03/18/2025: School Board Meeting

001e e e it is 6 o'clock on March 18th I call this meeting of the ancorage School District board to order um we have in the room member Bellamy member lessons uh myself member howman student representative Pac and I'm sorry I'm blanking on your your name Madison uh future student representative Madison member Donley member Jacobs um online we have member Higgins and I believe member Wilson is in transit and may join us at a little bit later in the meeting um this time I will ask our student representative to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible would also ask our member representative to uh read the land acknowledgement we acknowledge that we gather here today on

002the traditional lands of the denina people of the upper Cook Inlet for thousands of years the denina people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land ASD is committed to diversity and inclusion and it is with honor and respect that we recognize all indigenous people who live and learn in our community thank you want to welcome everyone that's here tonight to the meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the Anchorage school district and the board board thanks students parents teachers staff our school business partners and the entire Community for your investment in our district with your time talent and tax dollars that brings us to item three in the first section the approval of the agenda can I have a motion to approve Min president I move to

003approve the agenda as written is there a second second moved and seconded any any amendments to the agenda member donaly nobody else has one I would move to amend the agenda by adding a recommendation to amend previously adopted ASD memorandum 106 um any discussion singone is there any objection to amending the agenda oh I'm sorry we do need a second is there a second Mr chair you can you clarify the motion that we're asking for a second um I believe this is the motion that was voted on at the last meeting to assign um buildings that will be vacated at the end of the year is this some a motion to resend or what are we adding to our agenda um it would be added as an agenda item to be discussed it's not at

004the moment we're talking about an amendment to the agenda okay is there a second seeing none the amendment wax a second is there any other amendment to be made to the agenda seeing no hands is there any objection to adopting the agenda as presented seeing no objections we've adopted the agenda um that brings us to our student representative report member pack uh thank you Mr President uh so I do want to begin by um mentioning why I was not here in our last school board meeting um I was gone for a week in Washington DC for the United States Senate youth program and I was extremely blessed to be afforded that opportunity my favorite part of that trip was meeting with Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and inside the Supreme Court Justice inside the Supreme Court

005and also verifying that there is indeed a McDonald's inside the Pentagon and more importantly I appreciate my time in DC because in such a time of intense political divide um this program really reminded me that the heart of our democracy is and should be a commitment to service and that everyone who runs our country are people um so that was very impactful to me uh next uh I did submit a resolution earlier today um to this board which I did mention last month and it's regarding the elective credits for Fine Arts um presented by the Eagle River High School delegates of the C Advisory Board and they talked to me today and they said that they wanted it submitted before they come to present this resolution themselves in our meeting in one of our meetings

006next month and finally our um next un Advisory board meeting will be next Tuesday um from 10 a.m to 12: a.m. and some of the items on our agenda include having our we call it the white boards of wisdom we'll have our student advis board members who are upper classmen sit down at tables and give offer words of wisdom um and experience to our younger classmen who are interested in I guess college applications or just making it through high school um and share some experience around and we'll also have students sharing how they see their schools being impacted by budget cuts and um the budget overall in the district and just want to spark some conversations on that and finally finally we'll be voting in our new vice president secretary and public relations officers and

007most of importantly I'm thrilled to introduce our new incoming president of the student Advisory Board as well as our new student representative Madison um she is a current Junior at Eagle River High School and I believe she'll do a good if not better job of representing the students of the anchor school district and so now I want to t uh add my time to her to introduce herself hello hi I am so grateful to be here right now and I am very very excited to take on this position and after Josh is being student representative on here and Sab president I am really excited to Advocate and help work with this board and learn about the different issues and different information points that are extremely impactful to our district and again I do attend e

008over high school I'm in 11th grade so I will be serving as sap president and the youth representative on this board during my senior year and all I can say is that I am very excited and enthusiastic to be able to help with putting more public service to our district and our community thank you thank you very much for being here it brings us to our military report Colonel Hansen we satisfi some extra time for you if you need it oh and good evening uh Mr President superintendent members of the board uh Team ASD and our and our folks here in the audience uh my name is uh Colonel Dustin Hansen I'm the mission support group commander on Joint Base Elmendorf for Richardson uh I do have some slides I'd like to share um but

009before I I get there um I just want to say uh yes confirm member pck there is a there is a McDonald's in the in the Pentagon uh as one who's been probably more importantly there's a Starbucks because caffeine is the is the lifeblood of those of us that have been there um but I'm glad you enjoyed your trip pentagon is is very much like a it's also a museum as well and so as as you walk the corridors uh you will learn a lot about the different uh just the different agencies across the Department of Defense and uh I I found it like while I work there and and the the growth that goes with working there uh there's also a lot of history um a wealth of History to learn just walking the

010Halls so I appreciate the fact that you uh went there and you're able to learn um I also want to just say a shout out to the ASD staff uh we we have on jar have been working very hard with uh acknowledging that mount spur uh might be something that we have to contend with soon and so today we had a very good coordinating uh coordination meeting between all the mission Partners within J bear uh as well as our our ASD team uh to ensure that we're working together um so that our efforts are complementing how we respond when Mount spur erupts whether that is uh weeks or months away uh now I would like to uh transition to this what I call Jaber fundamentals my intention here is to um I over the next

011several months I'd like to just present layers of uh what J bear what J bear is and what it means to the community um so I'm I only have four slides uh this time around and I just plan to add add a few layers each month to add a little more information to just help build the knowledge uh for Community awareness so I'll begin here with slide one J fundamentals uh you'll see that I have uh I have listed uh three folks that are what I would call the command team of the 673rd airbase Wing Colonel mavit being the commander Colonel mavit wears two hats uh she's both the 673rd airbase Wing commander and she is also the installation Commander you're on a joint base and so you will see across uh several different joint

012bases around the world uh it's there's always an installation Commander that might be an an army person it might be a Navy person it might be in this case it's an Air Force person next slide please so here I have listed uh both some some faces to some names um I'll get there in a moment uh let me just touch on the mission here so when uh when any person that works on J bear and you talk with them uh they're going to be focused on really the mission and Colonel mbit has identified the mission as as these these three aspects uh projecting forces protecting the Homeland and empowering The Joint Base and uh within that let's see and and within that we have the vision uh where the vision uh is complemented by the

013mission and this vision is is to create an an Alaska tough war fighter um we have a new secretary of defense with this new presidential Administration and there's been very much a focus on this Warrior ethos and lethality and so we've made sure that we compl the vision to ensure that you know being in the being in Alaska uh you have to develop this what's called like Arctic tough I think every Alaskan can appreciate that and and we want to make sure that we build War Fighters that can Prevail in the Arctic or any other uh tough condition upon which we may face right now we are deterring our adversaries at least that's our intent and we train to eventually uh if we have to defeat those adversaries finally our priorities uh we try to

014do a b and c ready Airmen ready base ready Community uh my engagement with the community on behalf of Colonel mbit is to uh again is to help um ready the community for anything that may happen in the future at the very bottom we have Colonel mbit on the far left as I said installation Commander her Deputy right now is a colonel van uh however uh this summer we're going to have someone um move into that position that's supposed to be filled by an army person a soldier and so we will have a a an 06 Army soldier move into Colonel Vance position to be the deputy installation Commander uh we also have our senior enlisted leader chief Master Sergeant Sylvester and we also have again a complimentary to the uh The Joint Base aspect

015sergeant major mcus as our enlisted Army senior enlisted leader and finally we have our civilian deputy director Mr weor next slide please okay this is probably my favorite slide this is why we love Alaska uh anyone who's in the military uh and and even whether you're outside the military you can appreciate go proximity so uh these slides here represent just how strategically located uh Anchorage Alaska is to the rest of the northern hemisphere we can get anywhere pretty quick um within the Northern Hemisphere uh by going up and over by with and through and so because uh because of this this is why especially those of us who are stationed here can appreciate uh the Strategic um aspect of why Anchorage is so important as as we think about our adversaries or we even think

016about humanitarian assistance uh Anchorage allows us to get to places quick um so I think it was General Hap Arnold back in uh well well before I was born that said Alaska is the most strategic place in the world and this was probably back from in the 40s he said this uh he had he had that that that Vision that um that the site picture to understand how important Alaska was going to be not just then but here in the um here in the current as well as the future last slide please okay and this is my final slide and I would just like to address a couple of points here so on the top left and I'll hit some numbers and then I'll describe a little bit about how J bear is is um

017postured so uh top left active duty we have about 5,400 active duty Air Force personnel uh we have on the Army side about 4,800 soldiers we also have our guard and Reserve right about 6,000 folks there and we also have our civilian Personnel a little over 3,000 um our active duty dependent population is just over 22,000 so when you look at jber as a whole we're looking about a 40 1 almost 42,000 person populace oh by the way we support our retirees as well and so when you think about the different services that Jaber provides medical for example like medical is is a is a very robust Mission and uh and there's there's absolutely an importance to the community uh to ensure that we continue not just Medical but transportation um fuel Logistics all that

018good stuff uh services uh to our community on the top right side we have a a total acreage it's kind of hard to Fathom this I don't think the number does it justice but just think uh over 73,000 Acres most of that will be training areas uh if you look close to the slide you'll see some of the red highlighted on there that red indicates um some training ranges that are used but when you look at the north side of the slide where you have Otter Lake that blob of blue and then you have Six Mile Lake that stream of a string of blue um north of there we have vast amounts of training ranges that especially our army soldiers use uh not just for Airborne operations for but for uh firing and Land Navigation

019as well and then finally my my last point is that uh you can kind of see two different aspects on jaier on the left side you see the infrastructure and that's really your Air Force um your Elmendorf Air Force Base side uh you see a little bit of space in the middle and then on the right side is predominantly where our uh our um soldiers our army brothers and sisters reside and work and that's the Fort Richardson side um prior to 2010 uh there is a gate right in that green Gap right there that separated the two bases you had the Air Force Base uh separated by a gate and you had the army base um now we're a Joint Base right and so now it's Colonel mbit as the installation Commander when we talked

020jber we're talking both of those sides uh and so uh while we do have separate cultures Within the base we do work extremely hard as a testament to what you saw was the uh the sergeant major that's within our within our staff you saw an incoming 06 who's going to be the deputy installation Commander this very much a joint uh camaraderie that we work hard to make sure that we are a lethal War fighting force together that's all I have for jber fundamentals part one uh they'll have uh I'll have some more in the future but uh I stand by for any questions I need to note that member Wilson has joined us online uh several minutes ago members have any questions seeing none I don't have a question I just want to say thank

021you um and and can we have copies of your little your presentation yes ma'am I'd love to share that with you that'll be great thank you member a more of a reflection on a suggestion for the board as moving forward when I join the board uh four years ago I was welcomed to take various tours of the Anchorage School District I learned about buses and visited the bus barn I learned about making 800 gallons of spaghetti uh at one go um and so there was just sort of like welcome to ASD but we didn't actually have any kind of here is a jbar 101 so if there are going to be multiple of these presentations perhaps they can be collated and put into somewhere in our the board docs system uh for sort of future

022training resources I think that'll be helpful and then maybe just mentally making a note that as board members join this body um not only getting to tour where the spaghetti sauce is made but where 41,000 community members live is also probably an important thing yes ma'am of course thank for sharing yeah noted and we'll we'll try to do that we do appreciate you elaborating a little bit because uh for a lot of people that don't have access to the base it's kind of a big unknown um my father was uh a civilian with the military so I got to be in the Pentagon some and it you learn a lot anytime you go through the gate so to speak um so I think this is very useful for our staff and the public to just

023know more and understand our relationship and and what I think of is our responsibility to support your mission and being here thank you very much thanks for your support uh Board conference and committee reports they're probably written if anyone has anything they want to note member Essence I'll just say that our next round of committee meetings are next Thursday uh the 27th 27th sort of 11: a.m. onward n not this week but the weekend correct okay thank you that brings us to goal monitoring and I'll turn that over to the the superintendent thank you Mr President I'll go ahead and invite over our team members who will uh lead our have a discussion with the board on our K2 mclass goal we'll give them a moment all right so we're joined by our teaching and

