001Let's go ahead and get started. This is our communications committee meeting. It is uh what is the date? November 20th, 2025. Holy cow, it's going quickly. Um let's go ahead and my name is Dora Wilson. I am communications chair and a board member. And if we can start to our right, Andy, CFO Kelly Lesson, board member, Maya Sullivan, executive assistant, >> Deon Roberts, director of prayer technical uh MJ communications. Sean Prince, senior director of GG Mario Bryant, superintendent, >> Tony Bradley, senior director for diversity, equity, inclusion, and community engagement. >> And I know Carl Jacobs uh for president will be stepping in in just a moment, so I'll go ahead and introduce him now. Is there anybody else online? >> Yes, member Hollowman and member Higgins are online. >> Okay. member Bellamy said she would
002be joining just a little later. >> Okay, perfect. Thank you. So, let's go ahead and jump into the agenda. First up is MJ with communications update. >> Yeah, thanks. Uh so, we um bond was passed on Tuesday, so we're moving forward with uh the 2026 bond. So, we did a soft launch of the web this week and then we will start up communications after winter break like we did last year. Um and uh and then we'll uh once it gets approved by the uh the assembly then we'll um move into that stage as well. >> So just for clarification the bond was approved by school board our last meeting. Yes. >> I just wanted those on the public health correct. [laughter] >> Yeah. So we're going to stick to the same uh plan that we
003did last year. uh mailers, uh billboards, um those types of things in addition to uh traditional media. >> And just for clarification again, so the bond goes the the requested bond amount goes to the assembly. >> It'll go to the assembly uh after winter break. Uh and I'm just going to forecast or uh manifest that it'll get approved. And then the next step is >> then what we'll do is so uh uh I'll just kind of [clears throat] for the for the folks not looped in we have had a security and safety theme with the bond for several years and so we're more than halfway through that uh project and so that will be um again it'll be a security and safety uh themed um message campaign and um we have billboards uh we have
004mailers we have digital along with uh traditional media and uh we just did a soft launch this week after the board approved the bond. So we have a a space where people can go and get the information that was approved this week and then after winter break we'll uh start the next phase and align that when the assembly hopefully uh passes it and then we will then ramp that up. It will get assigned a prop number. Traditionally, uh the district has had Prop One, uh for us, which actually helps uh in in our effort to get the bond passed. Um so, uh once that gets done, then you'll start seeing the billboards go up um uh in mid-inter and and focused on the April election year. >> So, all goes as well as we expect
005and hope it'll be on the April ballot. What did I say? >> No, I was just making sure I was just reiterating. >> Yeah, now you got me second guessing. [laughter] >> But I will tell I'll just share like I met with Jim's team uh last week and uh one of the things that we're looking at making sure we highlight is that bond reimbursement piece. Um that is a really good uh piece of information for voters to understand um how that's going to impact their wallet and their pocketbook. Um and then uh some of the other areas we're just looking at that really kind of highlight that security and safety piece with the roofs um and those uh snow loads um as well as the secure vestibules. One of the cool things that we're going
006to highlight is we are um going to wrap up the elementary portion of the security vestibules and then transition into middle school. So that'll be something that we'll highlight um as well. >> Awesome. I did have a question. Are we seeking anyone to head up a bond yes program? >> Uh, I have I thank you. I will put that on my list. >> Good question. Thank you. >> Andy, did you have a followup or was that your question? >> Nope, that was it. Thank you. Kelly, it >> um this maybe this is sort of a question following up on the security and safety focus which has been great and clear. We also have the hazardous materials item which is on base and different and my loose understanding of um you know voting turnout from JAR
