08/19/2025: School Board Meeting

001[Music] Good evening everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, August 19th meeting of the ASD school board to order. Time is 6:00 p.m. on the dots. We will have our roll call. Um I note members Higgins, Lessons, Donley, student representative Madison, myself, member Jacobs, member Wilson, member Hollowman, and then member Bellamy is online with us. So we are all in attendance. Uh Madison, if you would please lead us in the flag salute and then read the land acknowledgement. Thank you. [Music] We acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of the Denina people of the Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the Denina people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. ASD is committed to diversity and inclusion, and it is with honor and respect that we recognize all indigenous

002people who live and learn in our community. >> Thank you, student representative Madison. We want to welcome you to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the Anchorage School District and this board. The board thanks our students, parents, teachers, staff, school business partners, and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time, your talents, and your tax dollars. With that said, we have an agenda in front of us. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as drafted? >> Move to approve the agenda as drafted >> by made by member Hullman. Seconded by member Wilson. Is there any objection to approving the agenda as drafted? Hearing or seeing none. We have an agenda. Thank you everyone. We'll move on to B1, our reports. Um, Madison, student representative

003report is first. The floor is yours. >> All right. Thank you. So, most importantly, coming back from summer, a lot of our students have been very excited and proud. I know at my school, I think we welcomed about 200 new students, 200 new freshmen. That's really great. Our new student orientations across the district have been moving and going. But most importantly in our region right now is what's happening is OSOG. So, if you don't know what that is, um I'm a part of my student government, but there are many other student governments across the state. So, we meet up at our state conferences in the fall and the spring, and we call it the Alaska Association of Student Governments. But lucky enough, our region in Anchorage is going to be hosting the fall conference that's

004happening um for this year. And the theme of the conference is called anchoring new change. And it's a really sweet thing because we talked about how we wanted to try and include more schools, especially schools from rural areas, at least in our district, and also spread that message across the state. But of course, we say we're anchoring it because we're Anchorage. So, we tried to be a little clever with that. And it's really cute because our logo kind of goes with it being Anchorage and having pride in our city like that. It's going to be hosted on October 23rd through 25th and it will be Alaska Pacific University also known as APU. Now it's been 10 years since the last time ASD has hosted an NSA conference. So that's going to be a really great

005achievement for us to be able to complete. And the most important thing is that I want to let know any student government adviserss or current student government students and members if you're interested in attending this fall conference here in Anchorage or you're interested in attending our spring conference which will be in Juno um to please contact my advisor because we can help you get in touch so that way you can get some assistance for joining especially if you're trying to become a member. That's our most important thing is getting students involved with this organization. um her email can be found at lewis_daniel asdk12.org or and from there we can help you. But that's a really great thing happening with our students in the district is that the state's meeting up here in Anchorage and hopefully

006our conference will go really great. And I myself because I'm the president of the ASD student advisory board. My other board members, our secretary, vice president and pr will also be the registars for this conference. So there'll be a lot of work on our hands, but it's going to go great and I'm hoping that Anchorage gets the recognition that it deserves. And um another important thing is that with um the new district policy referring to cell phones for our schools. So at least I know for Eagle River High School, we are the only high school right now that is doing an away all day policy for our phones. So typically with this district policy, this means that high schools can still have their phones during passing and lunch. But at our school, we just decided

007that we are not doing that and we're completely taking away phones just as like middle schools and elementary schools are doing right now. There's a lot of mixed feelings on it. But I will say after the first few days of implementing it, we do have medical exemptions for people who need their devices for such and our office has implemented ways for you to contact your parents or loved ones. So, it has been working for us, but I will say it's a lot different than other high schools in our district right now and it does stand out. But other than that, I can tell that many students are excited about fall sports, fall sports starting up in our region. And I know that drama, debate, and forensics is going to be starting on the 30th, which

008is an academic activity. But other than that, um, Anchorage students have been excited to start the new year, and hopefully we can make a lot of change. Thank you. >> Thank you. We'll open up to questions for our student representative. Seeing none, I'm going to jump in really quick and ask uh Madison, is the Eagle River um representation group at the SAB considering bringing a resolution forward regarding the campus specific cell phone policy you're seeing in Eagle River? >> Um can I ask a follow-up question to that? So, are you referring to like bringing a resolution for our current policy to be referred to like the district? Yeah, if if there's uh any interest from the Eagle River representation on the SAB to change Eagle River's sight specific policy. >> Um yeah, so I know

009at least my adviser, she's talked a bit about how this could look like at different other ASD schools that could follow Eagle River's way of having an away all day policy. I know we're the only ones doing it right now, but it's very um it's very likely that we could bring forward a resolution to try and do the same policy at other schools. As of right now, it's not a plan, but it is possible. >> Yeah, thank you for that. Seeing no other questions for our student representative, thank you, Madison, for your report. Um item B2 is our military report. Believe Colonel Hansen's with us tonight. Welcome, sir. Always great to see you. Welcome and the floor is yours. Thank you and good evening. Uh good evening Anchorage School District School Board members. Good to

010see the familiar faces again. And uh want to say uh thanks for allowing me to provide remarks. Um President Jacobs, Superintendent Bryant, good to see you all again. and to the to the ASD staff. My name is Colonel Dustin Hansen. I'm the mission support group commander on Joint Base Elondorf Richardson and I'm also the primary school liaison along with a small team for our military connected students. Uh again, I want to express welcome to the new school year and I anticipate continuing our healthy partnership with the school district as we embrace wins and challenges uh that promise to be held uh for these next 10 months. This year, JBR is home to over 1,600 students. We have about 650 students that are attending off-base schools, roughly 280 students, military connected students going to high school,

011about 380 students going to middle school, and about 950 students uh on base attending our three elementary schools on base there. These numbers just simply reinforce the importance of fostering a good, healthy relationship with team ASD. Speaking of good relationships, uh over this past summer, JB Bear organized a meeting with our home instructed community. Basically, uh who are the homeschoolers on base? Uh we wanted to listen and learn what their challenges were and what their thoughts were. Uh and we learned quite a bit and we're going to continue having probably about a monthly home instructed uh community meeting. Uh, one thing that I learned was that the families express gratitude for Anchora School District's uh, Frontier Charter School and the support that it has provided. There's a lot of new home instructed families, young ones

012that don't know how to navigate this course. And so, they expressed their appreciation for the support they received from Frontier Charter School. There was also some other parents that expressed their appreciation for local schools in terms of the support that they provided through programs, extracurriculars to these home instructed families. This reinforces a memorandum that came out of uh from Secretary of Defense Hegsth. Uh the memorandum came out on May 15th and it's entitled it's titled homeschooling support for military connected students. Inside this memorandum there is a um a directive to look at departmentwide a support for homeschooling I'm sorry homeschooling military connected families. Within this memorandum and I can provide a copy to the team here. Uh it states it states that the department will uphold the directive uh referencing executive order 14191 to improve

013the education, the well-being and future successes of military connected students, supporting parents and choosing the best educational options for their children, ensuring that military connected families receive strong educational support, maintaining morale and readiness, reinforcing the overall stability and the effectiveness of our military communities. And I think that expresses exactly the kind of partnership and relationship that we have with ASD here. So again, I want to say thank you um for for the support that you have provided this past year and I look forward to the partnership we have this year. Finally, speaking of presidents, uh I want to say uh August 15th was a fantastic day. Uh last Friday, we hosted President Trump and President Putin on JBR. Uh I want to say that uh I was in tight communication with the events leading up

014to this event uh with Mr. Jim Anderson as we were planning the bus routes and you know understanding what was and what was not going to be affected uh for the most part uh throughout the week and it was it turned out very dynamic on Friday. Uh I I want to express that the patience and the grace that the schools and the principles and the staff had as what we had planned to be a pretty uh a relatively non-impactful event for bus routes turned to be extremely impactful uh right when schools were getting released as President Putin decided to transit uh from one part of the base to the national cemetery uh to lay some wreaths on some of the uh um stones there in the cemetery. And so that was a last minute change

015and that certainly impacted the buses. Uh Mr. Jim Anderson, I had him on speed dial to provide as much uh information as we can as we started having school buses uh just getting stopped, right? Because we just uh simply providing security along this route. So uh I'm no longer uh I'm not even concerned about winter weather coming up because I have Mr. Jim Anderson and the entire bus team like ready to like here ready to go for winter weather. But, uh, that was a good practice. Um, over this past Friday, uh, JBR learned a lot. I say we walked away from this this Alaska summit, uh, with smiles and cheers as Jabber basically pulled off what felt like an air show within six days. Uh, it was it was a herculean effort and I would

016say like, you know, at least the team that helped put it together, uh, they were very proud of what they did. With that, I stand by for any questions as I look forward to a new school year with you all. Thank you, Colonel. Just note before we see if there's any questions that you are welcome to coordinate with Mr. Anderson, however, you cannot have him. We need him here. Yeah. Are there questions for the colonel from the board? Member listens. >> Um, thank you. Thank you for the report. Um, congratulations on the successful logistics on a complex day. Um, you know, I was talking with uh a parent whose son is uh should be out should by at this point out the door enlisting um in the program that he has chosen in the armed

017services. I'm just curious. We talk about um you know post-graduation plans. Do you have a sense of how many or do we have a sense of how many of our students or graduates from this past year you know are choosing enlistment? I mean, we talk about employment, we talk about enrollment, and we talk about enlistment as and I'm just curious what our baseline is uh for that sort of possibility. >> I'm confident that I can reach out to the recruiting office locally and find out those numbers exactly, member lessons. Be happy to share that with you. Are you looking at enlisted and officer as well? >> I don't know enough to ask a nuanced question. So that sounds like a great area to pursue. >> If they're joining the military, I will provide that information.

