Alaska Legislature: Joint Education, 3/30/26, 8am

Wrap up follow-up?

Follow up, very brief

follow up

of those master teachers.

Mm.

Of those master teachers, would you say they're measurably more effective?

Through the chair, absolutely.

Representative Himshew.

Thank you to the chair.

Just very quickly,

in the course of your careers have you seen the amount of recess time change? We've put in place certain requirements under the READS Act and we always add to the plate of educators and the time in the day to deal with that has not changed. And so have you had to reduce your recess times at any point and I'm talking about not just in the last year or two but in the history of your

of your schools.

Great question through the chair.

Our recess we have not touched our recess times um and and I can speak for southeast where most of us have not touched those recess times. What we are touching uh to make all of this fit into the system is our gym time.

our swim time, our library time, our music time, and we get music once a week. And so those are the impacts that we're seeing at our level, trying to m mould it into a piece where we could maybe on Monday we could go to the library, and on Tuesday we might be able to have gym, and then on Thursday y and just kind of scaffolding it like that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And Dr Parody uh if you could follow up with us, I'd be curious of how many of uh your superintendents are able to utilise the community schools model and what additional resources might be necessary to work with community members to help not just the children, but the parents learn that screen time is not conducive for them as well. 'Cause we know parents are the first teachers of our children.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Topin.

Chair Tobin, I know our members would agree with that statement.

parents and families.

All right, thank you.

We're gonna get this done guys.

Good morning Madam Chair and members.

Wait till she goes.

So good morning Madam Chair and members of the committee. For the record, my name is Melissa Matthews, Director of Student Service at Bering Strait School District and I service the President of Alaska Council Administration of Special Education, Case.

This slide shows the Two Thousand Twenty Five Twenty Six Alaska Case board members. These are special education leaders throughout our state.

CASE is a professional organization dedicated to supporting and empowering special education leaders through advocacy,

specialized resources,

and a collaborative peer network.

I'm here today representing lea leaders responsible for one of the most complex and legal mandated parts of our education system, special education. Let me be clear, special education is not optional. Under the individual with Disability Act, where every child is guaranteed a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. This is a civil right and for school districts it is a non-negotiable legal obligation.

Obligation The process to identify students is rigorous,

data-driven,

and time-bound.

Once a parent consents to evaluation, we have ninety days to assess,

determine eligibility,

and if qualified for a disability that affects that impacts their learning,

implement an indiv individualize education program, an I_E_P_ The I_E_P_ is a legally binding contract. Every service minute, every accommodation must be delivered, regardless of staffing shortages or budget constraints.

In the eyes of the law,

we do not have the staff or we do not have the funding is not an excuse.

The liability rests entirely on the district. And the needs we are serving are not one size fits all.

Enroll Alaska,

one special education teacher may be responsible for an entire school community,

supporting students with intensive disabilities who require one-to-one to one-to-three adult-to-student ratios for physical safety and educational progress,

alongside students requiring targeted interventions for dyslexia, ADHD,

learning disabilities,

and or behavioral social.

social emotional challenges. We are s also seeing a significant increase in early childhood needs. Three year olds are entering our school with major development delays such as significant speech and development deficits. Serving them is a legal requirement and a major resource commitment. Early intervention works, but it it requires up front investment. By investing in the infant learning programs in early literacy we can identify

Identify needs earlier and often reduce the intensity of special education services required in later years.

It is both more effective for the child and more physically responsible for the state.

At the same time our special education teachers are being asked to do more than ever.

They are educators,

clinicians,

legal compliance experts and case managers all at once.

This requires extensive training,

specialized skills and ongoing professional development.

As you see in the chart, student enrolment has remained steady since two thousand twenty one. But we have seen a significant increase of fourteen percent in students with disability. And this is for the state of Alaska.

We currently have nearly two hundred unfilled special education teaching positions across Alaska.

These are not optional roles; they are federally required. Within the state, we are starting to see schools without a resident special education teacher at all, relying on an itinerant staff who fly or commute between sites to supervise and train paraprofessionals who will be providing the specialized services to the student.

