Anchorage School Board: 11/2/26 ASD School Board Meeting

Good evening. We'll call the Monday, November 2nd, 2026 ASD School Board meeting to order. Present in the boardroom are members Jacobs, Lessens, Bellamy, Blakeslee, and Higgins. Joining us online is member McDonough. Anna.

Not with us tonight is Member Wilson. Member Lessens, could you please lead us in our flag salute and then read our land acknowledgment?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of the Dena'ina people of Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the Dena'ina people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. ASD is committed to diversity and inclusion, and it is with honor and respect that we recognize all Indigenous people who live and learn in our community.

We want to welcome you to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the Anchorage School District and this board. The board thanks students, parents, teachers, staff, school business partners, and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time, your talent, and your tax dollars.

Board members, we have an agenda in front of us. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as drafted?

I move to approve the agenda as drafted. Second. Motion made by Member Lessens, seconded by Member Bellamy. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, is there any objection to adopting the agenda as drafted?

Seeing none, we have an agenda. Thank you, everyone. We'll move forward with reports. Our student advisory member is not present with us tonight, so we'll move straight to board conference and committee reports. Is there a board Committee chair who wishes to make a report at this time.

Go to Member Bellamy. Thank you. Just, uh, we have not met, uh, the Communications Committee since, uh, well, we meet actually on Thursday. We moved our meeting, so Communications will meet on Wednesday the 4th. Uh, our time slot is 1:30 to 2:30.

So on that agenda basically will be discussion of the right-sizing ad hoc committee and updates to that process. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to Member Blakeslee. Similarly, we also have not met for the Finance Committee, but we are also meeting on Wednesday. Our meeting time is at 12:15 to 1:15, and we're going to be talking about a few different topics, so stay tuned. Or join.

Thank you. Member Lessens. Governance is at 11:00 AM on the 4th.

Thank you. Okay. Completes board conference and committee reports. Uh, we'll move to goal monitoring. We have a technical report on reading proficiency, the grade 3 state summative assessment.

Dr. Bryant. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, we'll take a moment to pull up the slides.

So this evening we'll give a brief technical report on 3rd grade ELA, um, which is measured through the AKSTAR, our summative assessment. Next slide, please. So for the board and the public, on this slide we've laid out our board goal 1.0, which is to increase the number of 3rd grade students meeting ELA proficiency on the AKSTAR to 46.4% in May 2028. Next slide, please.

And then on this slide, we can show progress to date along with the corresponding goals for each year. And then at the bottom on the table, you can see the proficiency broken down by school year along with the number of students tested. Next slide.

And here you'll see the data disaggregated by student, and we can compare spring to spring results. And this is where we can start to look to see progress within groups and to see the work that still needs to be done to ensure that we move all students towards our goals of meeting reading proficiency. Next slide.

Uh, and this is our new slide where we give some key insights into the data, um, that underscore some of the biggest gains by special subpopulations, and then also, um, gains by student subgroup, along with what's working, the areas to think deeply about, and questions that we can explore during our conversation in 2 weeks. We'll be joined with our, um, wonderful team members, um, in ELA.

Next slide.

And then, uh, on this slide you'll also see the action steps that are broken down by the district-level supports, our priority action steps, along with school priority action steps listed at the bottom. And that is the last slide that we'll leave the board with, and we look forward to our conversation in 2 weeks.

Thank you, Dr. Bryant. That brings us to public comments.

We welcome you to the board's opportunity for public comment this evening. We've set aside a time slot at the beginning of our meetings for public comments. Uh, during board— during public comment, board members will not answer questions or engage in discussion. This is the public's time to speak and the board's time to listen. We utilize Robert's Rules of Order.

To conduct our meetings, specific provisions of Robert's Rules of Order that pertain to public testimony include: do not attack a member or speaker's motives. Please, no profanity or foul language. Please refrain from disturbing the meeting with cheering, applause, outbursts, or waving of signs or posters. If you have handouts you wish to share with the board, please hand them to Ms. Sullivan, who's seated to my left. Additional details and information can be found on the handout located near the door regarding audience participation.