007is that it's pretty low. I wonder if there's any utility in additional targeted messages. Um, >> and I don't I don't know how you would do that. I assume that JR commanders can't, you know, encourage vote voting in a certain way, but if there's a way to partner and reinforce that this is [clears throat] we have a DoD match. I mean, there's a lot of good things that we're poised to do through the rebuild, but we also incorporated this into the bond so that we could get the rubble with hazardous materials out of the way, which at the end of the day is a safety and security issue, but it's just it's just new and different. >> Yeah. Thanks. I'll um I'll revisit that with the team. Yeah. Um and explore that a little bit
008more. >> Yeah. Thanks. >> [clears throat] >> Uh so uh any any other questions, comments? >> And I introduced you. >> Perfect. [laughter] Here I am. [clears throat] >> Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Member Hollowman. I'm just going to be transparent. I forgot. >> So it's on my list. >> Awesome. >> Okay. Uh next, next topic is FY27 budget solutions. We have a workshop um planned for uh the first Saturday in December. Uh we're moving forward with those plans. We sent the invites out um last week and uh we're just moving forward and getting the actual event um planned out and focused so we have a good engagement experience. So just working with Andy's team and Tony's team uh and the folks over at Bartlett, Sean Prince um to make that happen. >> Yeah. Have legislators themselves
009received like special invitations? >> Yeah, they should have received Yeah, they were on the list. Yeah. >> Is there any way maybe that's an is there any way to disagregate legislators [clears throat] responses or we've already sent them a link? >> They got they got the same information. Okay. >> Have them do it again essentially, but you'd have to have a targeted link to them. There is not a chance a legislator would take a survey if they knew they would get singled out as a group of legislators. >> I think that's a wonderful idea. I would love to ask them to do that and they will politely tell us not a chance. >> Uh I will say uh school business partnership is um supporting um uh um the workshop with uh refreshments um so we
010can have um you know some beverages and some snacks and stuff. they so politely work with us tonight. >> Is child care at all offered le at you know with um some of the joint meetings like the seak and meak you've had a child care possibility is that >> like opening up space at Bartlett. >> Yeah. I mean >> so the >> I don't know what that would >> there's a logistical thing there with King Tech when we tried to do it for the last meeting like we we didn't miss it. It was just a weird thing of when they're certified, they have to have a certain type of certification, we can round back and see if it's possible because we just need the space, but if not, then we just have to use staff,
011which is what we did for the joint meeting this year. >> But I can chat. It has just struck me that you could possibly increase community engagement and I don't want to ask people to jump through more hoops than we're already asking, but >> yeah, we'll check into that. >> Okay. It uh fits what you approved. Right sizing, [clears throat] you still have the floor. Anything else? >> No. I I guess any additional questions Andy, do you have anything you want to add? >> No. [clears throat] >> Yeah, we're solid. That's it. That completes your communication. >> Tony's next on the list. Can I I just say I I want to give continued [clears throat] kudos to the comm's team and especially our group on social media. The the amount of work and effort is
012evident that goes into highlighting the things happening in the campuses. I I' I've heard more about that and about things that are being highlighted not about the work necessarily but that means your work is worth so your team is doing really really well. So thank you. Thanks. Not every community member goes into a school. Most community members don't go into the school. So, it's you are their rank. So, thank you. >> Thanks. That's our uh that's our mission is to tell the ASD story from the classroom. So, thank you. >> Okay. So for community engagement um most of the advisory committee meetings are off for December but um our special education advisory team does meet uh NEAC so the multicultural education concerns advisory committee and the native advisory committee will pick up again in January.
