05/6/2025: School Board Meeting

001Is MJ retiring? Was that okay? As 6 o'clock on May the 6, I'm calling this meeting of the Anchorage School District Board to order. Um, if I can turn to our student roll call. Uh, member Bellamy, Wessons, Wilson, my self, member Hollowman, member Jacobs, member Higgins are in the room. Member Donley is excused from this meeting. uh would ask our current student representative member PAC to salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation with liberty and justice for And if I can call on him one more time to read the land acknowledgement. Acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of the Dina people of the Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the Dina people have been and continue to be

002the stewards of this land. ASD is community diversity and inclusion. And it's with honor and respect that we recognize all indigenous people who live and learn in our community. Thank you very much. We want to welcome everyone in the room to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the Anchorage School District and this board. The board thanks students, parents, teachers, staff, school business partners, and the entire Anchorage community for your investment in our district with your time, your talent, and your tax dollars. We appreciate it. This is a bit of an unusual meeting. Uh what we call our signed die. Uh the elections, most recent elections have been certified and we have two people here that were reelected to their office that will need to take the oath. Um Oh,

003okay. And I did skip the part about approving the agenda. I would entertain a motion for it to be approved. Move to approve the agenda as presented. Second. Moved and seconded to approve the agenda as presented. Without objection, I will consider it adopted. Seeing no objection as um that brings us to the sign part of the agenda that we just adopted. Uh and we do take a moment for comments from any board member that wishes to make them. Um, often there are outgoing board members, but we don't have any outgoing board members. But would anyone like to make comments at this point in the meeting? I can start to the left. Member Higgins says no. Member Jacobs. Um, to either of our student representatives, member Wilson, member Wessons. Yeah. Um I've never known this board

004to be quiet before. Um, I was going to uh acknowledge this closure and then an opening uh by saying how grateful I've been uh for the chance to work another year um this remarkably challenging year but also deeply rewarding uh with this board with um President Holland's leadership um collaborating with staff um community members and all of the varied stakeholders ultimately in service to our students. We have um a graduate up here tonight and it you know the balloon behind him says go change the world and I think that that is the job of all of our board members is to support students so that they are empowered to go change the world. So, um I thank everyone on the board and the administration uh who uh support the board's work and um I expect

005the next three years uh to be well the next year, we'll just start with one year um to be uh just as uh relevant. Thank you. And member Bellamy. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, first of all, I want to thank you for your leadership. I want to thank the superintendent and all of the staff. I mean, you guys really are amazing. I know we don't tell you that enough, but you are amazing. We ask uh that you do some pretty tough things and you always come through. Um, this is my third and final uh three years on the school board. Margot won't be running again, but Margot will be supporting our students. Um, I look forward to uh continuing the work um working with our families and our kids, working with this board to

006make sure that we can do the best that we can for our kids. Josh, you are amazing. I don't know quite what else to say beyond that, but I look forward to uh when you come back uh to visit your mama, you better make sure you call me if not show up. um because I appreciate that. So, I do want to thank my family. Um they without them I won't would not have time to do this work. Uh and I have several people in the audience, Matt and Jim, you know who you are, that have made uh that have been a great support. So, um I look forward to continuing the work. I look forward to responding to the needs of our students and our families. And with that, I'll turn it back over to

007you, Mr. Chair, thank you. I have somewhat limited remarks um as the outgoing president simply it has been an honor to be part of the board and be in a leadership position. Um it has been a difficult year and I think mainly because it has been so much of things we'd really not be rather be dealing with. um potentially severe budget cuts, certainly at the top of the list this time of year, closing neighborhood schools, um shaving programs, really trying to dismantle things as neatly as possible. Um I don't think was on anybody's mind when they ran for school board at all. Um and yet that's sort of the the times that we find ourselves in. Um, so it, uh, I will say to member Bellamy, knowing you're not ever going to run for anything

008again is a great feeling. And, um, I took a whole pickup truckload of signs out to Matsu because they recycle them out there if anybody's interested it. And yet somehow one appeared in the boardroom over there. Again, just can't get rid of them. But I do want to thank uh, people in the public. I think generally been very supportive of the Anchorage School District staff has worked very hard. I think under some very trying, difficult and and disturbing conditions. Um I'm hoping that next year is different for all of us. Uh although I I don't see any indication right now that it is. So on we go. Um, with that, if there are no other comments, we'll give the superintendent a chance. You're a board member also. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, first off, I'd

009be remiss if I didn't thank you for your year as president. This truly has been a very difficult year for everyone involved. So, I I really thank you for your uh thankless servant leadership. I I think everybody, myself included, really appreciated your your steady hand at the helm. And congratulations to member lessons and member Bellamy. I am very excited to to work with this group another year. Um, thank you for being the wind beneath my wing sometimes and it's a truly an honor to support you in the difficult and often thankless work that you do. Thank you very much. With that, I'm going to adjourn this. Oh, yes. Member Watsons, I don't know why I didn't ask you to speak twice. Thank you, Mr. President. Um this is uh actually hijacking the um the comment

010section to open the door to celebrating our student board member. Um and if I may take the liberty of just sharing um the privilege uh where's the tissue there. Uh the privilege that it has been to watch Josh grow over my four years on the board. Um, I met him um when he was a freshman. I felt like a freshman, too. And uh we were all on the plane to Juno um with um a number of other ASD students, a talented educator. And as a freshman, I was I mean when I was so impressed with his eloquence and calm demeanor walking into legislators offices um you know those February meetings and it was a joy to get to know you over that weekend over I kept seeing you around town. I saw you volunteering um

011with a student volunteer hat on at a summer event that following summer. Um, another time during the fall I popped into a model UN event and there you were again. Um it's then I I've seen you now um as the student advisory board leader for the past two years and you are able to uh with warmth and and a gentle but firm hand help your peers amend their amendments and develop ice breakers and shepherd them and lead them with just full um enjoyment and proficiency. and compassion and I've just so enjoyed watching you grow as a leader. So, thank you. So, this is a formal certificate of our appreciation uh for Josh and his two years of service here on the board and his many other years of service and leadership throughout the community. And

012thank you, member lessons, for reminding me about that. I was I was about to simply adjourn. I do hope that this board has always made it easy for member pack to speak up. Not all boards are like that. I just want to say that for our behalf, but even if it's not easy, keep speaking up. So, thank you with that. And no other objection. Um I will adjourn this particular board and ask our justice to come forward and swear in our members that were in the election. Oh, I meant to ask about that too. Great. The superintendent will reconvene us for our reorganization adjourned. Thank you, President Halman. As the superintendent of the Anchorage School District and the interim chair of this meeting, I would like to call this meeting back to order. And at

013this time, I would ask for Youth Court Assistant Chief Judge Charlotte Bitner and Alaska Supreme Court Justice Dario Borgaz Borgazan to administer the oath of office to swear in our newly reelected board members Bellamy and Lessons. I ask you both to raise your right hands and please repeat after me. I and then state your name. I, Marggo Bellamy, do solemnly swear do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support and defend that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Alaska and the Constitution of the State of Alaska. and that I will honestly, faithfully, and impartially And that I will honestly, faithfully, and impartially discharge my duties as a school board member to the best of my ability. to discharge my duties as a

014school board member to the best of my ability. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. And congratulations to our board members. At this time, I would like to entertain a brief at ease to sign and notorized paperwork. 5 minutes. All right. Uh, I would like to call this meeting back to order. We will now move on to item D, organization of the 2526 school board. At this time, I would entertain nominations from the board for the slate of officers. I move to approve the slate of officers. Carl Jacobs for president, Marggo Bellamy as vice president, Dora Wilson as clerk, and Kelly Lessons as treasurer. Is there a second? Right. We have a second. Are there any objections to the nomination and election of officers? Seeing none, the motion carries. Congratulations.

