This year’s Leadership Academy Day focused on the School Board Members’ Role in Leadership. Commissioner Michael Johnson and school law attorney John Sedor joined other presenters for a full day of excellent boardsmanship training, and the rollout of the newly developed Board President Handbook.

During the two-day Legislative Fly-In participants discussed and learned about key legislative issues influencing education this year, met in like-size district forums to identify legislation that can be supported by AASB, developed talking points for legislative priorities, and met with legislators and other decision makers.

Students from across the state attended AASB's Youth Advocacy Institute, held concurrently with the Leadership Academy and Legislative Fly-In. 29 students from 12 districts gathered in Juneau to practice leadership skills and discuss issues facing their communities with legislators and state officials.

Story has introduced two bills this session, HB 272 and HB 273, that aim to increase the Base Student Allocation (BSA). She recounted some of the opposing viewpoints school board members may hear when speaking to legislators:

A Free AND Ordered Space: Soooo….What Should We Talk About? Constructing the Agenda

Lea Filippi of Sedor, Wendlandt, Evans & Filippi, LLC

In Alaska, local school boards have broad responsibility for providing an educational program for school aged children. AS 14.14.090. Boards do that work through meeting.

Meetings are a quintessential example of the necessity of finding appropriate balance between freedom to speak openly on matters of great importance to the local community and the order necessary to ensure a board is able to meaningfully deliberate and make decisions necessary to fulfilling its important role.

What can you do when your colleagues on a board or council say things that you find offensive? What if they are making subjective statements that hurt your feelings? We are living in tough times for civility. People feel free to say things during meetings that can be offensive and challenging.

Robert’s Rules of Order offers a simple solution to the problem of subjective, offensive or hurtful remarks during a meeting. It works like this:

Articles in this section are excerpted from the AASB STEPS Alaska Promise Neighborhood Newsletter that focuses on the work in progress among the Supporting Transitions and Educational Promise Southeast Alaska (STEPS Alaska) grant regional partners, who are striving to improve outcomes for Southeast Alaska’s youth.

To this end, STEPS partners are working on the Postsecondary Bridging Framework to map and plan how schools, families, and communities can support students transition in a more holistic way.

The Alaska Department of Labor predicts that 65% of jobs in Alaska will require a postsecondary degree or credential by 2025. However, only 54% of working age Alaskans and just 39% of people who are Alaska Native have those degrees.

Meanwhile Alaska also has the highest rate of disconnected youth - young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither working nor in school - of any state, according to Measure of America. Alaska is also last in the nation when it comes to the number of high school graduates who enroll, persist and complete college. 

Representative Chris Tuck

University of Alaska students on Friday appealed a decision from an Anchorage Superior Court judge that sided with Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s decision to subject higher education scholarship funding to a state accounting mechanism known as “the sweep,” which annually empties state accounts. Students argued the decision to subject the Higher Education Investment Fund to the sweep violated state law.

Alaska Congressman Don Young along with other congressional leaders introduced the Higher Education Access and Success for Homeless and Foster Youth Act to remove barriers and provide support to help students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care access and succeed in higher education.

Alaska’s congressional delegation told state lawmakers that the state has a unique opportunity to take advantage of the recently passed federal infrastructure law.

Rep. Don Young defended the law against Republican critics. He said it will send Alaska $6,000 per resident for transportation infrastructure, the most of any state. He proposed that legislators work with the delegation in a joint oversight committee to ensure that Alaska projects are funded and built in a timely manner.

Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) President Julie Kitka testified before the Alaska State Senate Committee on Education in support of legislation that will authorize the Commissioner of Education and Early Development to establish a demonstration project for the creation of state-tribal compact schools.

The Alaska Native Science & Engineering Program’s full-time Acceleration Academy (Bethel) completed a successful first semester with 20 students from the Lower Kuskokwim School District earning a total of 216 college credits.

Dr. Etheldra Davis was a pioneer in Anchorage. In 1959, Davis became the first Black teacher hired by the Anchorage School District. Davis taught at a number of Anchorage elementary schools before being hired as the district’s first Black principal at Fairview Elementary in 1969.

The Alaska State Capitol is located in downtown Juneau and is one of 11 capitol buildings in the U.S. without a domed roof. Construction on the building began in 1929 and was originally called the Federal and Territorial Building, according to a history of the building by the Legislative Affairs Agency. It was dedicated on Feb. 14, 1931.

