001All right. Good evening. We'll call this regular business meeting of the ASD school board to order. The day is Tuesday, April 8th at 6 PM. We're here in the boardroom. Present are myself, Chair Carl Jacobs. Online is our president, Andy Hollowman. Uh, also in the boardroom are members Bellamy, Donley, Higgins, Lessons, and Wilson. Called ourselves to order. We've conducted a roll call. Um, Mr. Hack, would you lead us in the flag salute? Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And Mr. Pack would lead us in a land acknowledgement. We acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of Dina people of the Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the
002Dina 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 people who live and learn in our community. Thank you, Mr. Pac. Again, good evening, everyone. We want to welcome you to the uh meeting of the AST school board and thank you for attending the work of the Anchorage School District. The board thanks students, parents, teachers, staff, school business partners, and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time, your talent, and your tax dollars. With that said, we have an agenda in front of us. I would entertain a motion to approve our agenda as written. Okay. Motion made by member Higgins to approve the agenda as written. Is there a
003second? Second. Any objection to approving the agenda as written? Hearing seeing none, we have an agenda. Thank you, everyone. We'll move to B1 reports. Our student representative, Mr. Pack is with us tonight. Your report, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh so our student advisory board which is like our district-wide student government met for our March meeting last week in this in this building in this room and we had a very productive meeting. Um one of the main things that we talked about in that meeting was of course the elephant in the room budget cuts and how they're affecting our schools. Um obviously there was nothing good to share about that. Everybody is losing some core um programs or things that make their schools what they are. And students are eager eagerly and anxiously following House
004Bill 69, the state legislature. And um our school board student repele Elect has some news on that. All right. So, also following the discussion of House Bill 69, our students once again, just like last year, are demonstrating a walk out this Friday on April 11th at 1 p.m. at their own schools. And it's just a little update. We're hoping that statewide all high schools are participating, but we're hoping to get a big turnout from this and get a lot of attention about the impact of HB69 and how it's going to affect our schools. And we hope that student voice will increase from this walk out. we will have a great turnout and send our message through. Thank you. We also had our um board president Andy Hollowman show up um for the first time. It
005was like it was great having him. He t he talked about you know some updates regarding the school board like the cell phone policy also just funding in general and then he also encouraged students to come and testify. Um and it was great to have him. We also had a legislative flyin report from our three students who went to Juno for the legislative flyin and it was great to see the enthusiasm and the the vigor of their um advocacy for the students here. And then we also had our election results for our other positions or of our executive board. We elected our vice president Rachel Udik, um secretary Ella Wheelis, and public relations officer Isabella Ga Chavez. And I am firm that they will bring new energy and new ideas, um do a lot better
006job than I have um this past month because senior artistis is a real thing. But uh I'm really excited for what they'll do and they are definitely going to uh stand and represent their peers well. Um and now we also made a lastm minute decision/motion to make our final SAB meeting which will be on the 15th of April um from 12:30 to 2:30 to be spirit wear. So our students will be showing up in you know some very vibrant clothing compete for who's the most spirited. Um and with that that concludes my report. Thank you to our student representatives Madison and Josh for the report. Do board members have questions? Okay. Hearing seeing none, we'll move on to board conference and committee reports. Do any board committee chairs or members have a report at this
007time hearing? Seeing none, we'll move on to Mr. Chair Treasurer. Just as a matter of reference, the uh committees will be meeting on Thursday the 24th. Uh finance in particular is just afternoon. Governance is ahead of that and communications is thereafter. Thank you very much. All right. Seeing no other reports or announcements, we'll move on to C1. um a technical report on our goal monitoring college career and life ready goal which is cumulative GPA grades 9 through 12. Dr. Bryant. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, we'll have a brief technical report on our college career and life readiness goals. Uh next slide, please. For the benefit of the public, I'd like to restate that our goal uh for ASD. One of the three goals that we have as a school board is the percent of students
008who are college, career, and life ready, which is measured by graduation rates uh will increase to 90% by June 2028. The presentation today focuses on interim goal 3.3, which is gradepoint average. So, one of the ways in which the administration will determine if we're on track or not on track to meet this goal is by looking at the number of students, and we're talking high schools that have a 2.7 GPA or higher. Um, this is one of the first times that I can remember that ASD is formally tracking this, and this is definitely the first time that we're tracking it as part of the larger goal board monitoring process. So, I think this is actually a very exciting development. Next slide. Uh so what we can discuss in two weeks are some of the trends
009that we're seeing when it comes to grade point averages. Again, we really haven't uh condensed data in this way as a district. So I'm really excited to see how the percent of students with a 2.7 GPA or higher will grow over time now that we're starting to align resources and a focus towards this goal. Um but with that said, because this is relatively new to being measured, um we we have noticed um our overall progress has declined. But again, this is really our first year of implementation. Um and we're certainly excited to put our focus on this area. And for the benefit of the public, I want to restate that we're measuring GPA specifically because it's one of the few metrics that is actually supported by a wealth of research that shows a correlation between
010those students who have a 2.7 GPA or higher and their post-secary outcomes. So those that have that 2.7 are more likely than um not to enroll in post-secary institutions because we're trying to assess our readiness and preparedness for post-secary of our students. Um it's apt that we look at GPA as part of our metrics. Uh next slide please. And then uh in two weeks what we'll do as a board is look at our disagregated data um both by grade level and then on the next slide you'll see uh this actually broken up by various demographic groups because one of the things that I'd like to reflect on prior to the next school year are ways that we can target our resources to move the needle on GPA. And by disagregating this data, we're able to
011to identify groups of students that could potentially use different supports, interventions, or or maybe even more resources. Um, what sticks sticks out to me on this slide would be our economically disadvantaged students. That's a group that we could target resources, and we are making alignments um in that direction. So, I think that this data is in lock step with some of the plans that we have in place for next year. Next slide. And then the next couple of slides will be more of the administrative implementation plan. So if we go to the next slide, we can preview that for the board. Um, essentially this represents our instructional focus in order to move the needle on GPA. We need to think about the role of curriculum. We need to think about the role that soft skills
012play when it comes to students preparation to study so they can ace their exams and quizzes or at least advocate for retakes or additional resources to improve. Um and then also thinking from the staff perspective, what inputs do we need to provide to students so they can be more successful in high school? Um what is the role of you know highdose tutoring? What's the role of resources such as instructional coaches and others? These are the types of administrative things that we need to think about um in order to get our students on track to meet that ambitious goal that we have for them to get to high school graduation and then have fulfilling lives. Uh next slide please. So the way that we break down our implementation plan uh is aligned to to ways that
013we change the inputs for curriculum, the inputs for instruction, thinking about the ways that we can enhance professional learning for our employees that work with high school students. looking at the data. So, a key piece of that will be looking at the data that we'll view with the board. And of course, at the administrative level, we'll be digging actually even deeper than that. Really looking at individual schools and classrooms and really figuring out uh who are incredible teachers and how do we learn from them and expand those best practices to more buildings or more classrooms. And then, of course, not all of this is academic. The multi-tered systems of support um is really a framework for thinking about you know obviously tier one instruction is very important but students may also have additional supports. They
014may have uh mental health needs. They may be facing you know hunger or uh unstable home situations. So we really need to think about the full picture when it comes to supporting our students towards their goals. Uh and then I think we have one more slide and and that concludes the technical presentation. We wanted to provide this in advance to the board so uh over the next two weeks we can have a rich discussion. That concludes my report. Thank you Dr. Brian. Other questions for the superintendent on the technical report. Seeing none, then our next item on the agenda is D1 superintendent update. Dr. Brian, the floor is Andrews. Back again. So this topic um is a little heavier than the previous topic and we have a lot of people that are entering the conversation
015when it comes to ASD's budget and I know there are a lot of questions and there are a lot of concerns. There are probably over 100 people in the room right now that have a lot of questions there. They they have looks of inquiry perhaps concern perhaps frustration. Uh, so I think I owe it to the public to explain what is going on, what are the next steps, and what can I do as an individual to help advocate for my child. That's what I'm hearing that families need right now. We're in a lot of pain. And I hope that I can help fill you in on where we're at and what we can do to support our kids. So, let me just take a step back. So, what we're talking about is the financial health
016of ASD. And I want to take us back to what's going on. The the the topline uh problem is that ASD is in about a hundred plus million dollar structural deficit. I use that term structural very intentionally because that means that our known revenues do not match with our known expenses. With that said, you may have recalled in the past ASD has had budget issues and somehow we get through it. So, what's the disconnect here? It's that word structural. Um, so there have been levers that the district's been able to pull off in the past. You may recall that there was a large federal infusion of dollars just a few years ago through COVID relief. That was a huge benefit to ASD in districts across the state and frankly districts across the entire country. Uh,
017and in Alaska specifically, it gave us an opportunity to mask a real problem. because of such a huge infusion of dollars, we were able to get through those three years with very little fanfare. But as you know, we're beyond the co dollars. That spendown was a while back and we no longer have that lever. The other thing that we've done to mass these structural deficits is to constantly reinvest what we call our fund balance. Our fund balance is essentially an emergency savings account. The the financial people don't like it when I use that term, but to think about it as an individual, it really is a savings account. So, it's used for emergencies. So think about um a natural event like an earthquake. Those are the dollars that you'd use for that. Uh ASD as
018we shared earlier today is in a fully funded health plan. So we need to play for healthcare claims. And there is a very strong business rationale to maintain um anywhere from 8 to 12% fund balance. But the fact is is that ASD for two years in a row has had to spend our fund balance down to 5%. What does 5% mean? 5% means about two weeks worth of our operating uh expenses. So essentially our piggy bank only has two weeks worth of expenses. So we've spent down our fund balance, we've spent down our er money. Um what are some other ways that we can tackle this crisis to really minimize the impact to our students? And of course a common thing that comes up would be administrative expenses. And um I'll I'll definitely kind of
019peel back the curtain a little bit. ASD has been in structural deficits for a really long time. So as I look through the books of historical trends in administration, I've seen that we've actually made a lot of cuts uh going all the way back to 2012. So when you compare the year 2012 to today when it comes to what we call administrative expenses for the district, I I noticed that our chief financial officer's office has shrunk by half since 2012. Our communications office is down a third, 33%. um since 2012, our budget office down 33%. Our purchasing/procurement office down 30%. Even departments that theoretically we should be investing in because they can help us have long-term gains, such as the development and grants department, that's been slashed by 33% since 2012. Uh assessments, the the
020folks that help us analyze our data to uh administer assessments across our 100 plus buildings, down 17%. Another area that's not administrative but is also an expense that districts have is around maintenance. Is there some way that we can minimize the number of custodians or maintenance contracts or something? Since 2012, uh we've slashed that by about 14%. Um, and frankly, uh, we're at the point to where there's not a whole lot of fat left in the maintenance department, especially, um, every day that passes, you know, the volcanoes on my mind, and those are the very people that are going to make sure that our vents are closed and that our people are safe. And we have these types of things that happen every year. Um, so I have huge concerns about our maintenance department. Um,
021but even vehicle maintenance down 38%. Things that were once luxuries that you think might be fat that are out there that we could have cut. One example that comes to mind would be project management. Um there is a role for project managers and that they help you take you know a huge initiative like a school start time change from A to B. But you see even there that's down 70% or 77% since 2012. So there's really not a whole lot of that left in the district other than for core district initiatives. So we've looked at this administrative piece for quite a long time and as it stands uh ASD's administrative expenses are about uh 6%. You may be wondering, is that a lot for a district or is that a little like where do we
022stand? So, I asked my chief financial officer to do an analysis for fiscal year 2025. And I was actually pleasantly surprised that um for fiscal year 2025, uh ASD was um actually leading the top five biggest districts in the state for leanest administrative offices. And you might be wondering why. Um it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it because whether you have 50 schools or a 100 schools, there are some economies of scale as the the academic term um really used to describe some of the advantages of having so many buildings but only one district administration. Um so we were actually among the top four statewide in district administration at about um you know over five a little over 5%. Uh and of course even this year despite all of those
023reductions that happened before uh 2012 to today, you better believe that that was the first thing that we looked at before we started looking at class sizes. It's been an exercise of multiple months going line by line, department by department, and really trying to make reductions that are intentional but will minimize the harm because believe it or not um some of these offices that may be administrative in nature do fulfill core duties. Whether it's um you know writing the checks that we give to our employees uh or those that advise employees on their benefits to those that investigate student issues that happen in buildings. there are core functions that we have to maintain and I worry about the impact of continuing to to slash away at that. But let's zoom out even beyond that like
024where what how does the administrative costs relate to the actual um you know layout of the the district's budget. What is the percent? So again, the percent administration is about 5%, that's uh around uh it looks like $33 million, but our structural deficit is 110, right? So even if we fired myself and everybody who works for me and got rid of every single schoolboard member and everything um beneath that, we still would have had 77 million more dollars to go. So I hope that helps describe the magnitude of the numbers that we're talking about and why this is a huge issue. So with that said, what is the role of the school board versus the role of the legislature? So the school board and myself, our goal is to take the amount of dollars that's
025laid out in statute and we assign it to schools and departments and other areas within the district. We essentially move money around, but we don't print money. Um and and neither does the state legislature to be clear. But what the state legislature can do is allocate dollars for school districts. In fact, that in the Alaska Constitution is not just something that they can choose to do. It's actually their constitutional obligation. So, here's the problem. The problem is that the base dollar per student investment has not meaningfully increased in 10 years. If you want to know how much the per student funding formula has increased, only $30 in per kid in 10 years. You may be wondering, is that a lot? Is that a little? I think the parents in the room realize that that's laughable
026because when you think about the cost of food for our children these days, the cost of fuel to take these children to school these days, we think about the rising costs of, you know, car insurance and healthcare, those same inflationary pressures impact ASD2. And that's why we're here today because of 10 years of kicking the can. To be frank, the can is now kicking the legislature right back. And there's a lot that's going on as a result of 10 years of a lack of political will to do something about this issue. And again, my belief is that the solution is legislative. Here we make operational decisions, but at the legislative level, they are really the ones that can make the difference as to whether or not ASD will have to absorb a 20% cut. Because
027right now, that's the reality. They're asking districts to cut their budgets by 20% from what it was last year. And right now they've not passed a bill. They said they're trying. They're not quite there yet. The governor doesn't seem pleased with the state of affairs when it comes to school funding bills for various reasons that he can explain himself. But the ra the bottom line is that we're not where we need to be and we're in nearly a state of emergency. So, let's talk about what happened because of the state of affairs. Because we were in this 10-year kind of holding pattern of funding being held flat with the occasional one-time funding that you can't count on, we're back to square one again. So, for example, last year the legislature did adopt a one-time 20%
028increase to school funding. That funding is now gone and now districts are back to square one again, having to make those cuts all over again. And that's why we're in this vicious cycle of having to make reductions year after year after year and we keep on doing the same thing up here and the legislature keeps on doing the same thing up there and something has to give in order to move a couple of steps forward. So that was the high level how we got here but now what is actually happening in our schools right now. So in order to make our budget balance and it is not an option for the ASD board to pass a balanced budget or not. We know how much money that we're guaranteed based off of what's in statute and
029that's what we use to create a balanced budget for this year. But again, we're grappling with a 20% reduction to our revenue. And I had mentioned that administration is only 5%. So mathematically, there was no way for these cuts to not touch our buildings. And that's why this is such an emotional process for everybody involved from the superintendent to the schoolboard members to the staff to the families to the students. And that's why it breaks our heart to be in this position yet again for yet another year. And the latest um development in this process was unfortunately to balance our budget. After cutting all this administration, after cutting operations, after trying to find whatever mechanism we could to save whatever money we could, we still had to make the difficult choice to increase class sizes
030by four. It's called our peopletoteer ratio. So, it's not quite a apple to apple for class size, but indulge me here. Essentially, class sizes are rising by four students. And uh that's why we're at what we're calling the teacher displacement process. What does it mean if ASD added a plus4 PTR? What does that mean in terms of me as a parent? What that means to you as a parent is that ASD will have 380 fewer teachers than we had at the beginning of the school year effective next year. That is daunting. There's no way around uh really having a negative impact on the student experience when you reduce the number of teachers by 380 people. That's terrible. And that said, that's part of the process of trying to balance a budget when the state is
031saying make it work with 20% less. So, we had to make that terrible decision, but now there's a ripple effect. So now you have all these teachers that are in their schools in positions that we don't have the funding to to keep for another year. So the reason why so many teachers are moving around right now is not because it's some sort of twisted game. It's this sad reality that school districts must provide teachers as much time as possible to know what their new position will be in a position that we can budget. So with that said, what are the state of affairs? You may know your individual school situation, but what's happening district-wide? Because the numbers will astound you. So, in ASD, we had to eliminate 380 teaching positions in our budget, right? So,
032that means as when you do the math, that means about 185 teachers were told they needed to move to a different position. So, that creates a domino effect. And then when we do the math, when you add plus4 to class sizes, what are the baseline number of uh positions that we need to ensure that students get math and writing and English, their core statutory requirements? And it turns out that we have about 167 or so positions for those 184 teachers that are being moved around. So for ASD, the good news is that I don't anticipate we'll have very many layoffs. But the bad news is that if the legislature does not act now, we are in danger of not being able to staff our teaching positions on the first day of school, even if we
033got the money. And now let me pivot to my next part of what I want to talk about, which is the fact that this is a statewide emergency. As the ASD superintendent, I can tell you that there are very reasonable people out there that always have skepticism about ASD. And maybe there's some sort of accounting error. Maybe there's something very specific to the governance of ASD that's making this happen. I'm telling you, this is a real issue. You don't have to take my word for it. Look up some of this stuff. I was just reading in the paper today that in Kenai, they're going to have to reduce 160 teachers. So at the end of this year, Keenai school district will have 160 fewer teachers than they had at the beginning of this school year.