We have 2 individuals who have signed up tonight for public testimony. The first is Teresa Obermeyer.

I don't see Teresa with us tonight. The second is Harper Kushner.

Welcome. You have 3 minutes. You can begin when you're ready. Thank you. Um, I wanna, I wanna start.

Uh, you might want to sit just so we— everyone can hear you. Um, does that count in my 3 minutes? Uh, nope, we can start your clock over. Welcome. Love that for me.

Uh, I wanted to start, um, by asking how many more dedicated educators have to walk away before we recognize that this is bigger than burnout? At some point, we have to acknowledge that when the people that we've entrusted with our students aren't being adequately supported, the problem isn't their ability to endure. It's a system asking them to. Uh, I was here in September. I stood before this board and spoke about the physical, emotional, and psychological toll this work takes on educators.

I'm standing here again in November, and I have to ask, what has actually changed since that testimony? Two members of our SBBS team have resigned. Uh, one was a newly hired para who entered an incredibly demanding environment with very little training. The other was a behavior intervention coach with more than 10 years experience in this district. He was someone that followed the rules, valued integrity, and approached his work with honesty.

Someone who cared about doing things the right way. Losing someone like that means losing more than just a decade of experience, relationships, and institutional knowledge. I don't blame either of them for leaving, but we should be asking why dedicated people are reaching a point where leaving feels like the best option. And this is not happening just at my school. This is— not just an intensive behavior classroom problem.

This is a district-wide concern. I'm hearing similar concerns from gen ed and resource classrooms. Different schools, different student needs, and the same struggle. Educators are stretched thin and struggling to sustain the work. We don't— but you don't have to take my word for it.

Pull up the district's job vacancy listings. The number and range of openings should prompt serious questions about recruitment and, more importantly, retention. We are not just teachers. We are case managers, crisis counselors, nurses, secretaries, behavior specialists, and whatever, whatever else the day demands. We're expected to manage crises, maintain safety, meet IEP requirements, communicate with families, and deliver instruction often without adequate time or support.

We are exhausted in ways that sleep cannot touch. Exhaustion is not a badge of honor. It is not proof of dedication. It should never be an expectation of this profession. We cannot preach trauma-informed care for students while ignoring the toll that this, uh, is taking on the teachers and the adults that are providing that care.

These concerns are not new. Educators have raised them repeatedly. Uh, when the same concerns continue to surface without meaningful change, it becomes increasingly difficult not to feel like those voices are falling on deaf ears. Staff do not need another district-wide message telling them how valued they are. They need leadership that demonstrates it through action, because appreciation without action is just words, and words don't keep good educators in the classroom.

I love this profession. I believe in our students, but at some point we have to stop asking educators to prove how much they can endure and start asking why enduring these conditions we've created has become a requirement of the job. Our students deserve educators who can stay, and our educators deserve a district that gives them a reason to. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. That concludes public comment this evening.

We'll move to our consent agenda. Uh, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as drafted?

I move to approve the consent agenda as drafted. Second.

Motion made by Member Lessens, seconded by Member Blakeslee. I'm seeing no discussion. Can we have a voice vote to approve the consent agenda? Member McDonough? Yes.

Member Higgins?

Yes. Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Lessens? Yes.

Member Bellamy? Yes. President Jacobs? Yes. We've approved our consent agenda by a vote of 7 to 0.

We'll move on to action items. We have one tonight, ASD Memorandum Number 059, approval of end of year fiscal year, um, 25-26 budget transfers. Uh, is there a motion?

I move to approve ASD Memorandum 059 to approve a $11,832,499 transfer to cover lower than anticipated student nutrition revenue, additional contracted services costs for Alaska Middle College, and to transfer FEMA funds to capital projects for FY 2025-26. I second. Motion made by Member Lessens, seconded by Member Bellamy.

We have discussion. Member McDonough.

