001to go. >> Good. >> All right. We are starting our communications committee meeting. My name is Dora Wilson, committee chair and and school board member. I'd like to start with introductions. Oh, apologize. We are on Thursday, August 28th, and it is now 1:29, almost 1:30. If I can start with introductions on my right be great. We'll go around the table and then back around to the chair. Great. >> Jar superintendent Andy Riff CFO Jacob board member board member >> Miller assistant director communications lesson board member >> Tony Riley senior director for community engagement equity. >> Yeah, all of it executive assistant >> MJ communications. Cena Stanton with Alaska Survey Research. If we can go to the back of the room. >> Deon Roberts, director of CTE. >> Oh, Daniels with Alaska survey research. >> Sean
002Prince, senior director, CG Marty Lang, GPR. >> Hi, Cindy Shepu, CCL Direct. >> Jim Anderson, chief operating officer. >> And anybody online? Um, yes. >> Margo. >> And Dave is online, too. >> Yeah. is Dave Donley. >> Awesome board member. >> Thank you for joining. >> So, we're going to go ahead and start with uh first thing on the agenda, our communications update. And MJ, I'm going to pivot to you for that. >> Thanks, Member Wilson. Uh so, we uh conducted some survey, some research over the summer to gauge um a temperature check with our community. uh we are really working hard to get into those spaces this school year where um we need to have more information about the progress of the school district. And so before we started down that path, we wanted
003to get a temperature check from the community on really how they were uh feeling and uh viewing uh our organization. And so we uh hired um Alaska Survey Research to do that survey for us. And I'd like to introduce Cena Stanton who will um take it from there and talk about what we heard from our community. >> Awesome. Thank you, MJ. Um hi, I'm Cena Stanton. I'm here with Alaska Survey Research. Um super excited to present to you all today. Oh, am I sharing? Let me reshare. Okay, here we go. Fantastic. Um, all right. So, before we kind of get into all of the data, well, first I should introduce Alaska Surveying Research. We're an Alaskan based uh quantitative research firm that's been operating out of Anchorage for about 30 years conducting statewide opinion surveys.
004Um, today I'm going to present the findings from a recent Alaska survey that we did back in July. Um, I'm super excited to be here speaking with you all today. I do want to note that um it means a lot for me to be here and specifically in this room because I am a recent um ASD employee. I was a teacher in Alaska for the past eight years. I spent five of those years um at ASD. Uh but now I'm excited to kind of utilize my background in a different capacity and be able to present you guys some good statistical data. So let's get into it. >> Well, what were you doing there? >> Oh, I was a secondary mathematics teacher. I was at um I was at Bartlett for a couple years. Sean actually
005hired me. your in this room like >> he's wonderful. You're going to be very impressed. >> I'm um >> No pressure that your principal >> Yeah, no pressure at all. My principal is here to observe and follow me. >> I also >> Oh, fantastic. And we do have Ivan who is our research director. So, he is joining us on Zoom. He wishes he could be here in person with you all today, but he has some very important business uh with the regions of Hawaii. So, I'm here instead. Um, first I want to talk a little bit about some of the uh survey details, some of the parameters that we typically conduct our surveys in. We fielded the survey between the dates of July 29th and August 1st. So, a relatively short fielding window, but we
006were still able to amass a pretty decent sample size of 874 anchored adults. That sample size that sample size gives us a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5% at a confidence level of 95% which effectively means if we were to conduct the same survey again we would see 95% of the results falling within 3.5 percentage points of the results that you're going to see today. We fielded the survey with the dual methodology of text to online and an email distribution to a selected panel. Ivan Moore again, research director. Um, and he is joining us online, so he'll also be available to answer any questions that I may have. Another super important detail, last but certainly not least, is our data waiting process. Waiting is a really crucial step in survey research. And at
007Alaska Survey Research, we really pride ourselves on our ability to capture the thoughts and feelings of the general population by waiting based on some critical census data such as area, age, race, and gender. Um however decades of survey research have also informed our decision to weigh based on the categories of education, political party affiliation and also the 2024 presidential election. The fact is people participate in surveys to different degrees. College educated individuals are twice as likely to participate in surveys and we see similar non-representative splits in the political viewings of our respondents. So we wait based on those three categories as well and through this iterative process we're confident that these results are representative of the general population. We started ASD's block of question with the gradebook series which effectively starts with ASD gives your
008kids a grade so why aren't we giving them a grade five? We asked respondents to grade ASD in a total of nine subjects, if you will, quality of ASD teachers, performance of the Anchorage School Board, performance of Superintendent Bryant, fiscal and budgetary responsibility, providing a quality education, teaching an appropriate curriculum, preparing students for the future, AC communications public, and AS's overall grade. And here we have the report card. Um, and I'm going to pull a little teacher trick out of my hat. I see some of you have already had a chance to digest this, but I am going to ask for 30 seconds of quiet thinking time so we can just digest a little bit before we actually get into an explanation. Your 30 seconds starts now. Do you have the stats broken out by
009uh how parents answered as opposed to non-parents? >> We will hold to that. Um and that is your 30 seconds. So we'll break that down now. Uh here for our nine subjects, we do have them broken down by kind of four different metrics here. So we see one the percentage of respondents who gave ASD a strong passing grade in each of these nine qualities. So A's and B's. We also see percentage of respondents who gave failing or near failing grades. We then broke that ABCDF scale into a 4.0 GPA scale. We see that GPA score for each of those subjects over there in that fourth column. And then last column we have that same GPA scale but just from respondents who u report having children in ASD. So the parent GPA Can you ask a
