Alaska Legislature: House Education, 3/27/26, 8am

Education committee to order. It is Friday March twenty seventh twenty twenty six, and the time is eight oh three a.m. Gold stars to all of our committee members who are here. Representative Elam, Representative Deibert, Representative Schwenke, Representative Eishide, Representative Underwood, Co-Chair Story and myself, Co-Chair Himshoot, we have a quorum to conduct business. I'd like to remind members to silence their cell phones.

We are in the Betty Davis committee room, room one O_ six in the state capitol building in Juneau, Alaska. The documents for today's meeting have been distributed to members, are available on the table outside the door and are on basis. I'd also like to thank our Recording Secretary, Cale Brown, and our moderator from the Juneau LIO, Chloe Miller, and of course our super capable committee aids, Ella Lubin and Tammy Smith. Thanks to all of you for helping to make our meeting successful today.

Our agenda today has several items on it. We're um

going to let's see we're going to have a confirmation hearing of the governor's appointment to the professional teaching practices commission.

We'll hear H.B. three seventy six relating to the infant learning programme, H.J.R. forty five relating to the individuals with disabilities education act and H.B. three fifty eight relating to career and technical education. So to start with, I would like to welcome Michael Robbins, the superintendent of the Bristol Bay Borough School District. He's been appointed by the governor to serve in the superintendent's seat on the professional teaching practices commission. Um

Superintendent Robbins, if you could unmute,

introduce yourself and begin your comments this morning. Welcome.

Welcome.

Good morning,

Chairperson and members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

For the record,

my name is Michael Robbins and I serve as a superintendent of the Bristol Bay Borough School District.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

I am honored to have been re-nominated to continue serving on the Alaska Professional Teaching Practices Commission.

For the past two years it has truly been a privilege to serve on the PTPC.

The commission plays an important role in protecting Alaska's students and maintaining the integrity of the education profession.

Our work helps ensure that educators uphold strong ethical and professional standards,

which is essential for maintaining public trust in our schools and in the educator.

and any educators who serve our communities.

During my time on the commission,

we have continued working to strengthen the processes and protocols that guide our decisions.

We have also focused on increasing opportunities for professional development and ensuring that our work is both preventative and supportive of educators.

Throughout my career in education,

my philosophy has always been to make decisions based on what is best for students.

I believe that when we keep students in the center of our decision-making paradigms,

We make better choices for our schools, our educators,

and our communities.

I have served as principal in Tuxedo Bay and I've been a superintendent for the past four years working in rural Alaska. It has given me a deep appreciation for the dedication of educators across our state and the important role they play in the lives of students and families. It has been an honor to serve on the Professional Teaching Practices Commission.

And I'm very proud of the work the commission continues to do.

I would be grateful for the opportunity to continue serving in this role.

Thank you for your time today,

and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Go ahead.

Thank you for your introduction.

Are there questions for Superintendent Robbins this morning?

Representative Schwanke.

Uh thank you, Madam Co-chair. Thank you Superintendent Robbins for being here. I just have kind of a simple question. We've we've seen the pendulum swing a lot um over the last, well, several decades in education, um whether or not we want to really rely on the knowledge and education um of our individual educators or the curriculum and following it with fidelity to a T_ and I would like to hear your insight.

insights on what that looks like.

Sure. I think that curriculum is is a kind of a roadmap but where teachers are great and why we need teachers and why we need them in our classrooms is they make that roadmap come alive.

You can have all the curriculum you want,

but if you have a teacher that inspires and encourages and supports,

that is where kids learn.

That is where they get engaged in the learning process.

And I've seen in 30 years a variety of different curriculums.

Some are effective,

some are not,

but the great teacher always makes it work and continues to support our teachers and give them the tools and the opportunities.

to make that curriculum come alive that's the art of teaching that's the art of being an administrator and that's what makes a difference with kids

Thank you.

I'm going to follow up on that. I learned that

I think the official term is headmaster. I worked in an independent school in Hawaii and I learned recently that he had passed and we had carpooled for a period of time because we lived in the same area and this is when I was teaching in Hawaii and he said repeatedly teaching must be a vocation but also an avocation and it it really stuck with me that

You know, the vocation part of it is there are skills, there's science to it, there's a lot you have to know, and the avocation is just that heart and love that you bring to the job. Are there more questions for Superintendent Robbins this morning?

I just have one quick one. How do you how do you see the role of the P-T-P-C? Have you had interactions with the P-T-P-C in your role as superintendent?

in your or or principal as

a Right.

school leader here in Alaska

Well,

I've been on the commission for three years,

and I think we've done some really great work in not only professionally developing ourselves,

but providing an ethical background to teaching.

And I truly believe that every decision that we make on the commission since I've been there, and I'm sure in the past, has been what's best for our students and making sure that they're protected and that they're safe.

because that's when they truly learn and then they know that when our commission weighs in that does or that's what we're looking at when we try to make any decisions some of them are very difficult but I think when you make decisions for what's best for the student that certainly clarifies

Okay. Any final questions for Superintendent Robbins this morning?

Okay, great. And yeah, just once again, the P-T-P-C is an incredibly important part of the ecosystem of how our schools work for our kids. So um we're gonna have some paperwork, but it hasn't quite arrived with the committee yet. So I'm gonna continue down our agenda and take that pause um to sign the paperwork a little bit later.

Oh,

Oh, right. Totally forgot we have to do public testimony on this. Apologies. Um I'm gonna open public testimony on Michael Robbins.

And is there anyone in the room wishing to testify?

I don't see anyone in the room looking online.

Is there anyone?

I don't see anyone online either,

so we will close public testimony.

Apologies for that. Okay. And with that, um Superintendent Robins, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate your time this morning and your willingness to serve on P-T-P-C. Super important body.

Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Yep, take good care. Okay, we're gonna move on in our agenda and then we'll take that pause at some point once um once we have that paperwork.

So we're now going to move on to HB three seventy six, entitled an act related to early intervention services for certain children, relating to optional services under the medical assistance programme and providing for an effective date. This bill has been heard once in the committee during which we heard invited and public testimony. Only one amendment was received by the deadline and um so I'm looking for someone to move that amendment.

Representative Himshut?

Yes.

I move Amendment 1, also known as Work Order 3-4 LS 1545 A, Alpha 1.

Okay, and I'll object for purposes of discussion.

Representative

Story, would you like to speak to your amendment?

Yes, I would. Thank you, Co-chair Himshut. The amendment is on page six, line 31, where we would delete 2026 and insert the year 2028. And then again on page seven, line eight, delete July 1, 2026, and insert on the day after the date on which the United States Department of Health and Human Services approves the amendments to the state plan

or determines that approval is not necessary.

These dates were actually suggested to me by the department, just as they are looking to put this bill into play. They had asked for a little bit more time to keep working on it. They actually had asked for 2029, but in talking with the companion legislation on the Senate side,

and we wanted to - we understood their concerns, but we wanted to put 2028 there, because it's really important and we appreciate the department and they're going to try and work as fast as possible on this, but as we know they're busy. And so anyway, this is the amendment and I ask for your support.

Okay, I remove my objection. Are there any other objections?

Okay, seeing none, Amendment 1 is adopted.

And I'll now entertain a motion to move House Bill 376 from committee.

I move House Bill 376, also known as 34 LS 1545 A, as amended, from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes.

Is there any objection?

Seeing no objection, House Bill 376, also known as 34 LS 1545 A, moves from committee as amended with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes. And we will take a very brief at ease to do a little bit of paperwork. At ease.

Sam. It. Sam. It's sam.

Okay, we are um back on the record and we're going to move on to House joint resolution forty five entitled urging the United States Congress to fully fund the individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This is the first hearing of this revol um resolution. And I would like to welcome Co-chair Story and Tammy Smith to come forward, introduce yourself on the record and begin your presentation. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, co-chair Himshuit for the record, and committee. I appreciate being here today. For the record, I am Representative Andy Story and I have the honor of serving District 3, which is the North Mendenhall Valley here in Juneau, Fritz Cove, Auke Bay, out the road, Haines, Klukwan, Skagway and Gustavus.

Oh, and I'm Tammy Smith.

Oh, and I'm Cammy Smith, staff for Representative Story. Thank you.

Staff for Representative Story.

Thank you. Good morning.

Good morning. So this Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is considered one of the most important pieces of federal legislation of our time. The passage of Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, mandated that public schools provide a free and appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities.