Yeah, um, thank you, Mr. President. This memorandum, it, it has a very large price tag, so I think for the benefit of the record, could I ask the superintendent to describe the— we, we did receive a presentation earlier today on the student nutrition But the basis of the revenue needs for the Alaska Middle College and whether that was for this school year or a previous school year, as it was written here, the FY25-26 year, and the FEMA funds, just as a nutshell.

Thank you. Through the President, Ms. Parrott, would you be able to walk us through the items in the memorandum for transfer? Yeah, sure. Thank you. So when we're looking at the ANCS transfer, you may remember that the board did authorize an adjustment to the FY27 budget to accommodate the costs or the projected costs for the current year for those additional enrollments into that program, and then the cost of implementing the agreement with UAA to provide for some of their educational services.

So really what the FY26 transfer is, is to deal with the actual overage in that same area for FY26 that we didn't really know exactly what that was going to be until we got that final bill. So utilizing the bills that we had received, we were able to kind of do a projection, but we wanted to wait until we got that final bill paid to see what was needed for FY26. And not transfer money that wasn't ultimately needed for that. So it really is just to kind of take care of 26 when we already took care of 27.

Okay, can you tell us what that amount was? Sorry, I believe it's in the transfer for, for $140,000. Yes. Thank you. I found it.

We'll go to Member Blakeslee. Yeah, just a quick question. Since you referenced that you didn't know what the bill is going to be until after you got the final bill, are you planning on moving to a different budgeting methodology for Alaska Middle College funds? Kind of feels like there are some parallels to the student nutrition issue that we just discussed. Is there any sort of conversation about moving to a projection-based budgeting model versus looking at the actuals to figure that out?

Yeah, thank you. That's such a great question. So kind of to, to address the larger picture is one of the things that we're seeing as honestly some of our neighborhood and other school programs are more constrained. We're seeing parents opting into other opportunities at rates that maybe were more flat or predictable in prior years. And so there was a pretty significant influx of students who were opting into Middle College opportunities.

And one of the things that we realized and discussed was that there's no cap currently on the, the number of students, or to have any guardrails around around what those, what that kind of transition looks like, what that choice is. We've, I think, as a system, tried to maintain quite a bit of choice for parents to make those decisions, but I think that's a conversation that we're having now of what those kind of secondary effects are and how we handle that budgetarily. I believe that instructional can speak to kind of some of the planning moving forward.

I have a follow-up question if you're— unless you're gonna— are you jumping in?

So is there anything specific that you want to know about the academic side? Yeah, I— my follow-up question is, what are the, the opportunities that are now becoming more constrained that students are seeking out elsewhere that we're not providing at schools within the district? Uh, I think that we're seeing a lot of, um families operationalize their choices across the district. I do think that our lottery is alive and well, so we're seeing families make specific choices about where they would like to attend school more readily. I also see at the secondary level a more choice in terms of registration through AK Virtual for specific coursework that maybe they can't access in their schedule at their home high school.

So those are some of the trends that we're seeing. And do you, I guess, really specifically at that secondary level, Alaska Middle College types of courses, are, is there an uptick in the specific opportunities that you're seeing or seeing more enrollment in at AMCS, hence higher enrollment now? Yes. Versus what used to be offered within their local high school, what, what specific offerings, or do you have that data? Well, just generally, I could tell you some anecdotal data.

I'm not having specifics in front of me, but we have seen seen a growth in enrollment between last year and this year. The enrollment has maintained itself. We saw a spike of about 75 students last, last school year in AMCS enrollment, and it was essentially seeking higher-level coursework that potentially they couldn't access at their home high school. That has maintained itself this year. There are also other opportunities through AK Choice where students can access that, but as resources do become constrained, principals are having to make hard choices about some of those lower-enrolled, high-level coursework options.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. Go to Member Higgins. Just one quick question. How does this— these transfers, how does that affect how much money we're carrying forward from this year to next year that we put aside in the budget?

I think it was $16, $17 million. I'm not sure how we adjusted it even during the group, but it— how does this affect the, um, how much money we're carrying forward from one year to the next? This one is in line with what we projected, and some of that is the result of kind of normal end-of-the-year processes that take place, right? So as part of the closeout of any fiscal year, we're dealing with a lot of the costs that don't really hit the accounts until June, right? And most of that is payroll costs, right?