015At this time, I'll hand the meeting back to our new board president, Carl Jacobs. Oh, we got to get your candy basket. You don't have to worry about me. I'm just fine. Perfect. Okay, we'll call ourselves back to order. Next on our agenda is community reports. We'll go to E1, student representative. The floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, one of the main things I do want to report on is that uh, many students from ASD recently attended the spring ASAG or Alaska Association of Student Governments conference and uh, we had a phenomenal time in Sika. There are some resolutions that I think um, is notable and is worthy of reporting and so the incoming president or student representative Maddie will cover some of those and I'll share mine. All right. Thank you Josh.

016So like he said at this last OSOG trip in Sidka, it was an amazing time and also another amazing thing is that all the resolutions that students presented there were passed which is a great thing to the many issues that are concerning across the state. Now specifically talking about what these resolutions are first I'll list some of mine that our school brought. So for example, Eagle River High School was able to pass three resolutions at this spring OOG. And one of them was related to medically accurate sexual education curriculums in all Alaska public schools, not requiring it, but requiring the information to be accurate in the curriculum since there weren't any prior regulations. Next, there was another one to not cut swim and dive from the FY25 ASD budget. And lastly, Eagle River High School

017also passed one that would make the current freshman career exploration course transformed into a student learning center-based program rather than a full semester elective. So, for example, at our school, we do a thing called SLC where it's sort of like an advisory period. This would be taking that class and instead putting the instruction into that time instead of an actual full class that would be a semester long like any other course. Now, speaking of all the resolutions in general presented from all the schools across the conference, there were some great ones that especially stuck out, such as one that insisted OSG to oppose the project of Pebble Mine. Other ones reinstating staff at their high schools who've been lost from budget cuts like Kodiak's librarian. Saving middle school sports and choir from the FY25 ASD

018budget. One of them insisting that the Alaska legislature adopt a law to prohibit individuals with barrier crimes from serving on school boards. Bethl's ANSEP adopting the Sandy Hook Promise program in remarks of the shooting that they had previously. and as well as health education requirements being required in all Alaska high schools. There were also some safeguarding Alaska's ecological future and one of them most importantly was also in favor of supporting HB21 which relates to prevoting registration at 16 years old which was as well written by our own very eboard. Now, there are many more resolutions as well. That would be a lot to cover because so many were submitted, which is great. And we were able to get through around almost 20 plus resolutions, which is awesome. Just like every other conference, but those are

019the ones that definitely stuck out. There's obviously a lot of issues across the state about budget cuts, not just ASD, but a lot of other schools, but all resolutions that were presented were able to get passed. A lot of students used amendments and debate and conversation to pass these. So that way each school had their own issue taken care of in a way that could help and support them. So it was overall a really great time and hopefully next conference we see the same thing and more students are able to solve these issues and be student leaders submitting these and discussing these so they can support themselves and their peers. Thanks Maddie. And um there was one resolution that I actually wrote um or co-wrote with the student representative in the Sika school district. Um

020and this was a resolution I think I shared the idea of like maybe a year ago, but we finally brought it into language and it is a resolution establishing a student board member association for the state of Alaska. Um and the idea is that it just be a platform for student representatives across school boards to meet with each other and share ideas to pass down experience. Um and because many of the student representative representatives that I've met uh told me that joining a school board you typically join with a lot of dreams and hopes and a lot of energy to that change for the peers. there are often a lot of barriers uh to bringing that change because obviously these are professional meetings um with budgets and all these things that are really hard to

021understand for just one year as a student. So hopefully this organization will empower student representatives to better represent their peers. Um and we will try to start that over the summer and I'll probably leave it out because I'm not going to be a student representative anymore, but we'll have student representatives taking that charge. And one more thing, like said before, it pains me to say this, but this is my last school board meeting um as a student representative for ASD. I originally thought it would be the next meeting this May, but um I found out that that's when my graduation is. And yeah, I'm not going to try to zoom in from the graduation stage because I'd probably be screaming from the excitement and I don't want to be remembered for that. Anyway, um so

022here's a little speech. Um I entered into this position as a sophomore completely overwhelmed with the responsibility of somehow representing the entire student body of ASD. um to somehow represent, you know, the hopes, the dreams, the concerns, the visions of all these students, about 40,000. Um but after attending about 40 schoolboard meetings, over sitting over a hundred hours on school nights, uh listening to countless testimonies, and giving many reports, I've learned that I was never meant to represent all the peers by myself. Um because there are student leaders all across Anchorage who are fiercely brilliant, tenacious, and passionate about their futures that actually came to me with their ideas, dreams, hopes, and concerns. And all I had to do was show up to these meetings and say what was on their mind. And for that

023reason, I am not afraid at all to leave this and retire as a student leader because there are so many great, more than competent student leaders who will take my place. like Maddie. And finally, my time on this board has taught me many things, but for the sake of time, I will share the two that I deem the most important. One, that public service is indeed still a noble and worthy calling. Um, it certainly is not easy, and like member Holland said, it's often thankless, but I think that makes it all the more necessary. Um, and second, I've just begun to understand how much care, dedication, love, blood, sweat, and tears that our educators give to lead our students to a brighter future. Um, and so I know the lessons I learned from my time

024on this board will stay with me for the rest of my life. And for that, I'm forever grateful. And one last time, I want to thank the students, thank the parents, thank the teachers, the staff, the administration, school board, and ASD. has been the honor or a honor of a lifetime. And with that, for the very last time, that concludes my report. Thank you, Mr. Pack. It's been a pleasure. We will move on to board conference and committee reports. Is there any board committee chair who wishes to provide a report at this time? Okay. Hearing seeing none, we'll move on to goal monitoring under F1. We have a technical report for math proficiency. Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours. Thank you, President Jacobs, and congratulations. Uh, so we'll give the team a moment to pull

025up the slides. So, for the audience just tuning in, this is our technical report. We'll just briefly go through the format of our upcoming goal monitoring conversation in two weeks. Today's goal focuses on math proficiency. Uh, so next slide, please. So, we recently did some revisions to to these goals. So, I want to state this for the public's awareness. So, the school board has a goal to increase uh math proficiency for 8th grade students um to 41.5% in May of 2028. It's a big goal that we seek to achieve, but it's important that we have interim goals that we can measure along the way. So the purpose of this technical report is to review interimm goal 2.3 which is our catchup growth goal. And just to remind the board and to make the public aware

026when we had conversations about measuring proficiency it came handinhand with discussions around student growth. Um there certainly um are many reasons to celebrate reading proficiency but there are a lot of great reasons too to celebrate our kiddos who maybe aren't proficient but are accelerating in their learning. That should be our aspiration because if we can accelerate their learning, we can truly make a difference for the educational experience for all students in the district. Uh, next slide. So on this slide, you'll see the um the most recent trends in this area. Um, so catchup growth is uh noted in the footnotes of the previous slide, but essentially we're looking for those that are showing uh 1.5 times the levels of typical growth is the short way, succinct way to explain that. And based off of our

027historical trends, it looks like we're on target to meet our interim goal for 2526, but there still is room uh to grow. Uh next slide, please. So uh what we'll leave with the board to look at over the next couple of weeks is how this data is broken down. There's a lot of great data on this slide where you can see the numbers of students who have tested as proficient, the participation rates amongst grade level, and then from there you can see the percent of students who are not proficient in each grade level and then you can start to see well what percent of that percent are showing that accelerated growth that we discussed. That's the basis of the interim goal. Next slide please. And we'll also leave the board with this data broken down