018>> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Thank you, member lessons. Member Wilson. >> I just wanted to add to that. I don't know if you have access to National Guard numbers as well, but I think incorporating that information would be beneficial as well. >> Yeah, number. >> Yes, ma'am. A holistic picture, a total force integration, um, who's going into it. We can do that. >> Okay. Seeing no other questions from the board, Colonel, thank you so much for being here and for your report. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh item B3, our board conference and committee reports. I'll note that our board committees have not met since the school year started. Is there any board committee chair who wishes to speak at this time? [Music] And I will note for our record that the board committees will meet

019on the 28th midday. Okay. >> Mr. Chair, >> member Bellamy. >> Sorry, I'm not a committee chair, but I would like to report on AASB activities that are coming up here real quick if I might. >> Please do. >> So, uh just for the benefit of our uh board members, for your planning purposes, uh in October 20, we have a the follow events for AASB. the resolutions if you have any that you want us to consider. We have to get them in by October 15th. Um, and then we have the executive assistance training that's coming up on the 9th of September. And then our a two-day board uh fall boardsmanship academy will follow the executive assistance training and that will be both of those will be at the Marriott and we are looking for presenters

020for our um annual statewide conference. Um, so I would like to invite uh some of our wonderful innovative staff to put in proposals for those and that's going to be held this year at the Egan. And uh finally coming up real quick uh in a couple of weeks is our statewide charter school uh academy. And I'm not sure where that's going to be held. Usually it's at KCC, but I'll have to check uh on that. But uh we usually have quite a number of our charter schools that participate in that academy. If you need more information, just send me an email or a text. Thank you. >> Thank you, Madam Vice President. All right, seeing no other reports, we'll move on to item C1, guardrail number three. Superintendent will not allow unsatisfactory employee performance to

021go unidentified or unadressed. Um we don't have our typical um introduction because this is a guardrail and this is the first time we are actively monitoring this work. Dr. Bryant, would you be willing to open maybe with an introduction as to what our guardrails are uh for members of the community who are turn tuning in for the first time? Thank you. >> Absolutely, Mr. President. So uh every board meeting the board is engaged in some form of goal monitoring and typically these focus on our academic outcomes. We have a reading goal, we have a math goal, and we have a college career and life readiness goal. So we as a school board and administration focus on this for a lot of time during our meetings. So what we're doing now is taking it to the

022next level because in addition to the board goals, the board has also set guard rails which aren't specifically about the actions of the students or about what they're learning, but they reflect the values of the community that the board gathered through a very robust process several years ago. So uh we want to make a regular practice to keep the board up to speed in terms of progress on the guardrails. Tonight's guardrail is on guardrail three, which is that the uh superintendent uh will not allow unsatisfactory employee performance to go unidentified or unressed. And years ago uh the the board administration landed on measuring this through uh teacher evaluation data as well as participation in the training for evaluators, both those who are certificated and those who are uh classified. And through those metrics, we're able

023to use that as a proxy for progress towards the the board's guardrail and community's value. Uh so today, we'll be happy to answer questions from board members about this guardrail if you have any. Um but of course the really the heart of goal monitoring is on the academics. The guardrails support that. So that said, I'll open it up if there are any questions for board members. This is our leadership team. >> Thank you, Dr. Bryant. So the board has had this report now um has a chance to review. Are there board members who have questions at this point? Member Bellamy, >> I do. Sorry. Um, thank you. Uh, I I really do appreciate the report. Um, and I because there were things in the report that even I didn't know of and I thought I

024kind of knew almost everything, but uh, I broke my questions out into um, bargaining groups. And not to be not to be nitty-gritty and not to get in the weeds, uh, but but I guess if somebody on the panel and I can't see who's there, but I can almost guess, but if somebody on the panel can just give an overview of uh start with like A.E.A. and kind of talk about what what what that what what what are the and take AEA then move on to the another group and just talk about you know what what are the areas what are we seeing what are we what are we addressing and how are we addressing what are we seeing in terms of people uh who need support how are we supporting them and um you

025know what you know the trainings talk a little bit about the the various trainings. >> Member Bellamy, this is Marty Lang. I'll start. For the record, I'm the chief human resource officer. And just to give you a sense of who else is up here, um I'm joined by Dr. Kirsten Johnson. She's the deputy chief of schools. Um for the public, she supervises all of our senior directors who work directly with our principles in the schools to support these efforts. Um Peggy Rankin is here as well. She's the senior director of talent management. she has really along with her team been instrumental in supporting um our classified supervisors and classified evaluation. And then we're also joined with uh by Mandy Clark who is the director of principal pipeline and leadership development and she has really picked

026up the mantle over this last year and been um side by side with our principles at general leadership training them around uh the Danielson framework which is the evaluation tool that we use um with our AA members with our teachers in classrooms. And so I think I'll pass it to her to start with some of those questions um specific to some of the training that she's done with uh principles around the framework over the last year and some of the trends that we um have seen uh from the evaluation data. >> Sure. Thank you. So um some of the training that we've done with our principles with APA is that um last year we um provided four different opportunities every month for um principles to be able to um learn about the Danielson framework, calibrate

027um their evaluation or their observations with each other um and be able to um really work and hone in their skills on um teacher observ ations um and the evaluation. Um this year we're looking at moving more towards a tiered model where we're going to be looking at principles that have had a lot of experience um doing evaluations and observations um and providing differentiated supports to those principles that um have been around for a while and those principles that are brand new and need more um support in um in working and learning about the observation um the observation and evalu valuation tool. So there was some questions about AEA and what areas of weakness um that we see most frequently linked to unsatisfactory or basic ratings. And some of those um some of those components

028um that we see um that resulted in plans of growth or plans of improvement for um for our teachers are in the area of 2 a creating an environment of respect and rapport. um 2D maintaining uh managing student behaviors. Um 3A communicating with students, 3 C engaging students in learning and 4F showing professionalism. And um we we really work with principles to be able to help um address and coach our teachers um in making improvements in these areas. Um and we provide a lot of additional supports um for our teachers who um show that they need some additional um learning or some additional supports um to be able to make improvement and that's through focus PE professional development through learning about um different engagement strategies and specific content areas participating in the mentoring program um

029receiving supports through our professional learning teacher experts and um and then receiving additional um coaching and professional development opportunities. So, we do track, one of the questions that was asked was about um have we tracked teachers um that have received basic ratings and have they improved um and do they do they wind up moving from a plan of growth to a proficiency model or do they wind up um moving to a plan of improvement? And just this last year um we were able to track that we had 12 teachers that were placed in a plan of growth. That means that they receive two basics on their evaluation um based on the prepoundonderance of evidence through different observations. And 10 of those 12 um teachers progressed off of the plan of growth onto a proficiency evaluation.

030And what we found over time is that um teachers who have been able to progress off of a plan of improvement or a plan of growth um wind up not ever going back on that plan of growth or plan of improvement. So they wind up sustaining that improvement over time. Thank you. That's great. What at what point does a um a plan of growth become a plan for improvement? Is that like a contractual thing? >> In the uh negotiated agreement with Anchorage Education Association, there is an article that is specific to evaluation that outlines um some of what's in state statute and then some of what's been worked out between the district and the association over time in terms of what our evaluation cycle looks like and um how we address performance concerns specifically. There's

031also a follow-on document um there's actually a committee as well um a joint committee with the district and the association um that that meets uh annually talks about evaluation issues and works on the certificate certified evaluate educator evaluation document also known as the seed. I had to think for a second what it actually was uh in its full form but um so yeah there there is a lot of discussion around that. there is a a progression um that's kind of outlined through that and you know a number of different ways um that folks can travel. What we see in most instances is as these things are noted um folks lean into that you know they they take the supports that are available to them whether that's mentoring support from their principal additional resources and and

032they work hard to to grow in those areas and to become proficient on their evaluations as Mandy outlined. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you, member Bellamy. Um, a follow-up question regarding that discussion. Um, which I didn't send in advance because it didn't occur to me until just a moment ago. We or I don't see the data on here that breaks down of the that the educators with one unsatisfactory rating, um, a basic rating or one rating that's below proficient by their tenure in the district. Do we see that first year teachers make up a significant portion of these populations? And I'm wondering if there's any intersection between that potential link and then we have a significant educator retention challenge in our state. And so do those two data points correlate at all? Yeah, when

033we look at So, let me back up and say that you know I think the board of the administration and um you know most of our employees share the same goal and that is to show up to work every day um to be professionals to um be proficient in the way that they serve students and advance the mission and goals of the district. And the good news, the really good news is that the majority do. And you know, every time I walk into a school or department, I am just taken aback by the level of professionalism and the dedicated, hardworking employees that we have in schools. Now, that said, there are some that um struggle in certain areas to be proficient. And of those numbers that are in this report, we don't break that out

034by tenured and non-tenured or by number of years of experience. But I I can say from working, you know, both on the instructional side and now with this data on the HR side that the majority of those folks are in their first couple of years with the district. So they're generally new to district employees. Um oftentimes they're new to profession employees. They may be folks who um since 2020 we've we've hired a lot of folks through alternative pathways. So they may be on an emergency. Um so you know they haven't yet acclimated to you know the district environment and and and some frankly need some additional support um in in order to to get to that proficiency status. >> Thank you for that. Are there other board member questions? Member Hullman. And this isn't uh

035quite so much a question about what we do, but something that was brought to my attention quite some time ago by a Council of Great City Schools member that was here for one of our internal audits that we should consider separating um anything with potential job action from professional development. and that one of the complications they saw is that Danielson really is about professional development and getting better. Um, and and I'll say from when I was being evaluated, um, on the years that you were doing a projectbased evaluation, you didn't really want to have a project that was all that complicated. You didn't want to overreach because you get going in the year, other things happen, things come up. What happens if you we lay out a project and say, "I'm going to make this

036happen as part of my evaluation and you fall short. You you don't want to wind up on a plan of improvement or even a plan of growth. You want to finish even if it's unsuccessful." And and so I know a a number of people, and I would never do this, but some people would choose a project they'd actually already completed so that you could be assured that you would be able to complete your project and have a good evaluation. Just one strategy. But the the other side of this too is that when there was potential say for a plan of improvement or something that could lead to termination that that would eventually that would immediately pull the principal out of it and create a team from HR, from the bargaining unit, from the subject area

037if it was a classroom teacher um to re-evaluate that teacher independent of the principal or assistant principal had done the initial evaluation. situation. I I think we've all seen situations where an evaluator and an evalue basically begin to go at it head-to-head and it becomes a a win or lose situation for everybody that's really not productive. I know this is not a simple change and it would it would be a major project, but I'm wondering if that's on anybody's burner to consider uh that ideally we we want our teachers to be able to go into evaluation just trying to get better at something they're weak at and yet admitting that you have a weakness potentially looks bad on an evaluation which is tied to job security. So there the degree to which we could isolate

