Anchorage School Board adopts My Perspectives English curriculum for grades 6-10 on 6-1 vote

Anchorage middle and high school students will move to a single districtwide English curriculum after the Anchorage School Board voted 6 to 1 Tuesday to adopt My Perspectives, published by Savvas, for grades 6 through 10.

Board member Paul McDonough cast the lone no vote. He said the book itself was not the problem.

"I will be voting no, not that this is the wrong book for the choice that we have to make tonight, but that I think we as a board need to actually honor that the teacher's ability to teach should be less confined than this process was designed to build," McDonough said.

The adoption replaces the district's current core materials, including SpringBoard by College Board for grades 6-8. Tuesday's vote does not revisit the funding debate from July 7, when the board applied $11.6 million in new state funding to the 2026-27 budget, struck "Savvas: My Perspectives" from the memo and removed a $2.79 million curriculum line item, redirecting it to additional classroom teacher positions and other uses. That debate came alongside a $40 million projected shortfall and 50.5 new teacher positions.

Administrators said common materials give students consistency when they transfer schools, provide grade-level rigor and embedded support for struggling and advanced learners, and spare teachers the work of building units from scratch, while leaving latitude in how they teach. A district administrator said all committee applicants were accepted and all 11 voting members took part, choosing My Perspectives over HMH by a 6-5 vote the district honored as cast.

McDonough said that margin reflects a deeper problem. He told colleagues teachers had contacted him saying they were not listened to, and that the committee never elected a chair or affirmed its own agenda. He said the process sounded "more like efficiency or perhaps rubber stamp."

Asked what would follow a no vote, the administrator answered, "Catastrophic." Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said he would recommend a full review of the process, "which would delay the curriculum, which would mean that students wouldn't have these high-quality materials next school year. It would also deter us from being able to implement a pilot implementation in the spring." Pilot schools are set to test the materials this spring, ahead of full use the following year.

Board member Margo Bellamy voted yes, applauding the committee for listing trust and buy-in as the first risk in its own findings: "I applaud the committee for just being out front and putting at the the first bullet, that trust and buy-in, that, that is— we are at risk as a board for trust and buy-in." Board member Rachel Blakeslee asked for full committee reports, not summaries, in future curriculum decisions. Board President Carl Jacobs announced the result: "Memorandum Number 008 is adopted by a vote of 6 to 1."