034I went ahead and looked up the numbers for Matt Sue, right? Because a lot of people think that this is an ASD specific thing. So what's happening next door at Matsoo? If they don't pass a base student allocation increase, they will lose 120 teachers in Matsu. So let's do the math here. We're losing 380 teachers in Anchorage. We're losing 120 teachers in Kenai Peninsula. We're losing another 100 or 160 in Kenai and another 120 in the Matt Sue. And I guarantee you it's not just them. Those are just the ones I was able to find in the local paper. Another thing I saw when I was reading national or statewide coverage of this topic, the principal uh I wasn't able to find Ketchacan's numbers of displaced teachers and layoffs, but I found something even more
035upsetting. I found a quote from the high school principal of Ketchacan High School. He was testifying to Senate Education and he said this. He said um he's seeking employment in Oregon and uh I'm going to quote him. He said in Oregon I can get a defined benefit package. I can have higher wages. I can have a lower cost of living. We want to stay. I want to stay. But we're also highly educated professionals. And I can tell you there's a lot of options out there. from superintendent all the way down to our kindergarten teacher. People have options. And if the legislature does not fulfill its constitutional duty to adequately fund the schools, Matt Sue will lose 120 teachers. Kenai will lose 120 teachers. ASD is going to have 380 fewer teachers. This is not an
036ASD issue. This is a statewide failure. And it's not a secret. I completely understand if you as a parent this is new to you because you're just getting engaged in the conversation. But there's no excuse for the legislators that have heard us talk about this topic. Myself, I've talked about it for about 3 years, but collectively we've probably been talking about it for closer to a decade. And it's in one ear, out the other. We have some of the most passionate legislators that I've ever met in my life here in Alaska. But as a body, there's been the lack of political will. Not just for one or two years. We're talking 10 years. We're almost talking an entire cohort of school-aged children who are the real people who are losing out because of this political
037inaction. So, I do have a couple of more things that I want to say before I open it up to question. It is not too late. Do not let any legislator or anybody outside of this room tell you that it's too late. There is no excuse to not take action today in the legislature or this week at minimum because here's the deal. Here's the bottom line that I want you to remember from this. Every day that passes without action from the legislature is a day that ASD can't hire teachers. It's a day that Matt Sue cannot hire one of those 120 teachers that they're about to lose. It's another day that Kenai cannot hire the 160 teachers that they're about to lose. Every single day matters. And I can tell you as somebody who was
038once the chief of HR for one of the largest school systems in the country that now is the time to hire teachers. Not in June, not in July. By July, any teacher worth their salt will be in a contract with the district that wants them, that wants to invest in their pensions, that wants to invest in their salaries, that wants to invest in the future of their economy and their workforce. This is so much bigger than just ASD and education. This is really taking a blind eye to what Alaska can be. If we choose to invest in our people, if we choose to make a promise to them as the state to say that if you choose to be here in Alaska, we have your back. We have your back up until from birth to
039your honorable retirement. That's the promise that people want to hear when they're looking for places to go to school or when they're looking for places to live in the long term. So, it's no surprise that the group that's leaving in the highest numbers are our young people. are young people who are the ones most likely to have children in the district. That's what's accelerating the school closure crisis, not just in ASD, but all across the state. And it's not going to stop until there's some action and decision-m from the very top, from the governor down. We need to have an awakening. Our eyes need to be open because this reality is unacceptable. And I can tell you this, if I heard from the governor today um what the floor is in terms of what he'd
040be willing to invest in, if I heard from the legislature today that they're willing to push a bill like House Bill 69 forward, we'd be starting to hire teachers today. I'd be telling my chief of HR to be looking at all the surrounding states in the Pacific Northwest so we can make the case to every single new and emerging teacher to come take a chance on ASD. We're the place you want to be. But the problem is that when you Google Alaska right now, you see all these articles around a lack of political will to invest in our people. We see school closures. We see these budget issues. We need to invest in ourselves. That's the bottom line. And unfortunately, I'm just not seeing that. But I have to hold on to hope. And you
041in the audience and you listening to me are part of the hope. It does not have to end here. But what does have to happen is they need to hear from people other than me. They've heard from me. I think they're tired of hearing from me. I probably don't blame them, but they need to hear from you as constituents, right? Like, they need to hear from everyday families who are sick and tired of not knowing whether or not that their middle school sports is going to be available the next year. That's all we want. As superintendent, we're not looking for luxury, you know, admissionfree school buses or Maserati school buses. The only thing that superintendents want is to know what their budget is in January so we can look at the test scores and budget
042the areas where we need to invest in growth. That's literally all that superintendents ask for, but that's not what they'll tell you um if you ask them what superintendents want, but that's the truth. We just want to be able to plan in advance so we can target our dollars towards the areas that your kids need to grow. So that's the frustration. That's where we're at. And I have one more thing to say is that again this is not an operational crisis. This is a legislative crisis. And those are the people that we need to talk to today. So here's the thing. People are going to say left and right that there is a lot of reasons why House Bill 69 is not the bill that we should be investing in. Do your research. Please look
043at House Bill 69 as it is and and decide that for yourself. Don't let them tell you whether or not House Bill 69 is the right thing. I'm talking about it only because that seems to be the major vehicle that's in play. But a lot of people are saying things like House Bill 69 is not aligned to policy reforms. It's not aligned to the changes needed to um have gains in academic achievement. Let me tell you something. As somebody that's been superintendent here for going on my fourth year, somebody that's been in education my entire career, let me tell you exactly what House Bill 69 is going to get ASD because I want to shout out the school board that passed a visionary amendment that left no ambiguity as to how Bill 69 can transform
044ASD and position us to be the leader that we are in the state. If House Bill 69 passes, the ASD board has already voted on that we'll restore class sizes back to what they were in 2016. That's a guarantee. If House Bill 69 passes, we're going to have highdosese tutoring for our students who are not proficient at reading. If House Bill 69 passes, we'll be able to restore our Ignite program. You won't have to worry about gifted programming. You won't have to worry about middle school and high school sports because that will already be budgeted as soon as House Bill 69 passes. If you're a a parent of a correspondence kid, if House Bill 69 passes, I hope they told you that your allotment will probably rise because we'll be able to finally make aotments
045commensurate with the base student allocation. That's a positive for our correspondence families. Um, let's say you're a charter school family. Did you know that House Bill 69 will actually help us help your charter school thrive for the long term? you know, one of the top performing charter schools in the state, in the country rather, um was in a lease close to a million dollars a year, and ASD took decisive action to give them a home so they don't have to worry about that million dollars. I wish we had more buildings to offer more programs. But if the state doesn't do something, there are a lot of people out there that say through one part of their mouth that, "Oh, I'm pro charter school." but they don't actually want to help these charter schools get out
046of their expensive, sometimes prohibitively expensive leases that will frankly put them towards insolveny. ASD has put our money and our time where our mouth is when it comes to serving our correspondent students, our charter school students, and our neighborhood schools. And there's no ambiguity and frankly no excuses for a legislator to not consider passing House Bill 69. If you're looking for reforms that are aligned to, you know, the things that are tied to improving academic outcomes, that's smaller class sizes, that's highdosese tutoring, that's a nurse in your school, that's not compromising your monastery or optional model because some elected official didn't have the political will to invest what our students need in their schools. There's no excuse. So, when you talk to legislators, and I hope you do, it's not my role to tell you
047what to say, but a good place to start is to tell them how you feel. Because if you feel anything like me, you're tired of an action. You're tired of people skirting around the truth. And you're tired of people obscuring the math to make us believe that something other than House Bill 69 will improve academic outcomes. when I can attest that there's nothing that will improve academic outcomes more than lower class sizes for our kids and awesome programs like Ignite and great programs that we have in our optional programs and our correspondence programs and charter schools. We as a school board administration know exactly what we need to do to improve academic outcomes. It's spelled out in our amendment that's tied directly to House Bill 69. So my question to the legislature is when are
048you going to pass it? That's what I want to know. And if you want to know that, I would ask them too. They need to hear from every single one of us because only together will we finally after years of inaction take a step in the right direction. I'll open it up to questions from the board members. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Um we'll open up for questions. Just a really quick clarifying question before we go to member Bellamy, then we'll work our way forward. Um, regarding the amendment, I just want to make sure that the administration um is of the same understanding I am that uh one of the things that won't get reversed should House Bill 69 pass would be the administrative reductions in our budget um that were adopted
049as proposed um and then passed by the board. Is that correct, Pete? The question. Sure. Yep. So, the cuts to district administration, should House Bill 69 pass, the board did not reinstate those cuts. Is that correct? I thank you, Mr. Chair. That was the thing I should have brought up. If House Bill 69 passes today, zero dollars will go towards administration. We'll keep all those cuts. Every single dollar will go towards our kids. So, when the legislators push back, when you reach out to them, you tell them there's no excuse. Ask it now. Thank you for clarifying. We'll go to Member Baming. Somebody got some fire in his belly tonight. Whoa. I wanted to make that same clarification that um that member Jacobs just did, too. And I just wanted to make sure that we
050were really clear about where we are putting once we get at least $1,000. Whatever we get, it's going to instruction and not to administration. So, I appreciate the that was my only clarification, but thank you, Dr. Bryant. your passion is is uh well focused and and much much appreciated. Thank you, Member Bellamy. Member Les. Thank you. Um thank you, Dr. Bryant. Um maybe a quick comment and then a question that came from uh community council last week or so. Uh the comment was that um the Fairbanks School Board was actually so um I mean it was aware of our amendment that they passed an analogous amendment to articulate how they would put that thousand BSA to work in their school district. So I believe there is strength and solidarity um in in good in finding
051a good idea and taking action and um making sure the legislature understands that we are all in this together. My question and this comes from a community member. To what extent is the Anchorage School District actually talking with the governor? I mean I am aware that you know we send folks down to students and uh staff members uh to speak when invited uh on testimony in the legislature, but what is your sense of communication with the governor's office at this point? Sure. I mean my understanding is that the governor's had a very busy schedule out of the state. So, it's been really difficult to get facetime um from myself and other legislators, but I even did have the opportunity to meet with one of his policy experts at a chamber of commerce event that I
052spoke at and our team connected with him. So, through um members of his staff, um we've been able to communicate some of our needs. So, for example, one of the questions that came up from the governor's aid was, "Are we willing to, you know, negotiate and play ball to get this across the finish line?" And I said, "Of course, we we've been for years." And I think that many of our legislators have um if you look at the current version of House Bill 69, and this is another important point. They'll they'll make it sound as though it's just an infusion of dollars into school districts, but there's actually been a lot of good faith efforts to meet the governor halfway. They instituted open enrollment, which was an initiative that came directly from the governor. They
053instituted uh an basically a bonus for districts for every student that's proficient in reading. That's something that came directly from the governor's funding bill. There's actually been and there's even a charter school coordinator and some other things that have been good faith efforts from the majority to get to the finish line. So, you know, my question um for him is that if he wants to talk, we're ready to talk today. Unfortunately, his time has been very limited, but um if he needs anything from ASD, we're all in. Let's get to this this bill to the finish line. Member Les follow just to put a pin on it. So the door from the ASD's perspective is eternally open to the governor and his office should he desire more information. Absolutely. Sounds like we took the door
054off the hinges. Member lessons, thank you for the question. All right, we'll go to member Higgins. Yeah, thank you. I was going to start off by asking the superintendent if he had an opinion, he should share it with us, but I'll pass on that one. Um I I just want to say that I was in Juno um you know u um my expense anyway but uh talking to legislators and the governor's office and um and then Saturday with the legislators they I testified in that you may have read that in ADN. What the heck? Uh but the issue is that the legislator is up here saying well we don't have the money. They decide how much money they have. They decide what the oil tax will be. They decide if it's corporate taxes. they decide
055if there's a sales tax or an income tax or any other way they want to look at it and they have areas to cut. Their obligation for essential services is not altered by that. They have to adjust to it. And so in approaching the legislature, my only recommendation is don't buy off the idea, well, if you don't have the money, you don't have to fund education. That's not true. We've got the constitutions putting their obligation out there on them and they have the options of how they want to generate the funds and where they're going to uh allocate the funds within the budget. And so it was frustrating to me with the legislature when I met with them saying, "Well, we're not sure where the money's coming from." That's their obligation. Uh, I know there
056are legislators who are more concerned about the permanent fund dividend because they've got a lost constituents who basically are out of poverty because of the of the PFD and I appreciate that as well. Uh, but their obligation is to make those tough decisions, but they have the obligation of deciding where the funds come from. But to use that as an excuse to say, "I'm not going to fund education because I don't know where it's at." This should never be an acceptable situation. And that's kind of what I hear going on in the legislature and that's what I was addressing on Saturday as well as well. A lot of other people showed up to talk to the legislature. I'm real proud of that because their voice was very very loud and very direct. But that's what
057you're going to hear a little bit of the going back and forth that don't have the money. Uh and their job is to decide where the money's coming from. Thank you, Member Higgins. Is there other questions or comments for the superintendent? Okay, Dr. Brian, thank you for the report. Um, if there's nothing else, then we'll move on to public comment. I will begin by reading our introduction here, which is we um want to thank you again for being here, and we want to welcome you 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. Uh our traditional policy is public comment uh in less of in excess of one hour will be heard at the
058second opportunity later on in our meeting. During board public comment uh we 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 board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings through civil uh comments. However, to be productive, our meetings must be structured. Uh ASD conducts its meetings under Robert's rules of order, a set of rules for orderly meetings that have been used since the late 1800s. Uh the the rules require the board uh 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 false language. Refrain from disturbing the meeting. Please no cheering,
059applause, 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 the chair of this meeting, it is my duty to enforce these rules of civility and decorum. As such, and consistent with Robert's rules of order, uh we do reserve the right to rule any speaker out of order for violation of these rules. Additional details and information can be found on the handout located at the door. All right. Uh with that said, our policy again is to hear uh comments in excess of one hour uh further in the meeting. Is there a member who wishes to uh make a motion to hear all comments at the start of the meeting? We've done that recently.