038those from each other because we still do want to have reviews, plans for improvement uh and termination if people don't come up to speed where they need to be. But ideally, we also want people to go into the evaluation process, particularly when they're looking at projects uh with the idea they're going to try to grow as much as they possibly can um but not put themselves at risk if they fall short. So, I'm just wondering if any this has come up or is in planning or under consideration. Thank you. So one of the things there has been I think pretty universal agreement between principles, supervisors, teachers since we adopted Danielson is that it's a pretty good definition of what good teaching looks like. You know both the art and science of it. You know it's

039got both the onstage and off-stage domains. It's got the 22 different components. Each of those components have the bulleted list of critical attributes of what it looks like, you know, when it's exemplary, proficient, basic, unsatisfactory. Um, it's a robust definition of the complexity of of teaching. Um, what gets challenging is when we use that as an evaluation tool sometimes because I don't disagree with you that sometimes in that evaluation conversation, we lose the robust focus on really, you know, how do we grow in these areas? It's it it is also a great professional development tool and I think we are operating at our best when we also use it that way. There is a safeguard that is built in for um teachers. They can always request to have an alternative um evaluator from outside of

040the building come in and do an additional observation if they feel like their principal is maybe not accurately scoring them or you know as you described maybe they just haven't seen eye to eye on a lot of things. Um so we have that built in. We haven't really at this time discussed going that next step further which would be to create you know a secondary review panel. Um something we can certainly you know talk about and explore but we we aren't actively discussing that at this time. >> Thank you member Hullman. Seeing no other questions on this uh monitoring report for our guardrail number three. Uh Dr. Dr. Brian, I want to thank you and the team for preparing for this conversation today. I know it's the first time we've done it since we've begun

041our goal monitoring and our work with the council and so appreciate the um leverage to be able to do that with you guys tonight. Right. Move on to item D, public comment. I want to welcome everyone to our first opportunity for public comment this evening. The board has set aside a 1-hour time slot. The beginning of our meetings. During public comment, the board will not answer questions or engage in conversation with members of the public. The school board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings in structured and civil ways. Uh we do that via the Robert's rules of order. Uh some guidelines that are included in those rules are do not attack a member or speaker's motives. Please no profanity or foul language. Please refrain from disturbing our meeting. you know, cheering,

042applause, outbursts. Um, if you have handouts, you may uh share them with Miss Sullivan, who's seated to my left. Um, as president of the board, I will enforce these rules of civility and decorum. And so, I want to thank everyone for joining us tonight. Have just a few testifiers. Perfect. All right. Our first speaker is Francis Mclofflin. Welcome, Francis. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Uh, >> good evening. Um, thank you members of the board. Uh, the superintendent and program directors. Thank you especially um to Mr. Gustoson uh who responded very uh promptly to uh um with to an email that I'd sent. Um um I'd also uh like to um introduce um uh my partner in the in u in our comments, >> Elizabeth Milikin. Thank you, Elizabeth. Um, so, uh,

043I'm a a father, uh, dad. I have two daughters in Mandarin immersion. Um, my, um, sixth grader is a student at Begitch Middle School, and my fourth grader is a student at Scenic Park Elementary. I'm very grateful to the school board and to the school administration for supporting language immersion uh, programs. I'm very happy to say that my family loves both of our schools and uh, we would not go anywhere else. Um, we're so pleased with uh Begitch and with H Scenic Park. We love those schools. Um, uh, in my younger daughter's uh, class, all 36 of the Chinese immersion third graders uh, from last year returned to fourth grade this year. Uh, we have 100% early registration in this class or we did back in March and um, we didn't lose anyone uh, from

044last year's class. uh the result um we I believe that this is the result of a successful language immersion program and it shows how much that uh it means to um to families. Uh thank you. >> Good evening uh President Jacobs, members of the school board, Superintendent Bryant, and ASD leadership all likely get caught up, but I'm going to give it a go. Uh, my name is Elizabeth Milikin and I'm the proud parent of a fourth grader in Scenic Park's Chinese immersion program and also the proud parent of a four-year-old whose biggest complaint in life is she has to wait a whole another year to join her big brother in Chinese immersion. I first want to thank the school board and the district for your continued commitment to language immersion. These programs are a vital

045part of our city's educational landscape. They support academic achievement and prepare students to thrive in a multilingual, multicultural world. Your leadership in sustaining these opportunities is deeply appreciated. The Chinese immersion program at Scenic Park Elementary is a powerful example of what's possible when academic rigor, cultural learning, and community engagement come together. Families are proud of this program and it reflects the best of ASD's innovation. We also recognize the district is navigating a complex environment, tight budget, staffing shortages, and evolving student needs. These are not easy challenges, and we appreciate the thoughtful student- centered approach the board and administration are taking. In the spirit, we encourage uh continued support of school level decision-making that prior prioritizes equity and student outcomes in emerging classrooms where class sizes are 35 or more students. This creates real barriers to

046learning. We know these are difficult trade-offs, but we also know that when resources are allocated equitably and proactively and not only improves student learning, but it also supports teacher retention by creating more manageable and sustainable teaching environments. Sunning, I'm out of time. Thank you so much. Thank you for your testimony, for being with us tonight. Our next speaker is Derek White. >> Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. >> Right. Good evening, board members. My name is Derek White, and I am the father of a student um at Glattiswood Elementary. Um my uh topic of discussion for tonight is uh the change with the schedule. Um I've got a a letter here. Um it's basically about the safety. Um because when we talk about school schedules, we're really talking about whether our

047children arrive at school rested, alert, and safe. The current start times put our youngest learners at the greatest risk. On Mondays, they start at 9:00 a.m., but Tuesday through Friday, they're forced an hour earlier at 8:00 a.m. That constant shift is unhealthy, creating what doctors call social jet lag, disrupting their sleep cycles, weakening their focus, and hurting their growth. It's the opposite of what pediatric sleep research recommends, and it puts elementary children in a harder position than middle or high school students. Um, and here in Alaska, as you know, it's not just about health, it's about the survival and our conditions. And so, four days a week, uh, children young as five are now waiting for buses in the pitch dark on icy streets during the coldest parts of the morning. Our neighborhoods also don't

048have enough lighting. They don't have enough sidewalks or safe pedestrian crossings. And as many of you know, cars don't really even slow down when you do have those things. Um, and I I think it's really unfair expecting our our youngest and smallest children to navigate that environment and dark and just unsafe and irresponsible conditions. Uh this schedule also places a disproportionate burden on children with special needs including those on the spectrum with ADHD and other learning disabilities. These students thrive on consistent routines, adequate rest and shifting these uh wake up times are cut is cutting into their sleep and it makes it harder for them to regulate their emotions, stay focused and succeed in the classroom. For many families, mornings are already a challenge. These new hours magnify that stress, creating more meltdowns, more absences,

049and more barriers to learning instead of supporting them. This change works directly against their needs. Finally, this decision doesn't consider the strain it puts on families. Earlier starts means new child care costs, parents missing work or shifting schedules, and staff forced into earlier, more hazardous commutes. This is Alaska. It's not the lower 48. We have extreme winters, long periods of darkness, and an economy built on early shift jobs. It's not a one-sizefits-all schedule that works here. I urge you all to reconsider re reconsider schedule uh for everything I just Mr. white. Um, you've used [Music] Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Cory Ace. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Dear President Jacobs, school board members, it was inspiring to see Alaskans from across the state come together, students,

050parents, educators, schoolboard members, business leaders, and community members alike. It was equally powerful to see our legislators unite to override the governor's veto of HB57, not once, but twice. I want to thank those legislators for standing up for all our students and families. The override vote was clear message. Alaskans will continue to support all students, not just some students. Alaskans will support every public school, neighborhood schools, charter schools, and correspondence programs, all public school options. Every student deserves support no matter where they go to school. I also want to thank the Anchorage School Board and Dr. Bryant for adding additional teacher positions at your last board meeting. Even with this momentum, we still have significant challenges. The most important reforms to focus on include more parent involvement, small class sizes, not smaller, small class sizes,

051and a certificated teacher in every classroom. Right now, that's not the case across the district. Class sizes are way, way too big. We'll talk about the numbers in the near future, but you should look into it. Even before you added these new positions, according to the ASD website, more than 140 positions remained unfilled. As of this evening, that includes 58 elementary classroom positions. 58 elementary classroom positions. When did elementary become hard to fill? Here is your dilemma. You add more teaching positions, but don't increase compensation. those jobs stay unfilled. But if you improve compensation, you may not be able to add additional positions. The outcome remains the same. The simple truth is only with better compensation will you be able to fill all your positions. Only with better compensation will you show uh slow down

052the enormous number of resignations year after year. Do not fail to act. You have the resources. People across Alaska have been clear. Parents, community members, legislators, and even the governor have all said the same thing. Increased public education funding should go directly into classrooms. Governor Dunley said the classroom is where we can add the most value. Representative McCabe says lawmakers should put more money in classrooms instead of bureaucracies. I am confident you will act in a way that answers the call for every Alaskan. Remember, your educators are showing up every day for their students without a contract. They haven't given up. They haven't given up on their students. They show up to support them. They haven't given up on you. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our last speaker tonight is William Baxter. Welcome,

053sir. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. I'm William Baxter and uh I go and I people talk to me about agriculture all the time. There's a lot of people in this town that's been in 4 FF FFA. You'll be surprised how many people I find that have agriculture degrees in Anchorage. And uh and that's and you know I I you know if you really are serious about putting uh FFA in the schools I suggest you you do a survey of the schools who's got have been avoc uh in F 4 age FFA or even got degrees or even have classes in in in college the uh and another thing is one of the things I really like about FA is they got uniforms and I really think that we should this Anchorage