This increased costs and stretches staff to their limits. It is not a model design for student success. It is a survival strategy. We are recruiting everywhere, across the country and internationally. We are spending funds on travel,

relocation and visa fees, and still we cannot fill positions.

We are required to provide services like speech therapy,

occupational therapy,

physical therapy, and psychological services. Due to national shortages,

districts are forced into high-cost contracts, often relying on itinerant or virtual providers. But virtual providers but virtual services cannot fully repay place in-person care, especially for students with significant physical needs.

In many cases our teachers left implementing these services themselves, carrying both the workload and the liability. We are paying premium contract prices for remote advice, while the actual physical labour and legal liability fall squarely on the shoulders of overextended special education teachers in the school.

What we are experiencing is what I would call a vacancy tax. We are spending more on workarounds, travel, contracted itinerant staff and temporary staffing than we would on a stable, permanent workforce.

Across Alaska districts are doing everything they can to uphold the civil rights of students with disabilities, but we are stretched thin. We need the tools to move forward from simply surviving to truly educating.

Because an Alaskan s students' civil rights should never depend on whether a district can find a teacher or budget or budget constraints.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation.

I do have one question as I had a

school board member in my office indicate that with some recent regulatory changes in the department, the services provided are no longer required to be quarterly but now monthly. And there is a virtual option which has helped some of our remote and rural communities. But for those who provide those services in person, there's an additional cost being borne by the school district.

Through the Chair.

Yes, so with the regulation change, and it was geared more because of the rural areas to kind of relieve that

cost

of having to fly out an itinerant contract person. And it's up to them, it's up to each school district if they want to go that route, if they want to do just the virtual monthly check in and supervision of the program with a special ed teacher and whoever's providing the service, whether it's a paraprofessional, they can go that route, or

like many school districts are. At my school district at Bering Strait, we're doing a hybrid model. So we're still flying them out three times a year, but we're also doing the monthly check ins with them. I just feel, we just feel like in our area that it's, you know, having them come in and do the testing, initial reevaluation. We're going to get a better picture of what our students can and can do than somebody trying to test them virtually. So we're doing a hybrid model.

But some school districts are doing virtual. So they're doing the virtual monthly or you know, whatever it says on their IEP, they're doing that, then they don't have to do that virtual. If it's a related services actually providing the service if it's virtual or in person.

Thank you. And just to follow up, you can always follow up with the committee at a later date about the cost. I'm curious about the increased cost to districts for the

this regulatory change.

Representative Eichein

Elam, I apologize

back to back in the E's.

Alright, I am the - Thank you. I was looking at the data there on slide 45, and I apologize if you kind of already covered some of this, but

Thank you.

But

that's a really startling climb whenever I look at that red line, and I'm just wondering like what's going on? Why are we looking at those

steep

climbs in a ten year span and is this like what did the previous fifty years look like? Or is what's going on? Like what's happening with people?

You take it and then you take it.

Chair Tobin, through the chair, Representative

Elam.

Elam.

I know that, sorry. Thank you for the question and we looked at this in our practice session last night we looked at this for a long time, because we were talking about what is the climb attributed to, and I already have it in my notes from last night, we're going to figure that out and share it with you. It's startling.

Mm-hmm.

We speculated

it could be post COVID.

We speculated teaching

shortage.

Mm-hmm.

Obviously will have an impact on this. So we are going to do some further research on it.

I think that's what we know today.

If I may follow up

Thank you. A very brief follow

Yes,

-up. We'll have

I'm

our last

just

question by Representative Deiber. I apologize, Representative

Mm-hmm.

Eichein.

Thank you. I'm just curious what the diagnoses represented for the record.

I stay with me at the moment.

So you're just snoring.

Through the chair.

So

we

do

not have that broken down to disability categories, but I do know in our school district we're getting a lot more students coming in especially at the early childhood with a lot of speech deficits and language. So I mean

but we can look and see if we can get the breakdown of the disabilities, if you would like.

I would love that.

Okay.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

You're welcome. Okay. Representative Deibert.

Thank you. Through the chair to - no, not principal,

No.

president. Can you tell me from - sorry, I'm looking at slide 47.