010quick question? >> Yeah. >> So for the A and B, so that's literally calculated a GPA, right? So A is as a 4.0 and a B is a 3.0. >> Correct. Y. >> Um, we also broke this down or we organized this table by highest GPA score to lowest GPA. So we're looking at that overall GPA. We see here that ASD's strongest quality is the teachers. We know students are the lifeblood of any district. Teachers are the heart. So we love to see that on top. Um, ASD's second best quality is communications with the public. On the other end of the spectrum, we see ASD's second weakest quality as reported by respondents was the performance of the anchored school board. Sorry guys. Um, and ASD's weakest grade is the fiscal and budgetary responsibility. We see
011ASD's overall grade falling pretty much in the middle there, which we would expect. We have some higher grades and some lower grades that definitely inform how the public perceives ASD overall. We then wanted to get kind of a gauge on how the public perceives the current financial situation that ASD are in. So to the simple question, do you think Alaska schools are receiving enough funding? We see that 62.3% of respondents believe that Alaska schools are not receiving enough funding that belief is held even stronger by respondents with students in ASD. 72.4% of uh those ASD parents believe Alaska schools are not receiving enough funding. Here we see responses to that same question but broken down by the GPA scales. Um, and sorry, I'm gonna pause. I should have said this at the beginning, but I
012will ask if you could write down your questions and then me can go over them at the end. I just want to make sure we're not um spending too much time and getting audience questions. Um, so here we see the responses to that question, are Alaska schools receiving enough funding? Broken down by corresponding GPA scores from those responding groups. Um, we see here that respondents who believe Alaska schools received more than enough funding give ASC a much lower GPA score than respondents who believe that Alaskan schools uh received insufficient funding. Next question was how people perceive the way funding has changed over the last year. A collective 53.9% of respondents in Anchorage believe that funding for Alaska schools has gone down over the past year. 62% of respondents with children in ASD also share this
013belief. Same little bar chart here with the um responses to that question against their collected GPA scores. Again, we see a much lower GPA score from respondents who believe that funding has increased over the past year. In this case, we see respondents who believe that funding has stayed flat and respondents who believe that funding has gone down um give pretty similar GPA scores overall compared to respondents who believe funding has gone. This one was a pretty driving metric. We asked um respondents to give us an idea of how they think BSA should be handled, whether it should be increased, decreased, or kept about the same. We see that 66.3% of respondents believe the BSA should be increased overall, 73.7% of ASD parents and families agree. And while only 14.4% of respondents believe that the BSA
014should be decreased, uh their voice is pretty strong affecting ASD's overall grade. Um, once again, we see that same kind of metric, those responses broken down by the GPA scores. Here we see a really strong correlation between the belief that funding is more than adequate and a lower GPA score. And for this particular one, we see a very linear relationship between those two things, the BSA and the overall GPA. While I would bet that most people in this room have been following the budget crisis as it unfolds, it's always important to listen for the voices that may not yet get the empowered with all of that information. Only 34.9% of respondents were aware of all parts of the federal funding freeze and state vetos, including only 44.7% of ASD families. 19.4% of our population report
015that through this survey, they learned about the cuts for the very first time. Next, we asked respondents to kind of distill their feelings down to one of two choices. The two the two choices we presented were this is a crisis caused by decisions at the state and federal levels. It's short-sighted and it's hurting our ability to educate Alaskan students now in the future. The other option was this has been coming for a while. We cannot keep spending the way that we used to. It's time to cut back and be more responsible with the money that we have. We see that 61.8% 8% of respondents and 62.4% of ASD families believe that this is a crisis caused by decisions at state and federal level. 38.2 of all respondents and 37.6% of respondents with children in ASD
016believe that this has been coming for a while. Our next question asks the public how they think these cuts will affect the quality of education for Alaska students. And we see that overall respondents feel as though these budget cuts will lead to a lower quality education for students. 69.6% 6% of the general public share this belief, including 77.2% of AD families. We then asked the public to rate their level of support for a variety of ideas that may help in closing the budget gap. We give them five options. They were laying off teachers, closing schools, increasing class sizes, cutting funding for gifted programs and after school activities, and laying off teachers. laying off administrative staff received the most support both from the general public and from ASD families. The least popular option from all respondents
017and uh respondents who report children that they see is laying out teachers. Next, we wanted some insights on the various theories of resistance that people might have towards sustainable funding for Alaska schools. So, we asked respondents to hypothesize as to why some people are still resistant to funding public education. And I want to note that the results here um don't necessarily represent the beliefs of the actual respondents in the general population, but rather are kind of a metric to gauge how the public perceives um the thoughts and opinions of their peers. The most popular answer selected by 26.3% of respondents is a thought that resistance to funding public education may stem from a belief that more funding will lead better results. The least popular answer selected by only 2.9% of respondents is a thought that