054school district should go to go to uniforms and you know there's a lot of reasons I I I believe that be is because I'm a Christian and also I see that as a Christian I see that as a a possibility and uh and there's uh a lot of other reasons why when I was a kid down in Utah I remember the girls in in all a in all elementary school and junior high and high school wear in dresses up here. We don't dre dresses. I don't even know what it's like on the thing, but I think we should go to uh uh uniforms. Thank you. >> Thank you for your testimony. That completes our public testimony this evening. We want to thank every testifier for making time to connect with us. Just a reminder for

055the public who can choose to testify at any time by emailing schoolboard.org. work. All right, we'll move on to section E, consent agenda. Board members, we have a consent agenda that's been prepared in front of us. Does any board member wish to pull an item for discussion before we move to approve? Hearing and seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as drafted? >> Move to approve the consent agenda as drafted. >> Made by member Hullman, seconded by member Wilson. There's no discussion. Miss Sullivan, the roll call vote, please. Student Representative Madison. >> Yes. >> Member Hullman. >> Yes. >> Member Bellamy. >> Yes. >> Member Lessons. >> Yes. >> Member Wilson. >> Yes. >> Member Higgins. President Jacobs. >> Yes. Our consent agenda is adopted by a vote of 7 to

056zero. All right, we'll move on to action items. Our first item is ASD memorandum number 017. Is there a motion? I move that we adopt ASD memorandum 017 approval of transfer to student nutrition transportation and capital projects. second >> uh that we approve the motion. Um, for our record, Member Hullman, I'll confirm you intend to move that we approve a $14,124,792 transfer to cover or overages and transportation, unpaid, and shelf stable meals for student nutrition, and to transfer FEMA funds to capital projects for the FY2425 school year. Is that correct? >> That's correct. Thank you. >> Thank you, sir. All right. That's was made by member Hullman, second by member Wilson. Is there discussion on this item hearing? Seeing none, Miss Sullivan, the roll call vote, please. >> Student Representative Madison, >> yes. >> Member

057Hullman, >> yes. >> Member Lessons, >> yes. >> Member Donley, >> yes. >> Member Bellamy, >> yes. >> Member Wilson, >> yes. >> Member Higgins. >> President Jacobs, >> yes. >> ASD memorandum number 017 is approved by a vote of 7 to Z. Right. Our action item F2 is AST memorandum number 039. A motion to approve in this case would be to authorize the award of a contract for four class 8 international potentially be international. HV607 a dump truck cabin chassis to RWC International LTD Ltd through the sourcewell purchasing cooperative for $698,160.77 utilizing cooperative purchasing per BP3311 AR3311.1D titled intergovernmental relations. Is there a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second >> made by member Hollowman, second by member Wilson. Is there discussion on this item? Hearing and seeing none, Miss Olen, roll call

058vote, please. >> Student representative Madison, >> yes. >> Member Wilson, >> yes. >> Member Higgins. Member Donley, >> yes. >> Member Hollowman, >> yes. >> Member Lessons, >> yes. >> Member Bellamy, >> yes. >> President Jacobs, >> yes. AS memorandum number 039 is adopted by a vote of 7 to zero. Our last action item tonight is AS Memorandum number 047 FY2526 budget revision. A motion to approve in this case would be to approve a revision to the general fund budget in the amount of $6,292,444 to allocate the remaining funds approved by the state and increasing the total general fund budget uh to $644,431,46 with an overall upper limit spending authority of $916,62,173. Is there a motion to approve? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Made by member Hollowman. Second by member Wilson. Is there discussion

059on this memorandum? >> Could we have a brief at ease? >> Sure, we'll have a five minute ease. [Music] All right. Thank you everyone. We'll call ourselves back to order at 6:58 p.m. Is there discussion on ASD memorandum number 047? Member Donley then lessons. >> Thank you. I' I'd really like to learn more about the teacher recruitment and retention um budget line item here for $2 million. Uh sounds in the description that's provided, it sounds reasonable, but it doesn't really sound very specific either. >> Yeah, Dr. Bryant. >> Yeah. Uh Mr. President, through the president, member Donley, great question. Uh and you're correct. It's intentionally vague because the idea is for the first time we want to leverage this really fortunate circumstance where the legislature approved the override of the governor's veto resulting in a

060$10 million additional funding for ASD and actually ask educators like how do you think we can leverage these dollars to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers? So it's twofold and just to kind of zoom out for the community. So, for the past year, the school board had a wonderful idea to convene our educators in a joint task force where we're specifically talking about ways to recruit and retain our employees. I've been really blessed to have attended, I think, all but one of the meetings throughout the year uh alongside uh Mr. Lang and uh formerly President Hollowman and others. And it's been great. And we have a really nice uh space where we can just share ideas. And I want to humbly ask our teachers, if it's our role to make sure that we recruit

061and retain as many excellent teachers as possible, what can we do with very limited resources to do it? So that was really the impetus behind allocating approximately $2 million. And we're trying to do two different things at once. So one, I I want to figure out what are some things that we can do for the system as a whole. So for example, maybe this group will recommend that we need more holdback teachers to address class size bubbles. that's reasonable. But I also want to get their feedback on things like the accelerator project, which we talk about in the memo. And for those of you that didn't read the memo, the accelerator project is something that I'm excited to talk more about in the coming months, where in ASD we have, you know, about 94 different

062buildings. And what we want to do is use data to figure out which are the let's say 5 to 10 schools that need the most support based off of data uh for a number of different metrics. and then looking at that smaller portfolio of let's say five schools. what can we do to create genuine proof points for how to improve teacher retention but also ensure that there are better systems in place like for example I I would imagine many of these schools will be title one schools if we identified a very small subset uh of schools to target and I'm wondering what can we do to one attract the best teachers whether they're in the district in a different school that we recruit into that building or they're external that we want to recruit let's

063say with you know one idea the committee could come up with is referral bonuses or some sort of incentive to get out of state teachers to come to Alaska. These are all the different types of discussions that we would brainstorm collectively. So I think that this is a really innovative way to hear directly from educators. What can we do to tackle this huge issue? Um and think we meet uh you know several times a semester and I want to get that work started as soon as possible. So that's why there's not um specific projects there because I want to develop them in partnership with teachers. I hope that's helpful. Thank you, Member Donley. Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Uh, member lessons. >> Um, thank you. I feel like we we sort of danced around this a

064bit earlier during the work session between the the memo um at the previous board meeting which allocated uh 20 additional positions and this memo which would allocate 27 positions. That's that's 47 new positions. And my question is, you know, does that actually have the effect of lowering our people teacher ratios by, you know, one by.5 or is that really a hard question to answer because these positions are being simply dosed in the highest need locations to mitigate class-siz bubbles and split classrooms. I I guess I'm trying to understand how you know plus 47 teachers uh changes our overall pupil teacher ratios which did experience a plus one on the K12 system. >> Um and I guess the related question would be you know are we seeing these positions being dosed for lack of better word

065at elementary and secondary or concentrated in one division? >> Yeah. And I may ask for backup for Mr. Lang or Mr. Gusson um on this one, but at a high level, it sounds like the question is how how would these uh roles make an impact on PTR? So, essentially um the the issue with PTR is it treats all students like they're marbles in a jar and it doesn't account for real things that happen in school. So, for example, I noticed this year that there seems to be bubbles specifically in fourth and fifth grade. And there are numerous reasons why that may happen, but that's something that may not be addressed by a PTR formula that literally looks at the ratio of kids to teachers in the district and assigns them on a school level. This

066holdback strategy that we're using allows us to be more precise with where we deliver these resources. So, for example, let's say an immersion program was staffed adequately, but for reasons various reasons that are beyond the scope of this conversation, they have one classroom that's let's say 35. That's an area where these holdbacks is what we call them internally, but they're classroom teacher positions that we give to the school that from the parent perspective does decrease their class sizes. So from the board level perspective, we're looking at the PTR which is fixed in our budget book. But the way that I think about these holdbacks, it's really at the classroom, you know, parent perspective. So when we hear from these parents that say, I'm in a classroom with, you know, 36 kids. This is unacceptable for

067my kid. Now we finally have that flexibility to offer that relief regardless of what the PTR was at that school and and to uh answer your question member lessons as to how are we targeting these resources that there is a method to that and Mr. Gustoson and the team look at a number of very objective criteria which would include the size of the class and other metrics that the board should know Mr. Gus, >> so we look at the size of the class, the bubbles, the history, the enrollment of what that school is actually coming in with verified registrations. Um, we're really the big thing and to answer the second part of your question around elementary versus secondary. 80% of the holdbacks that we've given out so far this year have been at the elementary

068level because of the there there are literally big bubbles in different schools right now that uh we're we're trying to alleviate and sometimes there even when they show up there even there's a class of like 40 in a elementary schools that we have to you know different people have moved into neighborhoods they've come and registered in the different schools so we have to fix those. This has been able to allow us that flexibility where in years past we had to pull teachers out of one school and put in others. Now, I'm not saying we're not going to have to do that this year yet because we usually wait till after kindergarten gets situated, which is this Thursday, and starts showing up and next week we'll have things a little more solid. The one thing I

069will say is that when the demographers give out a projection for the number of students that are going to be coming to our school district, we keep tracked every single day. So every day, every evening, I get a report number of us get the same report of how many students in each school have registered and what is the percentage overall. And right now we are trending at a higher level of um percentage of students that have actually registered in class sitting in seats than we have in the last three years. And it's just a percentage point or two, but when you have 42,000 students, a percentage or two is a pretty big number of students, right? So So we we look at a whole number of things. their principal supervisors are constantly talking to the

070the um the principles and seeing where they're at and looking at the numbers and really looking at the specific class sizes and and as you've seen probably in the last week or so I've responded to some parents that we'd already dealt with some of the issues before they even um brought up concerns to you all. >> Thank you. Mr. Gustin, do you have a follow-up member lesson? Yeah, if I so speaking um I guess clearly and plainly, you know, if I were one of the legislators who voted to override and I really wanted to know that my vote, you know, made a difference, would the administration agree that class sizes are being lowered and and split classes, right, three, four combos are being mitigated through allocation of the 20 positions two weeks ago and the