060Seeing member Higgins, would you like to make that motion, sir? Yes. Thank you. I would like to move that we extend the time frame to allow all speakers to speak. By my estimates, it's probably an hour and a half to two hours. But, uh, all of these individuals came here to spend their time to share with us their concerns, and I would like to recommend that we expand that to allow all speakers that have already signed up. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Any opposition to to doing so and holding all public comment at the start of our meeting here? Okay. We will likely take a break here at some point during public testimony. Um, with that said, we will begin calling from our list of student speakers. Um, as is our practice. Uh, the
061first student speaker tonight is Ethan Shroyer. Um, our next student speaker, who we would also appreciate if you come to the front, is Lucas Godet. Ethan Shroyer. Lucas Godet. Excellent. So, you have two minutes, Ethan. You can turn on the mic there with the button and then begin when you're ready. Okay, perfect. My name is Ethan Shroyer. I'm a fifth grader at Chugat Ops Elementary. There are so many things that make my school unique, but I don't have a lot of time. So, I want to tell you about one thing that is very important to Chugat's success. That's our librarian, Amy. Amy is our everything teacher. She is basically our vice principal. She takes care of all our testing and she is our technology specialist. Amy has taught me how to use online tools and
062be a good digital citizen. In November, Amy held a candy election in the library. We learned about the election process and the importance of voting. By the way, Jolly Ranchers won. This spring, Amy hosted a book March Madness, which was a battle to find out the school's favorite book. secretly. I think she's showing she was showing us that there are always more books to read and enjoy. Amy always keeps the library open. We check out books and read. And we also be in we also play games, do research, and work on being in charge learners. Being in charge of our own learning is something we work on every day at Chugatch. And Amy is our in charge champion. At Chugatch, we say the library is the heart of the school. But it's just but it's
063just a room. It's actually Amy bringing it to life. Please keep our full-time librarian at Chaxat. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Mr. Shroyer. Um I'm going to ask that we going to ask that we hold applause till we um complete all our student testimony and then we can all applaud together if that's okay with everyone. All right, Mr. Godet, you're up next and then our next speaker will be Bennett Mick. Please come forward. Oh, and then you will receive uh there will be a bell that signifies when you have 30 seconds left. You don't have to stop. That's just your 30 second warning. Hello. Hello. My name is Lucas and I'm a fifth grader at Chugatch optional. At Chugatch, we don't have regular classrooms. We have family groups. That means different ages of learners
064help and support each other just like a family. But now two of our family groups might have to go away and that would hurt our entire school. Please keep all 11 teachers at shoe gatch at gatch option. Our family groups, our our learning and our community deeply depend on it. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Um Bennett Mick, you are next followed by Samuel Oavdo. Samuel, please come forward. Welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready, Bennett. My name is Ben Mick and I'm a fifth grader at Chugach Optional. I'm here to talk to you about why we need all our teachers at Chugash. Cutting teachers at my school will lead to bigger class sizes. My class next year could have over 40 students. One of the things my school may have
065to do as a result of such big class sizes is eliminate sixth grade from my school. That would be hard because our school has multi-age classrooms, which means our curriculum is taught in two years. If I had to leave after this year, I would only have some of the learning I need for fifth grade. It also means I would miss out on many of the fun projects and learning that I have been looking forward to. One of the things that I miss most is outdoor school. We get to stay in cabins overnight and spend our time at all kinds of outdoor stations, learning about nature, and working on outdoor skills like fishing, geocaching, canoeing, camping safety, and more. My classmates and I have been looking forward to at Sinks Kenny. I would also miss out
066on some of our big theme studies like the Decades Project, cardboard boat races, the immigration suitcase project, and our spring musical. I am asking that you please reconsider cutting two classroom teachers from Chatch. Thank you for your time and thank you for your testimony. Um Samuel, you are next. And then followed by Valerie Leair. Valerie, if you could please come forward. Samuel, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, my name is Samuel and I'm in second grade at True Optional Elementary. I would like to ask you to please not take two teachers away from True Gatch Optional Elementary, please. I love learning at True Gatch Optional. This year, my class has 26 students. If we lose two teachers, um, next school year, some classes could have more than 40 students. That's too
067many. It's it's so um much that people would be not be able to learn. That would make me feel bored and frustrated. I want to be able to learn. Please let us have our teachers. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Valerie, you're next, followed by Skate Conrath. Skate, if you could please come forward. And Valerie, you have two minute. Two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, I'm Valerie Lar. I believe that the effect of cutting teacher positions at schools is detrimental to the educational well-being of the student population and will continue the downward spiral of public education. I'm currently a student at South High. Many of our classrooms are already full. ASD is planning to increase the classroom sizes to 40 students. For a teacher who has five classes, that is around 200
068students. Teachers are already having trouble meeting the needs of the students and ensuring that each student has the highest chance of success. They are already overwhelmed with the amount of students and expectations that it entails. How can a single person meet all the needs of 40 people in a 55minute period? One reason for the proposed increase of class sizes is because teachers are losing their positions or retiring teachers are not being replaced. I have a younger sibling at Chugget Optional, my former elementary school, which has proven to be a successful program. ASD is proposing his school would lose two teachers and have classes of 40 students. This is not done to benefit positive academic student outcomes. Therefore, how is this a beneficial proposal? Similarly, some high schools would lose several teachers. For example, at South
069High, we are unable to replace the French teacher we are losing. And this position is a key component of the world language program. In addition to losing the language options, some electives such as the music program would also be severely impacted. Before I end, I would like to say that I really do not enjoy public speaking. I really don't. But because of I what I have been taught at both Chugach and South, I was able to come up here and talk to you because I have been taught the necessary skills to do so in classes in which teachers have time to get to know the students personally. I would like to leave you with one last thought. Do we really want the future student body to lack confidence or the ability to speak clearly because
070their teachers don't have time to get to know them? Do we want our students to leave high school less prepared for their futures? This is what would Thank you very much for your testimony. Um, our next speaker is Leaf Conrad Bara Conrad Barra. Um, Mscade. Um, you are up next. Please begin when you're ready. You have two minutes. Your school report. My name is Skar and I'm in fourth grade. Did you know that you're cutting four teachers in my school? Also, please don't cut, Spanish immersion, after school activities, librarians, and art. In my opinion, that's a lot. My friends are Ignite. They do amazing activities, and you learn about art, history, and science. They also make cool projects such as dissecting stuff, learning Morse codes, and paper project. In Spanish immersion, you learn about science,
071postal studies, history, and culture. You also can do cool project just as diaramas. Not too long ago, I made a diarama of the native Iricquist people. Right now, we're learning about Vikings. I like challenge of learning something new and different language. As you know, I'm in fourth grade and I'm 2 years away from middle school. If we don't have middle school sports, we won't get to do fun activities like my older siblings did and I won't learn the things they did. Most importantly, I don't want teachers to lose their job. People need this job to make money and teachers need money to do important stuff. I learn I heard that school almost got shut down and lots of students go there. They also almost had to change schools. Another thing I don't want an art
072teacher to be because lots of kids get so many cool projects and in art in art kids can create anything. in art class. My school also learns about science and nature. In conclusion, please don't cut. Teachers, ignite middle school sports, art, Spanish immersion, and librarians. Gracias and stat for thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony. If Lillian Conrath Bara could come forward and then leaf, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. My name is Leaf Conrath. I'm a freshman at Eagle River High School. Did you know that you were proposing to cut six teachers and a principal at my school, which includes two of my current classroom teachers? Our choir teacher is one of the amazing teachers who would be cut. She was supposed to teach four music classes,
073but this year she was told to teach two choir and two freshman academy career exploration classes. She has only been at my school for one year, and she's already one of my favorite teachers I've ever had. I give lots of presentations and speeches, but like a lot of people, I get nervous when I have to talk to a crowd. However, I got some amazing advice on how to help with that. Every single person that walks up here and testifies is the expert in what they're talking about because it was their job to research all about it and share it with the board. So, be confident when you speak because you are the expert who's sharing what you have found with everyone else. I learned that from that amazing teacher, Miss Beck. Miss Berts is our
074freshman academy principal. She was also on the list of people to be cut. She gave me the opportunity to MC for our school's eighth grade parent night. She helped me prepare for success. So far, I've learned a lot of amazing skills that I would use throughout my life, mostly because of these two people. The other thing that I'm seriously concerned about is the fact that all middle school sports and extracurricular activities are on the list of being cut. Sports are a great way to prepare kids athletically and academically for high school. One of the reasons I like sports is because I learned a whole bunch of skills that I will use throughout my life. Getting rid of these would not only affect our district, but the entire state as well. I encourage everyone to work
075towards finding solutions. Contact your legislators and don't wait for someone else to fix the situation we're in. We all have to start taking initiative and do something or else all these proposed cuts will become an actual thing. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Um Zoe Wit, could you please come forward and then Lillian, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. My name is Lillian Confer. I'm in seventh grade at Mir Lake Middle School. ASD is making a poor decision by cutting middle school sports. As a middle school student who participates in every school sport I can, I have both experienced and observed that these school sports and activities can make a big difference in a student's life. These activities help us grow, stay out of trouble, and build skills for the
076future. Without them, students will lose a chance to learn and succeed in important ways. Instead of spending my time on my phone or in front of a screen, I run, ski, play volleyball, and make new friends. These activities help me step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. If it wasn't for these activities, I wouldn't have the guts to testify today. School activities helped me manage my stress and made me feel more confident. And no matter your age or ability, these activities welcome everyone. ASD's decision to cut almost five teachers at Mir Lake Middle School is deeply concerning. I've been lucky enough to have amazing teachers who not only help me learn but also support me in ways that go beyond the classroom. Losing these dedicated educators would be heartbreaking for me and many
077other students. There there are more than just teachers. They are role models and people who care about our success. I truly hope the district will reconsider this decision. Immersion programs should not get cut because they help students learn new languages and understand different cultures. These programs give students the chance to become more fluent in another language which can open up to more opportunities. They also help students think more creativity and solve problems better. If it wasn't for my Spanish emerging classes, I would have been so I I would have had so much anxiety speaking in front of everyone here. But every quarter I have to do a presentation in front of the class. I can definitely see how much I've improved from the start of sixth grade to right now. If we cut these programs,
078we'd be taking away a chance for students to grow in these important ways. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. If Adelin Okamoto would come forward, please. And then Zoe, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, my name is Zoe Whit. I'm a sixth grader at Chugatch Optional. Rosen, I am also a sixth grader at Chugatch Optional. Chug Optional cannot function without getting back its two teachers and full-time librarians. Not All schools are at full capacity. Chuggatch optional is currently at 108% capacity with many students on the wait list. This means that our combined first and second grade classes and fifth and sixth grade classes which currently have 25 to 30 students would have 40 to 50 students. Chugatch already has a higher student to studenttoteer ratio than the districts and
079this would widen that gap even further. One of my favorite parts of of chew gatch optional is that your teacher almost always has time to spend time has time to spend one-on-one with you. This is especially important for first and grader first and second graders coming out of kindergarten that are developing social and emotional skills. Increasing size class sizes drastically would change this for the worst worst. The students at True Optional consistently score higher than the district average on MAP testing. The True Gatch philosophy works. With so many great optional programs included in the Anchorage School District, families have never needed to consider starting a non-religious private or charter school. If the Anchorage School District continues to underfund and understaff shoe optional families will start looking for options like homeschooling and creating charter schools that
080are not a part of the Anchorage School District. This will lead to an even bigger funding crisis. Amy, our librarian, where do I even start? She always has super fun projects for us to do. An example is when we did a campaign process during the election. We voted on candy and made posters for our campaign. She has been an awesome person and whenever you see her, she is constantly doing something to help. Amy serves as our librarian, tech specialist, counselor, teacher, test coordinator, and scheduler. My little sister has dyslexia, and Amy helped to get her the test accommodations that she need to in her 504 plan to reflect her true intelligence. I would tell you my favorite Amy story, but we only have two minutes to speak. Therefore, cutting these teachers and splitting our librarian
081would be a very large mistake that would just lead to larger problems. Thank you very much for your testimony. Would Odin Tashida come forward? And then Adelyn Akamoto, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, I'm Adeline Okamoto, a fifth grader at Chugatch Optional Elementary School. I'm here because my school is at risk of losing two teachers as well as our librarian being gone half for half a day. This would lead to much bigger classes, losing sixth grade, and losing an important part of our school, Amy and her open library. The library is the center of our school. We can visit anytime we want, and it's a quiet and fun place to learn. I can't imagine having Amy there as much. Also, our school has two grades in each class, so the elders
082can help the youngers and support them. This helps the youngers learn better and gives the elders con confidence in help being helpful people. If we lost sixth grade, we would lose that for the fifth graders. We also could lose an important tradition, learning buddies. That is when the fifth and sixth graders spend time with the first and second graders helping them and getting used getting them used to school and doing fun projects like farm animals and skiing. Learning buddies helped me a lot and it would make me sad to think other kids might not have that option. As for class size, it's already hard with having more kids over the past couple years. It can be chaotic and hard for the students as well as the teachers. There are more teachers. They're more forward of