013Um and we're hoping to get them on the schedule to update the board for the spring based on where they're at. Um for us in general events have been slower this year or we're kind of finding out about them later. We did attend the Black Business Expo at the Alaskan Native Heritage Center last weekend and that was a really good turnout um with the community and we have some other upcoming events that we're hoping to be invited to. So like MJ said, we're working um with Andy's team and communications on the logistics around the balancing act and just trying to make sure that we can balance the different populations that we have there for community versus like legislators and government and make sure that it all makes sense. Um we have the AEDC economic lunchon
014coming it up in January and we also have we're helping out again the um ASD's indigenous education um event with their fashion show. This year they've expanded that to include um an artisian event. So they'll have some crafts and vendors there as well. So you'll see that time extended a little bit but it is there on Betty Davis East um at at Betty Davis East High School. So, that's a little bit of an update about what's forthcoming. I imagine um I'll present this list, but hopefully some additional things that are coming up in January. >> Thank you. Of course. Any questions, comments, additional information? >> Is the balancing act still open, but can people still fill it out? >> Yeah, our plan would be to leave it open probably. >> Yeah. >> Throughout the whole
015budget cycle through life, [clears throat] too. Did one of the links like stop working or did we switch to a new link or something? I thought I clicked on one of them and it said it was no longer for bud balance balancing. >> Was it special? >> No, no, no. Um, this was one I found on the Could have been operator. >> If it was last year's that maybe that's what I did. >> Okay. And did we give a I think Google archive a page with a balancing act link specifically for the uh budget advisory committee with a MOA. What were we doing that too? Um yes, this year's budget advisory committee meeting has their own budget advisory committee has their own link that um Katie Car has sent and the student advisory board also
016has their own link so we can just input. I just wanted to like I didn't go through taking it but I wanted to say that Google archived not archived Google indexed the page for the BAC and so I don't know if that's accessible to anyone like the that link for the BAC was on Google >> one then anyone that has access can actually take >> right and so I clicked on it thinking I was going to give that to a community member and it said BAC at the top I'm like well I don't want to do that so I didn't I was looking for the right link and any just FY27 Yeah. So, anyway, throwing that out there. Okay. >> Yeah. The link you find on the district's web page is the general community link.
017>> Right. Understood. [clears throat] Thank you. >> Any other comments, questions for Tony or outreach? Okay, let's move on to Anchorage. So, Sean, it is up to you, Sean. >> All right, here we go. >> [clears throat] >> So, I wanted to give the school board a update onies of Anchorage. Uh, this morning we had a presentation by the deputy chief of schools at the RDC breakfast. We comm uh updated the community and many of the stakeholders. >> What What is RDC? >> That is the resource development council. It's been in existence for 50 years inside of Anchorage and has really worked to bring a lot of community resources together um to work on the improvement of the municipality of Anchorage. So, and the last uh we updated them this morning on the current standings
018and the importance of the various positions and what we're doing. A lot of that is going to be shared in the following slides as well. And if you would like, we we can share you the slides that were presented this morning at the RDC breakfast. Um, this is a video that we'd like to share. This is a second speed mentoring event that was held at West High School. Um, just to kind of give you an idea, it's [clears throat] anytime we have guest speakers, especially like at West High School, uh, they're going to sign on to basically meet with, uh, 530 different students and talk to them in various ways. And so far this year, they've had seven different uh, guest speakers, and this is their second event. So, this is a really good display
019of some of the impacts that we can have with bringing community members into our schools. >> I didn't know you were doing a video. Yeah. Is your computer muted? >> Comfortable in their own skin. Can we skip skip the video so we figure that out and talk about the rest of the information or does it need to be in that order? >> It's fine. Um because we have two videos that we wanted to show. >> It's going to be >> okay. >> Yeah. Sorry. >> No, it's fine. >> Um I'll get back to you. I'm trying to work with that figured out for you. >> Okay. So, the two videos that we're we were to show you was the speed mentoring at West High School and it has the academy coach from West High School
020there talking about the different events they have at West, the number of people who are actually um making connections with the various students. They also talk about the different events as far as like the guaranteed experiences. They do mention the uh career expo as well as taking 530 students to the guaranteed university um campus experience at UAA and the various aspects of that. The next slide that we're going to show is going to be some highlights of theies of Anchorage social media that we have. We can we can circle back to that. it is on there with that. >> Uh this is the new growth with the Alaska Resource Educators student externship program. And this is this is really building on some current CTE internship programs that we have over um right now we have