I

know from a teacher aspect of it there's meetings, you have the special education teacher does paperwork

Mm-hmm.

and then organizes meetings and oftentimes these meetings are intimate, emotional and trying to solve problems with families and I'm wondering if those are virtual and I'm also wondering like thinking about the previous presentation with the principals

with paperwork. Does some of the paperwork of special ed students fall on principals in a building with these virtual educators that you're working with long distance? I'm just curious the workload of that paperwork on the building itself.

I

Okay, Madam through the Madam Chair.

Through the chair. So that's a great question.

Mm-hmm.

Some meetings are held virtual if it's an itinerant sped teacher, then wherever location they are at, they will hold it virtual. Usually the parent and the teacher and the principal will be together at the school, and usually it's a sped teacher, special education teacher, that is the only one that is virtual.

And as far as extra work

on the principal, we would have to have somebody at the school print out the paperwork and get it ready, organized for the meeting. It could be the principal, it could be the gen ed teacher,

it could also be the paraprofessional that's actually providing the service at the school.

Thank you. Thank you.

I just wanna do a time check for folks. We have two more presentations and thirty minutes. Uh hopefully we will have plenty of time, but I apologise to committee members if uh I cut you off or do not give you time to ask a question. Uh as always I am sure that these fine folks would be happy to answer your questions uh when we are off record.

Let's see.

Through the chair and for the record I'm Randy Traney and I have the distinct honor of representing fifty three school districts in the state I love as the President of the Alaska Superintendents Association. I'm also the proud superintendent of the Matsu Borough School District.

I'm joined by my colleagues on the Board of Directors for the Alaska Superintendents Association as well as many other superintendents and some of our eleven new superintendents so far are in the Capitol and if you have a chance to visit with them I know that they would love to talk with you.

The United States became a superpower because of public education.

And our state luckily is young enough for the founders who wrote our constitution to have known that. And so I think on this slide we have the ability to think about what did the founders of the state of Alaska, what was the primary thing that they put in our constitution and it was this constitutional duty to provide timely, reliable, predictable revenue for schools

and fully and equitably fund all initiative laws and mandates. They knew that because they'd seen that work for the rest of the United States. We know that if we have early notification of funding and predictable funding, that then educators can focus on student achievement. And I know that you all know that sadly in our state right now we don't have that.

There's three things I want to point to on this slide.

First, if you look at FY25 and FY26, we are profoundly thankful to you all for the change in the BSA from 5960 to 6660. Profoundly thankful.

However you look up in the upper right hand corner you can see that when adjusted for the consumer price index from 2011 the BSA should be closer to 7943 which leaves a delta of 1283 in blue right below that.

This next slide is the exact same information, just the inverse.

So once again, you can see the massive change in the BSA last year which has certainly helped our situation. But when if we adjust it in dollars for 2011, the 6660 has the buying power now of about $4700.

I often say that all boats rise and fall on the same tide. And for Alaska school districts that tide is the BSA.

It's the mechanism to fund the choices that we all value for families in our state. It's the mechanism that funds correspondent schools, charter schools and brick and mortar neighborhood schools.

It most importantly provides reliability and predictability for our leaders and our school boards across the state.

And

that's why this is so central to the ACSA, and you'll see at the bottom of this slide, unity and advocacy for this one tide that benefits all boats.

I got to go to school in Mount Eccles Elementary School in Cordova,

and then I went on to the high school.

My elementary school is now 71 years old.

And it doesn't look much different than it did when I was there.

And the same is true for the high school is now 58 years old. The average building in our state for schools is 45 years old with 83 of them over 60. There's an incredible backlog of deferred maintenance over half a billion dollars and growing annually.

The image on the left shows what the role of the superintendent should be. I like to think of that upper yellow part as implementing the vision of each school board. That's my job. I manage the people, I work with the community, and I report back to the school board. And at the center of all that are students and student achievement.

But that's not the current role that superintendents have right now. Instead we have the group of three bullets on the upper right. We manage school budgets and state mandates, we consider what to cut, and we monitor state and federal compliance. And instead of being the academic leader in chief, we're now the budget slasher in chief.