So paying out contracts that have been completed, making that final health insurance contribution and those kinds of things. And so this— so these items can be considered as being covered by the available funding that we did have in FY26 as a result of closing the year out and realizing that some of those areas where we had assigned funds came in lower than projected. And so you can consider this kind of within the projections for what we had communicated to the board that would be available moving forward, if that makes sense.

Partially. Sorry, because we took quite a bit for food service. We've got other things out there which I don't think was being anticipated at that point in time. So I'm a little bit surprised that somehow or another this is covered because it tells me how much would have not been covered. I mean, if we had not done this, we would have had more carrying forward.

Is that kind of what I'm hearing? Yeah, I think that's fair to say, Member Higgins. And some, as I mentioned, some of those costs just really can't be known until we close the books. So a perfect example is the health insurance costs. So in, for health insurance program, we're self-insured, so we pay those claims directly.

When claims hit kind of the account, and we cover those with our contributions. A lot of times we're projecting for budgeted amounts that are based on past history. For the last several years, we have the actual costs of the health insurance claims have exceeded what we've budgeted. And so we had to kind of figure out how to shore that up. And each year when we go into budget, we kind of use that information to try to shore that up and get to a projection where we at least break even, if not have a little bit too, you know, of a, reserve.

However, this year I think we got that right in terms of the budget, even though we were expecting a little bit more cost to exceed what we had budgeted. We finished the year within that budget, and so that freed up some resource to be able to use for other areas that exceeded their budgets. If I understand, we have an account set up for over and under, and it grows. I remember at one time it grew so much they had to say, wait a minute, we have to cut it back some because it was too high. So I realize we've got a little flexibility in that.

So, which at this point we're not at a critical juncture of getting too low. We got the reserves there. Is that right? Marty, can you speak to that regarding the reserves for health insurance and how we finish the year?

We don't have a substantial reserve. Right now that's backstopping our, our plan. We've been running pretty true to cost through FY26. So far through FY27, we're running about our projected cost, and so we're heading into what are typically higher cost months in November, December, and January for health, but those are usually balanced out by the early fall and spring months. And so it is always a guessing game.

We'll work with our broker starting in January on a projected renewal cost for FY '28 that'll be part of the budget process, but that's based on claims information for this year. And so we see high months, we see low months. Like Ms. Parrott was saying, it is always a little bit of a guessing game until we actually close out the books in June to know exactly where we're going to land. So we do have a reserve fund that is used to try to balance that out. I don't know any specific amount that we carried over into this year, but so far the plan is running pretty true to cost.

Member Blakeslee. Yeah, just to follow up on Member McDonough's sort of request for additional context, I do see we have a representative. Representative Hyshide is here in the room. And so given we were discussing earlier a House bill that didn't make it past, it didn't, it didn't succeed, but bears significant merit on some of the financial discussions we're having. I was wondering if maybe we could provide just some of that context about what we're seeing around the forecasted deficit around student nutrition and the ability to feed kids and what that looks like, sort of the trade-offs that we're going to have to contend with in FY28.

Sure. So to give a little bit of background and information on the request for transfer to student nutrition, Some of the, the positives for ASD is that some of the changes that we've made to expand meal service, breakfast programs, extend free meals to eligible CEP schools and kind of expanding that grouping, as well as providing traditional service, all of those changes in the program have led to providing more meals and feeding more kids. Obviously there's a cost that comes with that. However, unfortunately our experience in FY 26 is that the revenue didn't also follow that. So it, it's a reasonable assumption that if we're providing a whole lot more meals and a lot of those meals are reimbursable, that we would see that revenue uptick, and, and we didn't see that to the extent that I think we all hoped and, and wanted and planned for.