083the teachers to do and less time for for them to heat help each of us when we need it. These things are part of what make you guys special and losing them would hurt our school. That's why I think we should keep all our teachers, not lose sixth grade and not have bigger classes. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Could Luca Marchesane come forward? And then Odin, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. My name is Odin Cheetah and I go to Chewy Optional Elementary and I really don't want the budgets cut it because if they did that would mean two teachers would not get replaced and that would be 40 kids in four classes. And we're already over have 108% occupancy and have less staff than most schools in
084the district. And what I like about True is that you don't sit at a desk all day, read textbooks, and do tests. You work as a group and learn together. And you don't just learn one way on one thing. You get to choose how you learn and it makes learning a lot funner and we can study in different ways and it's really fun. And thank you so much for your testimony. Our last student testifier is Mac Barber and then Luca Marches. If you're here, please come forward. Welcome Mac. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. My name is Mac. Barber. I graduated from Chugatch in 2019. Since then, I made the honor role every year. I have a 4.1 GPA and I'll be attending Vassor College in the fall. But that didn't happen
085because I was naturally gifted. It happened because at Chugatch, in small classrooms with teachers who truly knew me, I had the time and support to grow. Chewatch doesn't just teach academics. It teaches confidence. It teaches kindness. It teaches kids how to learn and how to care about the people around them. I still remember being a nervous kindergartener partnered with a second grader who made me feel safe and welcome. By second grade, I was that mentor paired with a kindergarten named Arlo. Today, Arlo's my teammate and friend on the West soccer team. That's what you does. It builds the skills and confidence that lasts years beyond elementary school. But that doesn't happen without good teachers. Teachers like Susan who sat with me long after the bell helped helping me fight through writer's block or finally understanding
086long division. Teachers like Heidi who quietly sat me next to fourth graders who could help me when I struggled. Teachers like Sharon who introduced us to multiplication but taught us much more about patience and perseverance. At Chewatch, every student not every teacher knows every student, not just their names, but their struggles, their strengths, and their potentials. That's not possible in a crowded classroom. When you cut even one teacher, it doesn't just mean bigger class sizes. It means fewer partnerships between youngers and elders. It means less individualized attention. It means students fall through the cracks. It means that students like me, kids who needed that extra push, that quiet support, that carefully chosen seat at a carefully chosen table, might not get it. Chewatch gave me the foundations I built my life on. Without these teachers,
087that foundation begins to crumble. This is not just about budgets. This is about preserving a philosophy, one that has shaped generations of learners, leaders, and community members. Cutting even one teacher at Chatch Optional doesn't just weaken a school, it erases what makes it extraordinary. Please don't take that away from the next kid. Thank you for your testimony. That is our last student testifier. If everyone could join me in a round of applause, please. All right, we'll pivot to our traditional public comments. Our first two testifiers are Lesie Boyd and Amy Mick. You could both please come forward. Welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. My name is Leslie Boyd and I'm a parent of two students at Chugach Optional Elementary. I'm also a proud ASD graduate. Go T-Irds. I'm here to ask
088that Chuacha's teaching staff remain at its current level. This includes reinstatement of two full-time teachers and our full-time librarian. Chugach is a successful model of alternative public education. So much so that we celebrated our 50th anniversary last year. The foundation of our program includes a two-year curriculum cycle and multi-age classrooms, which are not the same as combination classes. The two-year multi-age model allows students to develop stronger community and mentoring relationships with peers and supports learning at a student's own pace. It also allows teachers to invest in the growth of the whole child. Our program intricately weaves together theme study spanning multiple subjects, project-based learning, and differentiated instruction. Everything about Chigch is intentionally designed, and one change has consequences across the entire program. Chaguch already operates with a lean budget compared to similar schools. We do
089not have an assistant principal, full-time counselor, or reading coach, and no busing costs. Based on ASD's own six-year plan, we also currently operate at 100% program capacity. Even with our lean operations and already packed classrooms, Chuget students are successful, consistently scoring among the top schools in dis in the district for growth in reading and math. Cutting two teachers and the full-time librarian at Chu isn't just a reduction. It's the beginning of the end for a successful alternative program that has thrived for 50 years. In February, I was part of a team that led tours for families interested in Chugatch. Almost 200 families came through our doors. I love these tours because I get to share the day-to-day moments that make our school unique. So, I'm inviting you to visit Chugatch and see this alternative program
090firsthand, and I would love to be your guide. Thank you so much for your time and your service. Thank you for your testimony. If Elizabeth Serrano could come forward, and then Amy Mick, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Oh, did it is it on? Okay, sorry. Good evening. My name is Amy Mick. I am a parent of a fifth grader at Chugatch Optional. I also have an eighth grader at Golden View who attended Chuggatch and a 5-year-old who will start kindergarten there next year. I am concerned about the future of Chuggatch Optional and I'm here to ask that you reinstate the two full-time teaching positions that are targeted to be cut next year. Without the reinstatement of these positions, our school is at risk of being able to continue. Our school currently
091operates at a capacity of 108%. A reduction of two teachers would drive some of our classes above 40 kids, giving us a PTR that exceeds ASD's own recommendation. Our school uses a specific model to educate our students. We employ multi-age classrooms and two-year curriculum cycles. Pulling out even one teacher creates a ballooning of these two grades, which doesn't just make classes larger, it makes maintaining multi-ages impossible, putting at risk our whole program philosophy. The continuation of our program is important to ASD. Our school exceeds the testing benchmarks put forth by the district. We are proof that different programs can exist and offer choice to families while still adhering to the district's guardrails as an ASD school. Please do not jeopardize our program, a program that saw my oldest start kindergarten, barely able to look others
092in the eye, and end his sixth grade year singing solo in his school's musical, a school where he now volunteers for our librarian Amy because of her impact on his love for learning. a program that has been instrumental in educating my youngest son with project-based learning that allows for his extra movements and gives him room to explore areas of learning that he's passionate about like history. And a program that my daughter has eagerly been waiting to attend where she already spent time with her brothers and is most excited about making kidney bread, checking out library books, and taking care of the Chugat chickens. We invite you to come visit our school and see for yourself what is at stake and to please reconsider the proposed teacher cuts. Thank you for your testimony. Could Nicole Oavdo
093please come forward? And then Elizabeth Serrano, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Welcome. Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Serrano. I am the parent of a fifth grader at Chugatch Optional Elementary School. For 50 years, Chugach has provided a unique, high-erforming educational experience for students, and the results speak for themselves. Our students consistently score among the highest in the district in both achievement and growth. This year, 67% of our students in grades 3 through six scored above the 50th percentile in math on the MAP growth assessment, compared to 43% districtwide. In reading, 79% of our students exceeded the 50th percentile compared to 50% districtwide. Chwatch's program works and it works exceptionally well. But our success is not just about test scores. It is about our carefully designed alternative learning model. We use
094a two-year curriculum cycle with multi-aged classrooms, team teaching, and projectbased learning. This is not a system that can simply be restructured or absorbed into a traditional model. The loss of even one teaching position will undermine the foundation of our program and negatively impact student learning. Additionally, we are already over program capacity. While some schools operate at 39%, Chug is at 108% of program capacity based on the ASD's six-year plan. If two teaching positions are eliminated, our PTR will jump to 30 to1 with some classrooms exceeding 40 students. In our carefully structured multi-age model, this is simply not sustainable. Chugat is a model of educational excellence, and its success benefits not just our students, but the district as a whole. Cutting teaching positions threatens to unravel what has made this school work for 50 years. I
095urge you to reconsider and preserve all 11 teaching positions so that Chugat can continue to thrive. I would like to finish by inviting you all to come and see the Chugatch difference in person and to our school. I would also be happy to lead in that. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. If Jacob Bara could please come forward and then Nicole Asdo, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. My name is Nicole Seavo. I am the parent of a very bright Chuet optional elementary student. My husband and I chose to get optional because we felt it was uniquely equipped to engage our son, keep him learning while also providing exceptional social emotional growth opportunities. Our school's program philosophy and curriculum were designed to benefit and grow the whole
096child. Every aspect of this program was carefully thought out from the curriculum to the number of grades and classrooms to the building's layout and the number of teachers. And our program works. Our students consistently rate highly for growth and achievement. Our school scores are consistently in the top four for ASD. We currently operate at 108% capacity. As previously stated, we currently have a 25 to1 ratio of students to teachers. My son's primary class, which is a combination first and second grade, has 26 students in it. Next school year, primary classes, first and second, will have 28 and 29 students per teacher as is. If we lose two classroom teachers, our school ratio would be 30 to1, but there would be around 43 students per teacher in the primary classrooms. That's insane. Our school operates a
097streamlined, cost-effective, and successful program in which students thrive. Every aspect of the program is crucial to its success. Shuttering the library during half of the school week will already be a significant loss to our students. Losing two classroom teachers in addition to that would be a crippling blow that would cost our children dearly. Please allow Chugwatch to continue to offer an exceptional alternative education option to Anchorage's children. Please allow us to keep the two teacher positions we are being asked to cut. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. If Kelly Tashida could come forward and then Mr. Barrow, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, I am Leaf Lily and Scad's dad. Like most students, they attend and rely on neighborhood public schools. They spoke passionately about the cuts that will
098impact them directly, but they also care deeply about kids at other schools. At our dinner table, they don't talk about FTE or budget cuts. They talk about Miss Berts, Miss Beck, and the rest of their teachers. Our family works to stay informed. We're active with our legislators. We write letters. We call. We do all the things and I'll be in Juno later this month. We get it. We We know what the problem is. But I'm here to talk to you about what you'll do when and if any additional funding comes your way. Our family understands all of the ways in which ASD is trying to serve all students, especially our most vulnerable, which is most important to our family. But there needs to be an honest conversation about what core programs we protect the most
099before starting new initiatives, programs, and schools, especially if funding falls short this year. It's hard for me to get excited about as we're simultaneously cutting so much. And by the way, where is the business community? I don't see oil and gas companies or anyone else for the matter advocating for an increase in education funding. It's also hard to watch a couple hundred kids earn college credit paid for by ASD through middle college when we're proposing to cut all middle school sports, which would affect thousands of kids at such an important time in their lives. I don't know why one is prioritized over the other in this current budget. I know that there's a lot of nuance to the budget and the funding formula, but we're starving everyone of FTE and resources. So from my perspective,
100protect neighborhood schools at all costs because a majority of our students rely on them. Prioritize educators who work directly with students because their mentorship and inspiration is always going to be the foundation of education. And then most importantly, everyone should be talking about how nurses are being cut. That is the absolute most important service we provide is the safety of our students. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Could William Brent Baxter please come forward? And then Kelly Cheta, uh, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Welcome. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking time to listen to me. Um, my name is Kelly Cheetah. I am a parent of three children at Chugge Optional Elementary School. I have a first grader, a fourth grader, and a sixth grader. Um, I love the
101school and my kids I love seeing my kids there and I and they all thrive being at this school. I'm asking you to reinstate the two positions, teaching positions that have been um lost at that school currently. Um I'd also like to make sure that we do protect the nurse and um our librarian. Our librarian augments and enhances all the education that's happening there, provides another setting for the kids to learn in. Um the school nurse, I can tell you um being a professional nurse myself, overseeing a small army of nurses, um it would be a big mistake to lose that capability within the schools. I two of my children take medicines directly from the the nurse every day. Um, and I would hate to see somebody that is not licensed providing care like that
102or assessing a kid that's having troubles. Um, on top of that, I'm going to say some of the same things that other people say. We have exceptionally high test scores. We hire have a high academic growth within our students. Um, we do a lot with the amount of resources we have. We already run. We're really lean. Um, and we are missing a lot of positions that other schools have. Something that isn't being talked about is while other schools are losing some of their of their students, while they have some vacancy rates within their their their student body and it's shrinking, we are growing. We're at 108% as other people have said. So, it makes sense to me to put to keep the positions where they are um to keep the the to keep our staffing
103so that we continue to do the great work that we do. Um we're doing it with more people per FTE as far as I can tell um than a lot of the other schools due to the vacancies in other schools and the shrinkings um um the shrinking numbers and we're doing a really good job of it. Thank you for your time and thank you for your testimony. Could Juliana Shields please come forward and then William Brent Baxter welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. I'm William Brent Baxter and I'm a heavy equipment mechanic. I'm retired heavy equipment mechanic and the heavy equipment industry is getting really hard. They they can't find heavy equipment mechanics. They need them. Um I I am really high skilled. It takes about seven years for a good
104heavy equipment mechanic to work to be able to work in a a shop that have have a hund different types of equipment. It takes about seven years or more. And I've been I'm I've have two three uh associate degrees. I have a eating refrigeration degree. I have a heavy equipment district degree. I have a telecommunication degree. Also, I've taken 19 welding classes at uh uh U of A. I know what it takes to to be a heavy equipment mechanic. It's one of the toughest industries in the world. And you I worked on school buses. I worked on people mover buses. I worked on transit buses. I worked on every all kinds of equipment. And FFA is one of the best things I've seen so far. And I wish I had it when I was when
105I was in high school in 4. And we're hurting for farmers and that and that. And and uh I'm going to be going to the FFA state convention next week. I'm sticker the K the kids call me the kids call me sticker bill and uh and not not only uh heavy equipment is getting hard. all the other other like plumbing and all all these trades are getting hit really hard and we got we I really honestly tell you you need to concentrate on trades and farmers and and fishermen and stuff like that. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Could Rebecca Hills please come forward and then Juliana Shields, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Juliana Shields.