What the role should look like is promoting academic success, implementing new programs and vision to promote academic success, mentoring educators to promote academic success and building community relations to promote academic success.

Two days ago, three days ago I guess now, we were

I got to sit in a meeting with our new and incoming superintendents and there were a bunch of other superintendents in the room and we did a kind of a kahoot where

everyone scanned what's uh what is waking you up at night and they just wrote down what's keeping them awake at night as leaders.

You see a pattern in these words. Managing operational funding, teacher turnover, in-kind contributions, staffing, facilities, wrapping up my current job because I'm leaving, uh the budget, visas, staff reduction, staff capacity, school, Washington D_C_ Structural deficit, closing three schools.

What's on our mind collectively is budget and money, and you don't see anything here about academic achievement.

And that crushes people. It crushes our leaders. So if we go to the next slide. Research has demonstrated over and over that district stability in leadership promotes academic growth of students. But now across the U_S_ the average superintendent stays less than three years, and it's far worse in Alaska.

What the slide on what the picture on the right represents are

from 2018 to 19, people with blue hearts are no longer in the state of Alaska. People with yellow hearts are leaving this year, they're retiring.

People with the purple hearts, they're still here, but they've switched districts, which means there is exactly one superintendent left in their same job from 2018, 19 to now. It's Josh and Skagway. And look at Skagway's achievement.

Yeah.

My last slide is this, we recognise that problem as an organisation and we're trying to put resources into it.

Um the new and incoming superintendent support programme, we're already collecting evidence that stu that that students that that superintendents who go through that programme are staying longer. But could you imagine how long they might stay and what might happen if instead of being the budget slasher in chief, they all got to focus on being the academic leader in chief.

I'm happy to take your questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Traney. And I do want to just ask for a follow-up off the record, Dr. Parity. The task force and education funding has received a proposal from AML on what they call a BFA, a Buildings Facilities Allocation. And we'd love to hear the position of your organization or organizations on that particular approach and if there's any feedback on that particular proposal.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Traney. And I do want to just ask for a follow up, off the record.

Dr.

With Madame Chair, I will give that to you. Um Nils Andresen, Executive Director of AML is presenting to our uh folks regarding this and we will um engage in a discussion get your feedback. Thank you.

Madam Chair, we'll get that to you.

Nils Andreasen, the executive director of aml,

is presenting to our folks regarding this, and we will engage in a discussion and get your feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Young.

Uh thank you through the Chair. More of a comment than anything, but if if you'd like to give any feedback that'd be that'd be great. But uh four years on the assembly, I cannot tell you how frustrating it was that we would have to adopt our budget locally

Prior to the state making decisions and I'll just say that I do and I know you guys feel the same frustration. So I hope we can find some consistency in education funding at the state level so that there's not that knee jerk reaction at the district level with the pendulum swinging back and forth on who we're hiring and who we're laying off on a daily basis.

Thank you, Representative Elam.

No, no question?

Da.

Good.

You're killing me over here.

Right. Name.

Right name, just no wrong no questions.

Just.

No.

Wrong.

No questions.

Thank you.

Any additional questions?

Representative Underwood, thank you through the chair.

Thank you to the chair. I mean, you were looking at me. I don't really have a question. I just wanted to always say how much I love the mat zoo. Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here with us.

We are.

Thank you for being here with us. We now are on to our last presentation, and I will let members know that if we do have time at the end of this presentation, we can bring back any additional speaker back up to the dais to ask questions that we were unable to ask during their particular presentation.

Alright. Good morning Madam Co-Chairs Tobin and Story. Uh my name is Katie Parrot. I am the Senior Director of the Office of Management and Budget for Anchorage School District.

I also serve as the President of the Alaska Association of School Business Officials.

Um a LASBO, as we're known, is an affiliate of the association of school board officials international. Um so we ar we do network with people doing this work across the world. Our board members come from across the state representing rural and urban districts, municipal and R_E_A_A districts, as well as one seat on our board is an ex officio uh position that's appointed by deed.

On this slide is our mission, vision and values. Our members are the business, operations staff, finance, accounting, HR, I_T_ operations and maintenance. Um so the people that are doing some of the less fun work maybe uh than it happens in the classroom. Um but our mission really truly is to promote the higher, highest standards in school business practice. Uh accountability and transparency really is the name of our game.