018resistance to funding public education stems from a belief that schools should cut back like other public services. Next up was a question gauging support for utilizing state funds for non-public schooling options which we found that 65.4% of respondents oppose the use of state funds to support non-public schools. 29.6% of respondents support the use of state funding for non-public options. We see stronger support from um ASD families to the tune of 31.7%. Finally, we wanted to see how much the public supports the recent legal action ASD has brought on. And don't worry guys, the public has your back. 69.3% of respondents support ASD's recent legal action against the federal government with a stronger 71.8% support from ASU fandals. And while I want to put a little disclaimer out, um I'm not here to make recommendations. I'm
019just here to present the data. Uh but the data reveals somewhat of a paradox. Public sentiment towards anger school district is pretty low right now. But a strong majority of people agree that ASD is not receiving adequate funding. The data also shows a direct link between negative attitudes and a belief that the district is already well funded, but it's just mismanaging them. So what does that tell us? It might mean that ASD can lean into its identified strengths, its teachers, and um their communication with the public. By informing the community directly about the district's financial needs and how resources are managed, ASD can rebuild trust, shift the narrative, and rally much needed support for it schools. >> Thank you guys so much. I'm here to I'm happy to do my best to answer any questions
020that you may have. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> Just a question from my understanding. So going back to the waiting. So some people may say, "Oh, this isn't representative acreage, but you're saying your methodology accounts for that because you've added weights so that this is representative of the general population of the bridge." >> Correct. >> Okay. Oh, great. >> I assume um the percentage of people you identified as ASD parents reflects what's real in the general population. Do you know what percentage that is? >> I don't know off the top of my head. Um I do know that um we still have an updated report that we're sending eventually. We should have that to by tomorrow, but MJ currently has um the initial report that we produced which does have some cross population data
021which will kind of give you a breakdown of >> what percentage of the total um sample size. >> It' be helpful to know because it does affect public opinion but I think well under 50% >> I can chime in and answer that question. This is Ivan Moore. Um the percentage of respondents that said they had children in ASD was just tiny bit under 25%. >> Thank you madam chair. >> Yes. >> I I I think I've got the cross tabs what they're called from the full report. Um but I think since we went over the high level data I think it's we probably want to get this as part of this record too. Could you talk about how political ideology played into the survey respondents or just about every question? Um, I'm gonna kick that
022one to Ivan. >> Ivan, welcome. >> Hey. Um, how does political ideology Can you repeat that? >> Yeah. So, uh, can you just I mean walk through what I think I'm seeing, but you're the professional. Is that political ideology played into the attitude about education and the district, the school board, the superintendent? Am I reading that correct? Yeah, I think you can generally say that um political views rightly or wrongly are a strong and fundamental driver of attitudes and perceptions towards all these issues. Um, and if you grab your report and go to either, frankly, the ideology cross tab, uh, or the party affiliation cross tab, um, the ideology one is probably a better place to start because it's just three, um, groups, um, conservative, moderate, and progressive. And you look down the columns and
023compare the results, and they are fundamentally different. And it's too bad, of course, that that's the case, but that's where we are. Does that answer your question? >> It does. Yeah. I think um what I took away from reading the the the full report is that um it's super important that elected officials on both parties speak accurately and responsibly about public education because their misinformation and lack of education awareness is impacting public opinion. And so, if it's intentional, um it looks like it's working. And if it's not intentional, folks needs to do better. Thanks. >> Repeat for me how what percentage of respondents have students in ASD. Just under 25%. So very low percentage actual parents. Okay. Any other questions? >> Um for the um graph funding levels versus GPA um is there a reason
024why there's not a parent breakdown? Is that just because we're comparing two different things? Like basically, can we assume that the parent breakdown is the same as the breakdown on the slide? >> Um, this is the breakdown of the overall GPA from all respondents. >> Um, we don't have that broken down by parent GPA. Um, and I >> I don't think it's right to assume that the parent GPA is going to be the same as this. I do think that we can assume the parent GPA would be a little higher, but we would still see kind of a similar linear almost relationship between adequate funding and low GPA scores. questions online. >> I I do I'm sorry. >> I'm still trying to >> um wrap my head around uh this whole survey. So I I
025I guess how and I have not read the full cir report so I I'll have to own on own that and I um but how how did we explained how how did you explain the grading and how to the to the uh respondents and how did they how did how who got this survey? I know you said 800 and what did it go by? U was it sent by like a email or a text? How how did you do that? >> Yeah, so we sent the survey. We had dual methodology. We sent it out um a majority of our respondents received this via text. We generate a bunch of random Alaska phone numbers. We texted out to them. We also sent it out as an email distribution to a selected panel. We use our panel
026to kind of help us rebalance the demographics with, you know, the decades of um experience that we have. We have a pretty good idea of how people respond initially. So we use our panel which are people who have opted in to receiving our surveys. We use panel um which has some demographic info in it to kind of help us balance that on the front end of the surveys. So those were the two different ways that people could have received this survey. >> Um >> and then I'm sorry can you repeat the first part of your question? >> I think well I maybe the second part maybe because I don't want to take up too much time. So, how did people know um who are not educators what a A B a C a D-grade means?