106I am a graduate of ASD. Golinks and a parent of two students at ASD as well as one graduate. Um I have been involved at Chuguach Optional for the last 15 years um as a parent and I'm here today to urge you to preserve the full complement of classroom teachers at Chuguach Optional. Chuguach Optional is a unique and deeply intentional learning environment. Its philosophy is grounded in a multi-year classroom model that fosters mentorship, leadership, and continuity. At the heart of our philosophy is the elder younger dynamic where older students are not only academic learners, but they are also guides and role models for their younger peers. This structure creates a powerful sense of responsibility, empathy, and community. Skills we know are critical not just in school, but for life. I know you've heard from a
107number of people tonight and have heard the same statistics and the same information that we have this younger elder model. But what it means is that we have a one-two classroom, a three four classroom, and a five six classroom. Those are not just combined classrooms. That's an entire curriculum built around a two-year learning model. And because of this framework, you cannot merely slide kids around to balance the numbers per classroom. So ultimately, we are looking at both primary classrooms and our upper classrooms having more than 40 students. If we lose these two teachers, we appreciate that the district is in a very difficult position and we appreciate that we have to think about all of the schools and all of the students in this district, but this program will not be able to continue as
108it is and as it has been successfully for the past 50 years if we lose these two teachers. We ask the board to support our school in maintaining its full team of 11 teachers and allowing us to protect a model that works. Thank you for your time and for your service to our schools. Thank you for your testimony. Could Sarah Falov please come forward? And then Rebecca Hills, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Rebecca Hills and I'm here to urge you to maintain all 11 teaching positions at Chugatch Optional Elementary School. You have already heard from Chugatch students and parents about the exceptional nature of the program and the uniqueness of the experience it offers students. I'm going to
109talk to you about some numbers and why the program that has been in place for 50 years is working and should be shared so that more students can benefit. I'm sure you know that Chugatch students do well on achievement tests. In fact, Chugatch is consistently in the top three or four elementary schools in the district for achievement. But let's break it down. For math with the math growth scores, 41% of ASD sixth graders scored above the 50th percentile benchmark compared to 74% at Chugatch. For reading math growth, 47% of ASD 6th graders surpassed 50th percentile while 93% of Chuatch students did. for AK star 3 through six for ELA 49% of Chugat students were scoring above 50th percentile versus 36 across the district and it goes on and on but another important point is that
110Chuget stands out in the area of growth as well. It's not just the achievement scores. Um I brought some charts that I don't think are going to really show up well at a distance but I will I will include these when I submit my my um paper testimony. But but what you can see is that from three through six the kids are growing. And I think that the numbers all this num all these numbers are from the ASD um dashboard. And I think when you look at the numbers and you take into account the fact that Chugat is not a homogeneous population um there are things that can be learned and taken to other other schools to help to benefit other kids um at the district. To conclude, I'd like to invite each of you
111to visit Chug Gatch and talk to me about data if you want to because I love data um and see the incredible school and the lessons that could and thank you for your testimony. Could Maggie Miller please come forward and then Sarah, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, and thank you for your service. My name is Sarah Falov and I'm the mother of two kids at ASD, one Chugatch grad and a current sixth grader. I'm here to encourage you to keep Chuggatch Optional fully staffed with our 11 classroom teachers and our librarian. And this program is remarkable and would be unable to persist if you removed those two teaching positions. You've already heard a lot of this before. Um, and so I'm going to jump down. I guess it's please
112don't change this proven successful school. It has hundreds of kids on the wait list. It has parents by the dozen supporting it. And it has a highly successful track record not only in the test scores as Rebecca shared, but participating in sports, academics, and social events. Some people we are, yeah, we're in the top four school district in the district for scores. And some people think that's because we are a school of privilege, but we are a lottery school and every kid has the chance to get into the school. And some kids are coming from privilege, but as Rebecca showed, our growth is what's incredible. And the reason that growth happens is because the program works. We have a robust engaging academic program and it supports the entire child which allows them to reach their
113full potential. So why you would mess with this really welloiled machine is I know you don't want to. Um, but it is truly unique and it creates a community between the students, the teachers, and the families that last well beyond sixth grade. And I genuinely invite you all to come and there will be many people and kids who would be happy to tour this for you. I cannot understand the burden you have in making such drastic cuts to our education system, but I can advocate for a school that is worth keeping. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. If Rebecca Emerson could come forward and then Maggie Miller, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hello everyone. Maggie Miller. Um I'm also a graduate of ASD. Go Cougars. Um and I
114just want to start off by saying I had planned to say a lot of things that have already been said by parents of two optional students. And in the end I think what I want to do is tell you guys a couple stories. So, my son Liam started off as a kindergartener at Oceanville Elementary because I really wanted to put our energy as a family into our local school that was in our neighborhood. And he would walk in the door, sit down and do his worksheet as quick as humanly possible and their kid next to him wouldn't have yet written his whole name. And so, we took our lottery spot when we got into Chugach Optional because the model was to build a love of learning. And that was the one goal I had for
115my son in kindergarten and we didn't achieve. And this school has it and they do it on a lean model. We need our librarian because she isn't just a librarian. She is a counselor. She's a behavioral specialist. She's a computer specialist and she builds a love of learning all at the same time. We need all of our teachers. Every single parent at Chuach is spending 20 hours a semester in volunteerism. We can't operate if we lose our teachers. And we know our model's been proven. The last thing I want to say is a local teacher who then became an amazing business owner. She started AK Starfish. Plenty of you, I'm sure, own things from there. Chewatch graduate. 50 years. Let us keep our model. Thank you for your testimony. Could Beth Mclofflin come forward and
116then Rebecca Emerson, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Rebecca Emerson. I'm a parent at Chugatch Optional. Like all of us, I understand the need for budget cuts and all of us, I hope, are actively advocating to our state representatives. We hear you. We will do that. I'll take on reaching out to everyone that's testified here and asking them to send their testimonies on to their representatives from our school. We get it. But we're asking for an exception for our school because we believe the staffing cuts are going to disproportionately impact our program and threaten its integrity. I know you don't intend for primary classrooms to have 44 students, but we're facing this impossible choice. Blow up our entire philosophy of the school and reshuffle classrooms or have classes
117of 44 students in first and second grade. That's the choice that we have as a school. It's not just pain, it's destruction. Others have spoken about our philosophy and our program. My job is to highlight a key logistical concern that I think Dr. Bryant did better than me at the beginning of this meeting. Our current loss of positions at Chugatch is being managed by the retirement of two teachers from Chuggatch. If funding is restored, we're going to have to hire those new teachers, and we all hope that's going to happen. But there's an urgency to get moving on that process. Hiring for an opt optional program like True Gatch is a lot like hiring for specialized programs like language immersion. It takes time. Optional teachers must be experienced in team teaching, multi-age classrooms, and committed
118to an optional philosophy. Not all educators want to teach this way. Not all teachers are comfortable teaching in classrooms without doors and having parents walking in and out at all times. We need to find the right teachers to fill those slots and we need the time to do it and we are asking for you to make this exception for our program so that the whole thing doesn't fall apart. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Could Casey Hinrichen please come forward and then Beth Beth Mclofflin welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to your community. I'm here tonight to advocate for the school my daughter attends, Chugach Optional, where she's in fifth grade. What I have learned after watching
119her move from grade to grade is that our school's curriculum is a living thing. It has been painstakingly created through trial and error, research and experience with current teachers building on what former teachers stretching back 50 plus years to the inception of our school first envisioned and created. When I imagine the loss of these teaching positions with the result of being larger class sizes, it is clear that the program as it currently exists will be impossible to deliver. The richness of the learning that makes Chugatch one of the most successful schools in our district will not be possible and the curriculum itself will need to be entirely recreated with many of its great elements abandoned from simple lack of capacity. It is a time of great loss for all of us when great things we
120have created are tossed aside and not cherished as they deserve to be. I recognize the difficulty of the position that the legislature has put us all in. Thank you for listening and thank you for your testimony. Could Paulina Lena Bawa come forward and then Casey Henrikson welcome? You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. My name is Casey Henrikson and my child attends Chuggage Optional Elementary. Chugge optional is a thriving educational environment and has demonstrated consistently high test scores, strong student outcomes, and long wait lists. Our school grows students who are thoughtful, curious, creative, and successful members of our community. Choo Optional has been a place of community, not only for my enrolled child, but for our entire family. This community includes the PE teacher who opens the gym each morning so
121the children can run around before school starts. The librarian who offered my three-year-old her own library card when she comes in with her big brother. And the teachers who supported our son as he entered kindergarten postcoid with limited reading skills and speech concerns. It was these teachers at Chuget who saw him and helped him not only build his academic skills, but also helped him find community and find friendship when he was nervous to engage with other children. Without this relationship-based approach, I'm afraid my children my child would not have been seen and supported in the way he needed. Our school achieves the type of results that the school board and our community desire for all children. And that is something we should be trying to replicate, not remove. In this budget reduction, our school is
122slated to lose two teachers and half of our librarians time. These cuts will fundamentally impact our program to the point where we will be able we will be forced to make changes to the things that make it successful. Removing teachers and the support of our librarian not only increases class sizes but also completely alters the purpose purposeful design of our program. I am very worried that these cuts will forever change this program and erode its ability to continually continue the incredibly positive impact it has had on my child's life. I understand that these cuts are challenging for everyone and I'm doing all I can to advocate at a state level for increased funding for all school districts. But I urge you to protect the programs that work and thoughtfully make cuts in the areas that
123are either underenrolled or not meeting benchmarks. Please protect Chuguatch Optional Elementary and the future of our children. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you for your testimony. Good. Mr. Sich, please come forward and then Paulina, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hello. Thank you. Thanks everybody. My name is Paulina Lena Spashua. I'm a Chileian citizen with four children and all of them in the school district. Three um two already graduate from the Chugatch program and one in seven um sec second grade seven years old. Last year Chugach celebrated 50 years and in order to celebrate we reached some of our former students and asked them what Chugatch meant mean for them. This is one of the replies that I receive. Thinking back on my time learning at Chugat, I
124mostly vividly remember the engaging units in which we will spend months learning about anything from penguins to the medieval ages. I think our fifth grade mini society unit perfectly encapsulates the two-edged experience. Through assigning classroom roles and creating our own businesses for a marketplace for third and fourth graders, we learned social and entrepreneurial skills. Managing three different currencies, one for each classroom, taught us basic economic principles and problem solving. We learned so many practical and extremely valuable lessons, all while having a blast. We almost forgot that it was work and learned that work can be fun. Since it was all I knew, I didn't properly appreciate the value of Chugget's grave free environment while I was there. However, I'll never forget the first week of seventh grade when I was assigned some of the first
125homework of my life in the ROM the ROMIC HT program. Surrounded by students who had gone to elementary school with rigorous test and grades, I was intrigued by the novelty of assignment and homework. To me, it presented an excitement challenge. But many of my non-Jewish per peers didn't view the assignment in the same way. To an extent, they were all relatively sick of the routine and repetitive workload that they had gotten since age six. Elementary school is a formative period that shapes students outlooks on schools for the rest of their education. While we were taught to appreciate the challenge, learning and process, they have been taught to focus on the results and how it would impact. Thank you for your testimony. Uh, could David Carter please come forward? And then Christian, welcome. You have two
126minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hello, I'm Christian Hike and I'm a 25-y year math educator with 10 years in ASD all at Polaris K12. I love my school in the unique program in which I teach. But there's been no year in those 10 years where either the school or the entire district has suffered cuts that diminished our ability to provide the quality education that our students deserve. I've gotten used to those cuts and I was sad to learn more cuts to our program for next year. Sad but not surprised. I was horrified though when our school when our nurse, a bedrock of our school community, told me she was being forced to go to halftime, as were many other nurses across our district. Our nurses take care of bruises and scrapes, give safe places
127for ill kids to rest, administer meds, screen for health conditions, and sometimes they even save lives. I know this because in 1992, the school nurse at Chukiak High School saved my life. In the normal course of her job, she told all of the senior boys how to screen themselves for cancer. I graduated high school on a Thursday. On Friday morning, I was diagnosed with that very cancer she told us to screen for. And on Monday, I went in for surgery. Eight months later, when that aggressive cancer came roaring back, I dropped out of college for a semester to get treated with the chemotherapy that saved my life. It's been 32 years since my last course of chemo. And I owe every single day of my life since high school graduation to that ASD nurse whose
128name I do not know. Our nurses and our schools are there for all of the knowns and all of the unknowns. Our kids need them every day, all day, for illnesses and conditions we already know about and for the many ways they're prepared for the illnesses and conditions that we don't know about. You never know whose life they could be saving. And I know because an ASD sit nurse saved mine. Thank you for your testimony. Could Dr. Tia Clay, please come forward. And then Mr. Carter, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Okay. Are you ready or not? Has it started? Are you started or no? All right. So, I have some wonderful news for for people here, especially these people on the back. Please write down this website. It's www.alaskfairshare.com. All
129of us are common owner. I don't see you writing it down. Alasa's website, Alasfairshare.com, it's very very important that community follow up on this because it it explains to children that they own a portion of Crude Bay along with the rest of us and uh and it's very important that you have this information first and then then you'll understand that the solution is very simple. uh just asked legislators and governors uh to pledge that they will restore basic public records transparency. You might be amazed to learn that we don't have that here in Alaska. Norway has it. Texas has it. So, please write this website down. I'll hang around too afterwards because it's so important. It has lots and lots of information that people are ignoring. It's our it's our oil, too. And Norway is
130pumping oil, too. And uh you know, still a very very valuable user. How we doing on time? All right. What else can I share? Also, it's only after you have this information do do your homework and then then you can follow up. 30 30 seconds. Oh, okay. 30 seconds. So yeah, the main thing uh as you know from being students uh is you have to do your homework first. You have to get the uh the the answers correct first before you can go talk to legislators and understand these issues. So that that's the good news. It's right out there for all of us and I'll hang around. Hope hopefully you guys can follow. Thank you for your testimony. Could Debbie Barker please come forward and then Dr. Tia Clay welcome. You have two minutes. Please
131begin when you're ready. Thank you. Um, good evening, distinguished school board members. My name is Dr. Tia Clay. I'm the proud principal of Polaris K12. Um, we are the only K12 brick and mortar school in the district and we currently serve nearly 500 students. Um, I come to you this evening to express our urgent need for support. Um, as we face a very critical point in sustaining our program, very similarly to where Chuget optional lies. Um, Polaris has weathered significant cuts in the past, but now we face an additional 3.7 FTE reduction. Um, that's going to impact us to the level of near non-sustainability. These cuts include the loss of an elementary teacher, our only elementary music teacher, a secondary ELA teacher, our only secondary world language teacher, and the reduction in our nurse to
132part-time status. Each of these cuts will directly affect our students and limit our ability to provide the highquality education that our and care um that our students deserve. Reducing staff at the elementary grades will limit my ability to bring in new to Polaris students off of a very extensive lottery weight list. Losing our elementary music program and our secondary world language program speaks for itself. Um those critical opportunities for enrichment are not going to be there um provided to our students. and with a single ELA teacher for the entire secondary program, which is what I will be left with. And we will be forced to combine classes and stretch our already overburdened teachers even further. But again, as Christian mentioned, perhaps most concerning is that loss to our full-time nurse position. Um, serving nearly 500
133students with diverse needs, this cut is not just a loss of service, it's a significant safety issue. Um, the part-time nurse just simply cannot meet the ongoing needs of our students. A written version of my testimony this evening explaining the impact in full capacity um is going to be submitted to you tomorrow um for further review um based on the shortened time frame. I appreciate you taking the time um and consideration to think of Polaris as you're making these hard decisions. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Welcome Debbie Burker. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you for listening today. Polaris is slated to lose five positions, almost 10% of its total staff next year, among other budgetary cuts. One of those cuts is to the school nurse to halftime.
