Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitkans Join State Fly-In for School Funding

By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
    JUNEAU – Senate Education Committee chairman Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, looked out on a sea of faces that would be intimidating for any seasoned politician to confront.
    Yet the standing-room-only crowd in the state capitol meeting room Monday was respectful, and those who spoke said thank you for believing in education.
    The 100 or so school board members, administrators and students from around the state were in Juneau on a Legislative Fly-In to lobby for Alaska’s Public School System. The group session with Stevens, a Republican from Kodiak, and other members of his education committee was to reduce the need for individual meetings with each senator on issues of education policy and funding.
    “He came and addressed our whole group this morning,” said Sitka school board president Jennifer McNichol after meeting with Stevens earlier in the day. McNichol and fellow board member Elias Erickson represented Sitka on the Fly-In.
    “The sense was that the Senate was pushing back on the $20 million hole from our current budget that is part of the supplemental budget,” McNichol said. “It feels like the Senate is pushing back on that so that is great.”

Students raise their hands in response to a question from Sen. Gary Stevens, Senate Education Committee chairman, during the Legislative Fly-In on Alaska’s Public School System on Monday at the Capitol. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)

    Ken Darn from Fairbanks cautioned the committee to look at what’s going on in a variety of districts, both rural and urban road systems.
    “We want to be innovative,” he said “and creative moving forward, but we also need the support to do that. We want you to recognize the efforts that have been going on and continue to go on. We appreciate you guys thinking about the different ways to serve kids, that’s what we are all in this together for.”
    Stevens said that bill would not replace any programs currently under way but would be more organized and complementary.
    Pete Hoepfner, representing the Cordova School District and a former president of the Association of Alaska School Boards as well as current president of the Pacific Region of the National School Board Association, said teachers are doing wonderful things and taking on multiple tasks, but it comes down to money.
    “One of the things that struck me recently was the health insurance,” he said. “We’ve seen in the last four years a huge increase, 16 percent of our total budget, is going to health insurance. The increase in PERS and TRS costs has been an increase of $369,000 to our small school district.”
    That number represents $1,030 per student that is not going into the classroom, he said. In addition, he said, the City of Cordova was hurting financially and had to decrease school funding, making the school district draw on its reserve account to keep afloat.
    He mentioned the importance of keeping the ferry system funded, the high cost of flying students and the possibility of eliminating student educational opportunities.
    “But I appreciate your time today – we realize it’s going to be a tough few days with the budget being rolled out shortly,” he concluded.
    McNichol said the silver lining of the budget crunches in recent years is that they have initiated creativity in thinking about how districts spend money and save money.
    “One of the avenues our board is currently exploring is going from a conventional insurance program to a self-insurance situation,” she said.
    The brokers exploring those details are still waiting for this year’s claims data before making recommendations.
    “What we have learned, though, is that it really doesn’t represent a cost savings per se, because it will be so important for us to build up a reserve account over time,” she said. “What we will be doing is taking the profits away from Premera, which sounds like a good thing, but the actual cost, as far as our district goes, is not going to be any different. We’re just trying to set up a system where we have more control and predictability.”
    McNichol said Sitka has made progress in addressing student achievement gaps and other concerns but none of them can be addressed effectively in an environment of diminished funding, especially the loss of $187,000 that is Sitka’s share of the $20 million that Gov. Dunleavy has proposed cutting.
    “We are working with grants, partnerships, we are leveraging every dollar we have,” she said. “But as time goes by that becomes more and more difficult.”
    Sen. Tom Begich, D-Anchorage, noted that Sitka’s $187,000 may not sound like much to Anchorage.
    “But $5.8 million does,” he added. “And that was part of that $20 million, too. All the school districts in the state recognize there was a promise.”
    Begich said he has been getting pushback from the administration saying that school districts should not have spent the money on teachers.
    “My response on that is they didn’t,” he said. “They spent the money on the books they hadn’t bought, on the computers they needed to upgrade, and the supplies they need. And as a consequence they didn’t have to cut from teachers, as those were one-time expenses.”
    Turning to McNichol, he asked: “Would that be a fair appraisal of how some of that $187,000 might have been used as opposed to thinking about it as a teaching position?”
    McNichol agreed. She said the Sitka district has ballooning utility and insurance costs and is required to keep $600,000 in reserves. Sitka’s 20-1 student to teacher ratio is lower than most in the state, but she said it will be the next to feel the budget hit. Administration is 1-percent of the district’s total expenditures. Salary and benefits are 85 percent, maintenance and utilities 8 percent, school department programs 6 percent, and other expenses 2 percent.
    Wrangell School Board president Aleisha Mollen said her district has partnered with the local fire department, which provides volunteer classroom EMT instruction, and a ship builder who teaches that art.
    “When we come to you guys, I want you to know we’re doing everything that we can,” she said.
    Sen. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, asked for a show of hands of those who were current students in the school system, and encouraged them to testify.
    Kenai senior Tannis Lorring, a student adviser on the Kenai school board, said schools should be given reliable funding.
     “We should be able to look at our fiscal plan and feel like it is predictable,” she said. “However, at this time I feel like we need to look at education in a different way and for us to rethink the way we educate our students.”
    Begich said Alaska is at a “reset,” and it’s time to review how it delivers state services.
    “That is a fair assessment,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we would operate with less funding, and it does mean we can work hard to make funding as efficient as possible.”
    Unalaska student Sean Collin cited his school’s internet bandwidth shortages for online courses.
    “We have to use bandwidth ‘shaving’ to spread it among classes,” he said. “So yes, schools can provide an adequate education with less funding, but you can only cut so many corners. We as a state should not settle for an adequate education but strive for excellence in providing for Alaskan youth.”
    Barrow student Jenna Stringer advocated for teaching Alaska Native languages and less required certifications for those who want to teach those languages.
    “What makes a strong individual and how do people become strong?” she asked. “The biggest contributor to a strong individual is a consistent connection with one’s culture ... as a state we have failed our Native tribes by forming an inadequate language system which wasn’t constructed to support them.”
    Begich responded that as soon as the House gets organized, a bill on teaching Native languages, sponsored by Sitka’s Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins, is to be reintroduced.
    Costello said she was the Senate co-sponsor of similar language legislation that would offer an alternate certification route for Native language speakers as teachers.
    “I think the language opportunities in our state are tremendous,” she said.
    Students spoke of classmates less fortunate than themselves, of inadequate lunch programs, of teachers spread thin among multiple classes, and of the feeling of loss when a trusted teacher is lost because of budget cuts.
    Dunleavy will unveil his budget for the coming fiscal year at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. While the content of the budget is unknown the governor has said it will contain $1.6 billion in cuts that will affect every resident of Alaska.
    In prior interviews with media organizations the governor said the cuts are necessary.
    “Our expenditures are out of whack with our revenues,” he said. “We’re spending more money than we take in.”