028by uh student subopuls including race, ethnicity, gender in other areas. And again, this is an opportunity to look at the data and to understand what is the percent of students that aren't proficient and amongst those students who is um who is truly experiencing this accelerated growth because that opens a lot of opportunities to understand best practices in teaching and also understanding what resources our students need to thrive. Next slide. Uh and again this is disagregated by the various sub populations and uh the focus for this presentation is really on that final column which is of these sub populations the percent that are seeing that accelerated rate of growth and then the next couple of slides will go over the the highle uh tactics and action steps for the administration. We can go to the next

029slide. Uh for the board's purposes, I just want to flag that the implementation steps are broken up. So on this slide are the steps for grades three through five broken down by curriculum, instruction, professional learning, the data that we need to review, um as well as the multi-tered systems of supports. And we break down the specific action steps that we can discuss more in depth at the next meeting. And then you'll notice that on the next slide it looks similar but you'll notice that some of the tactics are specific towards the the middle school students um because this goal the proficiency goal is for eighth grade but we're able to look at this accelerated growth in different uh subpopuls of students and then you'll see that the action steps vary accordingly and then that concludes

030the technical presentation. Thank you Dr. Bryant. Are there questions from the board regarding the technical report on our math proficiency goal? Okay, hearing and seeing none, we'll deep dive on that at our next meeting. We'll move on to public comments. Like to welcome everyone to the school board's first opportunity of the evening for public comment. The board has set aside a 1-hour time slot at the beginning of our meeting for public comment. Public comments in excess of 1 hour will be heard at the second opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting. Comments can also be submitted in writing. During public comment, board members will not answer questions or engage in discussion with members of the public. This is the public's time to speak and the board's time to listen. The school board

031welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings through their comments. However, to be productive, our meetings must be structured and civil. ASD conducts public meetings under Robert's rules of order, a set of rules for orderly meetings that have been used since the late 1800s. Those rules require the board and the public to be civil and respectful of each other's opinions and statements. Here are a few requirements under Robert's rules. Do not attack a member or speaker's motives. No profanity or fault language. Refrain from disturbing the meeting. Please. No cheering, applause, outbursts, or waving of signs or posters. If you have handouts that you wish to share with the board, please give them to Miss Sullivan, who is seated to my left. As president of the board, is my duty to enforce these rules

032of civility and decorum. As such, consistent with Robert's rules of order, I have the authority to rule any speaker out of order for violations or who anyone who fails to conduct themselves in a civil manner. That said, we've got a brief list of those who have signed up tonight, including one student speaker. So, we'll begin there. Our first testifier and student speaker is Luca Phillip Marasani. Okay, not seeing Luca. We'll move on to our community speakers to be heard. Our first speaker is William Baxter. Welcome. The floor is yours. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. I'm William Baxter and uh I represent I'm a volunteer for FFA and I was I was at the uh state convention FFA convention. double this year and I see a lot of and and it was

033great convention. One of the things I see around the school with some of the schools is a lot of area where you could do actually do some farming in that. And uh another thing I ran into is is is 4. A lot of times I have like at my church I started 4 at my church and it is the municipality has a very hard hard rules about uh chickens and stuff like that and a lot of the 4 kids want people want want to have you know do things here in in the VA in the Anchorage and that's about all I could say. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Cassie. Last initial W is all that was provided. Cassie, welcome, Cassie. You've got three minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

034Don't see member Donnelly present. So through the chair, if I may approach Miss Sullivan with these documents, please. What a great irony that today is the day that I came to visit y'all again. Um, through the chair, member Jacobs, through the chair, Miss Lessons, through the chair, Miss Bellamy, you've been served. Have a nice day. Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Joan Delison. Welcome. You have three minutes. You can begin when you're ready. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Joanie Liasen and I am fortunate to be the school nurse serving Holdenstead Elementary for the last 20 years. My nursing career has included many years in intensive care, case management, and public health. I found my dream job in 1998 when I became a school nurse for

035ASD. Soon afterwards, I achieved my national school nurse certification equal to a teacher's highly qualified status. I have held that certification for 25 years. Late on f uh Friday afternoon in April, I received news that I would be moved from my school community of two decades to accommodate an ASD staff member whose school was closing. I am not the only one who's being shuffled. The everchanging nurse displacement process has been heartbreaking. ASD plans to eliminate 13 nurse positions. To accomplish this, 26 schools were reduced to half-time nurses. Of the 26 schools, nurses were dep displaced. Uh the 26 schools were then split into pairs, leaving 13 nurses for 26 schools or one nurse for two schools. At the last minute, ASD pivoted and directed displaced nurses to indicate their preference to either stay full-time in

036interview for two paired schools or if desired reduced to a 50% position and stay at their original school. This was without any explanation about the loss of health care benefits or retirement. Nurses were granted a single day to make this careering decision. Some nurses had the opportunity of discussion with ASD staff, others did not. If in a hospital setting, this ill-informed dialogue would be considered lack of informed consent. The remaining schools were repaired. Full-time nurses positions were posted, one nurse for two school. The remaining nurses were tasked with interviewing for their own and other schools, pitting seasoned nurse nurses against seasoned nurses. I strongly believe every school deserves a school nurse all day, every day. School nurses keep help keep students in school and parents in their jobs. We respond to minor health concerns and

037emergencies, manage chronic and acute health conditions, run vaccine clinics, and do a number of things. I am also here today to provide support for every school nurse who has been returned to be returned to their original positions. Um I've been at Homestead for 20 years. Losing the my school in this manner feels really unjust. I know in my heart that other displaced nurses feel the same. Uh the decisions made by ASD impact nurses but also the students, the families, the staff who rely on our continued presence and care. I've Thank you for your testimony. Our next testifier is Katherine Brown. Welcome. You have three minutes. You can begin when you're ready. Thank you. Hello. My name is Katherine Brown and I am finishing up my 20th year with ASD as a school nurse. I'm also

038nationally board certified. I've been at King Techch Alaska Middle College for the past three years. I would like to wish all school nurses happy school nurses day, which is tomorrow. I am here tonight to share some information and explain what my role is in my school. King Techch includes a full-time program, two halftime programs that run in the AM and the PM, as well as houses Alaska Middle College and King Techch all day preschool. I share this because many think of King as a small full-time program, but my job entails much more. My total student count is 1,596 students as of 3 days ago. This includes all the programs that I just spoke about. King Techch full-time has 146, part-time has 1,124. Alaska Middle College has 300, projected to be at least 100 more in

039the fall. And preK has 20, which is always full. That's their max. I'm responsible for all. In addition to the students during the school day, I also work as the nurse at King Tech Third Session, and that averages 300 SE students per session, three sessions per year. Of course, not all are these students are in my building at the same time, but in doing some research, I have learned that I have an average of over 700 students that could be in my building on any given day. Part-time students also change every semester. I would also like to add that I have students from all eight comprehensive high schools as well as the alternative schools. That is 16 different schools. I share this because, for example, if Service High School has 10 diabetics one year and

040five come to King part-time, I have those students as well. Do they show up on my roster as being mine? No, only because they're part-time, but I'm still responsible. This includes seizures, asthmas, allergies, cardiac issues, just to name a few. If they're in my building, they are my students. King Techch offers some amazing CTE programs, including welding, Cosmo, construction, electricity, collision repair, automaintenance, vette, EMT, farm and food, culinary, and much more. I recently heard someone refer to King Techch as the school with the power tools and express surprise learning that their nurse is being cut to halftime. CTE injuries happen and I work hard to teach students and staff to help prevent them, but they happen regardless. And nurse is needed to deal with what comes and that's what I do every day. I do