134For 25 years, nurse Patty has been more than just a nurse at Polaris. In addition to her assigned tasks that keep her busy, even through what should be duty-free lunches and conference periods, she has been attending to increasing mental health needs, buying food and clothing for needy students out of her own pocket, and even taking on added duties to help support a staff already stretched thin. She is on campus long before and long after contract hours. Additionally, working as Polaris's lunch server, open gym monitor, crossing guard, school business partner liaison, and medical lead of the safety team. Polaris has maintained a student population of about 500 students across all of their years. So, the nurse's duties certainly haven't diminished. And what does a school nurse do? Lucky for us, Patty keeps track. This is only
135this year. It includes the dispensing of over 700 medications, more than 220 meetings with parents, 380 parent phone calls, 1,000 student visits, 12 lice checks, 66 diabetic visits, 49 referrals, and 42 other duties listed here. In cutting this position to half time, are you intending for nurses to fit all of those tasks into half the time or expect expecting nurses to attend to only half of those needs or asking them to care for only half of these students because the cut has to come from somewhere? Are we to inform our diabetics that they can only have crises on Tuesdays and Wednesdays? Patty has saved four lives from allergic reactions in her tenure. Are are we to assume that a teacher expert will step in when she's out to do the same? I'm not naive. I
136understand the need to make cuts with the current BSA, but I am baffled by the metrics that ignore inefficiencies and prioritize unnecessary positions instead of direct student contact positions that actually do the work of education. Among other superfluous positions, as of 11 days ago, when Patty was informed that she was not going to be there full-time anymore, there were at least three re Thank you very much for your testimony. U we are just now now at one hour. So, we're going to take a 5m minute recess and we'll return and complete the rest of our testimony. Member Higgins and member lessons. We could have member lessons return to the dis. Thank you both. Okay, we're going to resume public testimony. We have um just a little bit over 10 10 individuals left and thank you
137for your patience. Uh, so our next two speakers will be Melanie Iverson Kaufman and Kamiko Helme. If you could both please come forward. Welcome Melanie. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Okay. Thank you. Uh, good evening. My name is Melanie. Um, I also attended ASD schools K through 12. I'm a proud proud T-Ird. Uh both of my children are Chat students. My daughter is in eighth grade. She attended kindergarten through six. My son started in kindergarten and he is now a third grader. Um I just want to talk about some of the unique aspects of the curriculum at Chugatch that have stood out to me having been a parent there for I think it's nine years now. uh the the school's structure and success is based on the intentional organization of multi-grade
138classrooms. So we have two kindergarten standalone classrooms and then grades one and two, three and four, five and six are grouped together. There are three each. 11 classes, no more. We don't need more. Please, we don't want less. Um the the curriculum is designed to progress from kindergarten through sixth grade. And if you remove teachers, the entire structure is just going to dissolve and have to be so fundamentally restructured that it I would imagine be somewhat unrecognizable. One of the best parts about the curriculum is the emphasis on whole child growth and self-directed learning. that when I describe this to other parents in the district, they're like, "What? I wish my school had that. I don't get it." By the time a lot of the students reach sixth grade, they've become so good at being
139responsible and planning. Um it it is a priceless skill that I think they carry throughout the rest of their academic careers and really probably for the course of their lives. Um, 11 teachers is so critical. We operate on a lean budget. We really, really need to keep all of our teachers and our librarian. Amy is fantastic. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Uh, could Amy Onspock come forward and then Kamiko Helming, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening, board members and virtual attendees. My name is Kamiko Helming and I'm the mother of 5-year-old Hi Helming at Chewatch Optional. It is our kindergarten class that stands to be dissolved. So, I hear that we want a future workforce. Yeah. I hear that we want teenagers who care about themselves and
140care about the work that they do. Right. Got this right here. College career life ready. So, gestation is like 17 years then. Right. It starts when they're young. Have you seen a competent, confident 5-year-old? That is my 5-year-old. Thanks to Chew Gatch Optional. To do this, we must provide for our children a space for them to grow in an environment that is proven to produce for them. Okay? Just look at what our school produces. We have children who can square their shoulders and sit at our tables. We have parents who come organized on time and in numbers. Our school lives and breathes and breathes competency. Board members, isn't that what you want? Don't you see the return on investment here? At this time, our competency competency and our gifts work alongside this district and your
141vision for your future. Make no mistake, if you take away my daughter's kindergarten teachers, the professionals who don't just get down on her level, man, they live there every day down there with her, alongside her. every day they show up for her. You do this then you're hurting your claim to understand and honestly your brand. You're hurting your brand. The fire inside you, Dr. Bryant, it is inside us. It is inside our children and inside all of us. Truly, we want to support this district. Please help us in doing so. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. I'm not seeing Amy Onspot come forward. Our next two testifiers are Tim Casillus and my VO. you could both please come forward. Welcome, Mr. Casilus. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Ready. Thank
142you. Um, I sat down earlier today and wrote a really good speech. It was a nice tight two minutes, but then I was standing in the back and I saw a stream of purple shirts come up here and say everything I was going to say in my speech. So, um, instead of taking the time to reiterate the facts that you have already heard, um, I'll just tell you that Chachot is a great school. I think before the adults started talking, you guys could see that, um, it's proven. It's a good method and we're not asking for much. We just don't want anything to go away. I want our sixth graders to still build the haunted house during the Kapal carnival. You guys should come and see next month the plays that they put on. It's
143incredible. Um, that's all I can really say. Obviously, if you look behind me, you'll see all the purple and that's a testament in itself to how much we care about the community and our children. So, I yield the remainder of my time to my wife. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Uh, could Jen Rigg please join us up at the front and then my VO, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you for having me. Um, I'm obviously here in support of True Gatch Optional and asking for the reinstatement of the two classroom teaching positions. Um, and everything that my husband was asking for. We just don't want to lose anything. And I wanted to start by going backwards and just reading a snippet of a hardship letter that I
144wrote to try to get our oldest child into into Chug. This may or may not be a conventional letter of hardship, but we have never found ourselves pursuing a school in this fashion. Not for the lack of interest or care, but because we have yet to we had yet to feel that type of intuitional pull. My husband and I toured the facility, and as we walked the halls, we instantly realized that there was an was a surmountable difference in the educational theory and we knew immediately that our children could be permanently and positively affected by that style of learning. Every aspect was grasping at our attention from the smiles of the students faces and to the open floor plan to the overall organic touch and feel of the space. The the aura came to us
145in stark contrast from what we were used to. We came from a school of common structure, borderline scripted curriculum, and a rigidity that we may have been conformed to thinking was the only way. We as we looked around at the school, we watched the children play. We spoke to the staff and we saw the the classroom structure and we couldn't help but point out everything and whisper to each other like, "Can you imagine our children going to a school like this? We didn't expect magic, but we found it anyways. And I don't want any. Thank you for your testimony. Could Ellen Williams stole please join us at the front? And then Jen Rigg, welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you. I have three children who attend Chugat Optional. I've seen
146each of my kids grow from tears of frustration and overwhelm to places of confidence and capability as they've been nurtured by caring teachers over two years in multi-age classrooms. This extended time spent with teachers who see, know, and understand their individual challenges and strengths and then provide differentiated learning opportunities for them has been powerfully effective in improving their academic progress. They started out struggling to read below benchmark and now are voracious readers who think of themselves as curious and capable. My children are examples of the high growth that is typical at Chugatch. This growth and achievement is possible because of the unique aspects of our philosophy and curriculum. The powerful work that has benefited my children so far will be eroded or erased if two teaching positions are eliminated as proposed. While the school is
147teaching my children how to love learning, the friends I have made there are teaching me how to advocate at the local and state level. My twins are headed into fifth grade next year and are very much looking forward to the capstone experience Chugat is designed to culminate with in the 56 classes. They and their classmates are the same students who began kindergarten on Zoom during CO. These students, their parents, and teachers have all put in a lot of work to make up for the shortfalls caused by those extra layers of undeserved challenge. Please help us help them keep their heads above water by allowing them to work and learn within a proven system designed for their success. I'm asking to please reinstate the two teaching positions at Chugwatch as well as allowing us to keep
148our indispensable librarian full-time as she is a huge part of what enables our school to care for our students as whole children. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Now seeing Alien William Stole, Alan William Stole come up, we have Josh Corbett and Patricia Barker, our next two speakers. Josh Corbett and Patricia Barker. Yeah, not seeing either of those two speakers. We have Jeffelt and Leaf Hams. Welcome, Josh. Two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. Uh, my name is Jeffel. I'm one of the parents of a child at uh Polaris K through 12 and I just want to say it's a gem of a school. It's a great school. Um but I know all the schools are. I've heard some great testimony tonight. Um and uh yeah, I'm opposed to all these cuts
149um to any of the cuts and actually we need to add things, not cut things. And we kind of become numb as a society I think to these cuts. So it's really inspiring to see all these people show up tonight. I think about my own uh schooling and things like sports and how it shaped my life and to cut that in middle school or high school would just be a tragedy. Um it shapes people's lives. Furthermore, things like the Ignite great program, but what's concerning um too is talk of things like health and safety um cutting a nurse position or reducing nurse positions. Um, for a school like Polaris that has almost 500 kids, I couldn't imagine having a halftime nurse only who would care for emergencies. So, health and safety should be number one
150in addition to our to our education needs. Um, so in conclusion, I just wanted to say, you know, I want to encourage the board and the state to do what's right for our kids. um we have an obligation as a society to provide an education to the level that we had um growing up and um so for my daughter I really feel sad to think that these cuts could happen. Thank you and thank you for your testimony. Um our last testifier after our next speaker is Brun Hill Benner. So Brun Hill, if you could please join us at the front and welcome Leaf, you have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening. My name is Leif Hams. I have two daughters at Chuach optional. Want to come here tonight to talk to you
151about the importance of this program, what it's meant to my kids. I have a kindergarter who comes home tells me she loves going to school. This is part of that unique philosophy we've been talking about all night at two optional. I have a second grader struggle through reading and through the dedication to those teachers. She's really progressed these years. Um, the other day I sat down in her classroom and watched her read competently and competently and clearly for the first time and it's it's through that dedication of teachers and the two edge optional program has really enabled her to to grow that way. Uh, when I look around the the board or the room, you'll see posters on the walls talking about math proficiency, reading proficiency. Gage optional has that in spades. You've heard it
152again tonight how that school is routinely the test scores show that those kids are coming out of this out of that school uh with some of the highest proficiencies in the district. Um I implore you to maintain those teaching staff positions. It's critical for the school the way it is set up for beginning and tonight to maintain those those positions that enable the students to to go through that full gatch optional philosophy focused on the whole student. Thank you for your time and thank you for your testimony. Our last speaker tonight is Brun Hill Benner. Welcome. You have two minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, thank you so much for your dedication and your time. Um, I've been with the Anchorage School District for a long time. I was a student and then um
153a teacher for a while and now I'm a parent with two children in Anchorage School District. And um and sometimes I substitute. Um this is what I know. Every school needs to have a full-time nurse. Every school. And um the reason I know that is because I've spent time in schools. And um the first encounter I had with a nurse was um when I was in second grade at Sand Lake and thought it was would be really cool to go down the slide on my feet instead of my butt and I fell off and I got a concussion although I didn't know what what that was at the time but an hour later I vomited all over the uh nurse's uh floor and um that was what I saw the nurse for. But back then,
154my brothers and I, we didn't have asthma. We didn't have to carry an inhaler to make sure that we didn't die if we had an asthma attack. Um, we didn't have to carry an EpiPen in case we had an allergy to nuts or something that someone brought into the classroom. We didn't we didn't deal with anxiety or depression that you hear about now that that children deal with. Um it was just um I don't know there was there was just less medication. Um I can't um imagine um like when a child needs to go to the nurse, what are you going to do? Just just shut the door? I mean, who's helping that child? So, there's only one person that can do that, that can deal with their tears, their blood, their vomit, and that
155is the certified nurse. Every school needs to have a full-time nurse whether or not House Bill 69 passes, and I will do all I can. And thank you for your testimony. That concludes those speakers who signed up to speak tonight. Thank you so much for making time. Okay, we'll move on to uh F1, our consent agenda. Is there any board member who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda for discussion? Member Donley, give me a second. Yeah. Um I would I would pull memorandum 123. That's agenda item number six, ASD memorandum number 123. We'll pull that down to action items and make that G2. Is there any other board member who wishes to pull an item from our consent agenda? Hearing and seeing none. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda
156as amended? Mr. Chair, I move to approve the consent agenda as amended. Second. Made by member Bellamy, seconded by member Higgins. Is there um sorry, we need to vote. Um Miss Sullivan, could you please call the role? Student Representative Peek. Yes. Member Bellamy. Member Higgins. Member Donley. Yes, member Lessons. Yes, member Wilson. Yes, member Halman. Yes. Chair Jacobs. Yes. The consent agenda is approved. 70 Great. Okay. So, the consent agenda motion to approve has passed 70. We'll move on to action items. G1 is student hearing. Um, member Bellamy or member lessons or member Wilson. Mike should be able to um review the agenda item in your email and make the appropriate motion to approve the student hearing item. Yes sir. There he is. Mr. Chair, I move to approve the expulsion of the student associated
157with ASD incident number 142005 as discussed in executive session. I'll second made by member Bellamy, seconded by member Wilson. Is there any discussion before we move to a vote hearing and seeing none, Miss Svin, can you please call the role? Member Lessons, yes. Member Higgins. Member Wilson. Yes. Member Bellamy. Yes. Member Donley. Yes. Member Jacobs. Yes. President Hollerman. Yes. That item passes unanimously 7 to zero. That brings us to G2 ASD memorandum number 123, professional services selection for professional education specification services term contract. Is there a motion? I move to approve memorandum 123 professional services selection for professional education spec specification services term contract made by member lesson seconded by member Higgins to approve Memorandum number 123. Is there discussion? Member Donnelly, you pulled this item. Well, Mr. President, this memorandum authorizes this expenditure up
158to $1.5 million for a unidentified quote professional educational specifications services term contracts. And I given our current budget situation, I'm not at all clear why we would authorize half a million dollars of expenditure for unidentified services. Um maybe there could be an explanation from the administrative branch on what would happen if we don't expend this half million dollars. Thank you, Member Donley. Dr. Bryant, your team, any explanation or additional information you'd like to provide? Through the chair, Mr. Anderson, would you like to walk us through this? Sure. Um, so when last year's bond passed, part of it was planning and design. We don't have anyone on staff that knows nationwide edecs and evolving instructional environments. We have architects who also um they focus on structures of buildings, how it's going to look. But Edspecs looks
159at everything from what types of classrooms, how big they need to be, um, colors, everything else. When when, uh, when we did Inlet View, we needed an EDSP specs person to come in and validate the types of classrooms we had and what had to be in each of the classrooms. Um, and they obviously we haven't looked at why in 20 years, 15, 20 years. If we want to do EDSP specs, um, as we talked about a couple months ago, and start looking at a multi-year renovation for why, we need an expert in edspecs. We used them for the SBBS classrooms after the DOJ uh, lawsuit and settlement. Um, because we don't have that type of text technical expertise on staff. So, a term contract um and I I I think you know this, but since
160you brought it up, I'm sure other people in the room don't. It can be used on multiple different projects. The bond looks like it will pass. So, we'll be moving forward with design for Bartlett renovation for a multi-phase um renovation. For that, you do need an EDS specs person. If you look through the memo, we put it out for bid. only one person. Brain spaces um submitted a bid. They they are the only game in town um or have been in the past several years, but they just have a technical expertise that a project manager or designer I mean Larry Morris is great but we don't have anyone in capital plans. This money is not coming from the general fund. It's not tied to budget deficit. it it is $500,000 from fund three which is
161capital plans fund and the money is there because the last bond passed. So if we were to not do it it would certainly I mean we used it for aquarium when we did their renovation it would it would have a significant impact on projects moving forward. We we could design anything as if it has to look just the way it looks now, but that wouldn't be taking advantage of of modern design for education. And and again, this is not if we if we didn't do it, I'm not sure where we would move forward with design for things like Bartlett, which was on this year's bond, or or whe any other project we're going to be looking at over the next, you know, couple years. I just think that sounds like something that should be in
162the bid for the design of the building, not a separate contract. Seems like something that would be included in what the voters approved for the cost of a particular project rather than having a separate appropriation or authorization here tonight. It it may sound that way, but it's like bringing in experts, consultants to help with looking at health care, which we uh Marty talked about with the experts. Do you really want the architect to tell you that what they designed is the best and we believe it without having someone come in and validate what the EDS specs should be? Then you end up with it's going to be built the way the architect designs it, but you can't give the architect guidelines and boundaries and specifics about what you want for certain types of rooms and
163then you just hope that they get it right. I I think having a a separate external edspecs person helps you get the product that you want, not the product that someone tells you you want. Thank you. And again, it's coming out of fund three, not the general fund, and it wouldn't impact the deficit in any way. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Member Donley, any followup? Well, if it's so important, I think it should have been included in what was put before the taxpayers on the cost of these projects. It should have been included in what was put before the voters uh when they voted to approve these bond propositions, right? That's why it's in planning and design. I mean, part of planning and design is the planning a and the design I mean at specs
164is we've been doing this for years. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Member Dley, I think Mr. Anderson is trying to articulate that he has articulated that this was this language was on the bond in the form of planning and design funding. Um, with that said, just a follow-up question for my own purposes. Um, to Dr. Bryant, Mr. Anderson, could I confirm my understanding that um we cannot bond as a school district for um direct classroom instruction funding and then nor can we reappropriate uh funding that's been approved by the voters to supplement um or reduce our deficit? You would be correct on both. Thank you. Are there other questions or discussion? Member Higgins. Yeah, thank you. First of all, I don't care where the money comes from. It's public money. So it really is irrelevant to
165that. I do I know that your qu your your response was addressing the a point that memberly made about it being public and our deficit. Um I don't recall having to bring in an expert or paid separately from the process with the other activities we've done and I've been through a lot of them uh as a board member ever having a contract like this uh separate because we've had the funds out there for the review the this board did the this seems to be something new. Is that accurate? I can go back and confirm how many times we've used them. If you look at the bottom of the board memo, you'll see that we used it for Aquarian and West others. We did not do that as a subcontract through the architects or the contractor.