024learning leadership team and uh our director of assessment evaluation uh so I'll go ahead and give the team a opportunity for an opening comment and then from there we can have our board discussion are there any opening comments you'd like to make and if you each would identify yourselves appreciate it good evening my name is deian Carol I'm the director of assessment and evaluation and I wanted to thank um board member lessons for her questions and so I want I want to start off uh with her first question which asked us to provide a brief background um around our interim goals 1.1 and 1.2 in and um her question related to why we combined kindergarten and first grade in um 1.1 and then had second grade separated in in 1.2 and the rationale behind that

025at the time was that kindergarten and first grade are similar in the fact that our students are assessed in early reading foundational um skills and um so that's a particularly um spec specific skill set that we're assessing students at and but recognizing that our kindergarteners are coming in at a different um level than our first graders we do break those grade levels up we disaggregate that information for you so you can see how our kindergarteners are doing and then all um how our first graders are doing as as well I will so you asked for us to introduce ourselves so I'll go ahead and go around the table I'm Diana btran and I'm the senior director of teaching and learning and to my right I have Nicole Somerville and she is the director of teaching

026and learning for the Elementary uh Nicole and I belong to the elementary side of the of the um teaching and learning and then we have um next to deian we have Bobby laferty and she's the director of our elll great so from there uh we welcome board member questions member bowy apologize for not sending my questions in earlier I actually did find them on my phone I have them I just didn't send them um if I can just uh you know if you can just review again interventions that we do for struggling for the kids that are struggling and then how the other part is how are we helping parents or involving parents in that in in the in those interventions so at the elementary level almost all of our schools do something called win

027what I need time it's a built-in part of the schedule which is at least a half an hour um um a day four to five days a week it is part of the Alaska reads act so it's built into the mtss plan that we have submitted to the state of Alaska uh we use a variety of different approved curriculums approved by the state and approved by the school district we train our teachers quite extensively on how to use the curriculum and they're very skill driven uh based on the data needs of the students um and so we really want to Target the students at their level and what they need and really making sure that we're hitting those areas then we also work with teachers on interventions that can be done within the class we've

028been working this year with Bobby's department on adding interventions specifically for our elll students and we've just kind of gotten off a whole pilot program with um adding something called frames to fluency to work on getting our students in our elll uh program speaking more because on our weda test which our scores within the board report don't reflect we are finding that our students are dropping off in their speaking of English which will then be reflected in their Reading Writing uh scores moving down so we are doing all of those pieces and then the other part to your question was just basically uh how are we involving parents uh so as we involve parents in multiple ways one is through our parent teacher conferences we send home uh their scores according to the mclass reports

029uh the mclass home connect uh after each testing period according to the Alaska breeds act and we monitor this principal's Monitor and teachers Monitor and then put it in the Tiff plans every two weeks for students that are far below proficient parents need to be notified of the progress that their students are making then to help parents help their students make progress we also have a reading for Life Series where we we've done videos and tutorials for parents as well as weekly um tips that our Title One department has put together that we text out to parents every single week on ways and tips that they can do and then schools have a variety of other information nights and opportunities to work with parents thank you member wons great thanks um so you know what

030some of the questions that I sent in had me pulling information or Reflections together from multiple slides at the same time uh but that's that's just what we're going to go forward with right now um so I had a question about slides three and eight maybe it's more of an observation and really I think a celebration right so this Falls K1 cohort here was assessed as having a higher a larger number of percent a larger percent of students categorized as above or well above Benchmark than last year K1 cohort which is great uh similarly um slide eight shows that this year's cohort of second graders came in more strongly in the in the fall and in both cases right and in the winter assessment this year's K1 kiddos are in a stronger Place more kids

031are at that above or well above Benchmark and more second graders are above well above Benchmark than their counterparts a year ago and I guess I just I want to solid celebrate that because I I think and I see heads nodding right this is some this is a manifestation of the growth that's happened in our Young Learners we're now in the second year of um the new CK curriculum um so I just I think that's really important right our kids are coming in stronger do you have any additional Reflections on that so we were reflecting on um on what you sent us uh one of the things that we wanted to highlight is that um the implementation of ccla went out really um was implemented really well and um I think the teachers are doing

032a great job with the components within the curriculum um but they have also been very much engaged in training in the trainings that have been provided by Nicole's team for the different interventions um and they have a menu to choose from so it's not just one or two interventions they have several they can put from like phonics for reading um youly um boost um and then um like Nicole stated they've been doing additional work in terms of of redeveloping the scope and sequence for our kids that need differentiation and so there's a lot of new opportunities for teachers to be able to draw from and then the plc's help because it gives them time to review the data and to make those adjustments necessary for instructions so those were some of the things we were

033reflecting on we're pretty proud of the work they've been doing uh because it has been a heavy lift as you know for the reads act and um they're moving forward and doing a great job so thank you for that on me oh I didn't turn my mic off from before but I do have you know we're always compared to not just others in our state uh other District I guess other kids in the State uh and nationally do we have H how does our scores compare I mean where are we in the I mean if we look at us in our state how are we doing and then if we can project nationally how are we doing and it may be that you might need more time for that question because I didn't send it

034in and I do apologize it's okay we anticipated that question good um so in in taking a look at our kindergarten and first graders um we do know that our kindy kiddos come in um a little be behind the curve as far as nationally is concerned um our kindergarten students started out at um 25.1% which I think I can get back to MH mhm um but then they made huge gains uh between fall and winter and we know that nationally kindergardeners tend to do that uh just because they're getting that high quality instruction um nationally students um in the fall were at 36% um and then in the winter uh they were at 52% so we're not quite closing the Gap but our kids are making gains uh along the lines of national um students

035in the same cohort as far as benchmarks or the percent of students above or um far above Benchmark and then for our first graders uh they actually started out 3.9% in the fall above the national um average uh they we did see a slight decree increase um in our first grade scores or numbers of students above or at Benchmark um and we don't want to shy away from that dip you know that it provides us an opportunity to take a look and see where we really um have to work to support those kiddos and what challenges they might have faced but when you're looking at um them overall they are right where their cohorts are nationally um and that kind of gives us good hope that we had caught them up in kindergarten and we

036hope to see kind of that um conditional growth over the next year or so and so as our kiddos go through from kindergarten to first grade we like the trend that we're currently seeing and we're hoping to continue that each cohort starts to catch up um and maybe even be above that national average remember less yeah this is another juggle a couple of slides uh question um okay so I had a question about when you compare slides six and eight um why did I say six um maybe I meant seven well anyways um we're going to look at the question that I have so my observation was that um we've got um year-over-year growth among our economically disadvantaged student populations right we've got more of them at first grade that are where we want them

037than in kindergarten and more of them still in second grade than in first grade or kindergarten but what's happening is that students who are not economically disadvantaged are also growing which is which is great um but what I think is the reality we've got two realities right you've got non-economically disadvantaged students who started out ahead and are accelerating and our economically disadvantaged students are accelerating but not fast enough and so the question is really is a faster rate of growth for economically disadvantaged students possible if so what kinds of inputs are needed this is a question I'd like to serve and then sort of amplify did you know what what do we need to accelerate the learning of more than half of our students really so research is is really out there right now on

038the um um what is the puts on high quality instruction not the not the high quality instruction because that's our teachers are there but the air we're doing air tutoring because it's high do tutoring and so it's really focusing on one to two to three three students at a time right um so if you're taking that to Juno it would have the ability to have Staffing and lower class sizes to have uh to be able to offer up the high does tutoring so that would be my input and that's just one thing but that would be huge right to see quicker growth there's a lot of research behind high dose tutoring okay so we're gonna do some quick quick math just right so we've got let's say 3,000 kids in each cohort give or take

0393,000 kindergarteners first graders so we got nine th say one two right 9,000 kiddos will just say a little bit more than half of them are economically disadvantaged the many of those kids need accelerated growth so maybe we need 3500 to 4,000 kids to get high do tutoring that's a lot of tutors at 1 to three I mean how many tutors how long does the high do tutoring session last so the high does tutoring typically you want 30 minutes uh four to five times a week so it could be part of the win the the issue I mean you could consider a win as high do tutoring the problem is that most of our staffing levels at our schools are not at the point that we can get our group sizes small enough for it

040to be as effective as it needs to be so you wouldn't want groups more than four to five kids at the absolute most and very targeted skills well none of our schools have that many staff members because if the teacher is teaching four kids and you've got with class size increases 25 kid what are the other 20 kids doing and most likely you've got multiple groups that need that intervention not just your lowest of your low kids but you're going to have several groups of kids that need those interventions so what is everybody else doing and there's only so many minutes in the day and we still need them to have core reading instruction they just you can't spend all day intervening your way out of core instruction problem so our first issue is we

041need to get really good high quality regular core instruction we need our regular classrooms to be straight grade levels where we don't have them having to spend half of their time juggling between two different grade levels we need smaller class sizes that would be lovely so that the teachers can really concentrate and then if we're going to be able to do some interventions we need small enough groups now a lot of people for the high-doses tutoring are doing it online they're finding different ways um we're experimenting this summer with some high do tutoring for our third graders um I don't know how you know when you get down to the littles I don't know if you really want to do that online um our experience with Co in Zoom school was isn't great but when

042it's only a group of two you know what are you going to do cuz you're right um member lessons that is a lot of staff and thank you for that answer how many if I were if I were working in a school as a tutor and I'm working with these three or four kiddos for a half an hour can I immediately go to my next group of three or four kids or do I need how many dose how many rounds of tutoring can I can I do in a day as a as atime tutor our reading interventionists that we have right now uh typically do six groups of six to eight kids each and then they often will double dose many of those kids for segments of 15 minutes where they just pull them out

043of class for a quick this is what we covered let's do some flashcards to remember the letters and the sounds that we covered so typically you know a half an hour doesn't you know you would think if you just bang bang banged them out but when you balance lunch schedules recess and how you can pull the kids and are they missing math are they missing core instruction typically our reading interventionists can really squeeze in about six solid groups for a full half an hour okay one last followup so if we have 10 reading interventionists that we've deleted from our budget and I think they should come back and we're going to use $1,000 BSA as part of that solution what I think I'm hearing from you is that we need something like a 100 reading

044Specialists to tackle 36 to 48 kids each in any given day well but but all of them need it I'm just I'm sketching this out um again if this if this is what we determine the way to solve the problem without looking at other issues sure I mean if you had a single laser focused on intervening intervening your way out of this problem concern is let's say we do this and we don't tackle our other issues and all of our kids in our other grades are in combo classes we're going to be intervening on them next year because they didn't get their full two hours of tier one instruction so we're just continuing to dig our hole we need to make sure all of our kids are getting good quality instruction every single day we

045can't intervene our way out of tier one reading and Mathematics instruction any other questions from the board so we have how many reading interventionalists serving how many schools currently we have 10 reading interventionists uh four of them are full-time at schools and the other six of them are shared between nearby schools and so two schools uh so basically 12 16 schools are getting an interventionist either halftime or full-time right now some of those schools are title schools some of them are not it was based on uh a combination of data needs combo classrooms many of those interventions are at least spending part of their day offsetting combo classes by teaching reading for one half of the combo so instead of taking the class all day they're just teaching the reading for the combo class so

046at least those kids are getting a quality core and that meets the the conditions of the Alaska reads act certainly okay interesting I'm done Essence um this isn't something that I submitted ahead of time but I am reflecting on um there was a presentation that our director preschools recently gave to the Alaska legislature on uh what would happen if the legislature changed the 05 ADM in the formula to a full one it would generate additional revenue for ASD to invest in our preschool and as part of the slide deck and board members got this in board connect um there is there's some pretty astounding figures for what's happening when we do have a kiddos in ASD preschool we are I mean just if you compare for economically disadvantaged students the percentage of the difference between