The act also required a tailored individual education program, an IEP,

in the least restrictive environment,

thus mainstreaming children to ensure that all children are educated alongside their peers to the extent possible. At the same time, Congress committed to funding 40 percent of the average per pupil cost of special education.

Public Law ninety four dash one four two improved the lives of millions of children and their families and reshape the educational landscape for children with disabilities. Congress reauthorized and expanded the law in nineteen ninety,

renaming it the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act,

IDEA. The re reauthorization expanded early intervention,

transition services access

Access to related service providers,

inclusion in the general curriculum,

participation in state and district assessments,

and school accountability. It changed the federal funding requirement to say to pay up to forty percent for the average per pupil cost of special education.

Unfortunately,

IDEA's value is being undermined by chronic federal underfunding.

Actual funding has been historically far lower than the forty percent requirement, often around ten to fifteen percent of the original act.

The shortfall has created an unfunded mandate, shifting the cost burden to states and local governments.

The result has been larger case loads, educated burnout, difficulty recruiting and retaining specialized staff, worried parents,

frustrated administrators and reduced services for our children,

at times replacing in-person support with web-based or online services. Litigation has also become a worrisome aspect of IDEA.

In Alaska,

these pressures are even greater.

Our districts already face high costs, workforce shortages and the challenges of serving students across rural and remote communities.

The federal government should not shift this fiscal responsibility onto states and local districts after setting the national standard and creating the legal obligation. HJR 45 sends a simple message.

Asking Congress to honor its commitment to funding IDEA at forty percent as initially legislated. Fully funding IDEA is an investment in children,

families, equity and fundamental human rights.

In this um

resolution. We also urge that Congress to fund uh resolution two five nine eight, which is a congressional resol resolution. And this is actually a glide path incremental funding bill.

which, after its certain years, it increases uh slowly up to that forty percent. So this resolution asks them to fund that bill or full funding of IDEA now, the full forty percent. So with that presentation, I actually have um four people for invited testimony today, and I'm hoping we can hear the testimony and then

And not take questions after that.

That sounds great. I wanna let the committee know we also have Donald Enoch with the department online, um and he is the special education administrator for the department. So we are gonna start with, uh we have four folks for invited testimony, however only three are online right now. So we we may miss one. Uh so we're gonna go first to

Kelly McBride with the Galena School District,

if you could please unmute yourself and introduce yourself and begin your testimony.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Good morning co-chairs Himscht and Story and committee members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

For the record, my name is Kelly McBride and I support House.

Alaska House Joint Resolution HJR 45 seeking full federal funding of IDEA from Congress because it helps to keep our promise to serve Alaska's highest needs students well so every child can have the chance to succeed.

Currently I serve as the Director of Student Support Services for the Galena City School District.

Our district is unique because we support local students with disabilities and also serve students from all over Alaska through our GILA residential career tech school and the IDEA homeschool correspondence program.

Before I became an administrator I taught special education in urban and rural communities primarily working with students with low incidence disabilities.

Later I supported small and large districts as a coordinator.

entered to part in the LEND program and taught future special educators as an adjunct faculty member for both LEND and UAA.

I am also a member of the Council for Administrators of Special Education.

We all know the commitment,

compassion,

and tireless effort required to support students.

While teaching is demanding,

special education places expectations on the educators and paraprofessionals who do this work every day.

What we are facing is not new,

but it is becoming more urgent.

urgent.

Across the country,

there aren't enough special education teachers and related service providers.

In Alaska,

this problem is even harder because of our large distances and limited access to medical and related services.

Many communities can only be reached by plane or boat and some have no local medical providers.

Still,

our students'

needs are just as important as they are anywhere else.

In our district, we serve more than 500 students with IEPs. We're very grateful to the Special Education Service Agency,

CESA, for its partnership to help us serve students with low incidence disabilities.

Even so,

the needs keep growing.

Our district supports students with many types of disabilities,

including learning and communication challenges,

autism,

intellectual and developmental disabilities,

traumatic brain injuries,

emotional disturbance,

hearing and visual impairments.

environments, and multiple disabilities.

These students are our responsibility.

They deserve the same chance as any other.

their child to get a good education.

To help them we need enough qualified and stable staff and that is where we feel the most strain.

Our universities are not graduating enough special education teachers to meet the need.

Districts have to rely on teachers with waivers who are the least prepared but face the most complex needs.

They work very hard but many understandably burn out.

International hiring has helped us but higher costs and the extra training needed to make them successful.

make it hard to sustain.

Paraprofessionals who are the backbone of support for our most intensive and medically fragile students are also hard to recruit and keep.

Their pay cannot compete with many private sector jobs, especially in rural Alaska where food, fuel,

and housing costs much more than the national average.

It is hard for us to find related service providers,

especially for in-person work.

Our district contracts with school psychologists,

speech language pathologists,

occupational and physical therapists.

an audiologist and a teacher for the deaf,

ASL interpreters,

a teacher of the visually impaired,

counselors,

a behavior analyst,

and an adapted PE teacher.

I recognize that the dedication of our special education teachers and paraprofessionals and the real burnout they face.

These educators give their all to support students with complex needs.

Our work matters and it's also emotionally and physically hard.

When we do not have enough staff,

the workload becomes too much.

Burnout does not mean they lack commitment. It shows that our systems are stretched too far.

Our teachers and paraprofessionals deserve the tools, time,

and support they need to keep doing this important work for students with disabilities.

Even though our educators work very hard,

families sometimes feel we fall short and their children do not receive the free and appropriate public education or FAPE in the least restrictive environment when we're forced to do more with less.

I ask you to support HJR 45,

which would provide.

Provide full funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to support the excess cost of special education.

That commitment has never been met.

Rural districts, particularly in Alaska,

cannot absorb the gap.

While Alaska's 1.2 special needs multiplier is helpful,

it is not sufficient to meet the level of services required for students with disabilities,

especially in rural and high-cost communities where the actual cost of delivering specialized instruction and related services far exceeds the current formula.

Federal funding streams have decreased or become unstable. Districts face impossible decisions.

cutting programs,

reducing staff,

or deferring maintenance on deteriorating buildings.

In Alaska, these shortfalls are not just minor inconveniences. They limited a child's ability to participate.

Those rights cannot be met without stable,

predictable,

and adequate funding.

Full federal funding of the IDEA is not optional, it's essential.

In closing,

as a professional and as a parent of a kindergarten,

I urge you to support the resolution in support of the congressional bill.

bill to seek full federal funding for our students from Congress.

Every child deserves a quality education,

and your support for this resolution is key to keeping that promise.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you for your testimony.

Does the committee have questions for Director McBride?

Actually, we do have one question.

Representative Elam.

Thank you.

I appreciate you coming in and your...

support for the the resolution I was wondering if you could maybe just talk to how it is that idea interacts in some of the special needs areas as a program in general I find it interesting as a topic because there's a lot of correspondence and and remote learning opportunities that that you guys provide and how do you how do you balance some of that with some of those special needs

Director

Through

the?

the chair.

We have special education teachers at each of our IDEA home schools sites.

It gets really tricky talking about the IDEA special ed law and IDEA home school.

We have special education teachers that provide guidance to the parent on meeting their child's needs so they work through the goals together.

They help them figure out what curriculum to use, how to collect data,

work with them when things aren't going well to problem solve and we provide related services.

There are,

I think we have nine students we have cooperative agreements with where they're enrolled with us and we share the enrollment FTE with their boundary school so they might go there for speech therapy and then be homeschooled for the rest of their curriculum.

But the rest of those students we provide the related service.

So we have one speech therapist that's our employee and then we contract with an agency to provide the rest of the services through telehealth. So the students would log on to telehealth to access.

to access speech therapy or maybe come into the office to get occupational therapy or physical therapy.

We have some students with complex needs that have an audiologist or a teacher of the deaf or someone else to support the team in addition to CESA.

Hello?

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. My youngest uses the telehealth services for some of those. And so it's really cool.

Thank you.

Okay. And

You're welcome.

We have a question from Representative Divert.

Good morning. Through the co-chair to Ms. McBride, thank you for being here this morning and for your testimony. I was more curious about the part where you'd mentioned like waiver teachers coming in to help out and visa teachers.