166We procured those services. I can go back and find out how many times we've done that if you would like. I don't you aquarium being a a charter school thing and they did a different process with a different type thing. So I don't know if that's traditional with the with the same, you know, situation here. And so that's a little bit surprising that way too because that's a different scenario, isn't it? All I know is whenever we do major renovations um and we're looking at updating EDS specs to make sure that if you're going to throw millions of dollars into a project that you get the best that you can get out of it that that meets today's instructional requirements. And I mean, I've heard brain spaces mentioned many times. I I don't I never
167went back and looked at the contract itself. I can certainly do that. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Member Higgins. We'll go to member lessons, then member Bellamy. I think um I guess my question would be does this passage of this memo produce um a cheaper product for the district in the end in some capacity? I don't know that it's a cheaper product, but hopefully a better product, right? It's like going to a car dealer and saying, "What car do you think I need?" and you just trust them because that's the orange car that no one else wanted and now you bought it because you asked them what you needed. Um, this helps you make sure that before you give detailed guidance to the architects and designers that you know what you're looking for because
168it's an unbiased outside source and not the person that's getting ready to sign a multi-million dollar contract. Thank you, member lessons. from member Belly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, most of my points have already been made. Uh, first of all, it's bond money. It has nothing to do with our current deficit. The other thing is it's consistent with what we've always done. I I just don't understand why this is an issue tonight. Um, I mean, as long I've been in the district 50s something years and not all of those 50 years, but when we when we build our schools, we build them to a certain standard and quality. And it's just not the architecture telling us what that is. It's it's it's a a a separate party that helps us to get the quality that
169we're looking to get. So, uh, I I just really want to make it clear that, um, the question was asked in a way in the beginning to to insinuate that there was some kind of we are we're in a deficit situation and now we're spending $500,000. No, this is entire that's not this. This is entirely different. So, I I will um I will be voting to approve the memo or however the thing comes, however the motion comes. Thank you, member Bellamy. Is there other discussion? Member Donley, will this board approve $26 million of funible dollars that didn't have to go to capital towards the construction of Inland View School? So, we want to talk about mixing money. That's mixing money. That was not bond money. that was not designated mandatory had to be expended on
170a capital project that was flexible and fungeable and we could have used it for other purposes. So I believe that there is an impact even if it's indirect. Thank you member Donnie. I'll just point out that we want to keep conversation to Germaine to the memorandum which is not related to a previous construction project. to also point out that the intent language associated with the funding that was referenced in insinuated and directed districts to um provide funding for school construction projects. With that said, is there any other discussion on this memorand? And seeing none, Miss Sullivan, can we please have a roll call vote? Yep. So, I a yes vote would be to approve this memorandum and a no vote would be to not approve the memorandum. I had one followup. I'm sorry. Member Higgins,
171before we vote, other discussion. Yeah, thank you. Um, what what projects will this professional be doing and how much per hour are we paying? I mean, I'm just wondering because we're doing a lot of different things in different places, you know, and and and whatnot. Is this inlet view? Is it what what what project is it? I mean, inlet view is already designed. Uh, so I guess what what project is is going to be for Blet, I assume. Well, it's a term, so it can be used for a number of projects, but we certainly need it for Bartlett. Um, we have a concept that the board approved um several months back, but we don't really have a design for Bartlett. Um, that's why it was the design money was on this year's bond and we're
172we're gonna need I mean it's a pretty significant renovation to just say let's make it look the way it currently is and assume that that's best. I mean it so we know Bartlett we know that we've publicly talked about um looking at a multi-year renovation plan for why to my knowledge hasn't been edspec. So, if you're going to throw millions of dollars into the new whe um you certainly want to make sure you're incorporating um edsp specs for such a unique niche in a school. Again, not going back to an architect saying, "Give me some designs and tell me which one I want." I mean, we we don't want to do that. We really want them to look at what do different types of special ed programs or behavior um programs need in ETSspecs because
173we simply don't have the staff to dedicate the the the time to be an expert in those areas. Did we have someone like this for Inlet View that we paid? Yes, absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Member Higgins. Is there any other discussion before we move to a vote hearing and seeing none, Miss Sullivan, the roll call, please? Member Lessons. Yes. Member Donley. No. Member Wilson. Yes. Member Bellamy. Member Higgins. Yes. President Hollowman. Yes. and Chair Jacobs. Yes. ASD memorandum number 123 passes with a vote of six to one. Okay, that completes our action item list for tonight. We also have a list of non-action items that's on the agenda under H. Is there any board member who wishes to discuss a non- action item? hearing. And seeing none, we'll move on to item J
174as we've completed public comment for tonight, which is school board and administration comments. We'll start with schoolboard comments to my left. Member Higgins, the floor is yours. Thank you. I as always, I enjoy the speakers, particularly the students uh out there, and I hope they keep track for resume building because u it's it's impressive and it's going to be beneficial. Um I also you know like hearing and seeing some of the issues with the outcomes with Chugatch optional and some of the impact such as if we cut staffing with the immersion programs at Chugatch or some of the different programs the impacts a lot greater uh it's difficult to recover some of these programs and um while I think Chugatch can do a better job than some of the immersion programs it's still going to
175be a significant impact within that. So very proud of the changes there that they're doing. Uh and I and the size issue is one that always bothers me because we had the Pasmum study looked at what other state other school districts are doing in the country what adequate funding is and you're talking about 30 plus kids where it should be 1 to 15. So uh that's a problem statewide but it's a big problem here at Anchorage as well. Um I I comment one thing about something the superintendent said about focusing on grade um outcomes. Um actually in 2008 I remember getting thousands of lines. It was unreal the number of accomplishments within the school district and it's kind of like there were maybe one or two lines in there hidden that might be important but
176you have to find it. But one of those was grades and how well we're doing with grades and how kids are coming out. and it showed an increase in the grade for fourth grade, but the same time you had an academic decline. So, it it didn't correlate. But this one's different. For high school, it is a pressure on graduation. It is a pressure on helping these kids achieve a certain level. So, I like the fact of doing the uh grades and that is fine for high school. for elementary and for middle school it's a little different ball game but um I think it is important within that what I would like to see in the future is to have a discussion about another issues one some of our programs are achieving a lot higher with
177the um academic growth compared to our schools how much they grow every year and their uh you know their programs they've got are focused and provides a little more diversity and and changes for how that's done and when we would compare that then we need to say why we need to start asking that question why optional programs I saw those out there with the growth uh within it and some of them are title one school with a growth uh but we need to not just look and say okay this is separate and we need to start doing what we're doing you know better always we have to say are we doing things different uh what is what why are we getting those outcomes comes and what can we do as a district. The other things
178I'd like to talk about is start times. I think we made a right decisions with start times. I think the Monday I understand late but I'm also listening to parents. I'm listening to some parents that going to drop out of the school system next year and that we got a lot of programs got a lot of issues and I'll share that with the superintendent but they're looking at this and they're upset because teachers are not getting the funding for training for special programs. Okay. Uh within that we've got limited funds and they feel like it's just not working. But the big issue for them is the the timing. They've got jobs. They got this. They need support. They would be staying if they had an opportunity for their preschool. I mean prior to school to
179be able to drop them off and at the end if we had better programs out there. So the I think changing the start times to me made sense because academics go up but if we have less involvement with the parents and they are telling us feedback that this is a serious problem that doesn't mean we don't have options out there to look at to to maintain what we need and still achieve what the parents need for support. So I would like to see some discussions other than just these are some data and go for it. we we deal with the process of this is the problem. These are the options we have and then they'll select a course of action. But I think the public's asking for us to do that more. We're asking for
180review. I'm not going to I'm not advocating changing short times or doing something like that. But I do think we need to have a really uh serious discussion about what's working, what isn't, and why some schools are doing much better than others, and how we might be able to model that. I want academic discussions more. And um uh not that we're going to change overnight, but doing it the same way over and over again, expecting different results is yeah, the definition of insanity, right? Uh, and I just want to see get more into a discussion on options rather than this is just the outcome because I really think we can do better for kids if we do it and we might be able to achieve a lot better outcome for these kids in the future.
181Thank you. Thank you, member Higgins. Member Donley, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to look forward to two weeks from now when uh memorandum number 48 is going to be before us to authorize an additional 1,173,000 for inland view school um construction. Um go back over the history of this project. The initial um funding for design was included in the 2020 bond which was the earthquake funding bond. Um, I don't think anybody wanted to vote against um fixing our schools up after the earthquake, but the uh design money was mixed in there at the time. I moved to separate it out, but it was not approved by the board, so it was combined in there. I don't think that was a fair choice for voters. And then in 2023, um
182another $1,500,000 was included with school safety projects um that were really essential on that bond. Once again, the voters had to choose between school safety projects and uh funding more for design and costs for Inlet View School. Then the board in memo number 151 in 2023 that we just discussed approved another $26 million um using one-time state funds for Inlet View School. And then the final amount that appeared before voters was about well $18,998,000 on the 2024 bond which I supported all the other projects on that bond. But um at the time I had suggested that the bond should educate voters and actually have the total cost of the project but the board voted that down. Um the total cost of the project at that time was 50 million $5,156. Um, and I think that
183should in the future appear, total costs of projects should appear as part of the voter education when they commit to additional funds to make a project actually happen. Um, I regret it was not included on that bond. I think that was valuable information voters should have been presented with. And so then in two weeks from now, we're going to be voting on memorandum 48, which will authorize additional money for inlet school bringing. And if it is approved, it'll bring the total cost of this new school up to 51,178,000. Um, current enrollment at the school is 185 students and the uh new school will have a capacity of 289 students. Um, I think it's I've had many citizens express their concern to me that we we are continuing to move towards in our right sizing closing
184down some neighborhood schools um while we uh chose to expend um $50 million to build a new school. I share those concerns. Thank you, Member Donnelly. Student Representative PAC, do you have any comments tonight? It's just a short one, Mr. Chair. I want to thank each and everyone who came out and testified today um despite your busy schedules and busy lives and standing up to show that you care for the future and our youth. Um and it just reminds me that the cost of losing this battle for securing a decent education for my peers and what the state is posing itself to lose is us. a whole generation of students who feel disregarded by the leaders of our state. But everyone who testified today showed that we are not disregarded at least by our community.