047students who enrolled in an ASD prek and did not have an ASD prek is profound for economically disadvantaged students students who were English language Learners and students with disabilities right significantly fewer students are considered well below Benchmark once they're once they've gone through the ASD Pre-K system fewer I mean a lower percentage of students um are below low Benchmark higher percentages of students are at or above because of their time in the ASD prek program and I'm not going to go over the numbers here but I just want to say it's an astounding proof of the value of early childhood education and exposure to a school system and I think that's something that I hope other board members and community members will support should the legislature continue to have conversations about uh pivoting the formula

048from a05 ADM for prek to a one I think that's a enormous investment that the state could make in the success of our students and make our kindergarten kindergarten teachers jobs easier and more successful uh we can build on what the preschool teachers will have done I just wanted to amplify that thank you any other questions from board [Music] members oh yes matters so I do notice as lessons did bring up there is a significant difference in those who are English Learners and non-english Learners in whether they are at or above the Benchmark and so I do want to ask are there any other specific resources that can help English Learners specifically prepare more to get higher scores on the reading State assessment itself thank you for your question so what we are doing right

049now and Nicole mentioned the work that we've been doing with with teaching and learning to implement some interventions that are specifically designed to support our English Learners so last year was our first year of implementation with the El which is English language development it's a specific curriculum that's designed to increase that listening and speaking and you know they say that uh what you whatever you can say you can write um if you can't say it it's very difficult to write it if you can understand it by listening you can read it if you can't understand it by listening is very difficult to read it so increasing those listening and speaking skills is our first priority last year we implemented at the elementary level that ELD curriculum for newcomers only so students who are coming in

050brand new to English brand new to the country brand new to ASD at the elementary level this year um as Nicole mentioned we've been piloting some additional uh interventions that incorporate that listening and speaking practice and also do a hybrid so whenever a student um comes in that is elll um they have a number of different barriers between them and that success at that Ong grade level um reading or math or whatever the content is so they have the um learning that other students at their grade level have and then they also have the language that's associated with that that that um prevents them from um you know reaching that grade level uh level grade level content accessing the grade level content so um a lot of what our schools do and our teams do

051our instructional teams do is doing kind of a triage right so what is the most immediate um barrier that we can work to eliminate so for a student who's coming in that's brand new to English their first barrier their most immediate barrier is that listening and speaking so being able to understand what's in going on in the classroom being able to access social conversations with their peers understand what their teacher is saying understand the context of what they're being expected to read and understand and um the second tier for that and I I want to use the word tier but I know we get a little um mixed up with all the the mtss everything's kind of a a tier but um that next level I guess of of triage is those students who have

052that social language and then they're moving into that need their next need is that reading so um what we've been working on with Nicole's team is um a hybrid so they're getting that listening and speaking practice that's very geared towards the needs of an elll student and that it incorporates the um the phonics the reading skills that are that foundational level as well no matter matter if a student is in kindergarten or if they're in fifth grade and I know the data that we're looking at right now is is K2 but kids are definitely coming in a different times and different places so that's one thing that we've done the other thing that we've done in terms of specific supports that are for elll students is a lot of our elll staff their time um

053when they're not pulling out students is um providing inclusion support so they're pushing into the classroom to support students with the content in the classroom with the instruction and really training up our elll tutors and our elll staff so that that time when they push into the classroom is very structured it's very focused it's focused on scaffolding so ensuring that students are provided with the scaffolds they need to access that core content at the same level as their peers and also ensuring that they're provided with their LEP accommodations so if a student needs something read out loud if a student needs additional time you know all of those pieces are are put into place in the classroom so those are some of the things that um that we started last year with our new plan

054of service that was um approved by the state in 2023 and um and this year we're increasing that to the next level of triage and um we look forward to seeing how that that goes I will say these assessments are not like regular tests that you can prepare for like study for so kids either know their letters and can identify them so the biggest thing that we ask is read with your child every night read to your child read to your siblings more books the better and we have lots of books that we're willing to give you and loan you and check out the library and read read read as much as possible but there isn't like a prep course you can take to pass these assessments thank you any other questions member Essence yeah

055I have a question that was kind of granular granular about slide eight and I was looking at the drop in second graders above well above Benchmark when I looked at slide 8 it looked to me like really of you know of the of the decrease in 50 fewer second graders who are assessed in that sort of above well above Benchmark they were all economically disadvantaged students maybe I'm reading that wrong but the question to me is like why like what are the other I mean is are we do we need to be talking about like what are the factors that shifts a student maybe at a broader level from being where they need to be to not being where they need to be you know from fall to winter is it combo classes is it

056chronic absenteeism I mean what are some of the variables that are going to most strongly impact a a child's um the trajectory that they maybe have been on and and derail them I would say there's a couple things first of all I would really hesitate to look at that data and say that it's these 52 kids that it's making the difference in the Eds because you really would need to look Child by child who moved in who moved out who took the tests here who took the tests there because it it could be very different kids were talking about that were from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year and so you would need to do a much more granular look at individual students before we could say it was these

057particular EDS students um that made the difference or not um I can say some of the difference between the beginning of the year to the middle of the Year especially within our first graders and some of our second graders is just the rate at which they pick up language in that um this by the time that you're in the middle of second grade it's the rate for your oral rating oral language fluency and it's um the procity in which you're reading and the accuracy and so there's less percentage of your overall score is based on knowing your letter names and sounds and some of those younger discret skills and more of the higher percentage of your overall composite score is based on the number of words you're reading correctly within the minute and so there

058is a change there and then when our kids move to third grade and you compare the map scores you can't really compare them as closely than with the mclass because we're looking at two different kinds of tests so it it's one of those things I would say all of the things you mentioned go into what could be causing problems attendance combo classes um long-term Subs short-term Subs um win uh maybe changes within win groups every school is different every child is going to be different and it's really hard to just give an overall picture um as a district one of my first things is we looked at the school scores and we noticed that there was a big difference between a lot of our scores within second grade and so we said is this a

059curricular issue is there something different within the second grade curriculum compared to the first grade curriculum and when one of the things we noticed is that there isn't as much repeated reading opportunities within the second grade curriculum and repeated reading has a high rate of positive influence on kids taking the same passage and reading it multiple times there is a lot of opportunities for kids to read out loud within the curriculum but they read new passages each time and so we're doing kind of a field study where we've we're working with five different classrooms the next six weeks where we've got a process or a protocol in mind where we're going to train up the kids and the teachers and take some data to see is this going to make a difference some title schools

060or kids that are economically disadvantaged some schools or classrooms where they're not and a quick protocol three minutes max because we don't have a lot of time in our school day and to see if maybe we need to add a routine or take a routine or change a routine to the curriculum to see if maybe there's a curricular issue as opposed to just that classroom or that kid or anything like that so data can be used for so many different things and for my department it's do we look as a whole to see if there's a a big gap thank you any other questions seeing none thank you very much that brings us to our first opportunity for public comment board sets aside one a 1H hour time slot at the beginning of the meeting

061for public comment um if we run over that hour uh we'll either extend or we will have a second opportunity at the end of the meeting during public comment board members went on answer questions or engage in discussion this is the Public's time to speak to the board and our time to listen to the people that have come to to speak welcome the public to observe and contribute to our meetings through their comments however to be productive our meetings must be structured in civil um we do set aside um students to testify first because we want them to be able to go home and do homework and get a good night's sleep and secondly we have parents that have students in attendance we hear from them and then we take all other people in the

062order in which they signed up so I will call two names and if those people can come down and one will speak and I'll call another name if the first Speaker leaves the second person can take their place as a way to work our way through the west and hear from everybody tonight so starting with student testimony ay Ava colth and Alexandra Sanchez if you would come forward and have a seat at the podium front if you will state your name for the record you have three minutes to testify and um I should also add it when it's down to 30 seconds you'll hear a little bell ring just to let you know you're coming near the end of the testimony time and there'll be a timer on the screen right in front of me

063that tells you as well so if you'll state your name for the record if you'll get a little closer to the microphone so we can hear you thank you hi um I'm alisandra Sanchez I go to middle school and this is what happened to me on March 3rd of 2025 when I walked into my classroom in second period I sat down and got my folder then my teacher came my teacher sat down and took sat down and looked at me and said that I needed to take my my traditional head covering off then I said no it's part of my culture when I was trying to explain she thre the call the security and I said okay she sent it she sent one of the students to get security then when the student was walking

064out the student yelled out to take my PL off the the security spoke to me in private and said it was a beautiful head covering but the school gr said it's not allow no hats no hoods I said it's is different a church everyday traditional head covering and it keeps me safe I said then she said that the only thing that keeps me safe is the cross that I was [Music] wearing then she said take it off so I don't get more trouble when I took my block took off I said I was sad but I kept my day going so I don't feel sad and I think the security guard was wrong that she said my cross is the only thing that keep me safe safe my PL to can to finish yes okay

065thank you very much for your [Music] testimony and Ava kth if you're here Conrad [Music] Spain that is our list of students um for parents Daniel Danielle kth and relle Sanchez if you're here um sorry yes if you'll state your name for the record you have to kind of get right in front of the microphone if you want to move yeah that one will work too just there you go that's perfect and if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes hi my name is Conrad I'm here for the school bird and I'm disappointed because you voted for Ruka Shula not to get I could elementary school and I want a bigger playground a bigger school and we love our teachers thanks thank you very much for your testimony I appreciate it

066and just to check Eva colth just to check again I don't believe she's here yes feel state your name for the record you have three minutes Danielle Cala good evening board members it's me again Danielle Kel a parent of two RKA schula students this is my third time testifying in support of moving RKA into the lakeh hood Elementary building the other times I have been here I had Hope and Faith in the process of fair and just procedure of what would happen to our school next year tonight I am here with disappointment and distrust in how this school board operates however I am not here to point fingers I am here tonight to ask you to resend memorandum 106 I am here to ask those of you who may have crossed an ethical boundary with

067making this decision to make this right to stop showing bias to think of this as long term and not just over the next year or two or three and to stop this madness of pitting schools against each other because one is your people as public servants shouldn't you be for all people for all the children of ASD prior to our current building RKA moved three different times we have been paying an astronomical amount of rent every single year we have never been in an ASD facility and therefore we have been put into financial hardship we are taking this decision of not moving RKA into lak Hood very seriously because we had hope that this was going to be our last move the lakehood building would become our permanent forever home not just a pit stop

068until we reach the ultimate goal of building our own building is playing musical schools the right decision for a school district that is in a dire financial situation please prove to the community that you are all not inept by resending memorandum 106 and rev voting without two board members who have a conflict of interest and an established bias but I'm sure asking for a revote is as much of a waste of time as you had our community testify for a school for the past 3 months thank you thank you for your testimony relle Sanchez and cine Smith you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes hi I'm relle Sanchez on March 3rd 202 my daughter alisandra Sanchez was stripped of her religious traditional right of wearing her platuk by her teacher March

0694th I had two meetings one with the head principal and she heard my concerns and was sympathetic to what happened however the second meeting with the vice principal and the teacher did not go well not only was I dismissed by the vice principal of hu with my concern she backed up what the teacher had done to my daughter I demanded an apology from the teacher and she refused we are in year 2025 and racism against our native students and youth is still alive alive and will case in point what happened to my daughter this has Ripple affected even to my youngest daughters who attend taku elementary they were afraid to wear their plot CHS because of what happened to their oldest sister people like this teacher and vice principal should not be in our schools

070they to they took no accountability for the blatant Act of discrimination and racism that happened to my daughter no reconciliation between the teacher and my daughter has taken place my daughter alandre was stripped of not only her religious rights her rights to our n our native ways and her native voice this is ALS I would also push this as far as holistic genocide against my daughter for all the staff in ASD I'm putting you on notice for the aggressive racism and discrimination that happened to my daughter alisandra thank you for your testimony Katherine Smith good evening Katherine Smith I sit here again reiterating a real urgency for the rual re a the ASD board should have immediately recognized The crucial timing on this issue RKA has had 5 months before the facility lease expires not

