Alaska's first school construction rankings under new scoring rules come out Nov. 5

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development will release draft rankings for school construction and major maintenance projects Nov. 5. They're the first lists scored under rules the state rewrote this spring to help rural districts compete.

The new rules score school buildings on their condition rather than their age and give more weight to safety problems. They also award top points earlier in the design process. Under the old system, districts that could afford to finish a project first and seek reimbursement later tended to score higher.

The rankings inform the governor's and Legislature's capital budget decisions. Last year, the Bering Strait School District's Stebbins K-12 School replacement topped the construction list, which recommended about $443 million in state money.

Districts that think the department got their rankings wrong have until 4 pm Dec. 1 to ask for reconsideration, according to a department notice. The department will post revised lists in mid-December before sending final lists to the State Board of Education.