027Did we explain that somewhere >> or did you leave it up to their own um their own um experience? >> Yeah, we did leave it up to their own experience. Um we phrased it as if it was akin to a report card that you might receive from a public school. Uh but we did not go into detail on what an A versus what an F means. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh I have a question regarding the slide that shows um tell us uh whether you support or oppose X as a way to close the budget gap. >> So I'm wondering if there's a statistically um significant difference between parents that support laying off features and parents that um support increasing class sizes. the same for the general population. >> Um, and I'm kind of
028processing this out loud for the board, too, because I think when we talk about raising class sizes, we are talking about laying off teachers. So, it's fascinating that there's like a really strong gap, particularly amongst the general population, that increasing class sizes has nothing to do with laying off teachers, but laying off teachers is something that much more sacred to the general population than raising class sizes. Are these significant gaps statistically? >> I'm also going to kick that one to Ivan. Um, uh, yeah, it's a good point. I I you'd need to put the numbers back up for me. Um, I remember that laying off teachers was the, uh, lowest. Um, and then, uh, Cena, can you go back and tell me what the difference is? pull it up. >> Yeah, we're >> gap >>
029and >> I guess we pull that. The reason why I'm asking is because I know the legislature recently passed a bill that would put class size paths or targets rather, but I feel like some people don't understand that to get to the target, you need more teachers. This goes back to the funding >> increase. That's my line of question. >> Yeah. Um that is significant. the uh laying off teachers um is a total support of 9.9% and increasing class sizes has a total support of 21%. So yes, that is significant without a doubt. Um I if you uh actually ran a test, but I can tell just by eyeballing it um that yes, there is a inherent lack of understanding here that increasing class sizes um uh involves laying off teachers. But laying off teachers
030is more emotional and personal. Um, and so they don't go for that, but increase class size. Oh, okay. >> So, I'll just close with a comment. I think that this is a messaging piece that we need to think about because increasing class size is something that happens very frequently. But if it were linked to laying on teachers, I think we could trigger more truthful response or more authentic responses. >> And I'd say drop back 10 or 15 years, there was a real direct connection that most people in the public understood. And then we've entered this phase where we have trouble staffing up. So we wind up increasing class sizes by not hiring as many new teachers. Um where before it used to be layoffs. In fact, this district used to lay off every non-tenure teacher
031every year a long time ago. Um so I think then the public got that connection very directly. But but now we we've got times where we don't we lay anybody off, but classics keep going up because we can't reach down from the people that leave. >> What's actually very interesting about that difference if you look on the chart is that the disparity between opinion on those two variables in the total population is much larger than amongst the parents. So the parents get it. It's the non-parents, the majority of the population, 75% who don't have kids in the school district for whom that gap is bigger, that lack of understanding is bigger. >> Any other questions, comments? >> Just I mean a question for MJ. Um, do you feel like this data is useful and can
032help us shape messaging this year? Is this something Can you talk more about how we plan to use this data? >> Yeah, I mean we just we needed a temperature check uh based on the direction the new direction we wanted to go this year. Um and then it's clear that we need to get in more spaces to get accurate information out there. And so we're going to once we get the final report, we're going to digest that more and um work on a community report. Uh we're going to bring back the annual report. We haven't published that since 2019. It's called Expecting the Best. are going to lean into this uh information to help us create that document and others as well. So, it's going to be part of our communication plan. So, more to
033come. >> Yes. >> Can I follow up? So, on that report, is that our like school district report card? >> Basically, yeah, we um we used to publish an annual report and for whatever reason, we haven't. And so, we're going to re uh relaunch it, rebrand it, reimagine it, and use this. >> Hey, you think that's my my personal perfectionist? That's really helpful. I think that we had a conversation about this in some other forum and was like, well, deed already makes a report card, but I think that ASD can and should own it >> and follow its own story >> and we're not going to let people do that for us. >> Yes. >> So, thank you. >> Yes. Yes. >> We're on the next one. And then if I could answer or two
034of that question. I mean for me I'm thinking about going into this next budget cycle. It's going to be really important that the public and legislature understands that for example the $10 million that we just received because of the veto Uber. every dime has gone towards students and student outcomes like tutoring and class sizes and that sort of thing because I think that we need to be just very transparent for all the ways that we're investing our resources towards students because that seems to be where there's a big gap in perception and reality. >> Madam Chair, yeah, so um that's one of I mean I wasn't going to necessarily expand on here but I agree with Dr. Bryant. I also think that when we talk about um public opinion on budgeting and fiscal responsibility, there's
035going to be a huge challenge ahead of us. uh and a disconnect between legislators who have victory lapped extensively on overriding the veto and passing HB7 um and how little that actually addressed the underlying issue of inflation. And so my guess is we see a significant hit if we did that survey six months from now or even a year from now. Um so fiscal responsibility because the public simply doesn't understand and the legislature to their uh for reasons that I understand um victory left passing that bill as a good first step but did not adequately communicate that it is just a first step. Um so I think that needs part of our comp strategy too and even our budget process. Thanks. >> I'm watching the time closely. There's any final questions or comments? We have