041this in addition to all of my other duties that come with taking care of students. AMCS students also are in the building at average of 60 students 60 students per day and that does not include students that just come to study between UAA classes. They also have health issues and show up in the nurse's office. PreK kids get sick, hurt on the playground and require the nurse. They also present with allergies, seizure disorders, cardiac issues and more. Students and staff safety wellness is my top priority and having a nurse only two and a half days a week at KTE Alaska Middle College King prek is not safe. Please understand that staff cannot teach effectively if they are going to be required to stop teaching and care for a student who may become injured or ill

042during a CTE class. The liability is huge by not having with this. Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Amy Brebeck. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. I'm Amy Bravbeck. I'm an Anchorage voter, a proud solo parent of an ASD student and I've been an educator since 1996 and an ASC employee since 2001. I've been a classroom teacher and for the past 18 years an elementary school librarian, currently a triage optional. Throughout my time at ASD, I've seen fellow teachers displaced, pink slipped, reinstated, and I realized that I had no clue what they went through until now. Ever since January uh 31st, when the displacements were announced, I have felt anger, frustration, sadness, disbelief, denial, possible hope, disrespected, and exhaustion. All of this energy was taken away

043from my students, my school community, my family, and my own well-being. I understand that this is a result of the lack of ESA funding from Juno in the past for the past decade. And I understand that this has been difficult for everyone involved. With everything going on, I was wondering if you had considered what an elementary librarian job entails. We all know that the library should be the heart of every school and within it a full-time certified librarian who fosters and honors the love of reading and the joy of learning. We all know that librarians make connections with students through books as well as being a constant in their elementary school life. While we do love our books, it's not the only piece of our purpose at our schools. Did you know that we collaborate

044with teachers to support students learning in their social emotional growth? Did you know that we help prepare students to be respectful, productive digital citizens in the 21st century? Along with digital citizenship lessons, we teach Google digital tools to our students and staff. This doesn't just happen during library class, but it happens throughout the day. Elementary librarians have teamed up with the innovations team this year to focus on technology and education with a goal of collaborating with teachers and integrating technology in a purposeful manner for students. Many elementary librarians are their school's Elmtech, building test coordinator, teacher in charge, wing group provider. It's they're the school's backup plan. If we want to look at it through a business lens, elementary librarians are responsible actually for hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets. For example, my library

045has around 11,000 books. If the average is around $18, the collection is almost worth $200,000. And there are around 300 Chromebooks at my school worth around $74,000. Who will be responsible for these pieces of elementary librarians are halftime between two schools? When I shared with my students next year's plan for being halftime at Chachi optional and halftime at Willowrest, they had questions. Why? Who will be here for us the other half of the time? Who will help us when you're not here? While I am hopeful that the 12.5 um elementary librarian positions will be reinstated, I am fearful and realistic that this will not not the last time ASD will be looking at displacements due to the lack of funding. Before the next school, excuse me, before the net budget cuts take place, I believe

046that ASD administration and ASD board members come and spend time in our schools. Talk with us about what our job entails. Bring us to the table when it comes time to problem solve. We're the ones working in the trenches. We're a team and we all want the absolute best for our students. I look forward to having you spend quality time in our schools and thank you for listening and I'd be honored to talk with you more when you visit. Thank you very much. And thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Chelsea Ambrose. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi. Uh, thank you for giving me the chance to speak. My name is Chelsea Ambrose. I teach elementary art at Glattiswood and Concaid Elementary Schools. Um, I know y'all don't

047want to make these budget cuts. I understand that you get that we can't afford to lose these teachers. Uh, we can't afford to increase class sizes when we already have classes of 35 fifth graders, 34 fourth graders, 30 kindergarteners. You understand how librarians and nurses are central to school communities. How middle school sports are key to engaging and involving students. So, I'll try to keep this short. The well-being of our students and state depends on a $700 or more BSA increase. I am calling on educators, leaders, and particularly families. Families, I'll say it one more time, families to contact the governor immediately. And maybe repeatedly, tell him to support HB57. Tell him that our kids cannot afford anything less than a $700 BSA increase. His number is 907-4653500 or you can do a quick Google

048search and you can figure out how to contact him. Thank you for supporting our students and our state. Thank you for your testimony. Our next testifier is Brian like welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you, members of the board. Uh, my name is Brian Lake. I'm a English and drama teacher at West High School and I'm one of the 100 something displaced teachers in this school district. Um, it is an extreme distraction from all of the work that I do as an English and a drama teacher. Um, I've had quite a year, uh, as several members of the board are definitely aware of and and I hope everyone else, uh, will become aware of, uh, the West High theater program produced, uh, the musical Hadestown this year, Hadestown Teen Edition.

049Um and it had quite a run after uh three very successful uh opening uh days of uh crowds of 300 then 500 then 650 uh we extended our run at the end of the month. Uh it was a tremendous push uh from our very busy students. We had 50 students and five teachers involved in the production. Uh but we opened it up for three more shows um February 26, 27, 28. Those crowds were 600, 800, and then 1,300 uh supportive, cheering, uh, ecstatic community members pouring into the West High auditorium, filling it for the first time in a long time. Uh, I started that uh, my curtain speech that day by just thanking people for being there for student art. Um, I told them that well, we love the attention uh that we were getting

050in the press and uh from the thousand people there here to support students. Uh, they really should also share some love for the uh teachers all across uh our school district, the hardworking teachers that deal with um anything that comes in the door, pushing students to do their best. And uh do you know what happened after that? uh uh about a thousand people stood up and applauded for teachers. Well, uh our show was extended again to the performing arts center. Uh the performing arts center asked our our our troop to to come out there and put on a show. And um on April 12th, uh we had a soldout crowd in the Atwood. 230 community members paid $40 a ticket to watch our students make art. Um, I am one of the displaced teachers in

051the Anchorage School District. You can't imagine the stress that this has caused uh to my students, to my students families, and to me uh and my family. I know that it's not personal, uh, but it does feel stupid. It feels pretty damn shortsighted and um like it shouldn't have to happen. And I'm really counting on your guys's uh votes to restore educators to their original schools uh today uh with a modest increase in Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is Nicole Lake. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, I'm Nicole and that's my other half. And he's actually why I ended up in Alaska. It's a long story, but I am the Alaska School Counselor of the Year. And I want to point out this shirt. Every student deserves

052a school counselor. If I had created this shirt, I would have changed it and said every student deserves a fulltime elementary school counselor. I am so proud of the work we are doing at Clatt Elementary School. I'm the first school counselor they've had in the memorable past. I don't know, nobody there had ever worked with one before. And we got our school climate and connectedness survey results back. It it brings tears to my eyes the improvements we saw and we see in our school climate celebrating our students. The growth that these students are demonstrating on a daily basis. The way that they hold each other accountable. If a student comes to talk to an adult, the peers will say, "Is that a big problem or a small problem?" Yeah, that's a small problem. Did you

053try your bug in a wish yet? The students practice compassion. We have a clothing boutique for children to go shopping because we know kids grow out of clothes so quickly. Our students bring in clothes to donate to that boutique. We have our care closet. Students know that they have access to the resources that they need every single day. No questions asked, no shame, no stigma. so that they can be available to learn. I get to run recess workshops and it is sometimes the most challenging, you know, period of my day, especially with like those busy kindergarteners and first graders. But it is also the most joyful time of my day because children choose to come spend their recess with me and we play Uno. And I have students who when they would get a plus

054two or a skip handed their way, they used to melt down and quit in frustration. Those kids now can take those plus twos and skip cards in stride with a positive attitude and they remain engaged. We have students who used to kind of just do their own thing now show up to connect with their peers every day. It is such a joy to do this work and it's so important. This is the foundation for all other learning. Trust me, I was a middle high school counselor for six years. I lost kids to suicide. prevention is essential and that's what we get to do here. And I just want to please I know that our goals are that every child has access to mental health supports. Our school counselors need to know every student's name. Thank