071three years for a better fit these needs were repetitively conveyed in a timely manner in an era where the quality of instruction significantly influences our future educational performance can be directly related to the state of school facilities and Ru is actively seeking an ex existing ASD facility as a long-term substantial and sustainable option for alleviating Financial stress of our school budget how did the ASD board not recognize this is the best fit for Lake Hood the ASD Administration was right in choosing R for the relocation recommendation to lakehood Elementary in consideration of memorandum 106 I hereby convey that your vote left us in disbelief confusion and frustration you disregarded an effectively sound fiscal and moral repurposing recommendation you removed real school and replaced it with a school already housed in an ASD facility building we

072do not appreciate the board's failure to recognize and understand the facts reiterated by the ASD Administration we need a school facility that supports our students a real lunchroom a real Library spaces for the bed El and interventions for our students we utilize all our space but this is not financially sustainable for our future in the end it was we don't know what to do with Roa and that echoed forcefully through our community several board members acknowledged this failure publicly in discussion and recognized the necessity for the ASD board to do better the board must create a long-term fiscally responsible plan for all Charter Schools we are wi and we are ASD we all stood together before you and called on you our local ASD School Board to act in this pressing issue in favor of

073RKA and you let us down our families will continue to support the opportunity for facility relocation to Foster our children's academic growth and progress ideally we would like to see the school board revote on memorandum 106 and favor OFA alternatively I see you will be presenting a memorandum 128 this evening and although Abbot Loop may not be a permanent solution it may be the next step in our transition to for a forever home our program has moved at least three times since 2007 But ultimately our students are our Focus we are an enduring and a full-hearted community effort in pursuing an ASA facility thank you for your testimony Elaine Squire and Jenna [Music] Squire you will state your name for the record you have three minutes all right good evening board my name is Elaine

074Squire I'm here as part of the real Cula Community to share my voice in urging you to revisit memorandum 10 and bring it to a vote I did not want to be here tonight I thought the facts presented on the March 4th meeting and the weeks before it would speak for themselves and the hours of testimony would clearly show the right path to take this year the administration put together recommendations for use of the two School building closures these recommendations were gained through diligent data Gathering and Analysis the information gained clearly showed that real Kula would be the best fit for the lakehood building however despite the evidence for you voted with aemotion rather than reason you chose to move a school already residing in an ASD facility to lak hood leaving us in the

075Lurch the building cited or the board cited a decision on December 17th to prioritize that school but there is no record of it in the minutes this suggests private conversations on the matter and a lack of transparency this board publicly prioritized one school over another despite facts standing against such a decision you were meant to support all schools in the district in addition the board permitted an APC member to speak outside the public testimony period a procedural inconsistency that suggests favoritism and undermines public trust this board is playing a game of musical schools rather than moving one school and keeping the other in their current ASC building you're discussing Moving Two this year and one and then us again if you find us the new building if it's a waste of time and resources and

076a completely unnecessary sequence of events real Kula is up against the wall with our expensive lease and the time constraint we are under even with the bargaining chip within Abbott Loop this is a position we could have been saved from our families deserve fair and responsible leadership and you have a legal responsibility to consider the facts March 4 felt anything but fair and responsible the board has been told repeatedly that objectively the wrong decision has been made it is because of all of this that I and the rest of the real Community would like this board to bring this matter back to a vote a mistake you made but a correction that to that mistake is available to you if Abbot Loop is given to us rest assured we will make it work ruli is

077nothing if not capable of making the best out of a bad situation we are a community not just a building however let it be said that you let us down thank you for letting me speak thank you Adam leget and you will state your name for the record you have three minutes good evening my name is Gina Squire and I've been attending school board meetings for the last seven years now when I'm not working myself I don't have anything it's not that I don't have anything else better to do but it's my way of staying informed and knowing how to support our children on a side note I want to commend the security staff you're doing such a great job on maintaining order and keeping us all safe I chose to speak up tonight on

078the process that appears to have gone very wrong someplace by not awarding rasul the vacant element lakehood Elementary School building despite the recommendations from your own ASD Administration the amount of testimony that was presented and simple budgetary facts the school board has appeared to be making a decision that is unfair and politically motivated for some reason the fact that at the 11th Hour decision was made to recommend another school then quickly approved appears to be premeditated and something un and that something unfair is going on behind the scenes this board must be transparent showing integrity and fairness to every student these types of decisions erode confidence of the public in the school board and the overall process this board claims to prioritize timelines space optimization student enrollment Financial efficiency yet you went against every one

079of these when you denied Roa Shilla at the last moment the opportunity to relocate to lakehood Elementary this board also allowed anccs Representatives the opportunity to speak outside Public public comment period but denied Roa the same opportunity this is favoritism and suggest bias in the decision-making process the board failed to en enforce its policies undermining School trust when the board publicly prioritized one school over another voting violating Alaska statute 14.1 12.09 and ASD board policy BB 9270 how in good conscious can you make ask the public to contact our governor and legislature to raise the BSA but highly but make highly irresponsible F fiscal decisions yourself ignoring and defying your own ASD administration's thorough analysis and recommendation of relocating rasula to lak hood Elementary costing not only unnecessary money but uprooting two schools instead of

080one the administration followed the law but the school board did not I strongly urge the school board to do the honorable and right thing by calling for a revote correcting the wrong decision thank you thank you for your testimony again oh and uh sorry and make awarding lakehood Elementary School building to Roa thank you thank you Adam legot again and Alicia Hildy and next on the list is Cameron Vincent Lang welcome back Miss say Adam uh camon Vincent line you know I said welcome back thanks you'll state in your name for the record you have three minutes my name is Alicia Hildy and I'm an attorney and a nationally certified board governance coach last year I worked directly with Schoolboard members representing 2 million of the nation's school children I'm blessed to walk alongside politicians

081who are motivated to do whatever is in their power to improve outcomes for children and the secret to improving outcomes lies in the power of an individual ual board member being willing to take accountability for how his actions or inactions impact the success of the school district and take responsibility for fixing problems I have very high expectations for the Anchorage school board and I'm confident you can demonstrate the Excellence and Leadership our students to serve the board voted to repurpose lakehood Elementary from one charter school to another charter school last meeting charter schools are nonprofit vendors with a contract to provide Educational Services when the superintendent brings you an approval for a construction company to provide services to remodel a school the board does not swap out for a different construction company for one that

082you like better it is contractual relationship governed by contract law Alaska Statutes and a board's own policy the state Charter School statute reads a school district shall offer to a charter school the right of first refusal for a lease of space in an existing School District facility the school district not the school board offers an available facility to Charter Schools as has been the practice in this District the term right of first refusal is a contract term providing a right to a particular part party in this instance a charter school if the offer to a charter school for the right of first refusal came after a board vote then the statute would say the school board makes the offer the plain language of the statute controls the school district having a less formal procedure for

083making such an offer does not negate the existence of an offer as evidenced by the multiple WR written documents recommending Lake Hood only for real Kula real cula's ABC conducting surveys to report back their community's willingness to move and communication by the APC parents and teachers confirming understanding that an offer for the facility had been made the administration would not have been able to bring this before the board for approval if it had not first been offered to real Kula as required by the charter school statute additionally if a principal chooses not to follow board policy that principal will lose her job illegally enforceable firing if a student violates board policies and expelled that child experiences significant legal consequences for not complying with board policy my request is that the board also follow your own

084policy the Anchorage school board's operating procedure state that a conflict of interest exists when a member has a personal or financial interest on a matter coming before the board that could REM render the member unable to devote complete loyalty and singleness of purpose to the public interest and shall abstain from deliberations and voting even if there's just an appearance of impropriety specifically including conflicts of interest with vendors board members should understand that conflict of interest or perception of conflict of interest undermines public trust as disheartened as I am I'm confident the Schoolboard will follow the law and hopefully you will choose to self-correct and remedy your mistake because a mistake an understanding of the law and board policy happens that's why resending a vote is permissible thank you thank you for your testimony uh Wendy

085MO is next on our list and Mr Vincent L you have three minutes uh my name is Cameron Vincent Lang I'm assistant principal of RKA shoua uh good evening I want to reflect on the right sizing process this school year specifically concerning Roa and offer constructive feedback right sizing faced several challenges that impacted its effectiveness ongoing enrollment shifts necessitate further right sizing to ensure all students have access to necessary Services right sizing was introduced to address these needs with repurposing allowing to accommodate growing programs such as charer schools I Ur I urge the board to uh stay committed to right sizing despite its difficulty I'll be curious to see which schools are considered for closure during the 2526 school year per the directive of the December 17th meeting for the 2526 school year I recommend

086considering right sizing and repurposing plans happen simultaneously I understand the reluctance to do this due to concerns about school competition however we saw such issues arise when four Charter programs had to compete during repurposing addressing both simultaneously allows for a more predictable budget cycle especially since Charter Schools must approve their budgets by December there were also missed opportunities to support both Roa and anccs first voter approved bond funds were not applied to improving and CCs is current facility despite their wish to stay in that building second Baxter which was slated for closure could have been repurposed for that program however the board eliminated that option so here's some viable options moving forward first was to conduct a reot based on the facts presented by the administration with decision-making that should be focused on immediate needs

087but we learn this evening that's likely not going to occur second uh consider relocating both Roa and anccs moving anccs to Lake could and Roa to the Abbot Loop facility bond funds could still be used to improve the Abbot Loop facility with additional funding placed in future cips to meet the program's needs while this plan involves moving two schools and places anccs farther from its Community it could work if this approach is taken prioritizing a permanent location for Roa particularly and hopefully within the service height area where a feeder program is is essential a future School closure in the 2526 right sizing cycle could provide that opportunity in the meantime I'd like to stress that in the short term the abot loop facility can meet the needs of rula's program um in terms of its

088size location student supports and yes even student safety president hollman's ASD memorandum 128 is approved which I hope it can be I hope it will not be viewed as fulfillment to Amendment Three in ASD memorandum 106 well a move to the anccs facility or The abot Loop facility could provide temporary and necessary immediate support to Roa it would not offer the same long-term facility support to the could facility would have provide I urge the board to stand strong with the final actions taken to prioritize Roa for a future School closure with those closures meet the needs of our program thank you very much thank you for your testimony johnin blord you'll come down and Miss Mo if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes my name is Wendy and raised in

089Alaska my mom was the first family member in my family to go to an ASD School West High School I followed at omali airport Heights Abbott Loop service hando and back to service I am an involved parent um I my two older daughters went to chuat optional um and I was an involved parent there as well as PTSA president at Ric middle school and currently the treasurer at West High School my children are third generation attendees at ASD my two younger children currently attend rasula my eight-year-old started out Elementary at Baxter rasula was not on a radar at the time although as my husband speaks fluent German he was an exchange student during his senior year in Germany and was uh of the opinion he could teach them at home home we switch switched to

090rasula after the first week of school at Baxter due to the challenges in the classroom for him to have an adequate learning environment it was not his teacher but unfortunately a few students that made it dangerous and impossible for him to have a positive and safe learning experience rasula has been an amazing opportunity for our children our oldest son is a second grader and our youngest son is a kindergartener they are striving and advancing and both our English and German learning opportunities rasula is a true community of students teachers staff Administration and parents the staff knows the names of the students as they pass through the doors and the hallways of the school it is a welcoming place to come and Learn and Grow Abbot Loop has been repurposed for Alaska native cultural charter school

091they have made the building their own the school has approved occupancy through 28 29 school year it is also a good location for their families that attend there they also have room for more students currently as I understand it epot Loop could be the forever home for ancc ancc's values as I have researched them are based on culture language and Community I for one would be willing to brainstorm ways to help this community stay in abot loop with the building improvements necessary to make it their forever home they also have 2.5 million in their savings rasula is a community that values culture language and Community unlike ancc Who currently has a home through 28 29 school year rasula has a lease that's expiring at the end of this year in addition to the current requirements

092rula's budget for the rental of the building is 738,000 the current amount in Rula savings is 1.45 million 1.45 I am sure as with the lack of student BSA funding from the state that will also impact's budget as more of the funding will be spent increas rental obligations if you are not M to an as building and given the same opportunity with other schools including other Charter Schools your T has expired thank you for your testimony Maggie wens if you'll come down and Miss bler if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes yes I'm Joselyn Blanchard on behalf of Roa schula Community we stand together United in our commitment to success and financial stability for our school I am a taxpayer I am an ASD business partner I'm a dedicated uh