The Anchorage School District’s preliminary budget for next year would use federal money to fill a $67 million gap to avoid cutting jobs and increasing class sizes. The Anchorage School Board will vote on the district’s preliminary budget later this month. School District Superintendent Deena Bishop told the board that inflation, lower enrollment and a lack of state funding led to the projected budget gap for the 2022-23 school year. State legislators haven’t increased the base student allocation — the amount of money per student a district receives — since 2017. The state provided one-time funds in fiscal years 2019 and 2020, but did not in 2021 or 2022. The funding the district is proposing to use is federal COVID relief money.

The Anchorage School Board on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a three-year contract for teachers. School board member Dave Donley was the only no vote. He said there were several changes he wanted to see in the contract, including longer school days.

Board member Andy Holleman said approving the contract would help show teachers that they’re appreciated.

“Whatever the board does, whatever the administration does, every morning on a weekday it falls on teachers to make it work,” he said at the board Tuesday evening meeting. “I think at times we forget that. We just have to give more credit to what has to be done in the classroom to make it happen every day.”

The Anchorage Education Association teachers union voted last week to ratify the contract. It includes salary increases and more opportunities for teachers to move across the pay scale. On average, salaries will increase about 2% each year. It also changes how teachers are compensated for covering other classes, and allows more teachers to contribute to a supplemental retirement plan.

Emily Goodykoontz, Anchorage Daily News

Candidates for Anchorage Assembly and school board are revving up their campaigns as the April 5 municipal election approaches, and a large amount of money is flowing toward several of them. Year-start reports were due to the state Friday, showing campaign donations and expenses up to Feb. 1, 2022.

Anchorage School District Superintendent Deena Bishop announced Friday that the school district will transition away from requiring masking and make it optional for students and staff later this month. In a letter sent out to families Friday afternoon, Bishop said the district-wide change will take place on Feb. 28.

“As a career educator, I understand how critical it is to focus the District’s energy on student learning,” Bishop wrote in the letter. “I believe that continued mandatory mask wearing is counter-productive and negatively impacts our students’ education, intellectual development, and emotional well-being.”

Fairbanks North Star Borough School District administrators briefly highlighted potential layoffs during a board of education regular meeting. The “reduction in force” plan calls for the potential layoff of 47 full-time elementary teachers, 21 full-time secondary school teachers, and a career and technical education teacher. The plan, according to Chief School Administrator Karen Melin, is part of the annual budget process required under Alaska state statute.

A handful of concerned Fairbanks residents sounded off about contract negotiations during public testimony at Tuesday’s board of education meeting.Concerns ranged from elimination of key clauses in the district’s initial offer to the unions, a lack of salary increases, and what some considered a step back in health care benefits.

Fairbanks North Star Borough School District officials gave a detailed preview on what new school boundaries will look like following the approved closures of Joy and Nordale Elementary schools during a board of education work session. Karen Melin, the district’s chief school administrator, said the district wants to get information out as soon as possible given the sensitive nature of school boundaries. The decision to close the three schools, and repurpose the Nordale building, is part of an effort to save $3 million a year.

Members of the Juneau School Board were updated on the repairs at Riverbend Elementry school, which was inundated with water last month after a pipe burst. Superintendent Dr. Bridget Weiss said they are addressing the damage. "What's going to happen at Riverbend is we will be putting down some temporary flooring, the drywall will be replaced, there's a lot of cabinetry damage. Unfortunately, the replacement of the cabinetry isn't going to be available due to supply issues until the following summer, not this summer but next summer. So this is going to be a long-term project no matter what," she said.

Hundreds of teaching contracts were approved Monday by the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education in a move that came earlier in the year than expected and is meant to offer a sense of stability to district staff. Union representatives and board members were among those who praised early approval of contracts during the board’s Monday night meeting, but concern remained about the long-term ability of the district to recruit and retain quality staff. Those concerns have been present throughout the school year

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education greenlit an update to its policy for dealing with discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality, including clearer guidelines about what constitutes discrimination and a training requirement so staff know how to recognize and respond to it. Title IX is a federal policy that sets standards for dealing with discrimination in schools. Historically, the 1972 policy has been used to protect female students from discrimination in sports and the classroom. Today, Title IX covers discrimination both on the basis of gender and sexuality, meaning students and staff on the LGBTQ+ spectrum are also protected.