055you for your testimony. Our last testifier is Sam Durham. Welcome. You have three minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, my name is Sam Dunham and Oh, that's loud. My name is Sam Dunham. Uh, and I have something a little bit more focused I'd like to talk about today because um I'm a teacher at Service High School and uh today uh the Service High School hosted the pilot metal detector program uh that the high schools have been trying around uh around town. I was uh extremely anxious and distracted all day long. Um, I feel like the implication of these metal detectors is that there is an immediate security concern. However, when emailed about these ahead of time by our administration, we were told there is no concern. There's a proactive measure. And uh in my

056way of thinking either we if if we don't need them, we shouldn't have them as they imply a certain a certain level of danger which is going to cause if it's causing anxiety to me, it's going to be causing that to students as well. And if we do need them, then we need to be told about that because quite frankly, I do not want to work in a place in an environment that requires metal detectors as a safety measure. I know that some schools need that. I know that some places and jobs need that. I choose not to work in those places for a reason. I was not only distracted and distraught all day, I feel distrusted and I feel mad. I feel upset because as I understand the program, uh, not every school is

057getting metal detectors. This is merely a trial thing that will then be moved around randomly to different high schools on different days. So, it doesn't really provide any protection whether it's necessary or not. We're just hoping that randomly they'll be at the right school on the right day. And every single person who looks at those can think of a dozen ways off the top of their head to circumvent them with the amount of windows and doors and different ways to get them in. And I've worked with teenagers long enough to know that a certain number of them will see it as a challenge. What can I do? How can I get something in here that I'm not supposed to do? How can I do something I'm not supposed to do? Won't that be funny? We've

058all met teenagers like that. Maybe you were a teenager teenager like that. I know I've had students like that. So, it's going to be tempting people to do something that otherwise wouldn't be danger issue. And I talked to all my students today about how they felt about it. Uh, it was universally negative as it caused several people to be late to their first hour class. Um, and several of them to miss important information in their first hour class. There was one person who said that they did feel safer. One person who did that. But I got one quote that I said I would pass along today. Uh, the school can't afford to fix a lock that has been broken for half the year in the bathroom. students constantly walking on kids in the restroom. School

059continues to use their money on the wrong things. I can't look at those metal detectors without thinking how many teachers could have been hired for the cost of the imple implementation of this program. We can only blame the legislature and their inability to fund us so far. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. That completes our list of those who have signed up tonight. We'll take a fiveminute recess and then continue on with our agenda. All right, we'll call ourselves back to order at 7:10 p.m. We've completed our public testimony section of the agenda. We'll now move to H our consent agenda. Does any board member wish to pull an item from the consent agenda before we move to adopt? Hearing is seeing none. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as listed?

060Mr. Chair, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. There a second made by member Bellamy, seconded by member Higgins. Hearing no discussion, we'll go to a vote. Miss Sullivan. Student Representative Pack. Yes. Member Higgins. Member Bellamy. Member Lessons. Yes. Member Hollowman. Yes. Member Wilson. Yes. President Jacobs. Yes. Our consent agenda is adopted by a vote of six to zero. We'll move on to section I1 under student hearings. Is there a motion um exing out of our executive session discussion? Mr. Chair, I move to approve the expulsion of the students associated with AFD incident numbers 1424183 and 1423778 as discussed in executive session. Is there a second? Second made by member Bellamy, seconded by member Wilson. Any discussion? Hearing and seeing none, we'll move to a vote. Member Sullivan. Member Lessons. Yes. Member Wilson.

061Yes. Member Hollowman. Yes. Member Higgins. Yes. Member Bellamy. Yes. President Jacobs. Yes. Our student hearing item is adopted by a vote of six to zero. Our second action item I2 is ASD memorandum number 153 finance committee recommendation for revising the proposed FY26 budget. Is there a motion? Yes, Mr. Mr. Chair. I move to approve ASD memorandum number 153, finance committee's recommendation for revising a revision of the FY2526 general fund budget to account for additional revenue which is projected to be made available through House Bill uh 57. This recommendation would increase the FY2526 general fund proposed budget from 594,618,829 to $634,42068,62 and restore reductions as detailed in attachment Five. Did I say five? I'm sorry. A I'm sorry. Attachment A. Okay. Is there a second? Second made by member Belly, second by member Wilson. Is there

062discussion? We'll go to member Higgins and then member Belly. Thank you. Um, not everybody attends the work session. Most people um judging from the number of people here but we had a discussion about this earlier as well as finance committee uh this projection uh is going to address the current staffing issues. This is this is not going to be a long-term fix and I want to make sure everybody understands that um even at the $560 if he even went to $700 uh we know that that is not going to be adequate to prevent the same situation next year. In fact, it's going to be worse next year because some of the cuts that we will we're making this year still will not be available next year when we're still dealing with the same cliff, assuming

063that the legislature has not approved a significant increase by February. Otherwise, we're going to be doing the same thing again and we're going to be uh upsetting staff and disrupting our process and not focusing on education for kids, which is really what we're all about. That's what our focus should be, but we haven't been able to do that. I'm totally supportive of this and I hope that uh staff understands that we have an obligation to come out with a budget. We have an obligation for notifications, pending notifica, pending uh an understanding of what money would be out there from the state. And so we had to do a lot of communications with staff to tell them what may happen. It was awful. it. We've heard testimony tonight that addressed the stress associated with this for

064students, for staff. We've gotten emails from about um uh the issue of middle school sports, high school sports, class assignments, or we're going to back the Ignite program, what's going to happen to the immersion programs, the staff size, the nurses, you name it. We have all of these issues out there that we were forced to put on the plate in order to balance a budget with $111 million deficit this year. We're still taking out all these reserves that won't be there next year. And we're still facing the same crisis again next year where we should have had needed at least a hund00 million um um you know $1,000 BSA increase and we're looking at 560 maybe 700 either one. So, um I am uh absolutely 100% behind this and I want to take some of

065the stress associated with staff that have have been there, the the the students, the parents, everyone that's going through there, but I also want to be completely honest. Unless the legislature and the governor decide that their obligation is to fund adequately public education, we're going to do this again next year and we're we're going to be facing this and we may or may not get lastm minute funding again to reduce it because we won't have the same level of reserves that we have this year as we use them up to try to lessen the impact on academic outcomes for these kids and what it does to our community. So, 100% supportive of doing what we can, and that's what we're doing right now with an understanding that even if we get $700 on the BSA,

066we're still going to be facing a crisis next year and we're going to be facing it. If we don't get the funding for the state by by February, we're going to be sending out a lot of information I hope would not be necessary. But it's it's to me is this is the most disappointing process I've ever been through with this uh current legislature given the size of it after 10 years of not giving us inflation proof and and not being supportive. So um I appreciate the administration bringing this forward as a proposal. uh it has my total support and I hope that for all those that have been impacted I have so many with impacted for their kids and for the programs uh and the staff and their families u I hope that this gives

067a little bit of relief with it but we can't take off the communications to our elected officials in Juno that if you don't fund education you're putting us right back in this position and we need commitments from them early in the here uh to avoid the same situation. That is not going to be easy, but the voice of the public is what needs to be driven in needs to be driving this. So, thank you. Thank you, member Higgins. We'll go to member lessons. Thank you. Um you know, the the memory, how did we get here is what I'd like to reflect on for just a moment. So I want to begin uh by thanking members uh alphabetically Hollowman and Jacobs HJ and then uh worked with me um to create a potential path forward to