Can you, I

I was not a special ed teacher. I was a third grade teacher, so I saw it from that side. But I know that there's the teaching part

And then most of the part is paperwork and then there's also meetings with parents and also educators, the team that's working with the student. So it is a heavy lift and when you have a new teacher to the country, a waiver teacher, can you just how do you support

someone who comes into these fields that it is a very intense job.

McBride.

Through the chair.

And it's it requires a lot more support than a teacher who's fully prepared,

even a teacher who has gone through a whole experience of practicum and internship or we used to call it student teaching.

They need a lot of support.

And when you get somebody who's only taken the minimum of nine hours,

we don't know what courses they might be.

They just don't have the foundational knowledge, so they need a lot more onboarding upfront to understand what's required.

There's a we ask a lot of special education teachers.

and I can say from personal experience we tend to be martyrs so we say oh I don't need a lunch break I don't need a prep I can write this IEP on my own time at night and we that's how we burn people out there's a lot of a lot of paperwork a lot of collaborating with other teachers they just the waiver teachers are trying their best but very rarely do they become lifelong special educators because it's just too much too soon

And our international teachers,

we have several from the Philippines and they're lovely,

lovely hardworking people.

They have hearts of gold.

They come from a system that looks and feels very different than our system.

So they need a lot of training to understand our laws and to,

you know, in our Galena sites,

I run most of their meetings and I write most of the IEPs and they just, they need a lot more intensive support than a fully qualified teacher.

Representative Schwanke.

Thank you, Madam Co-chair. Director McBride, could you expand a little bit on what it would mean if we were able to actually expand special education funding, both with the 1.2 multiplier as well as the intensive multiplier to our correspondence population here in the state of Alaska?

Director McBride.

through the chair.

So for us it means that right now we pay for those services because we're obligated to provide for those children whatever is in their IEP but it comes out of our operating funds so it takes away from other students and programs.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, follow up.

Follow up.

Do you have an estimated cost to

provide those services?

I'd have to talk to our business office. I'm not sure off the top of my head for all of it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I think we're going to move on now to our next testifier.

Thank you so much for your time, Director McBride, and for your insights. We'll go on now to Olivia Yancey with the Special Education Service Agency.

If we could get Director Yancey on,

could you, I'm not seeing,

I'm not seeing.

okay,

on the phone.

Good morning.

So yeah,

Yeah.

good morning. Just as a reminder,

if you could be on the phone and not on speakerphone,

that works a whole lot better with our technology.

And if you could go ahead and put your name on record and begin your testimony,

we're excited to hear from you.

Good morning, Co-Chair Henshute and members of the House Education Committee.

Thank you, Co-Chair Story,

for the opportunity to testify in support of House Joint Resolution No. 45.

For the record,

this is Olivia Yancey, Executive Director of Special Education Service Agency.

Given the South Education Committee has already received an overview of CSIS services offered to Alaskans through this legislative session,

my objective for this testimony is to highlight CSIS observations of beings across the state in the field of special education and to fully support the resolution we have before you.

In February 2025,

the Council for Exceptional Children

develop the fact sheet,

IDEA, and federal funding to briefly summarize how IDEA provides federal financial assistance to states through formula and discretionary grants.

To receive these funds,

states must offer free,

appropriate public education, states for all infants,

toddlers, children,

and youth with disabilities.

However,

congressional appropriations for funding under IDEA are not matching the current need for Alaskans.

Within the same fact sheet, it states that at the state level,

IDEA funding supports initiatives such as technical assistance,

staff development,

and professional training.

Special Education Service Agency,

as you may know as CISA,

strives to provide technical assistance and professional learning opportunities for Alaskans, working with students that have low-incidence disabilities,

which is about 1% of the school-age population.

Because of belief, every child deserves access to a high-quality education that meets their unique needs.

The resolution you have before you emphasizes high-quality education and ensuring each child has the opportunity to succeed in reaching the child's full learning potential.

It also emphasizes that an individualized education program requires a strict,

rigorous legal process using evaluations conducted by highly qualified and trained professionals who provide standardized assessments and analyze comparison data involving input from the parents,

educators,

specialists,

and administrative officials.

This school year,

DCSA has a small team of highly qualified professionals with an average of 13 years of teaching and consulting experience.

With over 160 as of this March 4th urban rural and rural remote sites,

CISA has observed the following.

There is an increased need for consistent for consistent in-person highly qualified professionals providing direct services to students on site with the professional experience in various teaching learning environments.

including but not limited to resource rooms,

mainstream education,

and how to teach students that require additional learning in self-contained in the field of special education.

There are a number of sites without a full-time special education teacher on site and we've observed that many paraprofessionals are working with itinerant special education teachers or telepractice services which means that there's a lot of work and gaps that could also be occurring.

For students that see the special star sign,

that doesn't mean that they're not hardworking.

For those school sites with a full-time special education teacher on site,

they have less time to engage in professional development opportunities due to high caseloads.

This increases the value of time that SISA sees when they offer them to us to review our assessment results and engage in coaching opportunities for how to teach a student with this unique need.

There also continue to be several hard to fill direct service provider positions that our school districts we see need.

In essence,

it's a work our way out of the job if we can have these in there in the school districts depending on the caseload.

Teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing,

teachers of visually impaired,

deafblind teachers,

education audiologists,

assistive technology specialists,

and AAC specialists.

We've also observed, which is consistent across many years,

receives a high turnover of special education teachers in rural and rural remote school sites, and that is a reality which then prevents our ability to move on from some of the recommendations we had one year because we're onboarding new teachers or paraprofessionals to the original plan we had in place during our initial consultation.

FEMA was created to ensure that qualified specialists are available to assist rural and rural remote Alaskan districts without regard to their location in the state in a provision of free and appropriate public education for students with these unique needs.

The need for special education services is growing both nationally and within Alaska.

Thesis number of referrals steadily increased.

However,

our own funding is not keeping up with increasing requests from the school district,

workforce shortages in the field of low-incidence disabilities,

and rising costs.

Decrease in available funds to maintain competitive salaries for thesis staff due to inflation despite best efforts of the Department of Education and Early Development to supplement with one-time additional funding is a reality.

Since 2024 to 2025,

the school year,

FISA has had to initiate a wait list for two of our programs given consistent and steady increases requests from Alaskan school districts.

With a fixed number of students per specialist that can reasonably be visited in one school year on-site,

there are at least, as of now,

this morning, nine students and their school teams on a wait list across seven school districts in South Central,

Southeast,

Southwest,

Interior,

and Northwest regions of Alaska.

One of those teams waiting includes a student in a correspondence program and their family.

This waitlist could create a gap in the timeliness that every student deserves when a school team is evaluating and determining appropriate services for the student.

This resolution is urgent.

The critical window for learning for students with low-incidence disabilities is now.

This resolution is necessary,

seeks a special to work hard and need your support to continue building local capacity and reteaching when high turnover of special education teachers is our reality.

This resolution identifies a systematic underfunding at the federal level local school teams need staffing they need the personnel development and the time to engage in personnel development and resources to do their job.

Alaskans deserve access to high quality education regardless of their unique needs.

CIF has committed along with the individuals behind this resolution to increase children's potential to be skilled productive and talented members of our society.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Are there questions for Director Yancey from the committee? I know we've heard from CSAP before, so okay. Okay, great. Let's move to our um final invited testifier as least as far as I can see um the other person we were expecting is not online. Were we expecting anyone in the room?

It was going to come up.

Okay, not not seeing that person right now. So uh let's go to Sally Stockhausen um who is the Director of Special Education in Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District and a familiar face. Good morning, thank you for being with us this morning. Um please put your name on record and share your testimony with us.

Good morning. My name is Sally Stockhausen. Thank you for the opportunity to share this morning.

I'm the Special Education Director for Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District.

I'm also on the State Board of Education,

but to be clear,

I'm speaking my professional role as a special educator,

not in my state board role.

As a special education director,

I'm proud to stand in strong support of House Resolution 45 urging Congress to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act idea.

IDEA.

I echo much of what Director McBride shared,

and I'm thankful for the services from CESA shared by Director Yancey.

For nearly five decades,

IDEA has represented a promise,

a commitment that every child with a disability is entitled to a free and appropriate public education tailored to their unique needs.

This law has truly transformed lives, opening doors to opportunity,

independence and meaningful participation in our communities.

When Congress passed IDEA, it pledged to fund up to 40% of the excess cost of educating students with disabilities,

and today that contribution remains far below that level.