Ketchikan’s school board has selected the principal of a rural school in Southwest Alaska as the district’s next superintendent of schools. Michael Robbins is the principal of a K-12 school in Toksook Bay, a coastal community of roughly 550 more than 100 miles southwest of Bethel in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Before that, he was a principal and special services director in Syracuse, New York. He says he has more than 25 years of experience in education. Robbins was one of three candidates interviewed for the job. He told the board that in his roughly three years in Toksook Bay, the school’s graduation rate has climbed from roughly 40% to 90%.

The second time’s a charm for Cyndy Mika. She was one of the top three contenders for superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District in 2017. On Tuesday, she finally got the job. “It's exciting,” Mika said. “There's something about Kodiak that just pulled on my heart strings. I felt like I could be a part of the community, and it was someplace where I could raise my son.”

Larry LeDoux, the superintendent for KIBSD, recently announced that he plans to retire. That’s a problem for him- it represents yet another position he needs to fill. “We have an assistant superintendent position open. We have a director of facilities open, we have a high school principal position open. And it’s possible we could have others as the year progresses, you never know,” LeDoux said. The lack of staff has been exacerbated by the pandemic. District schools closed intermittently in January due to teacher illness and administrative staff were pulled to teach classes. LeDoux says Alaska doesn’t attract teachers like it used to. Salaries aren’t particularly high compared to other states, according to LeDoux, and the state’s retirement package isn’t competitive either. The prospect of living in Alaska, especially on an island, is a barrier to many.

Even though COVID cases are dropping, the mandatory masking policy will remain in Kodiak Island Borough schools for the time being, according to Superintendent Larry LeDoux. On Wednesday, the Emergency Operations Center reported 167 known, active cases of COVID. This is 11% more than the number of cases the EOC reported on Monday but 34% less than the number of cases reported on Feb. 2. Kodiak is still at a high risk level based on the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services’ standards.

This school year, over half of the Kuspuk School District’s entire teaching staff is from the Philippines. And nearly all of them are new to the U.S. Rovan Agad teaches math and coaches junior varsity basketball at the Aniak high school. He’s happy to be here, finally connecting with his students in person. He arrived from the Philippines in October 2021.

A former principal at Point Lay's school Brett Stirling made a coaster with controversial engravings that prompted a heated discussion in the community and led to his termination. Stirling said he was printing the coaster at Point Lay's Kali School on the evening of Jan. 26 when one of the school custodians saw him and took a photo of the coaster design. The coaster had a North Slope Borough School District logo in the center - three children in traditional Alaska Native attire - surrounded by phrases "Striving for excrement," "New stupid behaviors started daily" and "Congratulations! You survived the NSBSD. Time for a f-king drink."

The Sitka School District will have to wrestle down a $2 million dollar deficit next year, and it’s looking for the city’s help. Starting the annual budget process in the hole is not unusual for the district – in fact, it’s usually the case – but it always prompts hard conversations about how to make ends meet. The Sitka School Board and the Sitka Assembly met in special session to take a look at school finances, which are the single largest expense of city government.

The buzz around the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is high for the Service High School Partners club as they look forward to cheering on U.S. cross-country skier Gus Schumacher. The Special Olympics partners club pairs students, with and without intellectual disabilities, through unified sports. Before Schumacher was chasing Olympic gold, he was a member of the Service partners club.

The No. 1 seeded Dimond Lynx boys hockey team has been disqualified from the Cook Inlet Conference hockey tournament after playing an academically ineligible player in the regular season. The Alaska School Activities Association has a set criteria for academic eligibility. Student athletes have to maintain a 2.0 GPA and pass five classes in a semester to remain eligible.

Zaz Hollander, Anchorage Daily News

Members of Ketchikan High School’s pep club apologized for “cultural insensitivity” after dressing up as cowboys for a high school boys basketball game against Metlakatla last weekend. The pep club’s decision to dress in a “country” theme for Saturday’s game in Ketchikan was widely seen as an affront to players and parents from Metlakatla, an Indigenous community in Southeast Alaska that is the state’s only Native American reserve.