068reinstate some of the positions the majority of the positions that have been cut through uh the work of producing a balanced budget. Um we collaborated with uh the administration to ensure that numbers were as accurate as possible. That has been extraordinarily helpful. And then we used um the committee process uh we called I called an emergency finance committee meeting on Wednesday last week uh as the chair of the finance committee and the finance committee does have the purview of making recommendations to the board and so that's what we did. We gathered uh members uh um Higgins, Bellamy and I comprise the finance committee officially, but all board members are welcome to attend. We had five of seven board members in attendance. We raised the proposal which uh to just walk through at a very high

069level um does bring back the PTR plus4 down to a PTR plus one. And PTR again is people teacher ratio which is not exactly the same as class sizes but it's the best metric that we have for talking about class sizes. So class sizes will not go up as dramatically next year but they will go up. Um but we do reinstate something like 138 positions with that reduction from the plus4 to the plus one. Um other things that this uh proposal does is reverse cuts to um our some of our elementary pair of professionals. Uh it reverse those cuts to hold back teachers and actually expands that pool because one thing we know is that with the increase of class sizes, the PTRs, we're going to have more combo classes and we're going to have

070more unexpected bubbles. And so we need this pool of holdback teachers to really um I've used the word triage before to just figure out where the unexpected bubbles are come August and bring those holdback teachers in um to do um to serve our students most directly. Uh this also uh reverses cuts to the Ignite program. It reverses cuts to the elementary immersion programs. It reverses cuts to summer school for both elementary and secondary preschool teachers. Uh battle of the books. It proportionally allocates dollars to our charter schools and to our correspondent students. So we are lifting the boats as best we can to all of our students. It reverses the cuts to librarians, to our nurses, to middle school sports, um to our high school sports that had been cut, hockey, gymnastics, swimming, diving. um

071would re uh reinstate our agreement with the dome, reverses cuts to staff affiliated with teaching and learning uh principles, library assistance, counselors, special education deaf, and invests in elementary counselors in alignment with our board goals, excuse me, our board guard rails. That said, as we reviewed um and the administration did a great job in today's work session as we reviewed what isn't done with this modest bite at the apple, if you will. Um there's still $23 million in cuts that are part of the FY26 budget that are not being uh reinstated by figuring out how to allocate a $560 BSA increase or that equivalent. um which is a a significant cut to our students and our schools and our community. Um, that said, and here staff was really helpful this afternoon, essentially passage of memo

072153 will avoid laying off any certificated staff, would reverse the displacements that have been um started that that displacement process and it would allow the administration to actually move to external hires in critical strategic areas where they do actually expect some vacancies. Um it was a really thoughtful work session. Um I would encourage community members who are interested in learning more to to watch that 4pm session. It should be on YouTube. Um it's not perfect. Principles are still tasked with making unenviable decisions um based on seniority, based on programmatic needs at their schools. So, this is not a magic wand by any stretch of the imagination, but it does our best at this point in time given enthusiasm and support for House Bill 57. Um, it does the best we can to meet students, meet

073the immediate needs of students, staff, families, and the community as a whole. So, I would urge passage of this um memo and um really appreciate the collaboration uh and questions that board members have shared, the support that administrators have offered. Um thank you, member Hollerman. Thank you very much. Um I do want to stress to everybody that assuming this is still a hypothetical. Uh, and one of the things that the board works under every year is every year it's a hypothetical. We we try to choose what we would call a real number to base a budget on, but that's well in advance of actually knowing what's going to be appropriated and what's not going to be vetoed by the governor. Um, in December, the governor indicated that he felt like the BSA should be funded

074and maybe a small amount for other targeted areas, but essentially the BSA was going to be the budget because the BSA hasn't been increased regularly. It's really far apart from what we operate at. Um, if this $700 addition to the BSA passes, it will help bring it close because several several folks in the legislature or in administration like to say, "Well, we're funding education. We're going to fund the BSA." Um, and to a lot of the public, I think that sounds very positive without realizing that the BSA has become a fraction of what we normally operate at. funding us at the BSA level is essentially about a 20% cut in our budget from what we're enjoying this year. And I do want to emphasize again, we're not in a deficit this year. Uh ASD has

075a long history of passing budgets and staying inside of them. Um and and that comes from being cautious. being cautious this year and taking the governor's word really created I I I think a disaster and I have been affiliated with the Anchor school district in some form or another since 1994 almost always there are some cuts a few years there's actually been additional money to where we grew a little bit but most of the time you the board the administration is tasked with trying to shave things down a little a little bit. Try to find something to drop that won't do a lot of damage. Um, try to skinny a program down a little bit by shaving an FTE here or there without the program going away. And you can do that a little bit

076if you're in good shape to begin with. This year, we really weren't in good shape to begin with, and the cuts were much more severe. And as they started actually assigning FTE and principles started looking at the specific cuts they would make, uh, they were far more dramatic, far more damaging than I think anyone on the board imagine, uh, and possibly anyone in the administration imagined. It's a little bit like that bridge building exercise that a lot of science classes do where kids construct a bridge out of popsicles and you start putting weight on it to see how much it'll hold. And it holds and it holds and it holds until the moment it doesn't. And I I feel like this year has been the year where things really began to snap and come apart

077as we looked at who is being transferred and the the actual impacts on the school day. It does seem like there will be more funds coming from Juno. And so I I think to that degree it's not unreasonable for the board to make that assumption and stop some of the worst of the damage. Uh but echoing uh member Wessons and member Higgins, this doesn't fully restore things by any means. And we we were concerned. We don't want anyone to think 560 is enough. Um 700 is not really enough, but it it at least kind of keeps us on a par with this year. Um, but that money has not been has not been legislated yet. And so I do hope everyone will keep the the communication up with their senators and representatives, with the governor's

078office. Um, I think if you look at the things we are restoring, you the value is clear and there's more of that to come if we can get more complete funding. So, it it really has, I think, just been an unfortunate thing. Uh, it's fallen very heavily on staff. It and that inevitably falls through to students as well because they see teachers they admire and want to work with being transferred. They see people struggling with whether or not they want to keep their jobs, uh, whether or not being an educator in Anchorage is is desirable or not. And it it's an interesting conundrum to me. I I grew up in North Carolina and I'll admit I never would have considered a career in education there because I would have considered it too much of an

079imposition on my family. Didn't pay enough. They didn't fund it well enough for it to be a rewarding career. It was essentially a vow of I'll say close to poverty. And Anchorage wasn't like that. It hasn't been like that. It feels like that's the direction we're moving in where people look at a career here. They look at the politicization of it all. They look at the level of uncertainty that they might endure for years about whether or not they can actually find the place they want to be and build their professional lives in a in an impressive and successful manner. And I I don't think they will see that opportunity unless we can get the legislature to really change what they're doing and make so that this board and others can make the assumption from

080year to year. We can at least do what we were doing this year and and maybe make some changes in programs and placements based on what would be better and not simply based on what can we get away with and fit under this budget number which has been the that's been what the budget has meant for the eight years that I've been on the Anchorage School Board. So this I hope helps. um it's incomplete. It is not uh everything that we really should do to keep the district intact, to keep programs intact. Um to my knowledge, the board has never done this at this point in the legislative session or in the budgeting process. Uh but I think going forward makes disaster without doing this. I think it makes it much worse. Um but this

081does not heal things. is simply stops things from getting dramatically worse as we go forward. I do support this. I think it's a good idea by the board based on the change uh based on on the really strong support that the the House and the Senate have shown for making a serious change in education funding. Um and as member Higgins said, we'll all be back next year to try to get things where we want them. We we still want to get class sizes back to what we knew 10 years ago or 15 years ago. They're they're too high now. We've cut too many things now. This will be a huge step forward, but it is just a step and it's important that we not let it slide back. Thank you, Member Bellamy. Thank you, Mr.