093parent to three children who attend V Kula I'm here today to advocate for the reconsideration of the last meeting Vote or to uh if the board deems necessary for us to move into Abbot and remain as a priority for us to move again and when there is another building available I applaud the motion to tonight to amend the agenda it is disappointing that it was not seconded RKA has been advocating for financial assistance to secure a permanent home since December of 2023 yes 2023 we understood the district's hesitancy to close the school while addressing another school's needs publicly yet the uh the board's recent decisions have demonstrated a willingness to prioritize some schools over others leaving real Kula abandoned in the 11th Hour it is not okay to clo if if it is not okay

094to close the school without formal public disclosure as mentioned in many meetings before why would it not be okay for a new school to be added for moving without P correct public comment perhaps certain board members believe our school can be overlooked because we are not a title one school or because our student demographics are not considered a certain member constituents however Rula is a very diverse institution that actively supports 485 ASD students it is now clear that our urgent financial and facility concerns are being disregarded in favor of a convoluted costly and inefficient relocation process our lease ends in five months not the year 2028 2029 the two current the current board's decision will result in initially four School moves instead of one or two contradicting the very purpose of the right sizing initiative

095a move from a move anccs to lakehood and RKA into abbid because ACN anccs can fill the building with the hundred people that are on their waiting list if there's 100 people on their waiting list and why are they not in that school why are we able to move into that school school with 485 students if they can't fill it with their waiting list that they have ask the district about the waiting list the current board's decision I'm sorry um real Cula has done everything right we've demonstrated our school urgently needs a new home we've provided clear data showing that our parents will follow us to a new location not a Facebook group page yet we are being asked to endure an unnecessary multiple moves by the school board plays political game if as wants

096the full fund multiple school relocations and go continue [Music] down thank you for your testimony Tony Walsh and Miss wons if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes Maggie wens good evening my my name is Maggie wens on behalf of the rasula community We Stand Together United in our commitment to the success and financial sustainability of our school first I would like to respectfully request that the board reconsider their decisions on memo number 106 through a revote tonight second I would like to thank the full board for their commitment to protect the educational opportunities of every child in ASD you've been asked to make impossible decisions as as an APC member I have also been in the unenviable position of making tough calls in the last few years we are all

097making decisions based on the unfortunate driving factor of finances for which we are all advocating to the legislature to remedy when I struggled with making decisions to make budget cuts it became clear that I was too involved with every aspect of our school Community often working weeks at a time as a sub for the very same people whose positions I would be voting to cut I had to refocus on what I was elected to do as an ABC member we are owed the same recognition of potential bias lack of impartiality and conflicts of interest in our elected ASD board members we deserve cander Integrity transparency and reason statements during public discourse especially when it appears not to be aligned with publicly known facts and administrative recommendations when individual board members plead passionately on behalf of

098one school versus another it is hard to separate decision-making based in fact versus that cloaked in personal bias this leaves the impression of impropriety for the viewers even when none exists in closing I want to thank board members for responding candidly to letters regarding the vote on M number 106 and for adding agenda item memo number 128 tonight in consideration of our urgent need for a financially sustainable plan for the future finally I would like to reiterate my request that you consider a revote on memo number 106 thank you thank you for your testimony Ashley kolinsky and Miss Walsh if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes hello I'm Tony Walsh on behalf of the ri rasula Community We Stand Together United on our commitment to the success and financial stability

099of our school I appreciate the board's considerations in the matter of allocating charter schools into ASD buildings all of the programs and students are deserving that is not in question many schools within ASD are at a Crossroads for different reasons my children a current second grader and kindergartener attend rasula German imersion school and our program is at a financial Crossroads that with the board's intervention could prevent us from driving off a financial cliff historically rasula has moved facilities several times the fourth time being into our current facility at one point in the school's history we had classes housed across a four-lane road from our main facility in a neighboring school because of our lack of space rasula staff and students are no strangers to moving or to having a strained relationship with the facility they

100are housed in excuse me the vote to amend memo 106 has now made it a certainty that rasula will have to move several times to accommodate our students and maintains that the functions that they function within facilities that are inadequate moving a school has been deemed A disruption to student learning and well-being by the board and now my young children will be subjected to these disruptions several times throughout their career at RKA a move till L could would have been a permanent solution to our facility and financial crisis and would have became the permanent home of our program as a board you claimed to prioritize space optimization student enrollment Financial efficiency and Lease timeliness I beseech you to take these into consideration again along with what our community presents to you tonight and make the

101fiscal And Timely decision on what a permanent move would look like for Rula thank you thank you for your testimony Rob Culbertson if you'll come down and Miss kolinsky if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes good evening my name is Ashley kolinsky I come to you tonight because I am a confused and frustrated parent of a kindergartener third grader and a future student of real Kula I have been racking my brain the past couple of weeks trying to make sense of a decision that was made and I just can't make sense of it to add to my confusion I know that when you took your position positions on this board you took an oath to be impartial the big issue at stake is that two schools need a new building

102or in one case a placeholder until they can save enough to build their own building raso's lease ends in August while anccs has time on their side with four more years in their current building so the urgency for a new building would make RKA the obvious choice in addition to that the right sizing initiative is intended to fill school buildings correct Rula size would fit the lakehood building perfectly it would offer them the lunchroom that they've never had the library that they've never had the gym that they've never had an ASD building that they've never had how many other buildings are there out there that could house us so well you want to prioritize RKA in future building closures but what is the likelihood that it will be big enough and near Serv as high

103as you have suggested giving the lak hood building to a school that would not fill the building to capacity and is only using the building as a placeholder until they realize their ultimate goal of building their own building is mind-boggling when I while I recognize that both schools are in need of a building I can only make sense of one school that would make sense in the long term the school that plans to stay there for the long term real Kula you owe it to all students and families in ASD specifically the real Kula Community to be impartial to earn back their trust so with that I request that you resend memorandum number 106 and revote with impartiality and without bias thank you thank you for your testimony Rob Culbertson oh you'll state your name

104for the record and Amanda Thompson if you'll come down hi my name is Rob Culbertson I am a parent of two students at RI schula I'm sure you're you're getting tired of hearing us but uh it's clear that we care about this school and uh and about our kids in our community uh listening to the reports on testing today it's clear uh from the comments from board M uh Bellamy and lesons that uh you you care about our students you want to see them do better uh I am sure that everyone on this board is invested in that mission and in our community at the same time we know that the Anchorage School District is facing some troubling times right now I think uh we're being asked to do uh more with less and uh

105unfortunately it looks like that's going to be kind of the the the long-term situation for a little while it's going to be a tough year um so what can you do um I think you have to triage you have to prioritize the area of greatest need first and in doing that I would urge you to uh move a a motion for uh to to reconsider the uh the vote uh for lakehood elementary and I want to uh confirm and um uh motivate you to do so because you have Le coverage to do a motion to reconsider on that and I think with all of these questions about transparency and new information that's come to light since the last school board meeting that would be a a fair process and you know what if if if

106if it doesn't go our way I can I can understand that but we we we are here and we have consistantly been here because we care Miss Bellamy you brought up last time uh you you wondered why the Alaskan native cultural uh Charter School suddenly uh became so interested in this school at the last moment you know I saw myself uh how many more students and people uh from Ric aula and community members were here um I happen to know a family who who goes to anccs and will not be attending should they move to the lak hood facility my understanding is that there are several parents that are upset about this one of the reasons they're upset is because nobody asked them nobody asked them if this was a change that they want um

107or or would be interested in relocating I will tell you Rick aula is a school that is uh is used to doing more with less with test results and reading and math that are almost double the Anchorage School District standard and that's done while we're paying 20% of our budget to uh our current facility to to a a private a private uh owner so uh you know if if we have to relocate uh we will continue to do more with less but we are asking you to reconsider this vote so we don't have to lay off teachers uh so that we don't have to impact students thank you for your testimony Denise worth and Miss Thompson if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes good Amanda Thompson Mama F rea children

108um so my name is Amanda Thompson and I am a reala parent I'm also a PC member but I speak on my own behalf I didn't think I was going to have to do an into the story guys but it's coming so those children who were needing that new building needing this new a new Village um they couldn't fight The Tempest anymore around 11:30 p.m. at night they were blown back only to see the spirits leading another group of children into the Cottages it was strange because they already had houses had they had told the whole land that they were going to build their own New Village with hot tears streaming down their faces the two children trudged back to their jam-packed little home they were surprised to see their stepmother was no longer there

109she had left the first day of April the father told them nonetheless that they would need to pack up all their belongings so they packed up their musical instruments their piles of books their art materials and elaborate science experiments they had been given no choice but to meet move that night had become children moving everywhere so back to the situation that my kids school is in right now we were thankful that you all approved our Charter thank you so much for doing that you saw the Excellence in that school and the support that we need I ask the board now for that same support please entertain a motion to resend the decision about they could to a school awarded to a school that already has a facility even using the word award is not making

110me comfortable we don't award like a prize right this is about us being a community together and helping all of our students succeed I agree with earlier testimony the decision on lak Hood does not make any Financial sense for Charter Schools it does not make sense for district reading goals right supporting all our Charter Schools gets the results that you want we saw that in the work session we can help you get those reading goals all of us want more funding for the students we advocate for a higher BSA but we don't want this BSA squandered on things that don't make any Financial sense it hurts the most that the board did not approach Us in good faith to brainstorm Solutions we thought we were getting those conversations going and we were there for you

111we were talking with you we were listening it just ended and we were thrown this at the last minute so I just ask you to you please re um votes you resend and to to consider that thank you thank you for your testimony going touch back I did call Adam legot earlier I don't know if he showed up a little later not seeing anyone um Aaron mclin if you'll come down and Miss forth if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes thank you uh Denise worth um this is my fourth school board meeting I'm also here to support Roa schul and um I'd like to say that I really appreciate everything that you do and I see your Forte as analyzing how to teach kids how to make the most of

112your money um you know really delving into the data for how to teach kids how to guide curriculums and get that done what I see as not your Forte is making decisions in a resource scarce environment and who would right who gets preparation for that the one thing I can uh sort of compare that to is training that I've had in Mass casualties the first decision you make is is the patient viable and if they are not you red tag the toe and move on in this case both schools were viable and I'm speaking about Rola and anccs the next question that you ask yourself is is which of the two patients or multiple patients will be most benefited by Immediate Care uh which one is gasping their last breath which one uh can sit

113for a minute until you can get the more urgent ones taken care of in this case in this analogy Rola is the clear answer so taking a step back you made I think the wrong decision um and you made what I see as a data free decision in other words you relied on emotion or supposition and if I may I'd like to just say what I see as uh the failures in the decision making and um is it okay if I use uh members names for this um generally if you're referring to members and their actions and mo possible motives no we would ask not but okay talk about the issue but not okay I'll talk around it uh one member um tried to get back into a you know the zone of data by

114requesting that um the APC president of uh anccs um give some information about whether or not the parents would move their kids or drive their kids to West Anchorage and he gave the only answer anyone would ever give and in that situation which was yes um it wasn't data and don't mistaken it for that so the N or uh rol on the other hand gave you that data we would drive our kids there um another member cited that um maybe rosula would like to be closer to service which they feed into if we follow that through are we saying then that anccs is going to feed into West is that how you see that happen I think that you were all surprised by that vote and you made some bad decisions thank you thank you

115for your testimony Sarah Moyers and Mr McAn if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes yeah Aon mofan evening folks won't take up of your time just want to say that I respect the difficult position that the board has been placed in by the folks in Juno but when it comes down to it Anchorage residents are responsible for taking care of Anchorage children as a parent Community member I'd like request MIM 106 be reconsidered the upcoming facility lease the upcoming facility lease expiration for RKA creates a real and immediate need the flat legislative funding combined with Decades of cost escalation escalation have increased and put us all in an unsustainable path in conversations with current and potential parents the long-term uncertainty is already causing effects on potential and current parents for