We strive to uphold and maintain what we would describe as uh the compliance infrastructure of districts and to maintain best practices in resource management.

And so as part of that responsibility, uh members of our organization are responsible for a whole lot of uh data tracking and financial uh and other kinds of accountability reporting. And so this slide is not a comprehensive list of all of those uh reports and responsibilities, but it it takes account of many of those regular reporting requirements that we do have.

have um and th that are listed here. In smaller districts I think it's really important for you to know that this could be one single person who is responsible for completing and submitting all of these throughout the year. Um and so the the stress and and challenge sometimes of the reporting uh requirements and being compliant and on top of this is not insignificant. While business officials uh have tended not

ought to see the kinds of rates of vacancy or turnover that we've seen in the classroom for many years, that's starting to change. We have some people who've been in positions for a very long time who are retiring, and we are seeing um some concern about uh the vacancy rate and people coming up into these positions, especially as there's continued calls to cut back on administrative duties um and uh administration uh

uh I as in the districts as a whole.

The next slide is uh really kind of focusing on Alaska's finance and accounting standards. We do have what's called the Alaska Uniform Chart of Accounts that's uh required for us to utilise. This is by statute. Um and essentially what the chart of accounts does for us is it provides a structure and uh a categorz categorisation system for accounting for all expenditures. We are required

Required to use um this chart of accounts to categorise our budget areas and then to report on our actual expenditures.

And essentially this provides us the opportunity to provide an apples to apples comparison across all districts, as you know that have a lot of differences. This slide demonstrates the financial data. This is audited financials for f y twenty five for school district operating expenditures. And there are a few things that I want to point out about this information. One is that there's an ongoing concern that not enough resource is being directed to instruction.

and that uh students and the classroom are not being prioritised. However, you can see from this slide that seventy five percent of all of the expenditures made in F_Y_ twenty five were directed to instruction. And those are specific components within that chart of accounts within our budgets. Um additionally, there's a lot of concern at times that our districts are top heavy, that there is uh administrative positions that are not necessary and that that's an area to

to scale back. Um however you can see also from this chart that only two percent of all operating expenditures were directed to district administration, which is that top level um high level level of uh administration in the district. Another five percent i uh is expended uh in twenty five for district administrative support. And those are all of your payroll functions, your H_R_

i_t_ um uh and and those kinds of functions, many of which are actually legally required. Um there are positions in administration that uh we would not be in compliance with our legal requirements if we did not have those. Um like reporting to the legislature. Uh more and more um there are a lot of competing priorities eating into these slices of the pie. And so we're gonna look at a couple of those next.

Um related to school district unfunded needs, on the left side of this slide uh you see kind of a chart of an example of one district's attempts to bridge the budget gap between uh the B_S_A_ equivalent and then that uh inflationary rate that's kind of tracking above. And you see in prior years uh districts have tried to fill those gaps in different ways to maintain certain programmes and services in their districts.

However, there's a lot that falls into that gap. And so this list below, um curriculum, technology, C_T_E_ and vocational ed, fine arts, nurses, counsellors, preschool, reading interventions, all of these good things we would love to be doing often fall out or are removed

eliminated from budgets because of that gap. Um and so we're making lots of decisions about how to provide instruction that are without a lot of uh strategies that would facilitate uh really great outcomes. Additionally, we have a changing student population, as you've heard in the prior um in the prior presentation. So that that shift from um uh the shift in needs is also impacting the budget to the extent

the extent that we've had a lot of discussion about the enrolment decline in districts across the state. Enrolment decline over the last decade or so has been about one and a half percent. However, our SPED population has increased by fourteen percent. And so while there might be less students in some of our classrooms, some of the students in our classrooms have uh significant additional needs. And so we're working to try to maintain and meet those changing needs.