082Chair. I'm not not going to repeat everything that's been repeated, but I would invite um interested parties to just listen to our work session that we had earlier today. Um this is a calculated risk. It's kind of like, I don't know, me not having any income and writing a check hoping that it p it it it pays for my mortgage and it depends on so many other things. If I get a job, if somebody helps me, whatever. Uh, but it is a calculated risk. I'm not comfortable with it, but it is necessary. It is very, very necessary. We have to retain our staff. we have to try to figure out how to um do what we promised to families, staff, and kids. So, I will be supporting uh memorandum 153. Uh and I'm hoping that

083uh people really understand that this does not bring back everything. It does not bring back everything. There will still people will still not have jobs. Programs will still be struggling and we've got to we've got to continue to work with our leg the legisl our legislators and we have to just pray that the governor um does not uh change his mind as to that minimum. He had already said that he could support a 560. This is why we arrived at the 560. I'm hoping that he lets the $700 BSA increase stay so that we can come back and do some other some more work on this budget. So, this is our triage as member Lesson calls it um to get us through this bad patch. Uh hoping that we will at least get 560 if

084if not 700. And then looking at all the other pieces of the bill, if they remain intact, uh we will that that that will benefit some of give us some um some additional assistance. Um so anyway, I I will uh it is a calculated risk. This is not the way I spend my own personal money, but I've got to step out of that and and and uh think about our kids and our families and our staff. Thank you. Thank you, Member Bellamy. I'll um take a spot in the queue here to bring a couple things forward before echoing that. I also would encourage the the public um ASD stakeholders to watch our work session earlier. I think was pretty insightful and um it was a deep dive on on the benefits of this proposal as

085well as why HB57 must become law and not be subject to a line item veto and and furthermore must be the the first step in a multi-year conversation regarding adequately funding um public schools and the legislature and governor maintaining um their obligation of funding our system of public education. The the first thing I I think was really telling is that our administrative staff were were very frank in that if every dollar of HB57's BSA increase um were to be allocated specifically to hiring classroom teachers, we wouldn't be able to achieve the class size targets in um Anchorage schools. In addition, it was highlighted that while we are about to uh potentially assume a projected revenue increase, other large school districts in Alaska such as Matsu, Fairbanks, Kenai, and Juno have already done the same. Uh

086those amounts vary from a couple hundred dollars all the way up to $1,000, I believe, in the Matsu. Um the fact that we've all come up with different answers as to what we need um to stop our bleeding in our various as areas of the state um is a definitive statement that our system of funding public education right now is broken. And that is because our foundation formula uh requires political cooperation of a bipartisan nature to be updated unlike the budget for our department of corrections or public safety um to update that formula. and it just doesn't happen on a regular basis. And so our legislature must recommmit and this should serve as a wakeup call uh that something needs to change and that starts with the education formula certainly but it broadens to uh

087us adopting a sustainable long-term plan as us not having sufficient revenue u cannot and should not be an allowable excuse for um our elected leaders to not adequately fund our system of public education. uh we shouldn't accept that we deserve better. And so this is the the first step in beginning that conversation which will go through the end of this session and then we'll start right back again in January uh because we proposed a very valid and um appropriate plan for how we could invest a $1,000 base student allocation increase which was reasonable and fiscally possible uh should the legislature have adopted the appropriate policy. they chose not to do that this session and um and so we will again have to revisit uh in a meaningful way how to increase education funding not just

088through HB57 but through additional uh supplemental bills next year and years uh beyond. So, um, I I do support the proposed plan because it it wisely invests in our educators and programs that are community values and that are effective. And I'm grateful for the collaboration from member lessons and member Hollowman. With that said, are there any other comments regarding ASD memorandum number 153 before we choose to vote? Hearing and seeing none, Miss Sullivan, the role, please. Student Representative Pack. Yes. Member Lessons. Yes. Member Wilson. Yes. Member Bellamy. Yes. Member Hollerman. Yes. Member Higgins. Yes. President Jacobs. Yes. Memorandum number 153, the finance committee recommendation for revising the ASD proposed FY26 budget is adopted by a vote of six to zero. That completes our action items for this evening. We have a list of non-action items

089under J1 through J6. Is there any board member who wishes to pull a non-action item for discussion tonight before we take action on those um at our next regular business meeting? And seeing none, we'll move on to section K, which is public comment. We've completed our public comment tonight. We'll go to section L, which is superintendent update. Dr. Brian, the floor to us. Thank you, President Jacobs. Uh, I'll be brief. First off, uh, congratulations to our new officers and reelected board members and also to member PAC. You'll be sorely missed, but we know you have big things ahead of you and it's uh, you really make team ASD proud. So, just thanks to Josh and everything that that he's done for the district over the past several years and leadership. Uh so the main update

090I wanted to share is that you know tonight uh what just happened right now is a positive and important milestone because it means that our staff um can and parents and families can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel thanks to the the board's bold leadership to take on a calculated amount of risk for the sake of retaining and restoring as many educators and incredible student supports as reasonably possible for next school year. So, there's good news and bad news with that. The good news is that uh essentially tomorrow, literally tomorrow, uh my team will be meeting with all of our principles to start to begin the process of undoing all of this damage that had to be done just because of the the severe nature of our structural shortfall, which again

091is the result of close to 10 years of uh forgetting about maintaining uh the the state of public education by not increasing the base student allocation. Uh, we've said it before, I'll say it again, that the inflationary impact on the BSA amounts to close to $2,000. And right now, our best case scenario is getting $700 added. So, there's still a big delta. And um, that brings me to the kind of the bad news about what we're doing here. And I we did a great job today at messaging what's going on. I want to say it myself, uh, ASD did not find extra money tonight. That did not happen at all. What we did was we took on a calculated amount of risk because we understand that there's very strong bipartisan support for House Bill 57.

092It passed with 48 of 60 votes. That happens to be enough to override both the policy and appropriation veto. We do understand that that doesn't necessarily mean that that will be how the vote would happen if there were a veto override. Um, but it does mean that our legislators have been working really hard and have made a lot of sacrifices and not letting perfect be the enemy of a step forward for our students and I thank them for that. But because we didn't find extra money really um we're putting a lot of faith into the hands of the governor and the legislature and I do hope they act quickly because our students and families and the state of public education in Alaska truly depends on it. So, right now, we're assuming that at least $560

093will come to ASD. Um, we will not know until the governor completes the process of reviewing that bill. Um, that will be in a little under two weeks or so. Uh, so I eagerly await for that update. And as always, uh, ASD is, uh, willing and able to provide any information that will help that process happen as quickly as it needs to happen. um we want to be partners to the governor and the legislature because I know that they've made a lot of sacrifices to make this moment possible. Uh so in some um I would say that today truly is a moment for gratitude but not for celebration. Um I'm thankful for every educator that chooses to be a part of team ASD because I know that this has been one of the most difficult

094years that we could ask any educator to go through. That's our counselors, our nurses, librarians, our custodians, everybody. Um, school board members, superintendent included. This has been a really difficult year and we've already lost some fantastic educators along the way. And at least today's bold leadership moment from the board means that um we can hold on to as many educators as possible. We'll need them. We're in a national crisis for some of these critical positions. And if we would have waited, would that have been more financially prudent if we if we would have waited for the governor to sign? Yes, it would have. That would have been a best practice, but that doesn't mean it was the best decision given that every single day that passes by is a day that can be used to

095retain our educators, to have that phone call with our teachers and our counselors and let them know that we appreciate them. I wish that we had more resources to truly make sure they feel supported in every single way that they deserve. Um, but this is the time where we need to really make sure that our educators know that we depend on you and you have a lot of options as an educator in this community, in any community really. And the fact that you're sticking around um considering to come back to ASD warms my heart, but I know it's not a given. And I truly hope that we can retain as many of our fantastic teachers as possible because without them, there's no way to achieve our goals and guardrails. So, this is an important moment.