116reala children it's been demonstrated that the board can wave formalities so if there are any of you having second thoughts I'd like to strongly request you do the hard thing stand up and amend or at least publicly debate this decision without delay whether or not there's written outline for procedures to do so thank you thank you for your testimony William Baxter is next Miss Moyers if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes good evening I'm Sarah Moyers a parent of two kids at rasula please see our written testimony provided by my family and support of rasula in requesting a revote on memo 106 we continue to believe the board made the wrong decision as it was not based on facts but rather On Emotion clear bias lack of due diligence and

117a willful disregard of relevant information the administration's recommendation to move rasula to lakehood was based primarily on enr M urgency and finances the board claims to prioritize space optimization student enrollment Financial efficiency and Lease timelines yet your decision directly contradicts these priorities if the board is going to utilize different criteria to evaluate placement as overriding both recommendations from the administration clearly indicates this should be communicated in advance so as not to waste everyone's time with this rightsizing decision the board has indicated ated that growth potential is more important than optimizing space based on enrollment that a less urgent timeline calls for more urgent action and that Financial efficiency is irrelevant it has been extremely frustrating listening to one-sided arguments presented by board members without comparing the situation for each program for each attempt at a

118substantive point in support of another school members willfully ignore that those points are at least equally true and even more urgent for Roa schula we are now in the position of asking the board to approve an amendment that places Roa in the same facility that some board members insisted was unacceptable for another school a school that has a formal resolution from October of 2024 indicating their desire to stay in that facility on the east side of town can you understand why we find this situation perplexing and frustrating I now have to implore you to support memo 128 as absurd as it is it may turn out to be the only option RGA has to remain financially viable while we wait for another option that is more in line with the board's priorities I hope that

119right sizing for Roa does not ultimately mean shrinking our outstanding program to fit in a smaller building because of the board's shortsighted decision making Roa needs and deserves more support from the board please do better thank you thank you for your testimony Tim J I'm sorry I'm not pronouncing that right um J josam I think and Mr backr if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes I'm William Backstrom from anage and uh FFA kids call me sticker Bill and uh FFA means uh Future Farmers of America or uh Future Farmers Association and uh I I got 4 in my church now which is another agricultural oration for kids and uh I have talked to people that been in F4 a lot FFA there's a lot of people in Anchorage that's been

120had agriculture degrees I've talked to and I and I go a lot of country uh uh bars and Country I know a lot of country people and uh in fact um I'm going to the uh Alka Alaska burough meeting uh a farmers burough meeting out in Balmer uh tomorrow night and the chapter and then uh uh there was a then I'm com back to Anchor tomorrow night and do a FFA fundraiser at uh chilu Charlie's and I inspired a lot of this stuff I do and then I go and then uh uh Thursday night I go to the Grange which is another agricultureal organization out in Palmer and that so I involved with all I know Brian scorby of of uh of he's a agriculture uh director of uh for Alaska and I and I

121know a lot of people I know the FFA people I've taken the the FFA person uh the head one of the head FFA per people of Alaska hunting last year and got a big bull so I know a lot of people in the agriculture industry and they know me or heard of me because I'm I get around my trucks and that I don't know if you ever seen my trucks that they'll F fold with filled with uh agriculture bumper stickers on and uh you know people got are gamblers I just got a a problem with the bumper stickers and uh and I'm didn't realize how powerful I am but I'm pretty influential influential person here in anre now in the state and uh thank you thank you for your testimony I I'm G to let

122you pronounce your name so that I don't mispronounce it again thank you sir um Mr chair members of the board my name is Dr Kim yum I am part of the real community and I will share some of my family's history with you today I'm also back you've seen me before like many others we are no uh no stranger to social injustice and generational drama in my family my grandfather quit Ryan was born in 1900 and was forced to fight in the first as well as the second world war he was a high school art teacher and a loving and kind person towards the end of World War II he was sent to the Russian front and he ended up being a prisoner of war in Russia for 5 years being an artist he got

123guards to provide him with pen slivers of paper were possible this is one of his self- portrays he drew during his time in Russian captivity using only a broken piece of glass as miror after those five long years he was only let go because he suffered multiple heart attacks follow following he was finally able to find and reconnect with his wife my grandmother hilard Ryman she had been forced to flee her home in kbur where her family had large land puzzles and lived for Generations following his return my grandparents buil bu up their life and conceived my mother my grandfather got to teach again as art teacher however he remained a very sick man for the rest of his life which ended when my mom at that time 10 years old found her father on

124the staircase of her home who had suffered his final heart attack generational drama is very present in my family remembering social injustice is so important for our world to become a better place this was one reason why my son Liam's middle name is kurd or Kurt in English named after my grandfather he is currently a student at Rula and now I ask you to not consider anyone's family's history and making you decisions I ask you to to serve all students of the Anor school district and consider them as equal all of them deserve to be respected and supported the same through plentiful testimonies of our students staff leadership and parents you learn about the impressive community that forms the foundation of our school in our need for your support I am testifying today to ask

125you for your support for our Ruda students in finding a home ideally a long-term home within ASD facility so that we can continue to be successful in educating our students funding should go towards our students education and not facility rental costs thank you for your time thank you for your testimony we do have two more speakers but it's on an action item um so we will take that up when we come to that on our agenda um that concludes public testimony on non-action items and I'm going to suggest a 10-minute break uh and so we will resume at right at 8 o'clock or a minute or so after e e e if board members will return to their seats please if board members will return to their seats we will resume the meeting if board

126members will return to their seats please if lesson will return to her seat please we are back in session at 8:05 it brings us to section e of the agenda I would entertain a motion uh member Donley um i' move to resend the board's action at the March 4 2025 meeting in adopting memorandum number 106 ASD repurposing recommendations as amended there is a motion to resend item 106 um this motion is in order Whenever there is not another item of business on the FL it doesn't mean it will be taken up next um it does require a second do I have a second so how is this we're making a motion right before we do the consent agenda um when the four is open but there's not a motion on the floor a motion to

127resend a previously decided item as appropriate it we would still go on and do the consent agenda and action items and then take it up as item number four item number four under action correct all right I'll second okay moved and second it does require a two3 can you I'm sorry can you repeat the the motion Clarity the motion is to resend um this might be helpful do we have any board members online uh we do have member Higgins and member Wilson are both online so we do have all seven members available um and I'm I'm questioning my own thought about whether it comes up next on the agenda or it comes under action items but this this is the actual motion to resend so it um if seconded we would debate it and vote

128on whether or not to resend it I is my member lessons I just um have a I believe it's a point of order about motion to resend according to our cheat sheet here our CH our chart of common motions it looks like it needs a super majority of the board to vote on that with no notice so by my we need we you would need a vote of five board members to vote to resend um my understanding is that with notice it requires a majority without notice it would take a 2third vote how do you define notice um if it had been noticed on the say previous agenda that it would be that it would be coming up for consideration so it is without [Music] notice yeah okay it has been moved and seconded it

129is debatable anyone much do you wish to speak to your motion well thank you Mr President I just believe this is the right thing to do at this point of time I really believe there's a tremendous um amount of data and rational reasons that the board should resend its action in with memorandum 106 and to move forward to consider moving R Kula into lak hood and to also continue to support the Alaskan native Charter U cultural school with additional funding to upgrade abat Loop um I think that's an option that's available to us and I think it's the more logical and wellth thought out course of action for the board and this motion would allow us to pursue that further discussion putting myself in the speaking order I'll say that I basically agree with what

130member Donley had to say a lot of it goes to allocation of resources uh this is uh moving Alaskan native cultural charter school and moving roua is the more expensive option um I I do believe it's unlikely that Alaskan native cultural Charter plans to build a building I I know they aspire to that but uh I'm sure everyone from Mil casula knows that that is a dramatic and difficult step to make um sizing matters um I I just look at it as a more efficient allocation of resources within the district member Bellamy thank you uh Mr chair [Music] um it it is all of that what you say and it's all what Miss member Donley says but for me it there's another piece I think when we asked the administration for a recommendation I mean

131I I trust that they have looked um at all the possibilities everyone a while something may have gotten overlooked but I do think I just think that the recommendation uh and when I reflect back we probably should have separated both the steam uh Highland discussion from the other discussion uh but we didn't do that um which which really ended up with both being on the same uh in the same memo I supported the one thing I didn't support the other uh so in retrospect if we had separated the two um and I think somebody did call for bifurcation I can't remember oh was that you also remember Donley um but at the same time I wasn't in the room at that time but I do I I do trust that the administration got that part

132of the memo correct um and I hate that we are we are pitting um schools against schools and and we and I don't know what to do about that but um and it may not pass tonight but uh I do think at least one more try one more discussion um I mean we're put Ry has the numbers I mean it's got the I mean we're putting 485 kids into and that was important to me to get a space big enough to put them in um knowing that we had more time knowing that we had more time for uh to to help out uh the Alaskan native charter school I dearly love that program too I have no grandkids in it uh but all our all of our kids are important and I don't want to

133I I I just think we we we we could get it right it's all at least try one more time thank you other discussion member check yeah thank you Mr chair um I I join other board members and um agreeing we need to support all four programs that run ASD memorandum number 106 um I think we can and will continue to do that starting with tonight with ASD memorandum number 128 and that process continues through a rightsizing conversation the board's committed to this fall um I do not see um reverse vering course as being beneficial to um all four programs at this time um I recognize that we need to um be more strategic as to how we engage in a right sizing conversation this fall and uh consider linking the decision to consolidate buildings

134with the opportunity to support Charter programs and so I'm looking forward to a more intentional and um more strategic right sizing conf ation um this fall and and so I won't be supporting this motion but certainly understand why all the programs that were um referenced during the ASD memorandum number 106 conversation are worthy of support thank you member Wilson M Wilson you're still showing as muted can you hear me now yes we can oh perfect thank you um I I also agree with what member Jacob said in that all of our programs are are absolutely valued all of our kids are absolutely valued um I will not be supporting this motion this evening either I I do believe that um we that that my vote was in support of um the program that that I

135felt should be moved into a more long-term sustainable school um because that that program has has gone through so many changes um I I do it it is really difficult though we I feel like we're we've got programs that are fighting over which school and and we should not be in this place and it it's very frustrating that that we are but um that being said I I will not support this amendment this evening any further discussion member Higgins yeah thank you um I'm not going to be supporting this but let me say that this is this is still um the most frustrating situation I can have we've got all these charter schools and kids are not in safe facility and the like uh both Charter Schools need our support and I appreciate the motion

136that um president Hollman is putting forth for this meeting uh because we can't leave anybody behind it's just it was a difficult decision and I really think we need to move on thank you I'm sorry I'm hearing a really well rumbling this bothers me but I think it's just a large truck in come any further discussion on the motion to resend number 106 seeing no hands I'll ask Miss solivan to call the rooll student representative pack yes member B me member Higgins no member Jacobs no member Wilson no member lessons no member Donley yes president Hollman yes and by a vote of four to three the motion fails that puts us back to the consent agenda I would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda Mr chair if there's no board member wishing to

137pull an item from the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda is listed second moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda I will ask Miss suvin to call the role student representative pack yes member Wilson yes member Higgins yes member Donley yes member Bellamy that's okay member Bellamy member Jacobs yes member lesons yes president fman yes that brings us to I'm sorry that uh by a 70 vote we have approved the consent agenda that brings us to action items uh the first item is uh a vote on a student hearing that we were briefed about in executive session Mr chair I move to approve the reinstatement from an expulsion of the student associated with ASD incident number 2947 as discussed in executive session a second moved and seconded uh we ask M

138Sol and to call the role member bamy yes sorry member remember Higgins yes member Jacobs yes member lesons yes member Donley yes member Wilson I know you were not president in the executive session isn't it Hollman yes by a vote of 6 to0 we have approved um Mr student reinstatement would entertain a motion on ASD memorandum 120 we do although we should move it first I believe second uh Mr chair I move to approve ASD memorandum number 120 naming of the Willow Crest gymnasium to the Leroy C Jones gymnasium uh the recommended action is to approve the request of Willow Elementary School staff and Community to formally name the Willow Crest gymnasium to the Leroy C Jones gymnasium I second is moved and seconded and we do have two speakers to be heard Mr Raymond