As a result,

state and local school districts...

are forced to bridge the gap, often stretching already limited resources.

This impacts not only special education programmes but the broader education system as well. Fully funding IDEA is not simply a fiscal issue, it is a moral and legal obligation.

Adequate funding would allow schools to reduce caseloads and therefore improve individualised instruction.

Expand access to related services such as speech,

occupational and behavioral therapies,

invest in evidence-based interventions and inclusive practices,

recruit and retain highly qualified special education professionals,

and strengthen partnerships with families and communities.

Most importantly,

full funding would ensure that students with disabilities receive high quality education they deserve,

one that prepares them for further education,

employment.

and independent living.

This resolution sends a clear and necessary message that we must move beyond acknowledging the importance of IDEA and take concrete steps to fulfill its promise.

I urge lawmakers at the federal level to honor their commitment. Fully funding IDEA is an investment in equity and opportunity and the future of our nation.

Thank you so much for your leadership and for standing in support of all learners.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Are there questions from the committee?

I'm not I d I have a question and I'm not sure if it's for any of our invited testifiers or maybe the the sponsor of the resolution. I'm just gonna put it out there and and let um Co-Chair Storey direct where the question goes. But Co-Chair Storey, I wanna make sure I understand correctly. A federal law passed called IDEA and that law basically said everyone gets an education, no matter

what your ability or disability, whatever you want to call it, you get an education, a free and public education. So they created this law, and based on that law families have had to sue at times to receive the rights guaranteed under that law. And those lawsuits have directed that we must do certain things in the school.

when idea was passed, the idea was that it would be uh idea idea.

Okay.

Anyway, the concept

I don't know.

was that the federal government would step up with the support needed to make sure that every child can have that free educat free and appropriate education. So my question is the law drove court cases.

And I think the good will of our schools was there to meet the needs of these students, but at times we have fallen short. And so the court cases are based on the law, which was never funded. So it's created kind of a I don't know if if if I'm saying this correctly,

but a law was passed that was not funded, schools fell short, and lawsuits have said you can't fall short. So now even if schools are doing their very best,

Um it sometimes requires taking funds from other programmes to meet the needs of the kids that we have been directed by the courts and this federal law to meet. Is that an accurate understanding of the law?

Thank you for that question, Co-Chair Himshoot. That is my understanding. And certainly I think one of our testifiers said today something just to that exact effect. We're mandated and we want to serve these students. They need their services. And so that has to be funded and support. So we have. The school districts have to cut funds from other parts of the programs to do that.

Sure.

And I don't know if Ms. Stockhausen wanted to comment on that, too. I can see her nodding her head on there.

Sure. Ms. Stockhausen, do you want to add anything to that through the chair?

Through the chair, this is Sally Stockhausen. I was nodding my head in agreement.

Okay, great. Are there questions from the committee for Director Stockhausen?

Okay, seeing none.

We do have one more testifier who's calling in right now. So I'm going to make a proposal that we take a really quick at ease, sign that paperwork from earlier, and then come back on when our fourth testifier is online.

And I have to say one thing before we sign all of that. In accordance with AS 39.05.080, the House Education Committee held a hearing on the following appointees, Michael Robbins. A signature on this report does not reflect an intent by any of the members to vote for or against the confirmation of the individual during any further sessions. It basically is just an acknowledgement that we did hear from Mr. Robbins this morning. So with that in mind, we're going to take a quick at ease.

We are back on record and we have one more invited testifier on this resolution today. If Stacy Duke could unmute yourself, and Stacy is the principal in Juneau School District. If you could please put your name on record and begin your testimony. Thank you for being here.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Good morning. My name is Stacey Chu,

and I'm the principal of Syacute Castino Community School in Douglas,

and part of the Juneau School District,

and I'm calling in today to support the resolution to encourage the federal government to fully support and fund special education.

As you all are deeply aware,

in Alaska in particular, we've been hit over the past few years with a lack of funding. We so appreciate the increase in the BSA last year.

However,

with special education,

it is imperative that it is fully funded.

at every single level.

The diverse needs of students who are in special education can vary from accommodations in the classroom up to a one-on-one adult with the child throughout the day.

When we are in schools and we do not have proper funding for special education,

there's a number of different impacts.

One, most primarily,

it would be the impact on staffing without special education teachers,

without paraeducators supporting students.

We are,

we all suffer,

most importantly the student and the families who really rely and depend on student staff to provide the required amount of services in a child's IEP.

So without proper funding,

if we don't have enough paraeducators,

we don't have enough special education staff,

it impacts us at every level and as a principal I cannot do my job if we are not fully staffed.

And then the other.

I would say it's just across our nation we are facing a teacher shortage and I think it has directly to do to the lack of funding in education in special education especially so we don't have as many people coming in and who are willing to do the very rewarding job of being a special education teacher because it just doesn't pay enough so it really impacts us at every single level and as you all know in Alaska everything is more expensive.

And so without that proper funding,

we all really struggle to meet the very unique and diverse needs of our students.

So I encourage you to support this resolution.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your testimony,

Principal Doof. It's so impressive to me we have people who are actively out in classrooms right now or out in their schools doing their work and helping us with the information that we need. So I'm so grateful.

Are there any questions for Principal Doof?

Seeing none, I want to thank you again for um calling in this morning. And um

I'd like to go ahead and open up public testimony, but are there questions on the bill before we hear public testimony? Questions on this legislation? Okay.

I'm gonna go ahead and open public testimony. And I'm looking to see if anyone in the room wishes to testify. I don't see anyone, and then I don't see anyone online either.

We may have one person online.

Oh Patrick Reinhart of course. Great. We do have Patrick Reinhart online,

the Executive Director for the Governor's Council on Disability and Special Education,

calling in from Anchor Point.

Executive Director Reinhart, could you put your name on the record please and begin your testimony.

Yes, thank you.

For the record, my name is Patrick Bernard,

Executive Director of the Governor's Council on Disabilities and Special Education.

I'd like to thank Chairman Henshaw for members of the committee for the opportunity to testify this morning.

I really would like to thank Representative Story for presenting it.

As you know, the Governor's Council on Disabilities and Special Education,

we have special education in our name and that is because by statute we are the Special Education Advisory Panel for the state, a requirement of the IDEA.

States have a special advisory council,

you know, that body.

And we are also a governing body of TEACHER, you heard from Director Yancey earlier.

It has been a long-standing position of the council that Congress should fund,

fully fund IDEA for decades.

From the very beginning of our council,

you can see that we've...

We supported fully funding IDA,

so we appreciate this resolution to do so.

We hope that Congress will listen as one of these years is fully funded.

You've heard that our special education programs struggle across the state and any more funding that we can get from the federal government to move us from what we look at, we see about 11% funding to get us to 40% would be a huge and significant.

improvement in resources for our special education programs across the state.

So we just want to add our voice to those supporting it.

We will send in a letter of support for it as well, but thank you again for listening to this and hopefully supporting it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony this morning and for everything the Council does.

So seeing no one else in the room or online to testify,

I'm going to close public testimony.

And um if there are no more questions from the committee, I would uh welcome oh question?

Professor Eichheit.

Yeah, thank you Co-Chair Hemshute. I just want to mostly make a statement, you know

Mm.

This has been an issue historically. I remember asking a US senator about twenty five years ago in the state of Wisconsin about increasing this funding, meeting that target of forty percent. Back then it was about eighteen percent, so it's been going down. And just

from the perspective of a teacher,

As a science teacher I had many special education students mainstreamed into my classroom. I welcomed that, provided a high quality experience, but as class sizes increase it's often difficult to meet the needs of those students and it's fundamentally not fair. So we've talked about unfunded mandates before in this committee. This is an unfunded mandate that affects kids. And so

I hope someday I see the full forty percent funding that the federal government says it would do. So I just want to make sure that everyone knows this really affects kids, and it's long overdue. Thank you.

Thank you Representative Eichstadt and I think I would want to just echo that by saying it's been so long I think a lot of folks in DC don't even know anymore that like they've just lost

sight of the obligation. So Coach Erstori, did you have some closing comments? I should have asked that.

The one closing comment I'd like to make through the chair to everyone besides thank you all of this because this is a committee sponsored bill and so I appreciate that. I was at a conference and I don't know how many of you have had a chance in your careers to hear from Michael Degnan who is a education guru and a s person and he gave a talk one time and he was talking about special education and it's always stuck with me.

me. He said the I've he goes hands down, the United States has the most best education system in the world.