096Um, but with with that said, we we can't celebrate because again, and member Jacob or President Jacobs put this very well when he said that, you know, essentially $1,000 was what we really thought we would be able to have right now. And unfortunately, the legislature couldn't get that across the finish line. And I also believe it was completely possible. It didn't happen. $700 happened. But remember, the conversation started about 12 months ago at about $1,800. In fact, the conversation started about 24 months ago when we did an adequacy study and we did a calculation of if you put every single thing that the research says that our students need to succeed, we'd be talking about a $20,000 increase. But right now, it's okay to feel gratitude for the 700. But we can't let the public,

097especially our public officials, off the hook when it comes to investing in our students because this is not the time to celebrate. This is the time to say thank you to our legislators that made sacrifices. This is the time to say thank you to our board members that took a leap of faith, took a calculated risk for the sake of our educators. This is the the time to thank our teachers for sticking with us and our educators for sticking with us. But it's not the time to celebrate. I I think it's going to be a very long time to celebrate. But I truly hope that the legislators and governor will prove me wrong over the next 12 to 24 months because our community, our students truly need a hero. tonight. Every single board member was

098a hero and I think we need a few more and especially one in the governor's office. So, I'll end my remarks there. Thank you everyone. Thank you, Dr. Bryant. All right, we'll move on to school board and administration comments. Is there a We had a first bite the apple earlier regarding board member comments before we adjourn sign. Is there additional board member comment at this time? Member Higgins, I'll start with you to my left. Sure. I'll start with just uh thank you uh um Andy Hollowman repres me member now but um your role as president I can't believe how much your detail you put in all your emails it was a lot lot of work uh but it was trying to be responsible to everyone so I really appreciate that um we've heard a lot

099of comments tonight about the budget and I reflecting upon this the the people at the top are the ones that make the decision on whether or not we get funding and that's the voters. And so your voice and your vote matter. Uh you elect the people that are saying yes or no to funding of education. You get to tell them because I report to you just like they do to what you want and then you have to evaluate whether or not they're meeting that. And um if you don't vote, then you're not participating in that process and you're not having the opportunity to make a change. And so it can't be passed down with when you don't take your ownership of it. So I'm go back to our civics class that we teach. But that's

100where your votes at. So as frustrating as this is, it's an opportunity for next year. We need to make sure that we're heard early. We've got to make sure that they know where we stand. And if you want funding for education, if you don't want to see this continue, you need to make sure that individuals that um you elect uh that are in Juno or on school board or local government, let them know what you want. And I believe that's important. I appreciate all of the letters and the emails and I've had some chance to make phone calls back to some of them and meet different people who have all expressed their what they want for from the school board and from uh funding. And uh I'll just close by saying I'm sorry for all

101those that have gone through so much stress associated with this and the parents engaged concerned about the immersion programs and Ignite and the sports programs and the nurses and the counselors and all the teachers everyone else impaire impacted. Uh I am sorry and I hope that you realize how much we still appreciate you. We're fighting for you and I think that's what you saw tonight on the road. uh and appreciation and we're going jumping ahead conservatively but to make sure that this can come to an end. Thank you. Member Higgins, member lessons, any additional member comment? I'm uh going to take this opportunity to share um a little bit of uh some words from previous ASD superintendent about the budget crisis they had found themselves in. We've talked about the legislative finance uh division analysis

102which informed this $18, you know, $1,88 uh analysis that that's what we needed the BSA to be adjusted by for this year. um since the FY11 um school year when Carol Cuomo was ASD superintendent um really on the tail end of the adjustments from then the the previous joint legislative uh education task force. She shared this in preparing the FY13 budget. Even with strong stewardship of existing resources, education funding has not kept pace with inflation and is not sufficient to fight the financial squeeze of reduced annual funding. districts are suffering from underfunded mandates, competitive employment packages, rising operating costs, and changing population patterns. That was around January or so of 2012. Um when uh Dr. Ed Graph was superintendent. Um E in the winter of uh 2016 preparing for FY17 which initiated um the most

103recent pupil teacher ratio increase reflected we continue to support we continue to reduce support positions in central administration and across the district. At the same time we hear from principles, teachers and others who say the continued reductions are stretching support services very thin. I recognize these recommended reductions may have a direct impact on the level of service that parents, staff, and students are accustomed to receiving. When Dr. Bishop was superintendent and it was explaining the FY20 budget, this would have been around January or February of 2019, she shared uh the legislature has chosen not to fund the base student allocation at the levels needed to meet inflation since 2010. state funding through the base student allocation has not been increased in Alaska to keep pace with costs. And I really found it remarkable that when

104she was helping to prepare the FY22 budget with federal relief dollars in hand, she then shared this. The FY22 budget was the first time since I have been superintendent in which we did not have significantly reduced staffing at our schools. I could go on and on. I just find it remarkably consistent and we've heard our own superintendent share since he has been a part of this administration and has shepherded this district. Um that superintendent after superintendent, board after board, year after year, our students and our staff and our families and our community have struggled with uh the legislaturator's inability andor refusal to adjust education funding for inflation. That's all I got to say. Thanks. Thank you, member lessons. Do our student representative duo have anything to add before we adjourn tonight? No further comments. Great.

105We'll go to member Wilson. So, I I would like to take the time to recognize um that May is a is a very busy month of recognition. The uh May is National Speech Language Hearing Month. Communication disorders are among the most common conditions in children and adults, affecting tens of millions of people in the United States alone. Left untreated, these speech, language, and hearing impairments can negatively impact a person's academic, social, and career success, as well as their overall quality of life. With early intervention and therapeutic supports, students with communication disorders can be successful in school and in school and life. And I wanted to recognize that we have four aiologists in ASD, 75 speech language pathologists and 13 speech language pathology assistants as well as 22 speech language pair professionals in our district who

106dedicate themselves every day to improving the lives of students and families. So I appreciate that information being shared and I wanted to share it out um at this time as well. I also wanted to recognize and and thank you to one of our school nurses who in her in her testimony pointed out that May 7th is National School Nurses Day. The work our school nurses do to keep our students healthy and meet their medical needs is is I know an incredible task and um I look forward to having all of our nurses back next year. I mean that that is that is absolutely the goal. So, I really hope that um our families, our staff, and our students continue to advocate to our legislators to um to to increase that BSA to as high a

107number as as they possibly can. Also wanted to point out that um this week is teacher appreciation week and again, thank you to our all of our amazing educators and the work you do um to educate our students. I know the these budget conversations are so incredibly difficult um for me because I know how incredible our teachers are, how incredible all of all of our staff is, and how vital they are to the success of our students and and the success of our students is truly what is going to be the success of our community. So, um thank you for all your work. Um, I I I really I look forward to to a day when we don't have to have uh budget conversations that consist of cutting any of our positions. Um, but again,

108thank you to to all those folks for the incredible work you do for our students, our families, and our community. Thank you, Member Wilson, member Halman. No further comments. Thank you. Thank you, Member Hullman. Member Bellamy. No further comments. Dr. Bryant, administration, any additional comments. Okay. Hearing and seeing none, that completes our business tonight. Would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjourn. Second made by member Wilson, seconded by member Hollowman. Hearing no objection. We are adjourned at 7:54 p.m. Thank you.