Video Clips

Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.

Clips from Anchorage School DistrictClear

Jim Anderson “A little over a year ago, The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation changed the disposal protocols in Alaska to a much, much higher standard. We found that out as we were getting ready to demo Ursa Major, and they had changed the standard.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “if we can't guarantee that spending this amount of money right now is going to net an immediate impact that's positive for kids kids this school year and that the timeline would essentially be the same, but we could save money, I feel like that's what it would be in favor of.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “This will amend the Inlet View Elementary School replacement the current project contract for a total contract value of up to $42,744,256.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Carl Jacobs “AC Memorandum Number 012 passes by a vote of 7 to 0.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “this resolution in a nutshell what we would be voting on is to express to the public that our intention this year to close schools or not to close schools is definitely on the side of not to close schools.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jim Anderson “if there was a 2-week delay and we could get permits and approvals and environmental Everything else, if you could get that in a 2-week period, um, you might still have a playground in November. Anything past 2 weeks pushes it into next spring, summer.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I moved the board to approve the adoption of My Perspectives, published by Savvas, as the English language arts instructional materials for grades 6 through 10.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Carl Jacobs “I'll say that for my part, I would be interested in hearing the board deliberate on a postponement makes sense to get the information. Um, absent the choice to postpone to get the information, I probably will support the underlying recommendation coming from administration.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I move that the board approve and authorize the superintendent to approve one change order in the amount of $849,673 and a contract modification to Cornerstone General Contractors, Inc. for a total value of $849,673.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “that answers a lot of my questions. So thank you for the additional context, because I don't think I would have been able to vote for this without that context. But with the context, I think I— well, I will be voting for it.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Kelly Lessens “this resolution shall become null and void If either the mayor's proposed budget for 2027... or the Anchorage Assembly's November 17th, 2026 adoption of the FY 2027 general government and utility operating budget would fund the municipality's optional local contribution to the Anchorage School District for the 2027-28 school year to a lesser extent than the maximum allowed under the municipal tax cap.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “this resolution gives the board Well, gives the public the clear voice of us that says we will essentially accept the superintendent's recommendation not to close any schools except in the cases of emergencies.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Nicole Somerville

“we have about a 90% usage rate. The teachers are all using it, and where the art comes and where the teachers get that creativity is the engagement. Yes, there is a script.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Pat Higgins “we give them a I'm just kidding maybe type statement. I think we're making a serious mistake, and I absolutely oppose it.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Carl Jacobs “AC Memorandum Number 008 is adopted by a vote of 6 to 1.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “So you could fit— you could fill it versus actually taking all that material, hauling it away to a whole other state. So while there aren't landfills to dispose of the PCBs, you could have a much cheaper option by leaving it in place, capping it, and burying it.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jim Anderson “I don't know that it will save money if— I just don't know. We have not talked to a designer. We haven't gone out for the permits.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jharrett Bryantt “if the board declined to adopt this particular adoption in a process that's been executed for numerous years... then I would recommend that we do a wholesale deep dive into 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.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “That used to serve as the chair of the committee, because what you're describing is not the function of a chair, especially in committee work. At least the chair, like, decides when meetings are and what's on the agenda and then presents it, and then the committee itself collectively affirms the agenda. Is— it sounds more like there's an absence of a chair.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Kelly Lessens “I would be interested in offering an amendment that basically— well, maybe it's not an olive branch, maybe it's a stick, um, would nullify the entire resolution if at the end of the municipal budget passage the 2027 municipal funding for our schools is less than we expect to receive.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I don't support the amendment as an amendment or an ability to conditionalize this moratorium.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Pat Higgins “I'm, I'm not going to support this amendment, and I'm not sure if I'm even going to support the resolution right now. I believe we're trying to establish that we're not going to go out there and target neighborhood schools this year. But we're putting in here language that says if we get funding from this one source less than what we want, we get to change our mind.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Kelly Lessens “the Assembly requests the mayor identify essentially a ceiling and a floor for how the school district will be funded under the municipal tax cap. And that's worrisome to me because we already know that we have a projected deficit for FY28”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I think that if we put this amendment in front of our expedition forward about where do we need to go forward, I think it turns an olive branch into something with a fuse, a time bomb, and there's a condition set”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Pat Higgins “I still don't know why Campbell, the only STEM program, gets cut the same year we approve a STEM high school”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jim Anderson “they went back and validated that, uh, anything 10 parts per million is over the ADEC limit, which would be what's in the current slab. The water level in the area, um, right at the slab is between 3 and 5 feet... they feel somewhat doubtful that now that we have raised it and we know that it has PCBs, that they would allow us to bury it and leave it in contact with the groundwater.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jim Anderson “So the playground, if it stays on track, will be ready to occupy mid to late October.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I'm advocating for the olive branch version where this year we should spend the year investing in dialogues”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “So, while $800,000 plus, almost $900,000 doesn't seem maybe significant in the grand scheme of things in some ways, in other ways I would argue that it feels very significant in a resource-scarce environment like the one that we're in.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “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.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Carl Jacobs “That resolution is adopted by a vote of 5 to 2.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Pat Higgins “I remember in November when we talked about the savings we would have with closing Fire Lake and Lake Otis, and given the number of additional kids that the charter schools may have, we could lose money that year.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “ADEC does state that Alaska has no landfills permitted to accept regulated hazardous waste, but there are potentially other options... any materials with concentrations of, for example, 1 to 10 parts per million of PCBs can be left in place or used as backfill.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Paul McDonogh “Right now we're saying not to at any time until the conclusion of the committee's work, which would be in May.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jharrett Bryantt “we also, um, left you with this document that we're happy to project and walk through... because we want to make sure that we have a full, robust perspective about the process. And we're really excited to get your feedback and answer questions so we leave this conversation with clarity”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Kelly Lessens “on July 21st, the Anchorage Assembly unanimously, 12 to 0, passed a document called AR 2026-11.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/18/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 18, 2026