139Marshall and Mr Walker Weaver you would come forward after you fought it out if you'll state your name for the record you have three minutes good evening my name is Ray Marshall and I'm honored to be the principal of Willow Crest Elementary School before I start I would like to introduce you to Leroy Jones for the people who maybe don't know him and just for a second I would like if you know Leroy Jones would you please stand so we can see you thank you the reason I asked for that quick survey is I'm about to tell you a story that's going to be hard to believe and I don't know I don't know if Mr let me read this for a second at the end of the day I can say when I first

140heard stories about Mr Jones I found it hard to believe and so I want people that are out here that maybe don't know Mr Jones to know who else they can ask and that's why I ask people to identify themselves I first heard about Mr Jones from Principal Christina Peterson I worked with Mrs Peterson at rabbit Creek Mrs Peterson always spoke very very highly of Willow Crest Elementary School when she found out i' had been selected to be the principal at willowcrest she congratulated me and told me about Fant the Fantastic staff and then went on to tell me about an outstanding PE teacher named Mr Jones and how he had positively impacted every student who came through the gym and that every year former students paraded through the school to see him and seek

141his wisdom for their future life decisions she went on and on with many examples and by the end of this introduction I was a bit skeptical and that's why I want people to be able to identify folks out there no one could really be that good I felt after I met Mr Jones and worked with him I found that she been reserved with her praise in the two years I was fortunate enough to work with Mr Jones he had countless former students come and say high and seek life advice one example was a girl who came to meet him in our staff Lounge she told me I need to talk to someone I can trust Mr Jones invited me into the conversation apparently she was strongly considering dropping out of high school and wanted his

142advice at school athletic events and family nights he looked like Rockstar surrounded by fans I'm telling you this because I'm going to read you a letter that the willest staff submitted to the board requesting the renaming of our gym after Miss Joan Mr Jones and I want you to know that we too have been humble in Our Praise of him I would like to propose renaming the Willow Crest gymnasium to the Leroy C Jones gymnasium I make this recommendation based on the large upwell of Community Support to pay tribute to a distin distinguished veteran teacher over the course of 32 years as a physical education teacher Mr Jones contributed to the development of numerous athletic opportunities for all Anchorage school students in addition phical um if we could extend the time for just a minute

143or two give him my time I'm not sure how I'm not sure how to turn the microphone back on oh you want to use mine there we go it's back in addition to his passion for athletics and physical education Mr Jones played a significant role mentoring students at all grade levels guided them in their life and career choices and counseled them toward achieving school and lifelong success Mr Jones actively coached in the district at the elementary middle and high school levels early in Mr Jones's career he came to believe that great athletes be in in the elementary level to this end he worked to expand the elementary school basketball program from a couple of games to an inner miral League that had the to an interal League that has a beginning and advanced level and

144culminates with a districtwide tournament from the beginning of this endeavor Mr Jones was passionate that each team must be comprised of both boys and girls and both genders had to be equally represented on the court over the course of his lengthy career ASD Mr Jones officially mentored countless PE teachers he also had a profound influence on all teachers and administrators who were fortunate enough to work with him in honor of these accomplishments he was spotlighted as a superhero teacher by the Alaska Department of Education in addition to the above accolades it is my belief that Mr Jones's greatest contribution is one that is unseen but has been institutionally transformative Mr has been a leader in maintaining a culture of respect he accomplished this not by outwardly demanding anything of others but rather by modeling that

145shining example of how to treat other people all people children included he is that rare individual that makes everyone want to do their best it is his actions his words his tone and his eyes Mr Leroy C Jones has set the bar we all strive strive to meet willest element school is Mr Jones's home for the majority of his educational career and we continue to work work to meet the example he has set for us it is in this spirit that we cordially request our gymnasium be named in his honor thank you thank you very much for your testimony okay Mr Weaver yes my name is Walter James Weaver Jr I'm a retired school teacher from the Anchorage School District and a student KK through 12 here yeah I did KK twice um reason why

146I'm wanting to speak on Mr Jones is the things that he does outside of the gym that no one hears about he does at school program or punt kick and pass um he goes to tons of their basketball games later on and football games he's a die at West and never went to school there and he got a hold of me one day because I also worked for a major airlines here in town he had a girl who just won the punt pass and and kick contest and their parents couldn't afford it to send her to Seattle so he called me up and started his little thing with the talking and then I saw him later on as a part of our fraternity meeting and he gave me those eyes and I said what he

147goes I really need this girl to go down there and I said oh man come on Leroy no I really need her to go off she goes and those those are the little things Leroy does out of the school district for these kids beyond what you just heard and that's why naming this gy after him he has many kids running up to him and parents now that uh want him to talk to to get knowledge and naming this gym after him would be a great honor since he was the first person there when they started digging the dirt for that gym so he needs it he wants it his friends and the kids wanted more than he does and then he got put on New York's Times Square what he doesn't not want to talk

148about for being a great teacher but a great friend to a whole building and people outside of that building so thank you uh you've got a good choice here and this is a great one to put in a new gym of his name after thank you thank you for your testimony discussion by the board anyone wish to try to talk that remember Don so in 1960 uh they built willest and I was fortunate enough to go to first grade there and I went all six grades at willest and at that time there was no gymnasium there was no cafeteria there was no multi-purpose room we we had hot meals served in the hallways and we ate in the classrooms so I was a little crushed when they built the gym the year after I left

149but fast forward 50 something plus years as a parent at Northern Lights ABC I was trying to get a basketball team together there and the people said you know there's a guy over at willest you need to talk to and he was so wonderful talking to me as a parent that he didn't know and really gave me great guidance and then of course we got covid right after that so everything kind of fell apart but I want I was very grateful for his guidance at that time so thank you again again thank you member bellany I just want to say how nice it is to see to see your tribe all around you um you have been I mean I think both my kids have you've touched both my kids' lives and we never went

150to willcrest so it had to be somewhere else in in the community um but it's nice to see that you are leaving such a legacy and that you have people who are here and in support of it and uh did I recruit you or did somebody else recruit you to ASD I'm just trying to remember now that's all I'm saying but good choice thank you so much and congratulations well when we vote member Wilson I I appreciate the opportunity to speak because uh Mr lero Jones is amazing he has ran he ran an elementary basketball tournament for students from all of our elementary schools that chose to participate and that has grown tremendously throughout the years so this is an opportunity for students who may not and apologize there's some noise behind me but who

151who may not ever have the opportunity to participate in a team sport um after Elementary and for him to put all of that time effort his money out of his own pocket for many many years for that to happen for kids all over our district that is just the start of of the Legacy that he's leaving behind and all the work he's done to make a difference in in so many of our students and so I I I appreciate the opportunity to say thank you for all of your work all of these years and it is my honor to be able to vote in support of this amendment any other discussion M jains yeah no I won't attempt to add too much or top what's been said I just wanted to thank um the administration

152and the group for bringing this forward and I'm I am grateful that Mr Jones could be here with us tonight and I'm always grateful to acknowledge those who um have done so much for our students so I appreciate it I'll add in u i retired from as after 20 years I did spend four years as AA president and unsurprisingly we spent some time awarding each other um and you you meet people that you didn't hear of even though you feel like you know a lot of people in the district that have simply put in the time very quietly meant the world to a large number of students not in any way that brought them fame or fortune or anything like that but they're scattered around amongst us and I'm very honored to hear your story

153tonight see the people that have come to support you and it is a great honor to be in a position to vote Yes on this resolution if there's no other discussion I will ask Miss solivan to call the role student representative heck enthusiastic yes member Wilson also an enthusiastic yes member lesons yes member Jacobs yes member Higgins I to vote Yes Yes member Donley grateful yes member Bellamy president hman yes with a note that it is unanimous by 70 we have voted to name the wellrest gymnasium after Mr Lor Jones thank you very much that brings us to as memorandum number 128 Mr chair I move to approve as memorandum number 128 relocation relocation of R German Immersion School recommended action is that the Anchorage School Board approves and authorizes the superintendent to relocate rasul

154German Immersion School from its current location at 1846 64th Avenue anchoridge Alaska 99507 to 8427 Lake ois Parkway Anchorage Alaska 99507 should that request be made from their academic policy committee this approval extends through the expiration of the 5 waiver granted by the Anchorage Fire Marshall as outlined in ASD memorandum number 132 which was unanimously approved by the board on April 18 2023 is there a second I second moved and seconded discussion I will lead off on this and I ask this to be placed on the agenda um it does not actually move Rula to this location but it does make it available to them if there APC decides that is in their best interest um we do want to offer the support we can uh given where we're at um my understanding is that

155they have walked school and that it is usable and uh I know you're still in negotiations with your current landlord so and we stand ready to to offer this at least as an alternative any other discussion this lesson Ember thank you I think I'm losing my voice as we speak tonight um I wanted to speak to I guess ask for the administration to to speak to the building safety I know we've spoken about the Abbot Loop facility a number of times I reread the fire Marshall's um uh five-year W waiver if that's the right word uh which I fully understand goes until the end of the 28 29 school year year although the current contract with Alaskan native cultural charter school goes through the end of the 27 28 school year but my question is

156really about the building's fundamental safety and I think I have a firm grasp that it is a safe building but if the administration could please um maybe underscore what makes it a safe building for students to use right now tomorrow a year from now sure I can cover that um so abbit Loop has an enhanced fire detection system that was put in many years ago um which is better than most schools but most schools do have fire suppression systems um the building is safe for operation um it's safe at school um the risk is not with people's lives if there's a fire because it'll detect it very quickly with even the minimal amount of smoke or heat um the risk is to the structure itself so naturally we don't have people sleeping there all night

157it wouldn't be a a good location for something like that but the facility is safe um it's it has been safe the whole time I know there have been people who have used words like unsafe publicly and it's caused anguish consternation and confusion but I I I think we've been briefing for several years years now that the building has always been safe it's still safe and it can operate um during the day thank you very much and M B me I have a question also for so rooki has 400 almost 500 kids uh what is the Capa capacity for oh not you sorry turn way so the de capacity for that building or actually ours when we look at the classrooms initially would be about 332 to 350 um we spent the bulk of spring

158break at Abbott Loop um uh multiple times throughout the week uh and we we work through to where we can get 23 classrooms so some of the spaces being used are not used as classrooms by anccs because they're they're much smaller they didn't need to um but we walked through with the principles on Sunday uh multiple APC members um the whole staff Transportation maintenance Capital plans everybody has been in that building this past week and we can find Space it is not an optimal location for long-term use for a school that big um but it certainly can operate um for the next however long it takes to find them a a more suitable location it wasn't built for 500 but can we get 500 kids in there yes um it's going to be tight but

159frankly if you talk to um Brandon they're tight where they're at now and they're used to tight and they're used to having to find efficiencies under every stairwell and Corner um and and we have a plan to be able to move them in if the APC chooses that option um as negotiations are are continuing and and it can work but ultimately we need to find them one of the '90s reloads type siiz buildings um because it's they're certainly not probably going to look at adding pre which um you know they would like to do but but that space is not there so how many reloads would they need well we can't use reloads that that complicated it there's no parking for them to do family nights or meetings or anything else because it was built

160to be a small school so we're going to take the pad in the back that we would have put reloads on and use it for additional parking we may have to do um an extension depending on the vote tonight I'm sure um I will spend more time at Abbot loop with with our team as we come up with the best way um for those of you who've been to that school it was it was built to be a small school it's on a small acre plot um you know it wasn't meant to be a permanent home to that large of a facility but um both principls there are other options for um movement of privately owned Vehicles there is going to be potentially a requirement for transportation we have to work out how big um