it's

Um and then in line with that, when we're talking about competition for those dollars that we're trying to allocate to meet student needs, there's other competing priorities. Um and you've heard a little bit about the deferred maintenance uh backlog that uh is a stress for a lot of districts um and one of the other areas that we're focused on is school bond debt reimbursement. Uh A_C_S_A_ really urges the Legislature to reject a more tr

moratorium on school bond debt reimbursement uh because of the fact that when we don't have that resource, many of our deferred school construction projects create an environment where our buildings are deteriorating in ways that are really truly becoming unsafe um and not helpful for making sure that there's a a positive learning environment for students and staff. Um and it does create higher costs for school districts. If you go to the next slide.

side. Um this is something that I think we've showed you before, but just to reiterate the issue is that when there's some resources that lag in one area, sometimes that increases costs in another area. So as we've seen the loss of state bond debt reimbursement, our facilities maintenance backlog has gone up significantly in the Anchorage School District, and some of that uh some of those needs do compete with dollars uh going to the classroom.

term. Next slide please. Additionally um we are really concerned and tracking the impact of inflation and uh a flat funding on some of our student support services, um and those services that allow students to access their education. One of the major ones being pupil transportation funding. So it's truly imperative that the state does increase an inflation proof funding for pupil transportation expense.

And as one of the key strategies to address chronic absenteeism, make sure kids are getting to school, that they have equitable access, and the funding that's provided to support the service is about half of what the cost increases for running those programs has been over since about 2016 to the extent that statewide transportation costs have exceeded the amount of state funding for that program.

by over sixty five million. So so districts have shelled out about sixty five million over a period of time to support pupil transportation in order to keep that going. And this next slide kind of demonstrates that in visual form. A couple of things to note as well is that some of our programs, one of them being transportation, has forces uh that are requirements that do cause cost to go up.

So one of the things that's changed in people transportation is the implementation of ballot measure one. That has increased the wages uh by statute for some of our positions within transportation, and that's reflected in this slide, as well as uh fleet uh maintenance and replacement. So there's also rules and regulations around uh buses on the road and how those need to be updated and replaced to meet uh requirements.

to keep that service going.

So all of these things really do impact the bottom line.

When we receive flat funding or funding that isn't adjusted to match the cost of maintaining a service without some other change in the system, it really does require us to cut into what we're able to provide. And so that's the environment that our members are working in.

And I'd be happy to take any questions.

Uh thank you. Thank you, Miss Parrot. Uh I do have a question for you Dr. Parody, if you could follow up with us offline.

And while the task force is looking at ways to reform our people transportation system, we did learn that previous increases to people transport were based on actual expenditures by district. And if you could get us that information in the next few weeks, we are working on legislation to increase people transport and we'd like to make it as

as accurate to current expenditures as possible. Uh with that, do we have questions from committee members? I have Representative Himschoot, Representative Eishide, Representative Schwanke and Representative Bjorkman or Senator Bjorkman.

Um I have two really quick questions um through the Chair. My first question is, in districts from Juneau to Ketchikan to Sitka, the annual audit is not turning up everything we need to know. So is there an annual audit and what can we do differently to make sure that that tells us what we need to know in budgeting?

That's such a great question. Uh through the chair to co-chair Himeshute, um yes, every district in the state is required to complete an annual audit um and to submit those to the department. The department also produces publicly information on audited finances related to how we're spending funds. So those are currently published on the website. Um, I think that um

There's a few things. One of the things that concerns me personally is w w a lot of districts have heeded the call for reducing administration costs.

Some um administrative teams in the finance and accounting world are too lean at this point to be quite frank. And so in order to really stay on top of best practices for tracking um financial data, for forecasting, for projecting and for communicating all of that to the local boards, you have to have the staff to be able to do that.

Um and districts really have tried to respond to the public sentiment to prioritise the classroom at all costs. And I think one of the things that we've seen in the system is that it's had a cost. Um the other thing that makes it challenging is coming and going of um certain kinds of um revenues and expenditures that have some unpredictability. So

So building in some predictability to get way ahead of establishing your plan for the year is so critical for the finance and accounting staff and the business operations people in districts because a lot of times there's chaos that's created when we go back and forth between different revenue and expenditure scenarios. So you have a situation where a district might establish a plan based on an expectation that the legislature

is going to act a certain way or uh you know approve a certain level of funding. And a school board, a local school board that's elected to make those decisions gives the direction that ends up changing through the process. So you can imagine the inefficiency that takes place when um finance and accounting staff and school boards are having to change a budget three times before the start of the school year and sometimes at the beginning of the school year.

