there's some more information just to the right about the apprentichip expo and >> we will be sending students from um not obviously not all
082students but students from all schools and you know the big eight schools incl will have multiple students coming to the Texas >> that's all we're at. >> Yeah, thanks for letting us share. I like to tractor trailers. >> Tractor trailers. >> Optimus Prime. >> Hey, I can probably arrange for you to do some, you know, some some sort of a tour of of the they call the proving grounds out in Matsu for the heavy equipment. >> I we'll see what we can do. >> Okay. >> And definitely the Weaver Brothers. >> Yeah. >> How about the meeting? We got all the stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Right. >> Yeah. We got Peter. >> All the toys. Go slush trash. So, I appreciate all the work that um has been done particularly at the high
083schools to expose our kids to career paths. Um I appreciate all of our partners that have stepped up to help with that process. Um we have Tuesday was was rough. We had to make a lot of really really difficult decisions. Um I would also moving forward like to know um what we're going to lose in this process when because everything takes coordination. Everything you know that reaching out to to our business partners, coordinating events, it it all takes time and effort and with less people um less resources to do that. It it would also be nice to know what our our students are losing um in that process. Not not something I'm excited about, but information I think is important. >> Yeah. I mean, just off the cuff with the loss of transportation funding, if
084we don't find some funding for transportation to a career expo and a college visit, then you can just ballpark just over 3,000 students every year not getting to see a local campus or getting to see over a hundred different employers in the state. One of the things that might be helpful, member um Wilson, is that we we are we are we've been putting together in this last couple of years metrics on and a system in place basically like a contact relational management database of a CRM that that's used in industry in order to try and track the engagement that we have with our partners. And so um we we we I think we have that in place and we will be able to sort of um and we've been capturing that this year so that
085we have a baseline. So I think we will probably be able to give you some metrics um if that's what you're looking for in terms of like how it's how it changes as a result of the budget. >> Yeah. I think we've shared in the past too just like the on-track metrics for our ninth graders who have started to go through them process. um their their stats for on track is is increasing and going up. So it'll be it'll be interesting to see if that's impacted at all beginning in next next year if we're not able to kind of refigure some things. >> Yeah. I mean some of the statistics I know only time will tell but others like the the expo we have hundreds of partners and many of them who don't engage with
086ASD in other aspects that were really excited about those that participation and starting to engage in other schools in other ways. Um, but without that two-way communication, that two-way partnership, a lot of those partnerships, a lot of those organizations will find other ways to engage in in different parts of the community. So, I I hate to see a loss of those partners engaging directly with our kids in ASD. >> Yeah, exactly. >> I feel like I should have stopped on a more positive note, but it kind of is what it is. So, any other questions or comments?