021over 70 students that have applied for CT internships around the school district and they have 86 unique opportunities for students and they have about 114 different slots. So there could be some duplicates like if you were to have a internship at Providence and they have slots for two or three students that's why there's a a difference in the number. What this is doing with AR is allowing uh some of our ASD students to spend placement at various uh organizations around Alaska and get 120 hours of contact and then they can actually earn 1.0 0 CT credits during that internship. So, this is brand new and it's growing. And Devin, if you want to talk a little bit more about I see member lessons might have a question. Sure. >> Um, so I is this what
022I can lo like on the um public data.dk12 there's a slide not a slide a um a dashboard monitoring. >> Yes. >> Internships. >> Yes. Yes. Um member lessons that's >> like the names of all the community partners. >> It is. Yeah. So we that's a live um so what what we run the program and the platform um um that we've we've talked a little bit about um school links and that data is basically pulled from school links our IT department is amazing and they populate that page um with that data. So it's it's it's it might not be totally fresh. I think it's a overnight update or whatever, but it's just an opportunity to share with the public who those business partners are who are providing those internship spots uh for our students. Um
023and uh and it's very useful for the students and their families in order to see um if those opportunities are there. We have a a CTE program coordinator um on my team who works on on on making more opportunities available, connecting, reaching out to to other business partners um in order to to provide even more opportunities and options for students. Um circling back to the um um externship, um they have a history of of uh this is I think they've had the third third year in a row. We just had our third year of cohorts of teacher externships to get teachers, counselors, academy coaches, um, uh, out into all over the state. They they go all over the state. They visit the various post-secondary uh, training o, you know, um, um, u, UAF, um, AB,
024other places. They get they get to go see mining resources. Uh, this last group got to actually fly up to the to the, um, Ruda Bay. So um this is sort of a natural progression of sorts to try and provide students and what's different about this and the reason they call it an externship is because those students are really in internship positions but because they go and they might be paired with you know Chelista Corporation and then to Kico Phillips and then to Mass Escavation or you know so it's it's it's it's different companies that all play a part in um in you know environmental management and natural resource development and so they they uh these students will have kind of a broader exposure than the typical internship student will because they'll be placed at
025multiple companies and I want to give a plug for the externships that the district does with staff because I think that's an amazing opportunity for them to uh participate in training or learning on the job kind of training information. I know I know I helped to coordinate a couple of those um to make use of training opportunities that other organizations actually provide and so it saves the district on that specific training for whatever whatever their whatever their level of expertise is for our our teachers. And we we are trying to this is not covered in the slides but in terms of that same topic we we are looking forward to partnering again with area to offer another group to go out in the summer. And then additionally we've started collecting information from CTE teachers educators
026around the district in order to provide more specific extership opportunities for them during the summer and are working on trying to get in. So, for instance, if a culinary arts teacher wants to, you know, this is actually kind of a concrete example, wants to go learn how to make ramen and how to teach your kids how to make ramen, like we're going to try and and and uh create that externship for that teacher by reaching out to some of our business partners and make that happen. >> Yeah. No, I just I wanted to mention that because a great partner, but there are a lot of partners around the district that are helping to provide education for >> Yeah. And we're looking for we're absolutely looking for more and trying to tap into others. Yeah, >>
027I know the the reception that we've had from any of the teachers or counselors or anybody who's participated in these exterships is just like, man, it really allows them to get bird's eye view of what's currently happening and they can take that back in the school and give like real time up to-date advice to their students about, hey, this is what I know for a fact is happening and this is an avenue for you in the future. So, those are really exciting times. Let's give these videos another shot here. J7. Seven. >> You able to start it from your end? >> Thank you. Steve wants to know if you can stop your share and then reshare. >> There should be a screen check box on the screen. >> There's a check box to share computer
028sound. >> Wasn't somebody just mentioning how amazing our tech [laughter] is to be called. >> I did not give America fair warnings. So just wanted to make sure that that was clear. >> But they quickly responded which is awesome. They always >> he's on the way down too >> as someone who's not very techsavvy have a great appreciation for >> their skills. >> Full disclosure we had some tech issues. The the video the same video actually was was going to be shared during the RDC and I don't know what exactly the issue was there. You could, it was in person and you could hear it, but it just stopped after 20 seconds. Then you try it again and it just stopped after 20 seconds. It's like, okay, >> moving on. [clears throat] >> It happens.