So I think that providing support for ensuring that districts have the staff they need to adequately track and maintain best practice standards is one thing. The other thing is creating some stability in the system.

Thank

you.

My second question.

Very brief follow-up as we are at seven minutes and we have three people behind.

Apologies through the chair, I just want to confirm when you said that districts are falling short on transportation, you're talking about that in aggregate, all the districts

Yes.

together.

Yeah.

Okay,

Across

the state.

Thank you.

Thank you,

Representative Einscheid.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Tobin. My question was for Ms. Matthews, so I don't know if this is. I can also wait if you want.

Sorry,

is there

additional questions for Ms. Parrott? And then we will bring back Ms. Matthews.

Thank you, Chair Tobin. Through the chair to Ms. President Parrott. I'm looking at slide 64.

And it's that little thin sliver of student activities at 1%. And I played basketball, I played volleyball. It kept, you know, it was like my favorite part of my high school tenure. And it's sad to see that at 1%. And when I look next door at instruction, at 41%, which is great, but the previous presentation

it was roughly $27,000 to replace a teacher and train them. And then if you think of 10 teachers, that's $270,000. And then a principal, 10 new principals is $750,000. This recruitment and retention is huge. And if we value after school and before school activities so that we can make that little sliver bigger of the pie,

we need to really address that, because I know sports keeps kids in school. Chronic absenteeism, it helps with all of that. So I just want to.

to get that on the record and um that's

where we need to really do the work.

Uh through the chair to Representative Diebert, that is such a wonderful point. Um this uh that sliver is the operating fund expent expenditures that the districts are allocating to that. Our communities have a heavy lift in supporting our student activities and I think we have asked our communities to pick up the tab on that through the years to maintain those opportunities for students.

I personally am the parent to a student who student activities is the way he's graduating.

That's the only way he's graduating. That's the way he's passing his classes is to stay eligible for sports. I know that that keeps our kids engaged and working hard and doing things that are very difficult for them personally in order to participate in that. So that's something that we really care about. Unfortunately, when we're in a situation where we're picking and choosing, sometimes we're picking things that we're not legally required to provide.

Then that's really unfortunate.

Thank you. Thank you for that point. We do have a few questions, I am assuming, for folks uh who have already presented. I have on my list Representative Eishide, Representative Schwaunke and Representative or Senator B.

Yorkman. Uh I wanna ensure that you guys have time, so I'm gonna ask folks to keep your questions tight and your responses even tighter. Uh representative Eishide, you were interested to hear from Ms. Matthews, is that correct?

Affirmative.

So, um

I'll pose my question for Ms. Matthews. This goes to slide 45, if we can bring that back up. Slide 45 showed that. And through the chair Tobin, you know, a fairly rapid increase in special education students, and these are students that are

legally

legally owed appropriate education services. My question is, if the federal government is not paying up to 40% of that cost, and I don't think we can control them,

and if these numbers keep increasing, would it be wise, in your opinion, for us to invest more money in early childhood education, specifically the early intervention services for age 0 to 3 that Alaska has a fairly high barrier to, unlike most states, to lower these special education numbers growing in the future?

future through the chair?

Through the chair, Representative Eischeid.

Yes.

I do believe that, in my opinion, that if they invest more in the infant learning program, specifically, that we would see a lot of that going down before they get into school. So even if it's infant learning, they come in and they're still maybe going to qualify for a little bit. I see that they're usually not on or in education or special education very long. They usually will test out eventually.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Turner. And we do know that if

we invest the 5 million required to reduce our developmental delay to 25%, that the program for infant learning will pay for itself in about six years. With that, we have another question from Representative Schwanke.

Uh thank you Madam Chair. I had a question for Ms Perret specifically on um school finance issues.