036lots of them on the agenda. I want to make sure that we have a chance to get to >> Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it. [Laughter] >> Ivan, thank you for joining us as well. >> Thank you all and sorry for pinching Cena off you. >> She did great. >> It's perfect. >> So, the the next item on the agenda is our community outreach. And Tony, >> we're not done. Oh, never mind. We're not moving forward yet. Okay. >> Well, we are moving forward protecting our progress. Uh which leads us into our legislative priorities. Uh we've got our legislative lunchon uh coming up here uh in the middle of uh next month. And so what we have prepared for you, working with the school board president and the superintendent, um came up
037with a draft of our new legislative priorities that we'd like to debut uh at our legislative lunchon. And so we wanted to get this in front of uh the team here to review and discuss. >> And so we came so we uh for years we were uh our legislative priorities were themed around the 3Bs um busing, bond um and BSA. And so, uh, based on where we are, uh, after, uh, we went through that this summer of uncertainty, uh, we wanted to reframe and refocus and really start in on where we need to lead the district. And so you can see where the narrative sort of sets that up and then it uh goes down to the four um recommendations that we have here in front of you. Starting with um fiscal plan and really
038leaning into our partners to have a sound fiscal plan to get us to a space of stability which we are not at. Uh and so we provided uh a couple bullet points here. And then the second one uh that we uh created here was around purchasing power. as you hear about inflation proofing and so on. So we came up with some uh talking points, bullet points to address uh the need for that and then we went down to number three which is our retirement retention and we really have been talking about that for several years and so defined benefit is going to be one of the top focuses of this this incoming session. So we wanted to lean into that and support um uh Marty's team uh with those needs. And then the last one
039is where Jim's team really has been um focused on those improvements and that is in uh the lane, no pun intended, of transportation. So open up for discussion. >> I can just add a disclaimer. I definitely want feedback on these to improve them because we did have a really um long discussion around purchasing power and the message that I want the legislators to understand is yes, two things are true. $700 BSA increase was historic and was a huge value, especially for future planning. But when I say protecting our progress and restoring purchasing power, I I want them to understand why there's still a structural deficit because when we talk about our purchasing power, it's still been eroded. like when the conversation started around education funding, it was closer to about $1,800 and $700 of an
040increase as a first step, but we're still so far behind and our progress by definition will be eroded if we just keep status quo. So, it's a very complex nuanced message and it may or may not be reflected here, but if board members think that it should be a more prominent um talking point or message, I'm open to ideas. >> Um, thank you. I haven't spent time with all of these, but um under the fiscal plan, the very first dot, you know, I penciled in the word partially after the word stability, right? That we had stability partially restored in 2025. Senator Okowski had a a quote that I sort of return to repeatedly in the news media that, you know, yes, I'm glad HB57 passed. It got us 39% of the way there. That is
041partial. That is um that is not complete. And then just to let everybody know, there's a really big slide deck in the legislative task force and slides 19, but maybe I like 20 better. You have a 20 year a nice 20-year graph. I realize this is bringing quote a pencil to a knife fight. Um, but but it shows pretty convincingly that we are partially restored. um and we are not all the way there and that we are massively down what the value of a dollar can allow us to invest in our students as our intensive need students increase in number as students come in less and less prepared on the Alaska developmental profile right the needs are growing the dollars are not >> I just base just >> I also I looking at these now
042I wonder if we need to specify state fiscal plan on number one just so folks aren't confused that legislators think we're talking to like we have a fiscal plan that's based off their action but we need them to look at their budget as closely as they look at ours any comments online make sure you guys have the opportunity >> okay >> this this is Margot I'm I'm still pondering But I think um I mean I don't disagree with any of them. They they sound like they're statewide priorities. I I mean are we trying to do a more uh global priorities, not so specific to ASD? Is that the intent? >> Madam Chair. >> Yes. >> So I won't speak for administration. I'll just speak for why why I think these are great. Um >> I
043didn't say they weren't great. >> Well, thank you. >> Just have a I just want to know the tone. The tone. >> I think but I think the challenge is that um at a certain level in terms of what the legislature can do, the challenge is kind of universal for most school districts. um the state fiscal plan and the lack of um progress in that area over the last decade is undermining public education from Anchorage to um purchasing power eroding is impacting districts differently but it's impacting us all retirement retention certainly is more dramatic out in rural districts but um Porierce would tell you that it's sign a significant issue here and and so would Mr. line and then student transportation certainly Anchorage is being impacted but also so we we saw Matsuk Eni Juno
044struggle too and so the fact that our priorities sound similar to other districts I think is an indication that these priorities probably will land well and be effective because we'll have coalition partners there but they're also all true and relevant for ASD. >> Yeah. And I have a um different comment. Um going to transportation, one thing I've been talking with the team about but has not reflected on this document yet is somehow linking transportation funding to this ongoing conversation around the disparity test. Because my understanding is that if the legislature just invested in stabilizing transportation funding, there wouldn't be these large transfers that result in a failed disparity test. To me, investing in transportation is a lot cheaper and a lot less disruptive than to tell municipal districts that they need to possibly forego cost
045of transportation. So, that's just my perspective, but I'm wondering if it would add value to add that context to our legislative priorities. >> I I couldn't see what was above transportation, guys, there, but I I think transportation really really needs to include a reform of the existing formula. The statute's out of date and it's objectively and provably broken by the fact that other districts had surplus transportation funds which they were transferring to their general funds which was the cause of the federal question and Anchorage is $4 million short from being fully funded in transportation by state funds. So those that formula those those dollar amounts are are are way out of date and objectively unfair. So we need we need a change in that statute that's based on a rational um analysis of the actual