07127 positions sort of on the >> on a very simple answer, I'd say yes. >> Okay, so class sizes are getting decreased. >> Class size are getting I I can't promise they're in every single spot right now, but we have been looking at that's all we do almost all day long right now is looking at those class sizes and making sure if we can give some support to classes. um you know and and and this year I I'll just one thing that's come up is our secondary schools haven't had the increase the the the registration is as dramatic as the elementary has. Um so we're they have had less need so far, but we're still looking. We haven't used all the we haven't is allocated all of them yet because we we are waiting through

072this next week to see where everybody sits. But we as we find out things, we we're on it as quick as we possibly can. >> Mr. President, one one additional followup. >> Yeah. Member uh >> uh Oh, yeah. >> Okay. Member lessons follow. >> Thank you. And I guess this is just sort of adding to the tally. I know with our budget revisions, uh back in the spring, we added something like 26 holdback teachers back to our budget. So, you know, can we assume that we've essentially got whatever 26 plus 20 plus 27, so that's a few dozen uh teachers being deployed really being triaged right now into the most acute areas of need across our district. If I can just answer on a simple basis, we had at the beginning those first ones that

073you allocated, a number of those went right away due because we needed a lot of specialists at elementary level and so a lot of those were used up before you gave us or approved those last 20. Um so those even happened during the staffing um pieces in the spring. So we didn't have a lot going into the actual school year. It was in the single digits for sure. >> Okay. Sorry that so that's actually really helpful for me to understand which makes the action even more important because we we used up our hold back positions and we needed a new pool essentially of hold back teachers to address the situations as they arose. >> That's correct. Thank you. member lessons. All right. Other discussion from the board hearing and seeing none. Member Donlay Sen, could

074you just restate our current um vacancy rate, I don't know which what's a proper terminology for it, but of of certified instructors and and classroom also assistants that we talked about in the work session. Yeah, member Donley, we have um as of the first day of school, which is when we kind of do a real close measure of that of our certificated openings, we started the year with 122 certificated vacancies and that's across all divisions. That would include related services, nurses, classroom teachers, all those certificated positions rolled together. Um as for pair of professionals, right now we're hovering right around a 100 vacancies. Um and that's down um almost 70 from where we opened the year last year. So that that really has been an area where we we've seen a lot more applicants and

075we're filling a lot more positions. >> Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted that on the record because that was in our work session. I think it directly relates to this investment in recruitment and retention. >> Agreed. Thank you, member Donley. hearing and seeing no other member lessons. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Um I appreciate the chance to to look at uh the number the many points the many excellent points that are uh presented for the board's consideration in the memo. Um I did want to bring up the high do the highdosese tutoring uh component which I thought was critical. It was one of the things that I was um most hopeful for sort of earlier in our budget process back in February. uh it had to be taken off the table to match

076reality and I'm I'm pleased to see that a smaller version of it has been reinccorporated uh here. Um I think my question is twofold. Number one, what grades would be eligible for highdosese tutoring knowing that um you know we have many readers who need to learn to read by third grade and we have many more who maybe haven't gotten all the foundational skills and they're off uh in grades four through 12. And um so what grades would be eligible for highdose tutoring and just you know with a half million dollars and change and if this is an online sort of highdose tutoring um method how many students roughly could receive access um to these tutoring sessions? I'm you know I could make guesses but that's probably not helpful. So, member lessons, we um we had

077our teaching and learning department go in and really look at all the different options around highdose tutoring. Um they came to us with a number of different options. And what we came away with was what I consider probably the um the a system that we could stand up this year um rather quickly. It would uh allow for 500 students to have highdose tutoring in each of two different semesters. So it could be the same 500 all year. It could be 500 and 500. Um we would be targeting tier three kids that um need those supports especially, you know, we're looking at schoolboard goals and the reading component would definitely be um our K3 kiddos um for to begin with and then we would probably branch out from there. Nicole Somerville, our director of elementary teaching

078and learning, is very up to-date on the highdosese tutoring stuff and she we actually utilize some of this um during summer school for our kids around the Reeds Act. Um so we have some experience working with it. I I I can't say for certain if it's the same exact program that we were using. Um I I don't I don't have that information right now, but I do know that it's 500 kids per semester. Um and we would definitely be working towards our tier three um students and and I believe there is three options we can pick from in that specific deal. So we we once the money's approved then we're on it moving, going, looking, working, trying to move implement it. Um, thank you for that. It's helpful to know that we've got essentially a

079thousand seats over the course of the year for students who can be positively impacted through a proven method that's been implemented in many other locations that we have yet to have the opportunity to do so. So, I'm I'm excited about it. Um, but I'd put in a personal plug that maybe there are some students in grades 4 through 12 who really could help um, you know, master their foundational skills and that's going to help them cross the finish line when it comes to a graduation goal. But that's just me. I I would agree with you on that and and I would say that we need to start small to grow big and uh we want to make sure we develop a system that's going to be successful for kids and is sustainable over time and

080then we'll probably coming back if it works more often for this. >> Thank you Mr. Gustoson. Thank you Miss Lessons hearing and seeing no other discussion. Miss Sullivan the vote please. >> Student Representative Madison. >> Yes. Member Higgins. Member Donley. >> Yes. >> Member Lessons. >> Yes. >> Member Wilson. >> Yes. >> Member Bellamy. >> Yes. >> Member Hollerman. >> Yes. >> President Jacobs. >> Yes. AD memorandum number 046 is adopted by a vote of 7 to zero. Thank you everyone. That completes our action agenda for tonight. Item G is our non-action items. These will be in front of us for action in our first meeting in September. Is there a board member who wishes wishes to discuss a non- action item this evening? Member lessons. >> Um, memo 018, please. >> Is there another

081board member who wishes to discuss a non-action item? >> Hearing and seeing none, member lessons, you wish to discuss item 018, approval of ASD calendars for years 2627, 2728, and 2829. The floor is yours. >> Great. Um, thank you for the opportunity. I want to maybe begin by acknowledging uh the complexity of the work. I recall, you know, there were surveys that went out and clarifying um communications about those surveys over the past winter. And I really can only begin to imagine um what happens when you get all the people in a room trying to talk about calendars for not just one, not two, but three years running. Um so with an acknowledgement of that complexity um the one item that gives me pause understanding all of the constraints that we have remains the staggered

082start day for the first day of school and I I don't know whether any um you know any data exists uh on the district side of things for how effective it was last year. Um it continues to strike me um that I think it's a really well-intentioned idea to support entering middle schoolers and entering high schoolers, but I worry that the cumulative, you know, the net is um I think it's I I believe that it is damaging to students morale who don't get to start on the first day of school. Um, seventh and eighth graders don't get to start on the first day of school. 10th, 11th, and 12th graders don't get to start on the first day of school. You know, perhaps there's some negative effect on the economy with, you know, parents who

083are not working on that first day of school. Um, I mean, I ran into some around town on on that Thursday and they were headed to do something else with their day. So, I I guess I could the administration um talk about the staggered first day of school a little bit and whether there were any conversations about I mean it's it's been incorporated into the calendar proposal for the next three years. I guess I'm I'm interested in hearing from the administration. I know that I believe the superintendent believes in in this um structure, but uh it still gives me a great deal of pause. >> Um thank you uh member listens. Would it be helpful if we provided some context in board connect and then prepare for a discussion next week on on the staggered

084starts and I'll reference it today in my remarks too. >> I think that that's that's fine. >> Okay. simply I wanted to raise it today as an area of um possible conversation. >> Thank you, member lessons. Member Higgins. >> Yeah, I guess when we get to the school board calendars, I remember when schools started right after Labor Day and then it started moving earlier because that way you get better test results in the spring and that was what I was told and that was the purpose behind it. And I'm not sure that um looking at the calendar now for that reason. I hate to, you know, do it that way. It just questions the the what works best and and did we move it back for really um good reasons or just for, you know,

085Charlie the tuner, we're going to try to look good, not necessarily be good, but we're going to look good. Uh type of approach. And so it bothers me a little bit that way. So the start date of this is something I just for discussion purposes I think would be appropriate. >> Thank you member Higgins. Is there other discussion on this item? Member Wilson. >> So I just wanted to clarify that the start times or start dates for seventh and eighth graders. That's a discussion we're going to have later because I have some feedback I wanted to share but I can share that later. >> Um through the president. Yes, member uh Wilson. I think it would be best if we covered all the calendar questions and we've had some time to collect the data, maybe

086collect some qualitative feedback from principles in response to the need for some additional assurance that these are a value ad. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Member Wilson. Okay. Uh member lessons, has your inquiry been satisfied for today? >> Um yes. This is the the start of a conversation which will uh continue next next time. >> Perfect. Thank you. All right. That completes our non- action item section of our agenda. We have uh no continued public testimony for item H. So, we'll move on to item I one, superintendent update. Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours. >> All right. Thank you, Mr. President. So, I'm going to uh change up the format a little bit today just because it's the um first board meeting after the first day of school. Um so, I'd like it to be

087a little bit more uh interactive. So, first off, I I would say that we had a strong start to school um this past week, but don't take my word for it. I want you to see a quick video that spotlights the good stuff happening around ASD. Think we might be having some audio issues. And this is why I don't do videos for my superintendent updates because of the tech stuff. But this one's worth it. Yeah. [Music] Welcome. [Applause] [Music] We are here live at Service High School, home of the Cougars. This is the first day of school for the school district. Are you excited? Nervous? >> Kind of. >> It's what I've been saying all day here. Get involved. Have fun. School is fun when you're engaged and when you're doing things besides just academics.