Mm-hmm.

And we're like tell us more. And he said it is because we fund students who have disabilities. Other countries they do not.

And we have it in our law to make sure everyone gets a free appropriate education and we see the value in every child and their potential and our system is set up to do that.

Now we said again, we're looking at the funding issue, but you know just him stepping back and giving me the that big picture of it that we in the United States we see that. And so I think it's really important that we send a message to Congress about the glide path bill to be funding that and they're moving in the wrong direction as Representative Eshite said and so I think we need to spur them on to stand behind these children and the law that really does make us truly great.

Great that we see that. So anyway,

thank you for that.

I'm just going to take the latitude to mention exactly what you said, Co-Chair Story. In my own classroom, I saw over the years how the interactions with students who are identified as having special needs changed within the classroom because I started in a system where we were pulling out more and when we did more inclusion and

Yeah, it added challenges to teaching, but it also enriched the classroom so much and the experience that kids had together was just

fun to watch. So okay, with that, Representative Divert.

Yes, I move that HGR 45, also known as 34 LS155 1, backslash I as amended be moved from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes.

The numbers.

Okay.

Seeing no objections, that motion has passed and we will now take a brief at ease to sign the committee report. Brief at ease.

Final order of business is HB358 entitled An act establishing the Career and Technical Education Mobility Grant program relating to pre-apprenticeship and work-based learning opportunities for secondary school students and providing for an effective date. This bill has been heard twice in this committee, once for introduction, invited testimony, and once for public testimony.

So we're bringing it back now before the committee to discuss several questions that were asked during its previous hearing. And we also have

Deputy Director Kelly Manning and Brad Billings from the Department of Education and Early Development and Director Dirk Kraft from the Department of Labor and Workforce Development are available for questions. And we have Zach Stenson online as well who is representing himself today.

who's representing himself today. So

So,

Representative Elam, if you and your staff would like to give us a recap or reintroduction to the bill, please put your names on record and begin.

Good morning. My name is Bill Elam. I am representative of House District 8, the Northern and Eastern Kenai Peninsula, and my staff here through the chair.

Okay.

Through the chair, my name is Kendra Broussard, staff to Representative Elam.

Thank you. Um you uh I just first

Thank you for hearing the bill. Um on on Wednesday we had a lot of of presentations that really related to a lot of the subject matter here um that we have in House Bill three fifty eight. And and I guess I would just kind of start by saying that this particular bill

As was highlighted throughout Wednesday, there's there's a lot of programs that we have. Um there's a lot of C_T_ opportunities, there's spots where there are no real opportunities. And in the intent of this bill is really to create a framework and kind of a system to be able to bring structure to allow all of those programs to work together and for us to be able to uh take advantage of of areas where we're good.

In NCTE, where we've made a lot of investment and maybe where we have some economy of scale, and then also to be able to share those rewards um and abilities throughout the rest of the state, um but it does so in a way that respects all of the boundaries uh of our districts uh it keeps funding in districts where it starts and where it goes, it doesn't uh it doesn't do anything

I

crazy in any of those areas.

What it does is it allows us to be able to better

support our students. And then also to be able to bring those ties in with industry through like the pre-apprenticeship, through the Department of Labor,

DED administering the program.

So, and it's also not really anything specifically new,

but there is a couple of components to it that is more on the leading edge of where some of these CTE programs have been, and that is tying it all together so that we're not all marching in different directions, but rather

bringing all of our communities together across the state.

Again,

I really appreciate everybody's

uh insights and and um presentations from Wednesday. So uh happy to have uh more conversation if anybody has questions. I wasn't gonna necessarily put anybody on the spot here today to to provide any testimony, 'cause we heard a lot uh on Wednesday. So if uh if folks have questions or comments, um we uh we stand ready, I think.

Okay. There's a lot to the bill. So are there questions?

Co-chair Story.

Yes, I have several questions, but I'll just start with one and then let other members ask questions and come back to me. So through the chair, one of the questions that I have has to go to how they're awarded the grants, mostly because of some of the presentations we had. There are, you know, deserts of

CTE offerings. And I was wondering if you could sort of go over how they would be awarded

Mm.

and any questions that we might need to clarify on that system. And I was looking for the section right now where that is, and I'm sorry, I couldn't find the reference in the line number, but maybe you can zoom in on that.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

Yep.

Okay.

Um represent

Yep.

Elam?

Through the chair, thank you. Um

I mean,

really deed would get, you know, a lot of of ability in this process. So I I wouldn't wanna speak for for them as much as, you know, maybe even bring them in to participate in some of the conversation. Um but the the purpose of the bill is to provide intent that that puts structure in prioritisation of of hosting districts or rule districts, remote districts, and then also the

the types of things that you would be applying for,

right? And so one of the areas that comes to mind for me is

ventilation you know if you're if you're doing a welding program ventilation programs for an osha type setup it's not cheap and it's not just a simple you know go in and put a couple fans in the shop class it's it's an extensive amount of work to do it the right way and so in like a larger district of say the matsu kenai anchorage

We make those investments because we have students that are coming in,

but I know my district in particular needs some assistance in some of those areas.

And so what this would do is it prioritizes districts that are hosting for, say, a smaller community in western Alaska where you have five or six communities. If you're.

Coming to one of these welding shops to get certification, to spend those hours, that would be something that would prioritize.

That project on the list through this bill.

Let's say you were doing outboard repair.

There's a lot of opportunities here in a variety of industries.

But let's say, you know, my district has partnerships with places like Yamaha Outboard and we put on, you know, workshops,

a boot camp,

if you will,

where we have our students come in. Right now there isn't a framework.

To do it well, where the costs can be kind of shared, it's usually the cost of all of this is borne on the shoulders of the sending district.

They will.

So, you know, a small Western Alaska district doesn't have the necessarily the funding to be able to send their students, but they have to bear the burden of most of those costs. And so this allows us to be able to do some of that sharing to be able to host.

So a hosting district would get that prioritization for sharing that. And so imagine you know any anywhere in Alaska where having a outboard repairman or Yamaha small engine person wouldn't be of great value to those communities.

Mm follow.

Follow up.

Uh thank you for that explanation um and I the department is here so maybe they could come in too, but um I'm wondering if there wasn't a way, should there be a framework in here, an amendment or something to say w as the department looks at awarding these grants and they can be done in

many ways like equipment or other ways too, like they have to be spread out to certain regions, like every region should have three or anyway I don't know if that's something you considered to make sure that it is available to places who might not

normally qualify.

And if I may,

I mean, that is an opportunity for conversation that we could have.

The way some of the wording is throughout the bill.

is as it's all subject to appropriations so right now the framework the way it is allows a lot of flexibility if there is funding from the state then it also allows there to be able to be rewarding or awards granted so i would be

weary to change too much of that because you would create lanes then,

right,

that would keep maybe some of that district-to-district type communication going on.

So like in Western Alaska,

for example, we have a large number of cohorts that are working together,

so we wouldn't want to necessarily limit their abilities to be able to work together or with large districts being able to work together. So

So I don't necessarily disagree,

but I'm open to the idea and the conversation of trying to see what we could do there.

Yes, I was thinking like something of developing a rubric

Hmm.

or maybe even a guidance thing, it didn't have to go by it, but something that

Yep.

could be looked for a guide. And then one I'll make one other question and that is I see in the fiscal note that it has the personnel for the department to work on this, but we don't have an addition of

an appropriation like we don't have half a million or something in here to give the department something to work with and give the districts you know more opportunities.

Is that something that you would be amenable to in a motion to add a certain fiscal note

for certain grant award money?

Perhaps I will.

Yeah, I mean, I am definitely open to the idea of being able to award some grants.

I was expecting to get a finance committee hearing, and so I was sort of anticipating having more of that conversation whenever I got over there.

But yeah,

I would like it to be funded.

Um

Representative Diebert.

Thank you through the co-chair. Thank you Representative Elam for bringing the bill forward. It's a great bill, and a very good concept and something we need here in Alaska. And I know it's been about a week since I've heard this. Can you remind me

the district flexibility? So if you have a high school student and they want to learn a CTE program in a neighboring district and have to travel there or something, if they have you know travel time takes time, it's money times money. Can you

if they need to take credit in English and science and all their other credits, can they also take that while they're visiting another district? Or how I don't know, that's just a thought. While you're traveling somewhere, do you have opportunities to take other credits? Thank you.