Jharrett Bryantt “Fiscal stabilization is my number 2 priority because we know that we have about a $40 million structural shortfall.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Paul McDonogh “the resolution would state that the board hereby commits that it does not intend to close any schools this school year as long as there's no emergency need, like weather, epidemic, another epidemic, or something. Um, and the, the rationale I think comes from the, the superintendent's remarks way back in April, uh, where the superintendent gave many reasons why school closures this year, while it may be a cost savings measure, we have so much dust settling from other programming efficiencies, 3 years in a row of school closures... and now the board is committed to a new committee to basically re-engineer the whole process of identifying schools for closure, uh, that a year of reprieve and respite would be very needed for the community.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I hope that as we read it in the next 2 weeks that we're able to give the community some assured understanding of where we are on school closures this year.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Paul McDonogh “I also took up, just generally in my own capacity as a board member, in non-action items on the agenda, the Resolution 2627.01, which, if it passes through the next reading of the board, would essentially tell the— like, the board being able to express that it will limit its authority in closing schools this year. Only to emergency situations, which I think will be a supportive voice from the board to the committee to be able to say that we don't want to disrupt the process of planning a new engagement strategy by having to then identify schools to close halfway through that strategy being completed.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Lem Wheelis

“I will have 45 students sitting in my classroom.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Kelly Lessens “the differences between the original version and the S version equate to slightly fewer FTE, 45 in the S version versus 50 in the original version. The S version specifies that it would, that we would direct those new dollars towards teacher, building substitute, and counselor FTE.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Bonnie Gurney

“I was really disheartened last week to learn that we were losing one of our most beloved, charismatic, and young teachers at Bear Valley because they were facing the prospect of a 38-wide combo class.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Christy Sitz

“Anchorage's estimated share of these state resources includes $32 million in one-time funds and millions more, millions more in energy relief. The decision sits right here. The ASD Finance Committee has brought forth a proposal to invest to hire over 50 teachers. We urge you to pass this.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Rachel Blakeslee “ASD would be slated to receive up to $32.2 million. The waterfall funding mechanism, though, is really FY26 surplus funding that would allow us to receive that appropriation.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Jharrett Bryantt “the short of it is that ASD has a very small margin of error because over the past several years we've spent our reserves to be dangerously low, so we do not have $32 million to gamble.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Kelly Lessens “this proposal, in essence, in Memo 016, and quite frankly also in 016S, says with that dollar, that 5th dollar, dollar number 5, from 4 to 5, we're going to spend 97 cents, leaving 3 pennies for our students if there's an emergency.”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

Kelly Lessens “$680,000 to ensure that in the first semester of 2026-27, highly gifted elementary students and student athletes enrolled in any sport retained or restored for FY27 by prior board action can safely and equitably access the educational services for which they are qualified”

Anchorage School Board: 8/4/26 ASD School Board Meeting · Aug 4, 2026

← Newer Older →