088When you're with your peers doing activities. Get involved. We're here. We've got kids here. We got teachers here. Everyone's happy. This year we are being resilient and accountable and mindful. >> This is all part of what we call PBIS. It's called positive behavior >> intervention support. >> Yes. It's a big deal because it's happening districtwide. It doesn't matter if it's elementary, middle, and high school. >> And why is it a big deal that it's like reinforced um starting at a young age, but also in middle and also high school, >> right? Well, it's those schoolwide expectations. It means everyone has the same language. All students know what's expected of them. No matter where they are, if they're in your classroom or if they are on the playground or in the library, they know exactly what

089to do. They know exactly what their expectations are and how to get help and support from the staff around them. >> That's awesome. [Music] Welcome to ASD Shine Bright, the podcast. We're doing a special back to school edition. This is the first week of school for the 2025 2026 school year. We're here at Chiad High School, home of the Mustangs. Go Mustangs. Um I even have the color. This was by accident, honestly, but it works out, right? It's one of the colors. I'm joined here by Miss Susie Bick. Um, she's a teacher. How are you doing? >> Good. How are you? >> Tell me what you teach. >> Um, I am a special education teacher here at Chugak High School. >> And then this is your seventh year. >> Seventh year. >> I wonder who

090this guy is. He's actually pretty famous in his own world, but I'll let you introduce him because you have a special connection to him as well. >> So, uh, Mr. Sean Prince actually was my teacher in high school in student government when I went to Bartlett High School back in the day. >> It's good. It's so nice to see like your former students doing great things and it's it's fun to watch, you know, Susie and I are catching up and just trying not to date ourselves too much by how much time has expired between when she was my student and now. But man, it's so great to see the good things she's doing here at Cheyak. All right. So, looks like we had a wonderful video from our media team. Thank you for that. Um,

091so we're going to transition a little bit from the video. I wanted you to see a quick snapshot of everything going on the district. This is my fourth back to school with the Anchorage School District and I think that this is one of the best starts yet. I I'm blessed to be surrounded by wonderful colleagues here at this dis and also wonderful staff members and families who continue to choose ASD. So I want to walk us through um the first few days through my perspective through some of my visits and my reflections. Um, and you'll notice the first picture. First of all, we have school buses. And that is not lost on me because it was three years ago that not just ASD, but Matsu and a lot of other folks were having issues with

092buses. And I want to thank the community for coming together. I want to thank the board for allowing us three years ago to take some action. That has put us in a much better position. So, not only are buses back, they are bigger and better than ever. Not the buses themselves, um, but we've installed this wonderful tool called Stopfinder. So, we released that to the public. Uh, recently we've had thousands of parents already sign up to join. If you don't know what Stopfinder is, it's a really cool tool that allows parents to know where their bus is when it picks up and drops off their student. Really neat. We've really taken it to the next level. So, I'm really thankful for Jim Anderson's team and all of our parents that trust our wonderful transportation professionals

093um through summer through winter um to make sure our students get to to school um in a good state of mind. So, thank you to our transportation professionals, too. Let's go ahead and move on. So, one of the first schools I visited was actually Cassoon Elementary School. And what you'll see in this picture is um one of the project managers explaining to me the roll out of our secure safety vestibules throughout the district. So, we've installed dozens throughout our elementary schools over the years, and this is a new one that's good to go at Cassoon Elementary School. And this is only possible due to the support of the Anchorage community. Um, this past April, we passed a $62 million bond and we were very fortunate to have another bond the year before that. And this

094is what it's going towards. Those funds are going towards upgrading the security of our schools. We've had situations where secure vestibules have saved lives in this in this district and I want to make sure that they're in as many elementary schools as possible moving forward. So, the work continues. In fact, I think this particular bond will fund projects at Scenic Park, Baxter, and Ravenwood into next year. So very soon we'll have vestibules in all the elementary schools. Now that said, when it comes to safety and security, uh you have to have a lot of tools in the toolbox. Secure safety vestibules are one tool in the toolbox, but I also want to remind the public that ASD recently moved to a a standardized visitor management system. That's really important because one, we make sure that

095all of our visitors are centrally screened and background checked, and two, we can look at reports across the district. And this is something that we weren't able to do three years ago, but we're able to do today. So, and then in addition to the secure vestibules and the visitor management um because of our successful bond propositions, we now have upgrades to various cameras and other security features such as access management throughout the district. And it's really putting us on the cutting edge of where we need to be when it comes to safety in our schools. Training is also key, right? you we we can't anticipate every single scenario that happens uh in in a school situation, but I'm really thankful that through Jim Anderson's leadership, we've had one of the first inter agency trainings on

096emergency response that we've had in a very long time, at least five plus years. And I mean, this is ASD, with the city, with all the emergency management personnel, and they are literally walking through some of the worst scenarios that can ever happen in a school. And I'm very thankful that they're having those difficult conversations because all of these tools and more is what's helping us make our schools as safe as possible. Something you might have also read is that we have a mobile metal detector program. This is meant to be proactive. Let's say that a school's alerted about a potential threat the next day. A mobile metal detector means that we're able to deploy resources to prevent incidents from happening in our schools. They're not permanently affixed to any school. Once the situation's cleared,

097we can move the metal detectors on to a different location. But this is yet another tool that we have in our toolbox to change behaviors and to make sure that ASD is positioned as a very safe school for all of our families to attend. We want to make sure parents have that confidence. And some of that conversation happened at Cassoon on my first day of school. Uh let's go ahead and move on. So, the next place I visited was um this is also Cassoon. And in addition to the security and safety, I wanted to go into specific classrooms because I'm really proud of our teachers and our families because we've put a lot of hard work into reading. And it's not lost on me that for two years in a row, our first graders have

098seen growth from their kindergarten year. Last year, we reported a 10% growth based off of our M-Class Dibbles data. And this year, we saw an 11% gain. So, that's two classes of students that have been positively impacted because of the hard work of teachers like the one in this photo. And by the way, when we make class engaging by dressing up like Minnie Mouse or other characters every now and then, it really takes us a little bit farther and makes that first day all the more special. So, I want to thank our educators at Cassoon Elementary. Just a few more schools. I then went to Baxter Elementary and I want to park on this photo for a moment because it's a very um this was a very um this is a really tough conversation that

099I had with the principal. One, I love our new principal at Baxter Elementary. Um as you know, this is uh principal Cherry Galloway who I was really blessed to recruit into Baxter. Um she was previously um you know on the south side of town and she really is coming back home and supporting a community that's near and dear to her heart. her neighborhood. Um, and I'm very proud that we have one of our most experienced principles in the district leading a school that I think needs a lot of help. Um, based off of the data and based off of the the community needs, we need to make sure that there are great resources and great leaders and educators in a school like Baxter. So, it was really a blessing to walk through the halls of

100of Miss Galloway and and her talking through everything she's seeing. And one of the things the elephant in the room is that um Baxter Elementary is actually um one of the sites where Nunaka Valley was was consolidated into. So there are dozens of students in this building that previously attended a different elementary school. So think about it through the perspective of Miss Doway and her teachers. We know that students are entering our community and they may not know um who who their teachers are. They may be concerned that their um drive to school's a little farther. This is a really tough time. And that said, um, we realized, um, when we did when we started this journey three years ago, when we made the difficult decision to close Abbott Loop, that you can recognize the

101legacy and history that makes our neighborhood schools great. Um, but you can also realize that by making changes, we can celebrate a memory. So, this photo, let me get to what the photo is. This is a wall that celebrates the the history of Naka Valley Elementary. And Miss Galloway is very proud to display this in her building because she doesn't want um her students to forget about the wonderful memories at that school. She wants to make sure that the leg the legacy and history of the school is alive for decades to come. So as we get more artifacts from Nunaka Valley, I'd love to add more to that wall. But we had a great discussion about how through her lens as a leader, she knows that she needs to go above and beyond to make

102her students feel extra welcome in her school. And I'm really blessed that um in the next photo you'll see that I went to the cafeteria because I wanted to see how all of our students are are acclimating to their environment. Um but especially our Naka Valley students and I I was really um pleased to see that our our Nunaca Valley kiddos have friends um who were Baxter students the previous year and they also have friends from Naka Valley that are with them today. And that's because when we made the decision to close Abbott Loop, we realized that we can we can adjust our portfolio of infrastructure but keep our history and memories alive and also help students be more successful. It wasn't easy to make a decision to rightsize any building. But because of our

103decision, I think that we've set up Baxter for success for the years to come. You know, I couldn't help but look at some of the data. Um so Baxter currently has 327 students enrolled as of yesterday. Um last year they had 239 and previously um their low watermark was about 205 students. And the thing about enrollment is that when you have a PTR system like we have lowering enrollment means that over time some of your highest need schools will have less and less resources. So a school like Baxter might have lost teachers over the years. they might have lost an elective, but now that we've restored their enrollment, we're able to offer more resources to students that need it the most. So, as difficult as it was to go through this process for multiple years,

104I'm so glad to see that our new Naka Valley students are getting acclimated. And it's not a a coincidence. Remember that when we closed Abbott Loop, we wanted to just start with one school so we could make sure that we transitioned with compassion and with empathy. We wanted to make sure that our students visited their new school multiple times even before they're a student. We wanted to make sure that the students know they they know who their friends are that will be transitioning them to the school. We wanted nice handoffs between outgoing principal and new principal. And we were able to put in some other features too to make this as seamless as it possibly can when this is one of the most emotional things that can happen in a community. So I was really

105moved in a very positive way by what I saw at Naka Valley. Um this is one of our um nutrition services staff members. There was there was no um Cheezits at um Baxter Elementary. There was it was burger day actually and the burgers look pretty good. Um and I I just thank the Baxter community and our new Naka Valley families for walking alongside of us during what was surely a very emotional time. And I'm glad that I spent quite a bit of time at Baxter. Um this transition is very important to me. So then on the flip side of it, I I spent some time at um ANCCS and one of the things that stood out to me was this picture. As you walk in, you'll see that um Miss Mrs. Sweetzer and her team

106have done a great job at making this facility their own. So when you walk in, you'll see in the picture it says at the top, show respect to others. And that's because it's one of the nine core values that are central to the mission of ANCCS. So I was really brightened to see that. And you can see other great values um listed throughout that hallway that students see every single day on their way to school. Um and then let's go on to the next photo because I had a really special opportunity to one um greet the entire school. You can't see um what this room is. It's the cafeteria. It's a very large facility and we're talking about the uh formerly Lakehood facility. um NCCS is larger than it's ever been and I was blessed

107to see that all of those students fit very well in that cafeteria. So now Mrs. Sweetzer every day can do morning assemblies where for what I witnessed was 30 minutes of students feeling welcomed, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling a sense of cultural responsiveness and really feeling seen and heard by their teachers. So it was a really powerful moment. The the least interesting part was me welcoming them to the space. the most important parts were when their families and their teachers spent the time um to really connect what they're learning to their culture and values and mission of that school. It was a really powerful thing. And there was a time um not too long ago when these students were in a hallway in East High School. So to see how far they've come thriving