185So, thank you all for that. I also want to shout out players. Um part of the players family was here tonight. Um my principal, my math teacher here sticking with us. Um and my counselor, my nurse was also here and I'm so grateful that they're leaders who are relentless, relentlessly fighting for us. And I think they've passed the baton tonight for us students and my peers to also do what we can and that will be like the the walk out this Friday. That concludes my report or my comments. Thank you, Mr. Pek. Any other comments from our student representative team? And like I did mention at the beginning of this meeting with the walk out happening on Friday, it is very true that students, not even across our own district, but across the state are
186just as fired up as everyone else about HB69 right now. Everyone else is feeling the budget cuts just as deeply as we are right now. And like how our superintendent spoke earlier, that is exactly how our student body feels affected and impacted by these cuts because it's not only just affecting activities or staff members, teachers or classes. It's affecting people's life. It's affecting the way that people are learning and learning to live and learning to live their future. And so I just want to say that if anyone in this room has a high school or knows a high schooler or is a high schooler, please let them know about the walk out that is happening this Friday at 1 p.m. Doesn't matter what school they go to. The impact of that message is going to
187have a really huge effect with the amount of voices that are collectively demonstrated amongst different students and different perspectives because like I said, everybody is feeling this and students are extremely passionate about learning about this bill every single day and every single voice that we can get and every different perspective that we can get that interprets this information that's so vitally important to protecting our education. is extremely important in this day, especially in this day and age. So, I just want to say thank you for everyone who's been contributing to the information that we get about HB69 every day and everyone who is passionately testifying and speaking about it, even with their own kids. Thank you, Madison. Um, I'll take my turn on the line now before we continue on and then go to our
188chair online. um appreciate the comments of the members who have spoken thus far. I do whenever we bring it up um how and when we choose to rebuild schools. It's it amazes me that we we choose to forget or not mention for a reason I I can't understand um that the board also chose to rebuild um Ursa Major on base for our military families. um at a similar cost uh to the Envy Elementary School. Um this board also has chosen to prioritize uh through past votes a potential rebuild or a major remodel at Wonder Park Elementary. Um we can and should be investing in necessary capital improvements that keep students um safe, warm, productive, and are inviting environments for our educators to come to work in every day. Um, we shouldn't be apologetic for that.
189Our students deserve it and it's part of the mandate that our legislature has to maintain a system of public education. Um, I'll pivot to the the issue that's more timely right now, which is public testimony on HP69 and the remarks we heard tonight. I remain uh deeply troubled uh by the legislaturator's abdication of their responsibility to adequately fund our system of public education. Um, we need them to act and we need them to do it now. I appreciate sincerely the engagement from our community thus far. Um and I I know like from Dr. Bryant, our legislature is very weary from hearing from this board. Um as they are doing so just about daily. Um I'm hopeful there's movement on HP69 this week and that's my expectation. That's what I would be doing if I were
190in their shoes. There is nothing more important that they should be doing with their time, frankly. And so that's my expectation. Um, with that said, I am eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to reverse some of the really um, challenging and unfortunate cuts this board has had to make due to limited resources. And I will be keeping a close eye on Juno as to when we can take that action. Thank you. Uh, member Wilson, the floor is yours. All very well said. Thank you, Member Jacobs. And I I would like to add to that that I would love to have each student and parent that testified tonight send their testimony to their legislators. Um it it was all truly heartfelt. Um and and absolutely needed and I I really hope that each of you send
191those to your legislators because I believe they need to hear that too. And I and I want to say bravo to our students that testified. They were all amazing examples as this the two sitting at the dis here of our bright articulate and passionate young people that we have in our district. So bravo to them as well. Um I I had the pleasure of uh visiting a couple of schools in the last week. Russian Jack Elementary. Um there is a a staff member there, her name is Marty Guzman, who received a legislative citation that was presented by Representative Mina. Um Miss Guzman is a family services coordinator at Russian Jack. She has been in that position for 17 years and with the district for 23 years. And I I have the pleasure of knowing her
192personally and and knowing the work that she does at Russian Jack. She she really she knows every kid's name. She knows the families um sometimes because she's been there 17 years, she knows their parents um who were some were students at Russian Jack as well. Uh Marty is is just an amazing individual and um to be uh re recognized for for all that she does for Russian Jack was was a privilege for me to to be there and participate in that. I also had the pleasure of going to Willowcrest Elementary where the They had a ceremony for renaming the gym for Leroy Jones and and Mr. Jones um who has been at Willowrest for many many years um and and done so many things for our entire district. He coordinated an elementary basketball tournament or
193league for many years that culminated in in two tournaments for our students. So these are are students around the district. Some of which will um have gone on to play sports as they went into middle and high school and some of them were that was their only experience playing sports. Um so I Leroy is is now retired. Uh but he he really has done so much for for the the kids in this community. So I I was pleased to be able to participate in that as well. Um, I also had the privilege of visiting King Techch and um I I think everybody knows that I'm I'm a huge King Tech fan. They I've I've got kids at King Tech full-time. So, um it is an amazing program that that's doing amazing things and helping our
194students to be prepared for um both for for all college career and and life. So, um always always a fun visit there. I also wanted to give one reminder that our school business partnership uh spirit of tomorrow awards lunchon is on Monday, April 14th from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Egan Center and you can still purchase tickets for that. Uh I appreciate the partnership with the Anchorage Chamber as this lunchon will be their make it Monday part of their Make It Monday lunch. So thank you. Thank you member Wilson, member lessons. Um, thank you. I wanted to begin by extending my appreciation to the community members still here and many more who uh needed to go and pack lunches for tomorrow and get kids to bed and do all of the things that
195have to happen to just date CC already kids over those 17 years. Um, that was a remark that that uh resonated with me. I do think you have to start at the very beginning to get our kids across the finish line. Um, I wanted to sort of touch on some of the well, the tenor of their remarks comes down to our funding scenario. Um, there were a million comments left unspoken. While we were sitting here, I received an email from uh a family member who is at the dome this evening saying, "We're currently at the dome observing the ASD track meet. I implore you if you could see the size of this crowd, don't eliminate this activity. The dome is packed to the rafters with participants. Uh it's wonderful see to see such a healthy
196activity for the kids. You know, that is one, you know, one of the many pieces of the puzzle that we have encapsulated in this amendment to our budget. this uh promise to the community for all of the ways we will reinvest additional funding from the legislature to our students. Um as a reference point, if it is at all useful at the March 27th finance committee meeting, and if you don't know how to get in the weeds, email me. I'll tell you how to get in the weeds. Um, our CFO kindly prepared a couple of PDFs and it shows option A and option B. Option A is the PTR plus4 and how that's going to play out at every school. Option B, and it's all on, you know, look at the elementary sheet says this is
197what happens with $1,000 and these are the teachers that we get, the classroom teachers that we not only get back, but the ones we get to have the Yes. and because we're going to reduce the pupil toteer ratios to levels we haven't seen since before my eighth grader started ASD. So that's really exciting. Um so again that was from the March 27th finance committee meeting. There's one PDF for elementary. There's one PDF for secondary and alternative schools. So Polaris you're in you're in page two. Um it really strikes me that uh as we focus our limited resources on core classes which are important uh fine arts and languages are taking a massive hit and class sizes in things like you know PE and health are going to skyrocket uh to help absorb um these these
198cuts and the losses uh if action is not taken are going to be immeasurable. Um, I've got skin in this game, too. Um, and and I think about I I made a list. I I think about all of the teachers that have been in my family's life who have either retired because they've earned it or resigned and pursued second careers or they're going to at the end of this year. And I know it because I know who I've walked the halls with them. They have cared for my kids. They've cared for hundreds of other kids. Um, this matters. It matters to families. Uh, in a lighter note, um, applications to seniors, I'm looking at you and all of your peers, uh, are still open for the Alaska Association of of School Board's June Nelson Memorial
199Scholarship. It's open until, um, April 11th at 5:00 PM. and I'm on the committee. Um, so I just thought I'd say that. Um, so I'm looking forward to reviewing um, applications. Uh, I think they're coming in statewide. Um, that's why I won't play favorites, but I am looking forward to reading some great applications. And, um, I'm going to say also tomorrow there is a gifted mentorship reception. It was my privilege to have a gifted mentee this year who was interested in local government. But board members, um, I've gone to the last couple of gifted mentorship receptions. It's remarkable to see how, uh, you know, it's about 50 or so students who have been partnered with industries all over Anchorage and people in every which way have supported their children. And my my favorite story was
200from a student last year, the year before, who shadowed an OB and the life me the life takeaway was I'm never having babies. Um so you can learn really important things through the gifted mentorship program and maybe things you do want to do. Um and uh I have a couple of school trips coming up. Um and then if you haven't bought your tickets to the Hades Town at the Performing Arts Center on April 12th, just do it. They're available on centix.org. I hope. Um I'll be there. Almost sold out. Do they open the mezzanine? Not yet. Okay. They Okay. Well, then do it. Thank you, member lesson. Member Bellamy. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I do I also want to thank uh everyone for coming out. I mean, it's nobody can tell our stories like
201we tell our stories and you guys did an excellent job of telling your stories and so did your the the kids. Uh because that's really what the legislators want to hear. They don't want to hear us. They expect us to show up and tell them what whatever, but it's those stories and the impacts that they really really do. So, I I appreciate you not just showing up, but also sending what you said tonight, including the kids to to uh all of our legislators, please. Especially the House Finance is where the bill is now. Is that correct? Senate Finance, sorry. Um Joshua, um you know I can't hold water and you have some good news. You don't have to tell us all of it, but just tell us just a little bit. You don't tell us
202don't tell us what you decided to do, but can you tell us about your your good news? What do you want me to say? Yes. Okay. Okay. I have not officially committed, but I'm looking to attend West Point this coming fall um and pursue a life of or at least pursue military service. So, I didn't think he'd tell you what he chose, but he also got was it Stanford? Accepted at Stanford. Anyway, we have amazing kids in this district. Only two of them are up here tonight. You brought in about a dozen tonight. So, we we we we know that we are doing some things correctly. Um, April is the month of the military child. Uh, and Adele put a our person, our Jbear person put a some information on her LinkedIn page uh, today.
203And so I want us to just remember uh I did take a a a real quick um I attended a webinar uh a webinar and one of the things that was profound for me and I think I knew it. I just hadn't thought about it is that they gave a scenario of a young a student walking into a new school for the sixth time in two years. And what do we do to make those students feel welcomed, wanted, and and and and does anybody even tell them where the lockers are and how to use the lockers and where the whatever. So, we have a we have a a deeper responsibility because we don't they don't walk around with little tags on their head saying I'm a military kid, but there are people in our buildings
204who have who know who those kids are. And uh so as we're thinking about budget cuts and limits, we have to think about all of our kids. And uh not that we don't, but this gives us a unique opportunity uh to think about and and of course all the purple in the room tonight because their colors are purple, too. Anyway, so um I I just wanted to share that. Um we the 2025 uh Alaska Children's Trust champions for kids were uh announced last week I believe and I I would like to con one of the uh nominees or individuals selected is an ASD employee. Her name is Roz Grady Weiss. She works for us, uh, works in the ASD. Uh, and I want to congratulate her for being selected as one of the champions, the
2052025 champions for kids. Uh, I think there have there's a celebration being planned and it should be um a really good event. I spent a couple hours today along with our human resource per uh uh um exe senior director. senior director. Is that what you are? What are you? You chief. Oh lord. Okay. With our chief and we were really talking about um you know with other educators and people from around the state and from this every I mean a lot of constituents looking at teacher recruitment and retention. Um we had a great discussion but that's part of that's part of this whole picture. You know, I I I lay awake some nights thinking, what if we get this money and we can't find teachers? Think about that. I mean, I don't want you to
206stay awake. I do enough of that. So, the money, we need the money, but we need the we we've got work to do to bring people to this state to make them to make it so that people will want to work for us for an entire career. Now, I know everybody's not going to give 43 years like I did to one district. I understand that. But if we can get 10, I mean, it it's amazing. But so we we've got work to do. And I'm really excited about the um teacher retent the uh Alaska educator uh retention and recruitment uh steering committee and the work that's before that committee. And I'm glad to be a part of that. along with our uh chief of HR. Uh I joined the uh Alaska School Board Association team
207in Atlanta for our 85th conference, the 85th conference of the National School Board Association. Uh I don't have the report for the uh board tonight, but I will get that report written up and to you uh the same report that I will give to the Alaska Association of School Boards. Huh? Oh, yeah. They paid for it. Uh that was not a district expense. I was on their team. Um the volunte and if you're looking for board members and community members, if you are looking for a volunteer project, uh I I really encourage you uh to to look at the kids to careers postsecary and career prep panels. I've done a couple of those already. We go into schools, we meet with kids, we talk to them. Basically, they just want to know about our our
208lives and what what you know, how do how do we end up doing what we do? What were fun things we did in college? What were you know, they it's just amazing what the kids want to know about. But it's all part of getting kids early, thinking about what is, you know, what is it that they want to do and be in their life. And so, um, there's lots of opportunities there for people who have time and you want to give some of that time to our kids. And Dora, thank you for covering Fair View for me while I was in Atlanta. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Member Bellamy. We'll go online to President Holland. Well, thank you very much and thank you very much to all the folks who came and
209testified. Of course, I know a lot of them have left the room by now. Um, it has struck me that this is something that has been going on for a long time in ASD. Uh, and a lot of people look at it as something that's plotted by the school board. We get a certain amount of that in the emails we've gotten. But the reality is we're simply faced with having to make a budget off the best estimate of what we think we will get. And what's been made clear back in December was that it would be the BSA only and and probably not so much supplemental funding. And that's the cause of the dramatic reduction in the budget as we we the administration proposed cuts that came in underneath that. I do honestly understand how
210so many parents could look at it and say, "Well, if you can just find money for these two positions. This solves a huge issue. Uh but I think as all the board members know, if you look around, every building is being cut and a lot of buildings are being cut very severely. When we did the budget, it's somewhat abstract because it ultimately falls to principles to make the actual decisions about what is the most tolerable thing they can do in their buildings. So, we didn't really understand how bad it would be until this week when uh principles had to start talking to people individually and letting them know they would be displaced. Uh it is an awful process. we will lose good staff because they will go somewhere where they are supported, where they feel
211secure and where they can build a career. Um, in your worst year, teachers struggle to get through each day. But the reality is, uh, all of our good teachers and best teachers are trying to build something over a period of years that you would stand back and admire. And when we have to make these choices year after year after year, it it becomes impossible to do that. And and there's a real cost to it that doesn't show up in the budget. Um but unfortunately, that is where we're at. I because we have drawn the fund balance down to the bare minimum. We can't add anything unless we find a corresponding cut somewhere else. And almost everywhere else has been cut. So, I I am saying to the the folks that came tonight to testify, please
212raise your voices to the legislature. Let them know this is going too far. It's time to turn this trend around and get our class sizes back down. Uh I also did want to amplify what member Leon said about Hades Town. If you haven't seen it, you should go. It is surprisingly good. Um it just outstanding work by a high school group. Uh to Mr. Pack, congratulations. You'll make us proud. I have no doubt. Um that's that's an awesome undertaking that you are headed to. Um like so many of our students, they find great success in this district. Our legislators often in an unchallenged way tell us how awful the results of the Anchorage School District are. Uh, but if you actually meet students and see what they're about and see what they're doing, we know
213that's not true. We need for people other than board members to go talk to legislators and make it clear that we've got a lot of success and we need to work on having more of that and not less of it. That's everything I have. Thank you all very much for time. Thank you, Mr. President. Any comments from administration before we adjourn? Seeing none, would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjurnn. Second. Moved and seconded. Hearing no objection, we're adjourned at 9:09 p.m. Thank you everyone.