046cost of delivering transportation just like we need a new district cost differential. >> America, can you scroll up so he can see the retirement and retention? So Dave, retirement and retention was number three. Change on the screen so you could see that as well. >> I talked to two legislators last night and um neither one of them had ever heard that the transport how they even they didn't even know how the transportation funding statute worked and didn't know that that was the understand that that was the cause of the discrepancy the federal question. So, it's not penetrating enough to the legislators. It's not getting to them. They were both one was from Fairbanks and and one was from uh Southeast. >> Any other comments, questions, Kelly? I haven't fully thought about how I would word
047what's about to come out of my mouth, but um considering some of the input here in the survey research that there is uncertainty among some folks in Anchorage about slides. They don't believe more funding will lead to better results. feel like that needs to be a part of the legislative priorities, right? An articulation that the funding that we we want to use to um you know fund the classroom experience, right? We don't just want to fund the classroom experience. who want to fund the classroom experience in order to quite frankly I think it should be something along the lines of you know allowing students the you know the opportunity to achieve to the state standards when sort of pulling some language out of uh the more case I think better after writing this out but
048um I I think that we part of our priorities we need to encapsulate that the funding that we're seeking is going to be to improve student outcomes. >> I've got a question that yeah stems from that. When are we wanting to have our priorities and language finalized >> for the lunchon? >> For the saf uh so it should be on the calendars. It's uh September 17th 11 to1 at King Tech. Dr. Brian's going to lead the discussion and really the framework of the discussion you can see is in the draft narrative before um the legislative priorities. >> So this is a board question. Do we want to schedule a time just to talk about >> or do we think this is sufficient? Yeah, my suggestion is if comms can provide general feedback on the anod
049that we're headed in the right direction along with some suggested um additions. I think that um you as the chair um MJ, Dr. Bryant and myself can hammer out and refine um but a good non committee will be today. I don't think workshopping it here as well. >> I feel like we're going to run out of time really quick. Yeah. So, I think if there's any any missing pieces or anything that isn't landing well, I think this would be a good time to have this conversation ahead of the lunch. any objections, comments to moving forward with um sending any input by by email just to make sure or if our board members want to go ahead and say, "Hey, we're on the right track and we'd be moving forward in the right direction." >> My
050my suggestion, Madam Chair, is just to ask for consensus to move forward and then put a deadline for feedback maybe by Monday or something. >> Perfect. Do we have a consensus from our board members that hasn't been online to move forward? >> Any Marggo? >> Yeah, sure. >> Dave, >> yes. Yes. But I I I really want to emphasize how strongly I feel about the the priorities ought to include both the area costs the the district cost differential study and a study of the transportation statute funding statute re both the huge dollar amounts for us if they were just objectively fair. >> And Dave, would you mind just following up with an email just to to make sure we're not missing anything and send that to America, please? I want to make sure your input
051is is considered. >> He said, "Sure, you'll send it to me." >> Okay, perfect. >> Any other last comments, questions before we move forward on the agenda? >> Echo what Kelly said. I think a lot of times we talk about lowering by size. we just assume that translates to people. But there's, I think, a pretty good effort by some folks that don't like public education much to say, "No, lower class sizes don't really make that much difference." Um, but if we do talk about what we're able to put back in the classroom because we're we're generally not just adding teachers, we're adding programs or staffing up programs, creating opportunities that really do engage kids. that that may be a bit harder for them to push back on. Um, but it's just a thought. I I'm
052I'm stuck on the notion that 75% of the general public only knows what's going on in our schools from what they hear on the radio or see and whatever media they consume. And and I think that makes it a real uphill battle for us >> especially if we cannot control most of the media. So the message >> So we had a couple more things on comms. I'm just looking at the time. So we also have Tony and we also have um Sean. >> So I think just timing wise let's just table and do this at September's >> sounds good. >> Yeah. or so that concludes communications. >> Well, thank you, sir. >> Oh, okay. Transition. >> Okay. Um, >> sorry. Yeah, >> back to school launched and it was great and we had a wonderful
053outreach outreach event uh that Tony produced and so there you go. >> Here we go. Okay. So, I provided for you a copy of the final hubs data. We actually just finished this this morning. Um, so we had this on August 1st at Begage. It's our first big kind of community outreach event for the year. Um there's lots of information listed for you there. We were really proud of the different school types that we um served based on our population and what we have. This was the first year that we also did a community survey feedback. The second year that we did the vendor update, but we received um very good feedback from the community around the organization. We had a lot of help this year from Jim's team as well as um the project
054management team. So, it's something that we are finding is really helpful with linking it back to school. We had preschool registration going on and it's something that we just hope to continue expanding especially around registration and getting those numbers up earlier um in the future. So, I have that information there for you. Um, we also had free vision screenings this year and we completed over 150 of those as well and they are already excited to come back for next year. Um, the second major updates that I have for you there are just all of the advisory committee meeting schedules. So, MAC's schedules uh are listed there as well as SEAK. Um, the Native Advisory Committee actually just had their first meeting last night where they vote on their remaining meetings for the rest of the