Ms. Elam?

So that's a great question, and if I'm completely honest, I hadn't really thought too much about that, the way that I would anticipate seeing it.

And so, I mean, we have some folks here that might be able to help answer that question better.

But I would assume that it would function very similar to when we have, you know, sporting events, you know, where they're gone for several days.

You know, this is longer periods where it would potentially be, you know,

a week or two.

So I don't know that I have a good answer for that.

I know that, you know, through my personal experience with students, and I'm not a teacher,

so I don't necessarily have the greatest depth of knowledge in that area. But

But when my children travel,

you know, we catch up on our homework and everything when we're traveling. And so I would imagine that it would still be just as flexible in those areas.

But I don't know for sure.

Thank you. We'll go now to Representative Schwanke.

Thank you, Madam Co-Chair.

Rep. Elam, I am very supportive of the bill concept, and I do appreciate Rep. Storey's question kind of about how potential grant funds down the line would actually be administered.

So maybe we can continue to have that conversation, but I wanted to point out something that I feel is really great with the bill as is with no fiscal.

no for appropriation for grants at the moment because the wording um in here says that deed would collaborate with labour and expand a pre-apprenticeship and work-based learning opportunities. And I think we have to realise that there are um

There are excessive needs in our rural districts. Some of the smallest districts where we may only have a handful of high school kids, we don't have a shop, we don't have a vo-ed teacher, we don't have programs like that. But almost every one of our rural villages does have some form of business or tribal organization.

We all have schools, so we have that professional opportunity there in the village. And so

what I really like about the bill as written is that it allows deed to really start that coordination on what do what do work-based learning opportunities look like and how to facilitate that between districts and so I can I can just say one of the most popular work-based credit programs in the Copper River School District you wouldn't even expect it is um for youth that go to Bristol Bay and go to commercial fish during the summertime and

m uh most of those kids through our correspondence programme have been able to be set up with a work-based learning opportunity where they are graded by their boat captains who don't like the paperwork, but fully understand the benefit to their employees.

a.k.a. students. So I I would love for this bill to go through as is and give the department some flexibility here um without an initial appropriation for grants necessarily, but to establish a framework and structure and um could you expand, could you think a little bit more on how that might um be implemented even in some of the bigger districts as far as the work opportunities?

Representative Elam.

Thank you. Uh yeah uh I mean that's a b a couple of really really good points. Um I I know even my own home district they were very excited to to hear about this and even if there is no grant awards it allows them to be able to have a a structured framework that says here's how we can do this collaboration. And and so um our community has invested heavily in health care in the central

central peninsula area and so Whittier for example tried to take advantage of our CNA program and we also partner with middle college and a variety of things and they really struggled between Anchorage and Kenai to be able to figure out how to work together because there wasn't a good structured framework to be able to do that and what this allows them to do is to be able to to say this is this is how we're going to do this and so

part

Um uh I I think that the limitations that we have as far as how this can work within the workforce is really limited to our creativity and so uh there's a lot of opportunity there.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Other questions from the committee? What chair story did you have? You've been working away over there.

Do you have a few more questions?

Thank you. Through the chair, page four

Thank you.

line 27, which is in other parts where it says collaborate with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. I feel like we're doing that already. So

can you and so has that not been in statute already or why are we putting this in statute? Or what am I missing?

Um,

Ms. Avila.

Hate to put people on the spot, but I might ask

Mr. Billings, if he might be interested in actually getting more in depth on that if he would like to. Yeah.

Uh.

Please

Please come forward.

come forward and put yourself on record and let us know if you need the question repeated.

record and let us know if you

need the question repeated.

I'm Brad Billings. I'm the administrator for Career and Technical Education at the Department of Education and Early Development. Could you repeat the question?

Sure.

Thank you. Through the chair to Mr. Billings. On this bill, and it's actually in a couple different spots, but on page four, line 27 through 30, it says collaborate with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development under gives us.

statute identify and expand pre-apprenticeship and work-based learning opportunities for secondary s school students using existing workforce or training programmes wea where practicable. And I feel like we are doing that right now, that that's been happening. And so I'm wondering why this is needed in this particular bill.

Yeah. Thank you. So through the co-chair,

we currently have local arrangements and so we have Director Kraft who's on the line. I would give a shout out to our technical vocational education program,

our TVEP institutions that are spread around the state. Those TVEP institutions have local articulation agreements with school districts where they're serving high school students in local arrangements. I think this would be

an opportunity to establish that statewide and maybe formalize, create a template for that to I think be a little more rigorous and cross more districts.

Would you like to go to Director Kraft?

Yes, please.

Okay, um Director Kraft from the workforce investment board, could you um unmute yourself, put your name on record and let us know if you need the question again.

Thank you for the record.

This is Dirk Kraft, Alaska Workforce Investment Board, Department of Labor.

I would just echo Brad Billings' comments and say this provides more opportunity for that statewide collaboration.

We don't really have a defined pre-apprenticeship framework in the state,

and we do have those articulation agreements we work with our regional training providers and key vet recipients,

but the opportunity to strengthen that is always.

always welcome.

I thank you for that. Yes, I see that in several places throughout the bill that that is the framework through the chair.

Thank you.

Okay. Representative Diebert.

Thank you through the co-chair to Representative Elam or Mr.

Billings.

So when I think about this bill in neighboring districts, I'm trying to just get a bigger picture.

Is this like in my community we have Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and then we have like down the road we have Minto. So if a student from Minto wanted to come in to take CTE programs, that would be one picture. What if it's like

Arctic Pass or Arctic Village looking over here at the map and they want to go to Galena?

Is that, does that include that? I'm just trying to get an idea. Thank you, co-chair.

Thank you.

Thank you very everyone.

I mean, yes, at the end of the day, but it would be dependent on what the local district wanted, how they wanted to participate. So the opportunity is there, and what I have heard in every conversation I have had is that many of the districts want to do that, and this provides a path forward. Do you have anything else that you'd like to add?

Yes, if you could put your name on record.

Brad Billings again with

the Department of Education through the co-chair.

Representative Diebert, so we have a variety of models that are doing that. So to speak to kind of what you're saying, for example, Yukon Koyukuk School District, who's based in Fairbanks, their offices are in Fairbanks, they've recently invested in a dormitory to bring students in for their short term residency program that would serve Minto. And then of course they can partner with the Fairbanks School District to do that. We've actually even approached

them on behalf of another district to say, hey, they don't have the resources. Could they send their students to you for a fee or however the arrangement would be. So I think this would facilitate that arrangement.

Mm-hmm.

Another example is the Kusilvak Career Academy in Anchorage is bringing students from the

Lower Yukon School District, housing them there, and then they're paying a fee to Anchorage School District to allow their students to go over and participate at the King Career Tech Center. So this is just another arrangement between districts. So yes, I would see that this would

Mm-hmm.

facilitate both of those types of arrangements.

Absolutely. Yeah. Bill Elam, I don't know, I always feel odd putting my title in there, but

exactly. And so Mr. Billings really articulated that much better than I seem to be able to do sometimes, but that is the intent, is there's already a lot of opportunities there. This provides that additional layer of framework and structure to really kind of take it to the next step or next level.

Yeah.

Okay, Representative Eichheit, follow up.

Okay, Representative Eisheid.

Very good.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Himshute.

I'm wondering what that means, take it to the next step.

It's somewhat nebulous to me. And then words like facilitates. I understand what the word facilitates, but it sounds like there's collaboration already. So if that can be nuanced a little bit for me, you know, what is the barrier?

Is it just a money issue?

And you know, we just had a presentation on Perkins Grants. You know, what is the grant landscape now? Where, what. And I believe, you know, like King Tech Academy in Anchorage, I believe they collaborate. The school district, Anchorage School District collaborates with some of the unions. So

just help me what it means to facilitate. I know that means make it easier.

But

I am also kind of hearing it sounds like there's a lot of good things already happening. Or is this just besides a framework, just a chance for more money, you know, a funding mechanism, if you would. So just help me with that, you know, and of course we have CTE funding in the BSA and it just gets

muddled for me a little bit. Just help me understand a little better if

Color

Maybe we

me confused.

Representative Elam, maybe we can start with you?

Yeah.

I

We see districts already doing this, so what problem

Right.

are we solving?

Right. And and so

Again, there are definitely districts that are doing this, but not all of them.