So last year when the operating budget passed, uh there was intent language in there that required it said that a school district shall report to the department twice annually, once by the end of the count period set out, and then once February first two twenty twenty six, the balance of each of the following funds, school operating funds, special revenue funds, capital project funds, other governmental funds, and then also ask for other classifications non-spendable fund balance restrictive

Restricted fund balance, committed fund balance, assigned fund balance, and assigned balance. Were these reports done and what kind of stress does that put on your administrators?

Yeah, thank you so much for the question through the Chair to Representative Schwalke. Um yes, these these are required so they're completed by staff to support these. Um those reports are very difficult for staff because

it's it's off-cycle. Some of those reporting are off-cycle from the way that districts normally would do business to compute some of that. And it's during a period of time when those numbers are in flux. So there's a lot of qualifications that districts provide when they're reporting on that because it's like uh taking a snapshot of your bank account and reporting that to your family maybe uh for some districts that would be on the day that you're

check is deposited before your mortgage comes out or any other bills are paid. For some districts it's coming in the cycle where they've paid all of their bills and they're waiting for a payment the next day. So it it it looks really different for different districts for different reasons. And that report specifically is very challenging for districts. So that's been one of the requests if there was going to be a burden that was taken off of the reporting, that would be one that ELASBO members would where

we requ request the legislature to change so that we didn't have to do that report specifically because we don't feel that it provides the kind of information that the legislature really can use to make decisions.

Quick follow up?

Very brief.

Okay, the reason I wanted to mention that specifically is I do think as a past school board member it's very important um for people to understand, especially like the capital fund accounts, I do believe a lot of districts have spent down those funds and we're

We're getting into dangerous territory. Um and then my last suggestion is um please make it um as transparent as possible as far as not just state funds but also federal funds. I know that was very hard as a school board member to get those numbers. So

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. And our last question will be from Senator Bjorkman.

Thank you, Madam Chair,

thank you, members of the committee, for all the great questions and conversation today.

Um

Friday, I met with a group of six kids from River City Academy, a small charter school on the Kenai Peninsula.

And their main ask was to advocate for their school and for me to help prevent their school from closing.

I had to be very frank with them and say, I'm not sure that I'm going to be able to do that,

but I'm going to work my hardest to make sure that you all have the educational opportunities that you need to be successful.

How we do that inside of a formula that increases to shift costs from state government to local government for many districts is increasingly concerning to many districts on the Kenai Peninsula. We're laser focused on that because although we passed a base student allocation increase of sizable proportions, effectively it only was $20 from the amount of money allocated the previous year.

And for the school budget on the Kenai, it meant about $3.4 million less

in state funds coming from the district. So it's fascinating to me to hear a little bit still about conversations of increasing the BSA when the BSA increase that we did last year resulted in a loss because of cost shifting to Anchorage of $7.3 million, to Fairbanks almost three

Senator

million.

Senator Bjorkman, can you get to your question, please?

Yes, ma'am. Many members have had significant leeway to talk today. I have talked

I recognize

this one

that. However,

time.

we are at 10:03, and

Thank

I apologize.

you, ma'am.

Many folks have other obligations.

As you look as you look forward to expressing and fixing our

formula, I would ask that you all consider how we can address this issue. Um many of the many of these other issues are of significant concern, but but none probably as much as this one. So um if you could focus on that, that would be most excellent. Thank you.

I'm not sure there was a question, but if you'd like to comment.

Uh uh through the chair to uh Senator Bjorkman, that is definitely a concern that we have and uh and share as well i in talking about the cost shift and to the rise of the local required contribution as well as the deductible impact aid portions um that could really support districts doing some innovative things. So that those are all issues that we're tracking. We'd be happy to provide some additional information.

Thank you. And thank you for everyone who presented today. I appreciate folks being cognizant that we had multiple presenters and a short time to get through each slide deck, so I very graciously extend my thanks for your practicing beforehand. This concludes our agenda for today. The next meeting of the Senate Education Committee will be at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1st. We will receive a presentation on the Alaska Native Language Center.

The next meeting of the House Education Committee will be at 8 a.m. on Wednesday, April 1st, and they will be considering several bills, including Senate Bill 23 by President Stevens. As there is no other business before the committee today, I will adjourn this meeting of the House and Senate Education Committee at 10:05 a.m.

Sam.