055year. So, I um will get those to Katie and America because I received them this morning. Um, we do have we had a joint meeting last year of all the advisory committees. It was around right sizing. All of the committees have actually asked to repeat such a meeting um this year and we're looking at November. So that might be something the November 12th date for me that's a joint advisory committee meeting. And then I just have listed for you some of our upcoming events that are already happening uh for the month of September. But that is your update that I have for you around community engagement if you have any questions. >> Yes. Um, if I think I'm tracking Kate's right, the November meeting for the joint committee isn't going to be too late because
056we're doing our work in October. Is that what I remember from finance? >> Oh, it's not the topic wasn't necessarily around right sizing. That's what our joint meeting was last year was not right sizing. >> Well, if the if the committees want to provide right sizing feedback, which I think is always great, October is going to be it or maybe September. I don't know. Anyway, just flagging that we're going to be doing that in October. >> Thank you. What What time are the MACK meetings? >> So, the MAC meetings start at 5:30 and they are in the blue room. >> Awesome. >> Thank you. And the backpack event was fabulous. I my my daughter actually volunteered, but um she said it was it was amazing. So thank you. That was and I I really appreciate
057the collaboration because I know in past years there was multiple organizations running similar events which um became difficult for the community. So this is this is awesome that there's so much collaboration to to pull this off and so many partners that that came in to help. So love it. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Any other comments, questions, Tony? >> Sounds like a good endorsement. So, let's move on to the last item on the agenda, our academyy's linkage update. Sean, I'm gonna pivot to you. >> Awesome. Thank you. Just want to say welcome to everybody. Uh, with me today for our report for the comm's uh communications committee is director Deon Roberts who's sitting right behind me. He's the director of CTE. And then we have also director Cindy Shaku, who is also here as director
058of college, career of life. We just wanted to update you on some things that have been happening um this summer and then also recently in our school start for this year. So, as with all things, we have um our guaranteed experiences for our ninth graders. We had our freshman first day, which is also the same as our sixth grade first day where we're trying to build a sense of belonging for our students as they transition from one uh division in elementary to middle school and then again from middle to high. We do have our college and career exploration with personal finance class that is being taught at all of our comprehensive high schools. We have our career expo which is coming up in September. And we have campus visits at the university uh locally. Uh
059we did have some uh college and career exploration teacher trainings. was a request from our last meeting to talk about how we had made sure that we have all of our educators up to snuff on the the revisions to our course and that was done through our Anchorage uh ASDSA which is our teacher training and professional development in May and then we had a cross district in service in August where we had dedicated time for any teachers that were unable to make the ASDSA uh trainings. School links training has been uh ongoing. So as we look at school links as our way to communicate um all kinds of that hub as Devon has often used the u example of a Swiss Army knife. It does all kinds of things for our students, parents, community, our
060industry partners. It brings all those things together in one place. And later we'll show you a video that we had some students uh voice lent to the idea of school links and what it can offer. So, it's going to be kind of a teaser for you. Uh, we did work with our counselor groups and how they're going to employ School Links as a counseling branch for preparing our students for that next step after high school. And then also, school links training was done for our college career exploration teachers. This is just a slide of some media that we did have um through one of our social media outlets talking about introducing the college and career exploration and personal finance class. We're getting that out through some of our social media outlets. And then we also
061had some academy coaching work this summer. So uh last year our our academy coaches won the ASD's most prestigious award which is the Denali award for all their work lifting up themies of Anchorage last year in its first year. We did have college and career exploration teacher support during May and August social media training with Sagio on August 6th. We had career exploration uh career expo planning in August 7th and then uh if you want to talk to us a little bit about the the H. >> You bet. So this summer we had some opportunities for academy coaches to participate in some um teacher externships. So we were able to the next slide is um to visit HAP on the ground as well as at sea. So, a bunch a few of us attended um
062their rail stations as well as at the bottom of one of their cruise ships that often uh or doesn't very often end up in Anchorage, but we were able to really get a deep dive in what that looks like. Um ultimately was a great opportunity for us to begin a partnership with them of providing opportunities for our kids to get on those ships. Um we've um are setting up a a field trip with our process technology in the bottom of the belly of one of these ships. So um that's coming up soon for our students. Um it was just really a a great connection. Um and we also participated in the the Alaska Resource Education teacher externship this summer. Uh that was with numerous teachers across the state where uh we visited uh uh the
063the gold mine up north of course. As you can see, I'm at the pipeline um as well. Um and they also took us up to the slope. Um so they we so teachers could really see what the north slope was all about. And we were, what was really awesome is one of our teachers who will be teaching the natural resource uh class at West uh saw one of his students who was in a student internship while he was up there. So, it was a great connection. >> Uh Alaska resource education is continuing supporting um diamond this year when their natural resource pathway and they're expanding into less. So we were growing up that >> I think they're supporting a power program to itself. Is that right? >> Thank you. And also a power program at
064South after school. >> Social media strategies again uh newmies of Anchorage accounts. We have a LinkedIn account, Facebook account, an Instagram account, and a YouTube account. So this is just a way for us to make sure that all of our social media outlets are being touched. So it it almost seems like no matter where you are, you're going to be hearing about the great things that we're doing with themy's advantage. We're making sure that all of our uh academy coaches are working closely with Corey Young out of our communications department and u streamlining how they are going to be messaging out a consistent message about all the things that we're doing. So, we're really excited about the work that the academy coaches are doing with ASD communications team, which has has been a real wonderful