Perkins Grant,

for example, the $20,000 that you can get out of it,

you know, I mean it's

Easy, free money,

but why are 10 districts not participating in it?

It's because there's administrative overhead that goes along with it. They don't necessarily have the resources, but they do have students.

They do have the desires. When you talk to the communities,

there's ample need there.

And I'm not trying to use nebulous words.

I guess, you know, when you think about frameworks and structures,

they tend to kind of almost be a little nebulous because the intent isn't to be so directive that we take the freedom away from the district to be able to make the decisions on how they do the implementation of their programs,

but we want to bring about the collaboration between all of the districts and to also include

all of them. And so right now what this does is it really doesn't necessarily take away from the efforts that people are doing to work together.

This allows them to fully work together,

connects a variety of dots that aren't currently connected.

Follow-up?

Yep, follow-up.

Follow up.

Yeah, th thank you for that. And I I I understand that I I

I'm curious,

has there been any attempt to reach out to school districts and to identify the need, a need assessment?

You know, it sounds like Representative Elam, you've talked to your own school district and, but I'm just curious,

has there been an effort to talk to other school districts and get,

like, identify the needs?

Representative Elam.

I didn't do an extensive survey of all of the districts.

I have presented HB358 to the Superintendent's Board through the CTE Association.

So, I mean, we've had a lot of conversations with all of those folks. And so, I mean, I should probably get some letters of

support because many of the districts have been very appreciative and supportive of the conversation that we're having here and what this bill is attempting to do. So. But I haven't conducted an extensive survey. I know DEED has done, you know, variety of tasks trying to work through some of this. I don't know if you maybe

want to

add

anything.

add anything.

Anything?

Yeah.

So

Brad Billings again for the Department of Education through Co-Chair Himshute. And I might, if it's okay, you might ask Zach Stenson to weigh in. I think he has a lot of experience in doing exactly what you're talking about. I'll give an example. With the COVID pandemic, we received some considerable funding. Commissioner Johnson at the time

Decided that we would spend this on what we were calling, I think it was career camps at the time. We made the opportunity available for districts to host career camps. And an example is Excel Alaska is a, it's not district

affiliated anymore, but it serves districts, students from districts. And at the time they had programming that they had received federal funding for. They had capacity to serve more students. And so they applied for some of that career camp money to pay simply for transportation of additional students to get to their facility in Anchorage. I think they were at Alaska Pacific University at the time. And then once the students were there, they

were able to join the programming that was already funded. So that would be an example of facilitating just the travel to get to a program that existed.

And let's go online to

Zach Stinson, but I want to echo what Representative Eischeid said.

It's always helpful to hear that we, you know, through those maps that we made, we kind of know. Or through those charts that we got from the department, we kind of know where the deserts are. What are those districts doing? Are they using Excel? And so the need is more or less met. The need for funding will always be there, but we can do that

with or without. And we do have the 1.2 in the formula. So I think building out that support would be helpful. Mr. Stinson, could you unmute yourself? And I know you're testifying

for yourself today, but

Mr. Stinson, we can't hear you.

It's like underwater.

Yes, can you hear me now?

yeah, that's great.

And please don't use speakerphone. It really doesn't work well with our with our systems.

So if you're on the phone, please use the phone and not the speaker function.

Okay,

Okay, great.

Through the co-chair Henschut,

and thank you for the question.

I think the question, Nick, could I get some clarification on the question? I think it might have shifted since the original question. Could you ask the question one more time, please?

Sure. Representative Eishide, can you restate the question?

I can't because there's been so much conversation, but

But.

I know. It's okay.

uh and

I think, yeah, here's my follow-up question right here. I just asked if there had been, the most recent question I had, had there been a needs assessment, I think, done? Have we talked to other districts? And you know, I also have here, what problem are we solving? So I'm a little confused where we are in the question discussion. But I think the

we are trying to get back at how

I don't know. I've been taking all kinds of notes,

but I'm not sure where we are in this tangled web anymore.

What are we facilitating here?

Yeah, okay.

And Mr. Stinson, I mean I understand you're testifying for yourself, but what expertise are you bringing? If you could kind of frame how you're participating in this conversation? And then the question is, what are we facilitating with this bill?

Sure, sure.

Okay,

yeah,

I think I'm following.

Thank you and thank you for the question and through the co-chair,

Zach Stenson.

I'm wearing several hats currently in this work and so I think just easier to just for representing myself but I also am the owner of Pathfinder Solutions,

a small consulting company here in Alaska.

I think the answer I'll give and the experience I'll draw on over the past seven years, I've been the executive director for the Bristol Bay Region Career Technical Education Program,

and really with that had two main goals in the development of that program over the last seven years.

The first one, I just wanted to work across districts and across organizations to create.

as strong of a program as I could for rural youth to connect with where they want to go and what their futures could be to gain skills,

to gain certifications, and to gain industry connections and knowledge.

And so I guess for part of the answer I'll give to this question.

In terms of research,

while I can't speak at all to the research that Representative Elam's office has done,

I can speak to the research that I could have, which is over these last seven years as I've been the director of the Crystal Bay program,

I can't count the number of districts that have reached out to me and said,

hey, can our students participate in the short term?

40-hour trainings that are happening through Bristol Bay and if not can you help us develop similar systems in similar ways to work across districts I would say there's a very strong interest just because of the challenges of being able to offer really comprehensive career technical education programs in extremely small districts and so

I guess that has led me to currently really starting this process both with a group of school districts in the interior and a group of school districts in southeast and I will say this week is an exciting week because this is the first week that we are we are running a multi-regional training at the Iron Workers Union their students currently from Toad, Delta,

McCann, Copper Center and Chino participating.

participating in an intensive week where they're receiving the Mental Health Society certifications at the Ironworkers Union Trade Hall.

But I would just say, while I believe the comment has been made that there is a lot of collaboration happening,

there also are just,

there is, you know, these are pockets,

small pockets of collaboration without a real structure around all of this.

So I think there's a high interest,

there's a high need.

We also happen to have a staggering number of $3.8 million of wages that went to out-of-state employees. We have this last year, we have provided by the Department of Labor,

we have an extremely high number of disengaged youth trying to find their path in Alaska.

So I feel like this bill really creates.

both hopefully funding and also hopefully structure to help the districts that want to work together and I really also would just add my my two cents about I really appreciate the idea of kind of building this but then really leaning on the both the Department of Labor and the Department of Education to work together to kind of figure out what that system looks like to where it's really effective.

things forward, um providing

Hi.

this collaboration across districts. Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Going now to Representative Divert and then Schwalke.

Thank you. Through the co-chair, possibly this is to Mr. Stinson. I'm just trying to

understand, because I, you know, I worked in a public school in Fairbanks, so I don't understand the, is there an application process for a family and let's say

Minto, that they're, you know, they want to send their kid to Fairbanks to be a part of these programs that have CTE.

Is that a big application? Is it costly to the family? Can you just explain that to me, Mr. Stinson?

Mm-hmm.

Yes, through the co-chair and thank you for the question.

I would love for the answer to be yes.

I feel like we as a state,

we as a state of Alaska,

have so many opportunities for our youth to find extremely great careers, great jobs and limitations sometimes being for rural students to connect with programs that can help show them.

that you build skills and connect them but I would say currently we really lack a real statewide system to what you're what you're asking for and I think this this bill particularly could help could help put us more on that path right now we don't have a statewide system where a student in any district could then apply for programs that are happening in another district that's happening.

in pockets of the state and so yes I could say from my experience in Bristol Bay yes any student from that all of those 22 communities would be able to any one of them could apply and there's an application process to participate in classes that happened across the region but that you know there's versions of that as Mr.

Billings had mentioned in the state but there's not really a

a statewide system like that at this point so I don't want to speak to what that process would be for Linto to Fairbanks I'm not aware of what you know what agreement those two districts may have but I think that this bill could support those operations

And could support us to actually get there across the state to where we could, where that answer could be yes.

So thank you for the question.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Stinson.

And does your program have a wait list,

Mr.

Stinson?

Yes, through the chair. And thank you for the question. Just to be clear. So I retired from the state this last year after seven years of being the executive director for the Bristol Bay Region Career and Technical Education.

So I will give the answer for that program as I left this last year.

And the answer was yes. There was often student, many

many classes that were, that were

more students wanted to participate than we had, we had room for as of this last year.

Yes.