029>> Try [clears throat] one more time. >> Yeah, let's give it just a We can continue until we get our superhero down. >> Well, we could Can we also get the videos in board docs? >> Yeah, of course. >> We're not to play it for the meeting, but >> this might be easier at this point. >> Sure. >> Great. right here. >> See? As soon as we call him, >> sure. He has nothing else going on. [laughter] >> Just get him a mobile desk. [laughter] [clears throat] >> This is actually our second speed mentoring event. Just having practice talking to an unknown adult. That's a real life skill that they need to have. What's fantastic [music] is they've grown. We can see that they're making eye contact. They're shaking hands. They're much more comfortable in
030their own skin. And that's three weeks ago. We cannot replace that with simply [music] just book learning and academic standards. We have to get them in front of people and we have to [music] get people in front of them. That is what this program does is it truly brings the outside in and then lets them start thinking about what's outside, what's after high school. We are planning these events, but also our guest [music] speakers. We've had seven different days where we've had groups of guest speakers into our classrooms. We have 17 sections of this course. So when someone signs up to come to West, [music] they're signing up to talk to 530 students in a day. We had our Providence speakers in on Monday and they got to go into our biomed class. [music] And
031we found out about a brand new opportunity for students to go and see the new mock surgery lab that exists at UAA. [music] We took a group of students to Alaska Airlines Aviation Day with some of our partners there. The career expo and we actually have UAA this Friday, which is a massive [music] production. I'm taking 530 bodies out of this building and then add on about 25 teachers that are supporting that. In our previous speed mentoring event that was mostly parents but some alumni, we [music] had three that had graduated in the last 5 years. They're excited to come back and give back and they all [music] say, "I wish we'd had this when I was in high school." That is the repetitive message that I get from most of these adults is they
032haven't seen this before. >> [music] >> That's a great testimonial. [clears throat] >> Any questions about that one? All right. So, this is another video that we wanted to share um that is part of our media scramble. So, when we're putting out this is going out on our ASD, our AOA and our CTE social media channels. So one of the key theories of action behind themies [music] of Anchorage is one we want all of our students to graduate from ASD college career and life ready and two here in Alaska we're losing a lot of our young people. One in three young people under 26 are leaving the state. Our young people don't understand the amazing opportunities that are already here. Too many of our young people don't find out that a career path is not
033for them until after they're in college and have taken out a loan to pursue a major that maybe isn't right for them. So themies of Anchorage is about connecting youth to the opportunities that are here. And I [music] believe that once students know what great jobs and college opportunities that there are, they'll stay here, they'll thrive here, they'll have long-lasting [music] careers right here in Alaska. >> Any questions about that? >> Pretty straightforward, but again, just kind of solidifying what the mission is for our high school students. talked about this one >> and I think that the that video clip was one of four different ones that's going out. So, we just chose one to highlight, but we've got got three or four others that are in this. So, this one right here is actually
034a new partnership that we have with South Central Foundation um where we're actually looking to bring um members of South Central Foundation partner with our indigenous uh department here in ASD where we're going to have cultural events at schools. We're going to have um a dive into supporting areas where we don't already have indigenous student success coaches where they don't exist. so we can kind of fill those gaps and make sure we're meeting the needs of all of our students. And they're going to be looking at having partnerships with ANMC so they can also show different healthc care pathways for students. Uh so the various schools that have medical academy or health pathways have an option to see one of the other three major hospitals that we have here in the city. >> Um I