161if you drive by wear Alaska native in the morning in the afternoon um come in and release it's it's it's a problematic traffic school on Lake Odus um but can we make it work for a period of time yes um but we've got to finish the staff efforts and work some more details um and and naturally if if the APC wants it um we will make that school work member Jacobs yeah thank you Mr chair um part of the continued work associated with ASDS right sizing effort to align ASD memorandum number 128 with passed action by this board regarding future building consolidation and consolidation and repurposing proposals I would move to amend the recommendation section of ASD memorandum number 128 to include the following language quote this adoption of ASD memorandum number 128 does not

162satisfy the priority status given to to Roka German Immersion School and ASD memorandum number 106 related to buildings which may become available via future board approve right sizing proposals second your amendments moved and seconded would you like to speak to it yeah thank you Mr chair um this just makes clear that um this action by the board wouldn't um fulfill what the board did on um 34 related to giving both Rus German Immersion School as well as Highland Academy um priority status as we work through uh future rightsizing proposals which the board voted on 1217 to continue this fall um that language I think just makes it explicit although I think it was always intended thank you would urge a yes vote any discussion on the amendment just a question that language we go to

163the very end of the recommendation section is that right I would agree that it would be best placed at the end of the recommendation and that's been our past practice seeing no hands I will ask Miss Solin to call the role we are voting on member Jacob's Amendment oh member alesson um I just wanted to sh I'm struggling to speak right now but um I appreciate the amendment I appreciate that it really clarifies the um the work that has yet that the work that still needs to happen that this does not suffice uh to fulfill that the intent of amendment number three uh previously adopted so I appreciate the clarification and I will be supporting it any further discussion seeing the hands I'll ask Miss solivan to call the RO student representative P member Bellamy

164can you s that again on yes sorry Beau member Donley yes member Wilson yes member lons yes member Higgins yes member Jacobs yes president hman yes we have adopted the amendment we are back on the main motion as amended if there is any further discussion I I will add in that um originally when Abbot W neighborhood school was closed our intention was to to close that building and Seed it back to the municipality uh partly because uh it does have the fire suppression issue and at the time that looked to be an extremely expensive thing to fix uh as well as needing other kinds of remodeling and whatnot so uh it was after that that we realized it could be a temporary home for Alaskan native cultural and and we sort of changed course and

165to some degree that I think that's been part of the difficulty for the board in in dealing with it it we we meant to close that building and be done with it partly as a way of saving money but then when the right sizing activity started later um that's when we realized we we had charter schools that really did want to relocate and and I'll admit we don't exactly have a conventional way of dealing with that um the only part of it that feels a little bit natural is we have greater need than we have resources and that is seemingly what being on the board is about these days unfortunately so I I wish we could do better by all of our schools uh um we're sort of taking it peac meal and it's it's

166not always a smooth path forward um so the the ultimate resolution uh we we've got a lot of people in the legislature and in the general public in Anchorage that want us to get rid of some buildings and be a smaller District because we do have fewer students and and we're trying to balance that with providing good facilities for all of our students and that includes all of our charter schools so that that's a little bit of the conundrum that we're facing and trying to decide what to do uh going forward but um if this can help Rula we are happy to see that happen and it it does not preclude that we could change course again and make the building available for the long term uh if it's something that the voters support because

167it would take a bond issue there is a partial bond to do some work on the school but I don't think it's enough at this point to fully bring it up to code it would take some additional monies as well but that will be something um for the future to decide that completes our action items and brings us to the non-action oh I'm sorry I guess we we should we should do that why don't you call the role for the main motion as amended thank you student representative pack member Jacobs yes member Higgins yes member lesons yes member Donley yes member Wilson yes member Bellamy yes you president Hollman yes that completes the action items and brings us to the non-action items are there any items members wish to pull for discussion seeing No Hands

168seeing no one online um that completes the non-action items we do not have anyone else um for public comment that brings us to our superintendent update thank you Mr President uh my only update today is on uh the topic of emergency preparedness I do want to recognize that the potential eruption of Mount spur is on our community's minds but please do know that our senior leadership has been uh collaborating with um agencies including J bear who spoke about that earlier today to ensure that we're prepared uh when that event occurs uh as it seems very likely so the district actually maintains an Emergency Operations plan uh so that we're ready and prepared for a number of different types of emergencies um including volcanic activity uh and this Friday we plan to launch a family centered

169landing page that'll be geared towards what do families and students need to know um so that they can be prepared for the likely event that the the volcano explodes or erupts but rather um it's my first volcano explosion too I call and I'm sure is it is for many people um so in any case I know that there are a lot of questions as to what to buy and what to do and we want to make sure that families know the the concrete action so please uh uh be tracking an email from Team ASD on Friday as well as the landing page we appreciate your patience uh our focus is on student safety and of course um we won't fully understand the magnitude of the situation until the event occurs because part of it depends

170on where the wind's blowing and that sort of thing I've learned a lot about volcanoes as a person from Texas wow very interesting information um but with that said um that concludes my report thank you thank you Schoolboard comments I oh M lessons I I have a question I mean and I thank you for giving us a heads up that we will be getting more information about how to handle a potential volcanic uh eruption um it does call to mind I mean I have a lot of questions about what will happen what what would happen when one of the things that I'm thinking about is infrastructure and you know the HVAC systems I feel like that's something that I'm hearing about but I also recall that one of the ways that the district used covid

171funds was to invest in the diso ventilation system and that make me maybe gives me some confidence that you can shut furnaces down at the drop of a hat maybe I'm getting into the weeds but this is sort of a question that's top of my mind as I'm think thinking about my own family home and like oh I would want to prevent damage to the furnace so actually the first thing we would do is all of our buildings except for 10 we can remotely close all external vents so it doesn't draw any external air inside so it can there will be some ash coming through doors as people open them um all the windows will be closed um sensitive Electronics will be turned off we've been working this internally for several weeks now um so

172we've got a good plan we've got 250,000 masks um that will start being distributed shortly after I send an email to all the principes tomorrow um letting them know that um we're pretty good the last piece we have is some inbound goggles because it can get in your eyes so anyone is going to be working in removing Ash or anything like that we got to have those at every school and of course at the maintenance department um home home furnace air filters I bought an entire case from Amazon about three weeks ago I would certainly recommend that um but it's really that external vent piece that you have to close off quickly the the desigo isn't really going to the VAV isn't it's it's not meant for volcanic ash but we also have ordered um

173two or three sets of filters per school plus two or three resets for every single vehicle to include the bus fleet so we're we're as ready as anyone could be for Mount spur to erupt or explode whichever whichever it does all right well I appreciate that brief overview and I will uh look for that landing page on Friday and direct people there member Jacobs yeah thank you Mr chair is it safe to assume that the landing page once it's created is going to be promoted on social media for folks who want to see it there yes MJ would you like to clarify yes thank you appreciate it any other questions or comments seeing none we'll move to board comments I'll start to my right with member Bellamy sure I have a I'm actually G to

174be doing a little announcement for member Wilson she's got some interference on her side uh so over spring break our equity and Community engagement Department Title One Transportation and uh nut student nut nutrition teams collaborated to hold our uh springing Into Summer resource fair at Clark Middle School the fair focused on summer school and Camp information for families and provided a free meal uh we also had two buses that delivered meals and resources to families at multiple stops around County now uh this event serviced over 250 families so I just those that's the extent of my comments for tonight so thank you Mr chair member lessons um I just wanted to extend um my gratitude to members of the audience here who are primarily in the real Casal Community I want I'm looking at you

175um I respect you and your work and your school enormously and I understand understand the pain and anguish that you're feeling but I'm looking forward to Champion you championing you in your search for the right home for the long run in the right place and um I just thank you for sharing your very real Thoughts with the board and the planning that um that I know that you can engage in for a long time and member Wilson has no additional comments um student rep um Josh did have to go but I will say just being up here and attending the first school meeting shadowing him it's been really awesome seeing how different communities have come out to spoke about their own schools and their own issues and it's really awesome to see how the community

176comes out with different versions of their pride the way that they show themselves out to the members up here on the board and I do share a lot of Sympathy for the different situations that I have seen this meeting and it's been a really great meaningful conversation to hear both sides of the story and thank you for having me here member Donal so before we go through the next series of downsizing um there something I'm I'm hoping the administration will have the opportunity to work on I I I know they're really challenged with the budget situation but for many many years the only charter school we had housed in an ASD building was Aquarian and so we had allowed Aquarian my understanding to do their own maintenance you know they needed Remodeling and things they

177were doing it on their own um as all the other Charter Schools were doing with whatever buildings they had supplied themselves um we made a decision decision to ask the voters if they wanted to do a a major remodel at Aquarian a few years back and the voters approved that and that's the only frame of reference we have for dealing with Charter Schools moving into ASD facilities I don't know of any policy the board's ever adopted any guidelines for how we would deal with maintenance issues once they get in there or other issues related to that and I think it'd be really a wise thing to EX for the board to have the opportunity to examine what kind of written policy we should have about that going forward since we've got new Charter Schools moving

178into ASD facilities and I know the administration's just really got their hands full dealing with the budget situation right now but it would really be helpful to have some sort of policies in place when we look at the next round of possible Right sizing issues member jackobs no additional comments thank you member Higgins I I actually will be short I also appreciate the comments that um uh all the speakers made and I realize it's an emotional issues and we've got to do better um for the charter schools and I think we will I think when it comes to uh right sizing we need to not we need to be thinking in right sizing not downsizing uh we've got a lot of issues out there how can we better utilize the space in all the schools

179what can we do to uh help the community we talk about preschool uh issues we've got a critical workplace issue the community if we can support them uh and we have space for it what are we doing and how can we do it better I know that um um Mr Anderson made reference to that in in in the past and I think he's right on that so before we jump into lectures pick schools let's talk about why and in the Community there's a pace system uh P one identify the problem a analyze the option then select the course of action uh we're jumping into the selection of course and actions before we talk about the other steps and if we can do that I think we'll make this a little bit better selections uh on

180what schools should be impacted and how we can address it and why we're doing it rather than just doing it for political purposes uh yes we've got less students yes yes we have classrooms that are in some cases twice as big as what they should be uh with the pum study and other studies where we've got so many kids in each classroom that you should have two classrooms rather than one and yes we have problems hiring the teachers even if we can but I just I just hope we get into a discussion before we get into an argument about the selection I think we're going to all benefit a lot if we do thank you thank you um to touch on what member Don mentioned um you know when we chose to bond to fix

181equarian that was precedent setting um and of course part of the issue was because they were in an ASD building they they couldn't do the work it had to be done by ASD um but that was the issue of going to voters and asking them to approve a bond in order to repair a building being used by a charter school and and and I can look a little bit into the future and say if Anchorage begins to reverse the decline in student population while we still have a couple of charter schools that are unhoused potentially we could be faced with asking the voters to build a building for a charter school um because ultimately if several are house in our buildings but one or two are not that presents a little bit of a conundrum

182you it does happen as ry's well aware when you want to start up a charter school part of the agreement is you have to go find a place to be it's not provided um and the fact that you've done that and survived for so long and grown and thrived is a real testimony to to how worthwhile the program is and um that's pretty much the case with our Charters they all have found a niche and um the I I think when the idea was broached it would no one ever really sat and thought well what do we do if these succeed down the road um floating a bond is a big deal uh especially with all the buildings we have that are in need of repair so this something I won't be on the board

183when that happens and I'm kind of happy about that I'm also going to say that during the 2018 earthquake I had a friend that managed commercial properties that got really frustrated in IR rate with the Anchorage School District because they discovered that every ceiling tile in Anchorage had been bought by the Anchorage School District I told him how bad I felt about that but it actually made me kind of proud I assume you've done that with air filters for ventilation systems as well cool um you know we will be ready for it and deal with it when it happens and uh and I I think we'll all get through that as it comes um past that I will be in Eagle River tomorrow night for the Eagle River chamber recognition of uh teachers and it

184uh is an event I've been at before and Eagle River is a little bit insular and they can have a lot of things to say about the anry school district but on that particular night they give Awards to the Educators out there they consider outstanding and they've got a number of them um so I'm kind of looking forward to being there again for that it's a really fine evening with everybody and uh with that I have nothing further to add if there's a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second second we are adjourned