065support and asset for us as we move forward. >> Yeah, they have been using a lot of uh cameras and resources just to make sure that we capture and highlight all the great things that are going on in our schools around the district and then putting them out on all those social medias spots. Um, this is a welcome video that we wanted to share. Uh, really appreciate this one. Um, and in all of these videos that that we're going to show you, we hope to show you two of them. In this first one, I really think it's important that we look at what we all try to hold sacred, and that is the students, right? What is the student voice? How do we see the impact of what they're working on, how they connect with
066things? And then the second one we're to show you that freshman first day at South and if you can just imagine what it would be like to be a new freshman going to a big school and what that looks like and how you feel a sense of welcome and belonging. So this first one is going to be our welcome back tomies and I will try to make this >> audience sound. >> Wish we would had it help. I'm so sorry. I'm not sure. [Music] next week. >> Let's start with school. It's your personal planning tool for high school and beyond. You can go through colleges and apply for scholarship all in one spot. >> Look real world experience. We've got new classes, internships, and internships to help you draw career paths now, not later. >>
067At King Tech and the Alaska Middle College School, students from all over the district are building real skills in high demand fields. Some even earn college credit while you're here. You can go deep, find your passion, and leave high school with a head start. >> This is your time to try something new. Find out what you're good at and go for it. >> Want to build leadership skills? CL is for students who want to grow, lead, and get ready for what future is. >> School isn't just for classes. Don't forget to get involved in the club or robotics USA sports or music. Whatever you're into, there's something for you. >> Being here matters. You show up. When you grow, you open up. >> This is your year to discover what inspires you. Build skills. Take
068steps toward the life that you want. and we'll support you every step of the way. >> Let's go. >> Your future starts here. >> College, career, and life. >> We're ready. >> Are you welcome to >> It was so exciting. All right, >> back to the show. Um, we're gonna move on to the next slide here. So, is everybody still seeing this? I feel like we're not on screen. So, this is um some more social media for Robert Service High School showing their medical academy pathway and then also the health sciences pathway at East. some more social media been offered and then we can show our freshman first day video and we're going to do the same echo thing I think. >> Yeah, just to give you some context. This wasn't um filled by us,
069but rather a teacher at South High School who the academy coaches are working on posting at least once a week each one of them on their social media sites something about themies whether it Please. Thank you. This um this slide, I know this came up during one of our last schoolboard meetings and was talking about the freshman first day and how the reaction of staff and students really felt about that day. Um, we do have freshman first day surveys that go out through our academy coaches to all of our uh, college and career exploration classes as well as we offer a staff survey. So, this is kind of in that same kind of 4.0 is is an outstanding exceptional grade. So, out of four and when we look at the number of staff that completed
070the survey, we asked the people who are directly involved in the creation and hosting and participating in that freshman first day. So 254 staff completed the survey and they rated we have some quotes pulled out from from those surveys. They rated a 3.79 uh of awesomeness. And then the students response 2145 students responded reporting that they felt that it was also a 3.5 out of four uh for a successful day. >> Thanks. So, we just thought we would try to capture that because I know it had come up and I think that just having the data in a point um of reference for us from the people that were actually receiving this day as their first entry point into school and then the staff that were actually bringing that sense of belonging to each one
071of their students. This is reflected really well here. >> And so, just so everybody is aware, the survey does not close until tomorrow. So we don't expect these to change much context. >> Then our career and technical education expansion. We are still expanding courses and we want to make sure that you are aware that currently the expansion is in navigating careers in care, crafting construction careers, exploring business, student enterprise, learning and leadership, mechatronics, natural resource and environmental management and then biotechnology. >> Yeah. So, and I could give you a little more information. So there's additional there's many schools that are offering additional sections of pre-existing CTE programs. So just to put it in context like there are more sections of existing C these specifically are are brand new programs um that are being um they're
072being built out. So um navigating careers and care is at three schools. Crafting construction careers is currently at two schools. Exploring business is at one. Student enterprise is at two. learning and leadership. There's a pre-existing leadership or education program at at Bartlett. Um that's legacy and Eagle River is actually going to be providing a course this year. So there there will be a new program there. Uh it's new program at South Meatronics. The natural resources environmental management as Cindy mentioned earlier was private diamond but is also now at West. So we have two sites for that. Um, and then we've have a great CT teacher, science teacher over at Polaris who's been building out an entire pathway starting with medical detectives, which is a project lead the way class the eighth grade principles of of
073biomedical science uh for nth and tth graders and then she's revising her biotech classes to be biotechnology one and two classes for those upper classmen. So, um, so it's pretty pretty great stuff going on. We actually have some newer program as well at stellar. Um there's a video production class as well as their their u there's a Brian Garing over there who's who's offering some um IT um classes as well for students. That's that's sort of where they're finding some interest. So that's just a snippet of some of the new things that we're able to to to grow at some of the schools. >> That was it. That's our update. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Any other questions, comments before we journey? And we were gentlemen, thank you for your time. Be awesome.