035ask a question. >> Yeah. So, um, does that mean that they're willing to act as like this business partners where they're going to come in like instruct classes? Is that what that looks like? Like, are they offering free or they donating labor and time? Is that what they're doing? >> They're donating labor and time for sure. Um, yes. Um and the the cultural events are likely going to be from the we're in initial stage of development and and locating sites that have those gaps that um that Sean was talking about. uh but uh but it's a series of events for for cultural events um and then the the pathway work around healthc carees um would be them working with um our CT educators academy coaches in order to identify students to to give them work
036site visits as well as bring professionals from healthcare from other hospitals to come in and talk to the students. So that's kind of maybe a more granular way of what it what it will look like. That's what's and it is indigenous education. We're working with school business partnership. It's cavies of Anchorage and I'm editing out there's I think that's everybody and obviously South Central Foundation. So it's a nice cross departmental partnership >> which is awesome because I I don't know like province we've had extensive partnership years with them. Um, so it's really nice to see that South Central is looking to do similar in their own way, >> right? >> Expand that partnership. So that's really exciting. >> This is also pretty exciting. Um, so the math the Alaska Humanities Forum uh has the leadership
037anchorage community impact projects that they put out and there was 29 different organizations that actually applied from those uh applicants. They had eight finalists and then they chose five projects to be selected and we were actually selected as one of those five. So as it says like we are working to expand the guaranteed experiences for 6 through 12 and that is really um being supported by a grant that we have the community impact project grant that will allow us to have guaranteed experiences for our sixth graders. So the sixth grade is actually a strand for Alaska studies right now. So it's one of the first introductions. So third grade has nest egg, sixth grade has an introduction of Alaska studies, and then this again Alaska studies in ninth grade. And what this is allowing us
038to do is that the grant will fund um P for educators. It will also fund transportation and experiences for students uh all sixth graders to go to the Alaskan Native Heritage Center to do tours and education uh with them. And uh we're just looking to continue to build uh that robust education in our Alaska studies through line all the way down to third grade. >> Awesome. >> Questions on that? >> Okay. We also had a presentation where we provided um our presentation to the Alaskan Native Claim Settlement Act regional association. So that is where we gave an overview of themies of Anchorage. We talked about the overlap and scope of indigenous education in ASD. We did have some representation to speak about school links and the opportunities that that platform can actually provide for our
039students as well as CTE partnerships and opportunities that we have. Uh this was really important for us because um what we see is this is right connected to our Alaska Civics and Action grant that I talked about um with the Alaska Native Heritage Center. So we are we are shaking hands in a major way here to build this partnership and it is just really exciting to see a lot more integration with themies of acres in this work. Awesome. >> That's it. >> Thank you. >> Any questions of any from anybody online? Comments want to leave anybody up. Okay. Questions, comments? >> No, start at this time. >> I'm excited. I think that's that's all amazing and the the level of really increasing level of how people work with some of those partners is really impressive.
040the data. >> Yeah. And leveraging free or lowcost ways to collaborate to supplement our AOE plan is is amazing work. So, kudos. >> Yeah. I think what we what we're seeing is a lot of our community partners and employers from around the state recognize our financial situation and they're leaning in because they know the value of what we're trying to do and they're trying to say out loud like this is what we can do to keep this work alive. >> Well, if there's something we can do to signal that that's welcome, appreciate from the board level, please keep us in the loop. Yeah, I think just again anytime you have an opportunity during board meetings just to voice your support of themies of Anchorage and what you're doing to make sure these um guaranteed experiences
041and opportunities for young people that are forefront of your mind would send that message to all the members of our steering committee and then other partners that we have inside the state. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. That was the end of our agenda. Unless anybody has anything that they want to add, additional questions, information, anyone online. Okay, then I think we are good. That mood.