108in this big school larger than they've ever been before, the world's uh their oyster. they have room for even many more students as we continue to get the word out and think about ways to make transportation to our choice programs more accessible which is a huge work in progress and I just want to briefly talk about this photo it's kind of fun I was in a trust circle with our students um and before I forget to mention this so you'll see that I'm outside the circle but about 2 minutes after this photo was taken they rearranged the tables and invited me in the circle because every single one of us needed to reflect on our summers and how important family is to us and how it makes us stronger younger and better learners. So, it

109was nice joining the circle um right alongside Mrs. Sweetzer who makes this a practice in every single classroom to make sure our ch our students in the school feel a sense of belonging in a school that's really designed to elevate the importance of their culture not just within Anchorage but within this entire country. Um really beautiful thing. So, then I had to make it out to Eagle River and uh this is great. It was a pleasure to uh drive all the way out to Eagle River and I wanted to personally shake the hand of Mr. Helvy. He's in the next photo that we can look at um because you may not know this if you're listening online, but Eagle River um is one of our top performing advanced placement schools. So, they consistently get a

110national recognition known as um the AP honor roll. So, I looked at some data um with our principal and I want to share it with the community. Um so get basically getting the AP honor roll means that most of your AP students pass the exam. So um last year back or a year ago back in 2024 76% of advanced placement students at Eagle River passed their exam. 76%. So seven and 10 students in AP they're passing their test. That is phenomenal. Um, most schools would think, uh, you know, being in the teens is a big win, and that is. Um, but 76 is phenomenal. But get, here's the kicker. That was 2024. So, in 2024, it was 76%. 2025, 89%. That's huge growth. That means 89% of the AP kids at Eagle River are getting

111AP credit. Why is that important? Because every AP exam that you pass is literally the equivalent of a college credit. So, if you're an ASD and your high school has dozens of AP classes, you can literally earn the equivalent of an associates degree for free in the Anchorage School District. And at Eagle River High School, those kids have what it takes to do it. And it's not just at Eagle River. I brought this up because I was curious about data for AP in general. And since um just I think four years ago, AP enrollment, yeah, since 2022, AP enrollment has increased by 750 students in ASD. 750 more students are in advanced placement classes in the Anchorage School District than there were 3 years ago. And on top of that, many people would wonder, oh,

112were those just the, you know, high-f flyier students with parents that really want them to be in college prep courses? I'm sure there's some of that, but you'd also um be pleased to know that there was a 42% increase amongst our economically disadvantaged and students of color. That's phenomenal. that's hundreds of more students that are on track as a result of the leadership of our team and the courage of our parents and students to push themselves to thrive in AP. Um so the the sky's is the limit when it comes to AP. So then um I'll just quickly mention that I was at Greening and it was nice because this reminded me why it was so important that we offered the opportunity for sixth graders to be in a middle school environment. This is actually

113a current technical education lab that is now an opportunity that's unlocked for our sixth graders. So, you know, three years ago, if you were in an elementary school that served sixth grade, being in a hands-on class like this, and this guy, this gentleman has been teaching CTE for, I think, over 15, if not 20 years. He's one of our most experienced educators in the district. And I probably spent 40 minutes with this gentleman, learning everything there is to know about all the different tools in his shop. Um, and our sixth graders are so lucky to have access to this class, as well as everybody else at Greening, um, who's blessed to to be in the presence of that gentleman. So, um, really great visit and it, um, really ignited to me the importance of things

114like, um, Kingtat High School. That's where I went to next. Um, because it really brought to life to me what this is all about. It's about college and career opportunity. And a lot of people, you know, a lot of parents I talked to, they they love King in um, theory, but they do worry about their student being kind of tracked into a profession and maybe that's not the that's the profession for them. What if they change their mind? So, I was really pleased that in this photo, you'll see um a lot of students touring um one of the um it was a more I forget what type of facility it was exactly, but it's a CTE class, but the point is is that those students in the photo, they're actually not enrolled in that class.

115They're just engaging in a tour of different pathways that is not their class. So, it's really cool. It's a very a low pressure way to learn about different careers and pathways that they wouldn't know otherwise. So, if you're thinking about a school like King Tech, but you're worried that your student will be exposed to a lot of different things, our wonderful new principal, um, Principal Edwards, has really designed the the flow of the program well to where that's not an issue and and those kids are having a wonderful experience. Um, and then before I move on to West High School, I do want to remind the community that CTE um is really important because the data is clear. students that complete um a core set of CTE classes um they graduate at rates of 94%.

116The district's graduation rate is about 80%. So, it's very interesting that students that commit to completing a career in technical education sequence um really find their footing and graduate at a a very significantly higher rate than some other students. Um, so that dubvetailed with the advanced placement means that we're in a very good position for our career and life readiness goal and college goal. So then we start to West High School and this is where I'll close. Um, we talked a little bit about staggered starts. That's what I wanted to see in person, too. So you'll see in this photo u it's our freshman getting the the VIP treatment. Here's the thing that I want to share with the community from my perspective as somebody that taught nth grade students. It is a tough time

117for a student. They're 14 years old. You have your sweet 16s around the corner. You're going through a lot of changes. And it shocks kids that when you're in high school, it's for real. It's game on. We're talking college transcripts. We're talking um credits. We're talking about all sorts of things that were not exposed to them before. So, it's really nice to take ninth graders who don't have um any sort of uh I guess point of reference for what's about to happen and be welcomed like a VIP by their cheerleaders and welcoming teachers who really made them feel like the rock stars of the day. Um because the thing is is that when it comes to high school, you have to start slow to go far. Um, if you're stressed out about how to use

118like a locker or if you're stressed out about, you know, how to go to more classes than you had in middle school, it can stress you out and hold you back from engaging in the learning. And I'm really pleased to see that when I was in a high school on the second day of school for 9th graders, they were already um in high gear learning um based off of what I saw. So, it it was really neat. This is one of those ninth graders. I mean, this is kind of where it's all at. really proud of this ninth grader who felt welcome at the school. At shortly after this photo was taken, I got to see an assembly led by um our wonderful team at West High School. And then shortly after that, I visited

119our sixth graders at Romig Middle School just to see um is this staggered start adding value? And I would say from the qualitative perspective, yes. But I also um am very curious that last year's ninth graders um five points more of them are on track to graduate than the year before. So for those of you that are not tracking this, the school board created a goal on graduation rates and then I in response created an interim goal to measure the percent of 9th graders that are on track to graduate from high school, the percent of 10th and 11th graders that are on track to graduate. So it's very interesting when we started launching double down doubling down on CTE and advanced placement and all these other great things that we have going on including staggered

120starts that on track to graduation rates for 9th graders increase five points. If we keep up that momentum that means that our graduation rates for 12th graders can increase by five points. And I've done the math. We're not talking about a lot of kids when it comes from going to 81% to 90%. It's just hundreds of students. So if we can really tackle these students on the margin, us getting to 90% graduation rate is within reach. It's within reach of even some of our turns on this dice. It's so close. We just have to keep our eyes laser focused on the high impact things that are moving the needle. So we can debate whether or not it was staggered starts or it wasmies or was AP or just great teachers, but five points is significant

121and I'm very proud of our freshman teachers. As a former one, it's not easy. It's God's work, but our kids are doing great. So, with that said, I think uh I shared everything that was on my heart and mind. I'm really proud of our staff. I'm really proud of our community. We did have a strong start to school. But here's the bottom line. It's not a coincidence. The reason why this stuff is happening is because we have a community that adors our public schools, whatever it looks like, whether it's a correspondent school, whether it's a neighborhood school, whether it's a charter school. and our community members through our schoolboard members have high expectations for the quality of public education in Alaska and here in ASD. We're living up to that expectation. So, let's keep up

122the great work team. I'm so proud and blessed to be here for my fourth first day of school with you guys. So, that concludes my remarks everyone. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Appreciate it. Are there comments or questions for the superintendent? >> All right. Hearing and seeing none, we'll move on to school board administration comments. We'll start on my left. Member Higgins. The floor is yours. >> Uh, not much in the way of comments. I appreciate the the overview of what's going on in the schools right now from superintendent um quite a bit. I appreciate all the staff that are on board. Uh, this has been a tough summer trying to get people here not knowing what's going on and and morale-wise. And I just um what we can do this year, let's

123see if we can make something really great come out of it. I appreciate that. Thank you. >> Thank you, member Higgins. Member lessons. >> Um just wanted to say a quick note of gratitude um to the superintendent for a very full first day. Uh an excellent report of your very full first day. Um to the staff who worked tirelessly over the summer to adapt to many changing circumstances. um to our community members who advocated ceaselessly for the resources our students need and to our legislative partners for doing uh what needed to be done to take care of the children. So, thank you all. >> Thank you, member lessons. Member Donley. >> Just want to thank the administration for prioritizing our classroom sizes, reducing our classroom sizes with the additional funding we got. >> Thank you,

124Member Donley. Student Representative Madison. Hi, thank you. Um, I also do want to say I appreciate the community a lot and I appreciate the support that not only this board has, but also the parents and other students that I know of as my peers who support our school district to still be as amazing as it is. Um, I do have a few comments uh regarding some issues I'd like to provide with the student perspective. Um, one of them being is of course we've talked about how the BSA has increased and of course class sizes are going to continue decreasing, but I will say personally at my school I'll experience what that looks like and how I hope it continues to decrease in class sizes and that change does happen. I know in some of my

125own AP classes that we still have students that are about more than 32 in per class and that's just an AP classes. So, I don't know exactly what the numbers are for non-AP classes, knowing that AP classes are sort of limited in the amount of students that choose to take them. And in Neil those classes that have more than 32 kids in there, like we physically don't have chairs for them to even sit in there, like we're having to borrow from other classrooms. And so many students are concerned about it and it does disrupt our learning. it does disrupt us when we have the second day of school and 10 more kids are transferred into our AP class where it's very focused on preparing for the exams. So, I'm very hopeful and that we'll be