The

And one last follow-up.

And maybe what I can see this bill doing, like what Representative Eischeid mentioned, is to help some of the youth

that maybe don't have access to an application

even going through the system to get to these programs where there are CTE programs, but maybe this could reach the students and families

to get to these programs. But kind of like I don't know if that makes sense, if I'm making sense at all. Okay. So maybe I have a better picture and because I want to make sure we all do want to make sure that all of our youth out in rural communities have an opportunity and no barriers to get to these programs. And I think there's a way through this bill.

Thanks, Representative Schwanke.

Okay.

Thank you, Madam Co-Chair.

I have more of a comment and kind of.

follow-up to to what Rep.

Eyescheid had asked kind of what are we doing exactly with the spill and I want to shed a little bit more light on some things that happen in rural Alaska and a lot of our small districts I've noticed um they end up with juniors with smaller class loads and then when they get to be seniors they have like one or two credits left that's all they need. We have a lot of our young adults dropping out of high school because they just don't feel like it's doing them any good they don't um

They don't see the value of sitting through another ELA class.

Well,

one of the ways that we recapture those kids and encourage them to go all the way through graduation is to help connect them with careers where they can see themselves in the future.

And work-study opportunities,

especially in our rural communities,

are that lifeline.

And that really,

really helps with graduation rates.

I mean, it's just hands down. If you take a high school kid.

and sixteen, seventeen years old and you put 'em through a welding class, you put 'em through you know, you just expose them just a little bit to you know, to something that they can foresee as a um a career going forward, it recaptures their interest in school and graduating altogether. So there are two I I feel like there's there's a lot of opportunity with this bill, both from being able to actually at some point have a grant,

um which may be a competitive grant at some point, you know specifically

that we can put appropriation in every year. But even in the absence of that, really helping craft work-study opportunities. Because one of the things that I've learned as a mother of a teenager that is very mechanical is that labor laws really restrict our teenagers from being able to do actual hands-on work in some of these fields. You cannot work with a knife until you're 18 years old.

Um up until now at least our school districts have a lot of flexibility in exposing kids to some of these fairly dangerous career paths and uh they work with equipment when they're working with a school program so if it's in a CTE program if they're in a work study program just it's so incredibly important to be able to capture these kids interests when they're young and put them to work. Rural Alaska in the 70s I've talked to quite a few people out in a lot of different

different villages, high schoolers used to leave after lunch and go to jobs.

They were all work-study programs in the afternoon across lots of different interior villages.

We don't do that anymore.

A lot of small districts don't know how to engage with local business owners and how to set up a framework for a work-study program.

Some of our homeschool lead teachers have done a really good job and created those frameworks and it works really well in some programs, not all programs.

There's a lot of opportunity not just in our correspondence programs but in our brick-and-mortar schools to really help create a pathway for districts to work.

work directly with industry, local businesses, healthcare, organ you know any NGOs in the area. I I really look at this bill as an a go ahead a green light to deed and and labour and craft that structure that you can hold the hands of districts that wanna do this but don't know how. So I I'm sorry I rambled, but I did wanna put that on the record, so.

Okay.

And Rep Schwanke, like, was there a formal program where kids went to work?

Some, what jobs were they going to in the afternoon? And did all kids do it? And do you have more information about that?

Um I can get you more information um one

I can get you more information.

Was it

Was it a formal program?

nope,

Oh.

they were all informal programmes and it was just something that rural districts did on a regular basis. They offered career path opportunities, but it was mostly an unstructured concept. Kids got high school credit, it counted towards graduation. I don't know if it was simply in the elective field like we do now or if it was more structured.

But I can say that those were some of the most influential courses that I've heard people that I know,

several retired from Aliasca that started in high school work-study programs just as an opportunity to get out into a local shop or a local business and put their skills to work. They got to show up on time. They have benchmarks.

They have to listen to somebody else other than their parent or teacher.

teacher they get a taste of what the real work life looks like before they're actually on their own they still have a safety net as a high schooler so I just I cannot encourage that enough especially as our small communities are shrinking and less and less high schoolers in a in a region and yeah there's so much opportunity here I think with this bill I hope that we

Um, you know, take a hard look at at all opportunity that it that it might open up for us. So.

Okay, coach her story.

Ah yes, uh thank you uh uh through the co-chair to the committee and rep Elem, um I really agree with Rep Swanky's statements. Uh we have had work study programmes in the Juneau school district and I don't know if they're continuing and um to me, one thing to think about including in this bill is giving the Department of Labour and Education like to help coordinate work study programmes um with districts, because districts need help doing that.

that and my goal and if you study high performing systems a lot of them, you have a mentoring you have a work study programme in your junior and senior years. It's just part of graduating. And I think it would be a place where businesses could go to the department of education or labour and say hey, we could do these work study students in this area, kind of give a framework. I mean ideally I wanted it we have with our career guidance counsellor tried to develop some of that and I don't know the status

But as we're sitting there talking about this, it seems like it would be something to amend in here, as uh something we wanted to have these positions do. And it makes me really wanna hear from some of our school districts um

I would love to have uh come uh th present about what they are currently doing about work study and how they ca can see this working. I think that would just really help me picture it more. And uh if I may uh another thought I've had and I wanted to talk about was um I don't like to make reports to make reports, but uh v with the Department of Labor and Education, I think as part of this bill, I would like to see a report to

done so we can see what pre-appra pre-apprenticeships programmes existed, what were developed, and I again I don't wanna add a fiscal note for d for doing that, but I would think within the structure of this position that we're paying for that

Anyway, I don't know what, I would like to know what the bill sponsor thinks about that. And again, I don't wanna make work to make work, but it just really seems as we've had to try and develop where our places here, it would be great if that was formalised in this position might do that. Uh so a couple comments.

Okay, um did you wanna respond?

Okay.

Did you want to respond? And I'll just say we learned a lot on Wednesday, but it just feels like there's a lot of stuff happening

and it's hard to wrap my mind around who's doing what, where and how does it all fit together and does this bill do that, or is there some other thing we need to do? And if there is some report that already exists about CTE in the state of Alaska,

some annual data that you already get, that would be helpful anyway.

I'm sorry.

um

Representative Schwanke.

No, thank you.

I th I I think Mr Billings here might have actually uh some some insight on some of this as well uh but uh y I actually there's some some

I think Mr. Billings here might have

actually some some insight on some of this as well.

But I actually, there's some some version.

in here about reporting.

I do think that we need to be

producing

yeah,

data.

And I do think that we need more data related to the reporting.

So yeah,

I do agree both everybody is correct.

There is a lot of good things going on, but there's also a lot of gaps because what we've not done is really taken a stance on as a state, how do we want to move in what direction?

And so we've got a large number of small groups and medium sized groups and even larger groups that are all filling voids.

But how do we want to do this and where do we want to go as a

as a state? And so this is an opportunity for us to have that conversation too.

Okay, let's hear from Mr Billings if there is some sort of annual C_T_E_ state of the nation kind of thing.

State of the state

Yeah.

Brad Billings for the Department of Education. So there's not a formal aggregate report. It's anecdotal or it's based on our Perkins data gathering and reporting. I

I think that that was part of the thing I think in preparing the fiscal note is that position's responsibility would be to maintain it's almost a catalog or a shopping guide of opportunities around the state that would facilitate districts talking to each other and students moving like that. That would take some effort to first of all establish and then keep it current. We've maybe tried that in the past,

but the issue is just currency. Like

but

Yeah it

does

changes

every year. Yeah, it changes every semester, right. So yeah.

And one last teeny tiny comment or question from Representative Eichheid.

Thank you Representative

Yeah.

Co-Chair Himschoot. I see in 2020 DEED published a 40 page document, Alaska Work Based Learning Guide, a resource for school districts and employers. And it covers many of the things that we've talked about. So I would like to do a

deeper dive. It is a revision of or update of a 2003 report. So this

So anyways, I just want to bring that to everyone's attention. Thank you.

Could

Um

Could I speak to that?

Sure, Mr. Billings.

Yeah, so quickly, Brad Billings from Department of Education through the co-chair. So that guide was specifically focused on work-based learning and it focused on this issue that Representative Schwanke talked about using a knife, like just this issue of liability

Yep.

as students are moving between the school workplace, between districts, et cetera. So yeah, that's a great

But

concern.

I just wanna put on record before we

We we really are gonna get out of here on time, but um in Germany they have