126able to change that. But just providing a student perspective there, that is what it looks like right now. And I hope that the school district, as amazing as it is, can keep growing and changing from that issue to no longer be one that exists. Um, I do also want to talk about um how Dr. Brian mentioned earlier Eagle Rivers um AP score. Since I do go to Eagle River High School myself, I will say I think a lot of it is thankfully to the amazing teachers that we have. I think the way that they instruct us and support us is really beneficial to us. I know I've had a few teachers that are very lectured based and focused to their students. But the most important part I've seen at my school that helps us prepare

127for the exams better is actually engaging the students. For example, I know my history teacher is very huge on actually engaging the student and getting them personally involved in the lessons. And I know in every AP class I've taken at my school that has that amount of high engagement, whether it's using humor, whether it's using personal relations, whether it's actually finding a way to apply the lesson to the kid itself. All the APs that I've attended at Eagle River High School that involve that have prepared me for the exams more than I could ever need and has helped me succeed. And I that's where I see a lot of my peers also succeeding a lot with that. And so I will add that note in of how I think our school succeeds a lot in

128our AP classes. Um, another thing I will want to bring up is the issue I've seen with uh nutrition in our schools with school lunches. I know we didn't really talk about it this much in this meeting, but I do want to bring up maybe it can be discussed next time. Um, I've noticed the way that we have our neighborhoods categorized into different schools that have because, you know, you have your own schools that you are assigned to by the where you live. Um, whether that's more of an economically disadvantaged neighborhood or more economically advantaged neighborhood, that does qualify some students for free and reduced lunch, some students who don't qualify for that. Um, but I have noticed that there have been a lot of mixed feelings on whether students feel it is equitable enough

129for them to be able to still afford their lunches. Um, being that many of them still, even if they don't qualify for that free reduced lunch, they still feel like they cannot afford or be able to get these lunches in a way that is a good quality and good service to them in terms of affordability. because I know for example at my school a lot of people would assume Eagle River High School is very well off. I mean most of us are upper middle class. Um but I will say we have had statistics at our school and from what I've last heard from a teacher themsself from our school statistics about 25% of students at our school are still economically disadvantaged. And I think that does bring a big perspective to our school district because

130I think it's easy to assume that many neighborhoods can have students um who qualify for free and reduced lunch that it is still all right for them to be able to afford what they can. But I do think there could be more of an equitable solution there for other students as well who maybe don't necessarily qualify, but also maybe they don't know if they qualify or maybe they just don't qualify and they also still cannot equitably afford these lunches in a way that does um benefit them in their everyday lives. And so that's basically what I just wanted to cover. Those are a few issues I wanted to add student perspective to, but other than that, I thank this board and all of our communities for supporting us in every way they can. Thank you.

131>> Thank you, Madison. Appreciate your comments. Member Wilson. >> So, I just wanted to start by saying I really appreciate the student voice on our board. Um, you're an amazing example, as have been students prior to you, of the amazing students in our district. So, just we just wanted to start with that. Um, also summer was was absolutely fast and furious for me. I I assume it was fast and furious for many of us. Um, thank you to all of our um our staff for all of the work that you've put in to make this such a wonderful start to our school year for our students and families. I've heard really good feedback this year about um from our staff, from our students, and from our families about what an amazing school year start it

132has been for them. So, I know that's been a tremendous amount of work this summer to make that happen for the beginning of this school year. So, thank you to everyone that um for all of that work. And um thank you to Dr. Bryant for making your way to so many of the schools and sharing about so many of our programs and so many of our schools and and what an amazing start that they have all had. So, I also wanted to say thank you to all of our school business partners because I know that there have been um lots of community members, lots of school business partners, organizations, businesses that have stepped up to help um our students to help our our classrooms, our our staff um to start this this school year. Um

133I know I greatly appreciate all of that work and all of those contributions as well. So, thank you, >> member Holland. Um, thank you. I do want to comment that that about 12 years ago, um, ASD received a grant focused on AP classes for schools that had a certain percentage of military family students in them. It would have been Bartlett and Eagle River. I don't know if that grant program still exists. Um, provided professional development for teachers. have provided agenda for certain activities, provided actual stipens for students and study groups and different things. Um, and and if in fact that's part of the success, uh, to me that's something we should be able to turn around and go to the legislature and talk about specific funding for, um, it it was all things that that

134really supported AP classes in a meaningful way. Um, and yeah, we do want to expand any kind of rigorous study uh for as many students as possible. I I did get out Thursday to get to see some of what I call the retail side of education and some of the remarks that I'd plan to make uh address member lessons question about the staggered start because like you have heard from people that find it a little bit frustrating and confusing. It's not as simple as it used to be. Um, and also I say this as a former ninth grade teacher, uh, where the most common phrase I heard in parent phone calls was, "I don't know what happened. Everything was fine through the eighth grade." In ninth grade, things began to fall apart in a lot

135of ways. So, I was observing the ninth grade day, and it's not really the first day of school. Uh I'm not even sure if students got to their classrooms per se, but you do have the situation where it's busy, but it's not crowded because the upper classmen aren't there in numbers. Uh and there's still a lot of kids that need some help with their lockers. They need a class schedule. They need something some technical things so they know what to do on the next day of school. and and with the numbers reduced you staff is just better able to address that. Um it's it was busy and kind of frenetic but not nearly so much as if there had been hundreds of more students in the hallway. I'll also say that when I was at

136Golden View, especially doing tech work where I was in and out of the building all summer, I would wind up talking to parents who would tell me about the angst their rising seventh graders had about coming to the building. And at the time say, well, you know, I'll be there for so many hours tomorrow. If you want to just stop by and often they would. And their child would just walk around the building. We'd look inside an empty locker. We'd look inside classrooms. And the report back to me from parents was that just had an amazing impact on them being ready and losing some of that angst and concern uh and fright about the upcoming first day. So what what I saw was a whole building staff focused on the ninth graders that were there

137with the help of a substantial number of junior and senior mentor students that were also there assisting. Everybody had color-coded t-shirts and uh lots of announcements about who to talk to, where to go. Um there was a scavenger hunt that put kids in teams to get them out all through the building and interact with I think all of the teachers at some point um just a whole lot of things to really make them comfortable and and the sixth graders for middle school, the ninth graders for high school are the ones that have the highest levels of discomfort. Of course, you do have some new to the district students in the other grades, too. Um, I don't know of a good way to handle that exactly, but but I saw things that really engaged a lot

138of kids and just gave them a much more stressfree start and and one of the theories in education is if you can get kids comfortable and connected earlier, you have more days where you can successfully teach and make that happen. So I I do understand how it complicates life for families, but I I would suspect that there is a big payoff. It sure looks like there's a dramatic payoff uh in terms of engaging our students in a really positive way. And it uh I I will say watching teachers teach is way more exciting and fun than talking about education and budgets and all that stuff. There's really a a in in all the stuff we do, we don't see the energy and the effort that so many of our staff put in in a really

139strong way. Um it it was just a very impressive thing to watch. Um, the other thing I am stressing to the community councils that I meet with and other folks is that after the federal money was restored and after the the governor's vetos were overridden, as everybody on the board knows, the net result is we're funded about the same level as last year. And if you factor in inflation, we have a little less buying power. We have a few more actual dollars, but we're working with about the same number of resources as we had. And and we'll shuffle and try to do things differently to make the outcome better, but it's it's not that we got a whole bunch more money, which is the impression that a fair number of people in the community have

140from the way it's all been presented. The BSA was increased by a historic amount and all the most of the other outside the BSA funding went away. to where it netted out at about where we were. So, unfortunately, trying to drive down class sizes can't happen. And and we do have some very high classes, a lot of senior high classes in the 40s, middle school classes in the high30s and 40s, elementary classes in the high 20s and low30s. Um something that the community is not really used to. Um, and until we get some kind of significant actual increase per student, um, I don't know how we change that. But, but that is, um, the ultimate goal is to put that money in the classroom and change that experience because for a whole lot of kids,

141it really is too many students for to be able to effectively teach. But I I do think our our staff was out there doing a fantastic job on the first day. Um it's hard to sustain that energy every day and yet we see people that do it. Um if we can take some of the load off of them, uh they'll be able to do more of it and I I hope that's the goal for us and everybody in this building every day. Thank you. >> Thank you, Member Hullman. I understand that member Bellamy does not have comments tonight. So, I'll just briefly add one other item which I think um member Hullman touched on that for the first time since I began serving on this board in 2021, we had a legislature um an assembly,

142an Anchorage mayor, and a school board all pointed in the same direction of supporting public education, not just with words, but with um dollars. Um, and I think we have seen and uh we will continue to see the the benefits of that u for the start of the school year which is amazing. Um, but one year doesn't make a trend and we're going to have to continue to advocate and educate and work with lawmakers um and a new governor to continue improving our system of public education and to adequately maintain it. Um I think Senator Wowski was quoted in uh ADN within the last year of saying that they uh accomplished roughly 40% of what they set out to in terms of increasing the base student allocation and uh we do have an uphill battle

143to educate the public as to how little of a fraction of the work remains complete at this point. So um that of course is on us and I'm looking forward to that challenge. Thank you everyone. Uh good meeting. With that said, I think we had one comment from administration to clarify a question by member Hollowman. Is that correct, Mr. Lang? >> Yes. Um, the question was about the grant that we had 10 years ago that was through the National Mass Science Initiative and they partner with uh private corporations often to find funding to uh apply their particular um way of increasing AP enrollments in school districts. Um, we got our funding through the Department of um, uh, the Department of Defense. Um, they funded the the program for Bartlett and Eagle River High School. And

144that really, I think, opened a lot of our eyes to ways that we could reduce barriers for students to get into AP classes. And that set the foundation for us to partner with equal opportunity schools, which I really think underlies some of the increases that Dr. Bryant um noted today that we've seen in both increased enrollment um more underserved students in AP classes and higher um passing percentages. So really it is a kind of a nod to something that started small but really has grown and and in in a sustainable way in the district which is pretty cool. >> Thank you Mr. Lang. Seeing no other comments from administration or the board would entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> Move to adjurnn. >> Made by Hullman, seconded by Wilson. Seeing no opposition, we are adjourned

145at 8:05 p.m. Thank you everyone.