So some of the changes at the federal level have really impacted student eligibility. As there were some changes to the SNAP programs, to TANF, to Medicaid program. All of those do provide some automatic eligibility for National School Lunch Program and being able to access free or reduced reimbursable meals. And so some of those changes we suspect had something to do with some of that, as well as really just very optimistic that the amount of meals that we were providing was going to translate to reimbursable dollars, and that just didn't happen. Costs are up in several areas.

Costs are up in staffing. For the first time in, I think, a while, we're fully staffed in that program. As you recall, several years ago, because we didn't have the staff to properly carry out the program in some schools, some schools were providing shelf-stable meals that were not reimbursable. And, and, you know, not, not the greatest quality, not the level of quality we would aspire to provide. And, and, you know, not, not the greatest quality, not the level of quality we would aspire to provide.

And so we've hit some of those marks in hiring and providing quality, expanding the program, but we are not receiving the revenue to be able to pay for it. And so we need to really look at that on a few levels. The federal reimbursement rates have not kept up. Other districts in the state have been constrained with administrative staffing losses. The program is very, very administrative burden-heavy in order to access those reimbursements, and so there's a lot of challenges specifically for school meal programs to the extent that I believe is it 14, 15 states?

14 States have gone to free universal meals, school meals, lunch and breakfast. There's another handful of states that have gone to some modified programs, so free meals for all prior eligible economically disadvantaged students or providing a free breakfast program. And then there's a number of other states states that have had legislative legislation introduced to be able to provide free meals for the state students. And so it really is a hot topic nationally because the federal revenue really has— it's difficult to access at times and it has not kept pace with cost. So Member McDonough.

Thank you, and thank you for that full discussion from Ms. Parrott.

My— this is more just some points that I'd like to make before supporting the motion to do this transfer. On student nutrition in particular. I noticed that in the last legislative session, the House Bill 12 that was introduced by Representative Dybert, the only motion on that early bill was an amendment to make it a needs-based program. And that is really the root of issues like this memorandum is trying to— well, it forces the board to come in and backfill. We see, frankly, more school boards than not struggle to accurately predict its student nutrition budgets nationwide, honestly.

And this is why a larger, like, a growing movement of states are going to universal meals. It's cost-saving in that the administrative burden that it takes where ASD earlier today announced that it's creating more administrative positions to be able to perform the actuarial and predictive budgeting to assess like the demographic swings Trends in student populations. It's a really complicated issue for us to be able to reliably predict. And so while this is like a large-looking number, the shortfall in student nutrition is something that other school districts are seeing everywhere. I've seen recently like a Georgia school district had an equally sized $6.8 million shortfall where ours is $7.5 million.

And really that's just like an inflation gap that Alaska has compared to Georgia. So I urge as this is passed and as we go to the AASB conference later this week where the AASB is encouraging universal meal reform from the EKLAI that we double down on that, and it really is a cost-saving efficiency, and it really is just one of the best ways to invest in education. And it's dollars that would prevent us in the future from having to do more of these BSA— like, because this, this $11.8 million for all of these backfills is coming out of our BSA fund. Into that, that we could use for next year's budget shortfall. So I really hope to see legislation come through, the 35th AK legislation, that is a universal meal plan.

It will help alleviate our administrative burden, and it will become like a security blanket throughout the whole state. But I do intend to support this. I just, I want it to be known that the heartburn I feel of using next year's, like, BSA, like the money that could be able to adjust next year's BSA-related shortfall, it comes at a huge cost. And really the only way to avoid it is to either hire a bunch of administrators, which is what we're going to do in the short term, or to have a state government come in and say, we will guarantee meals for all students and make it a much more efficient program to administer.

Member Blakeslee. Yeah, I would just say that for me, the simplest— I'm looking right at Representative Eichide, who is here with us, so you get to be in the hot seat. Sweet. Yeah, uh, but thank you for being here. Um, what we're talking about now for next year's budget is beyond just this specific transfer that we're talking about in this memo, is essentially having to contend with a trade-off of being able to feed kids who need to be fed, who are not fed at home, and providing basic opportunities that every student deserves in their educational experience, right?

And we don't know what those trade-offs may or may not be because we don't know yet what that total dollar amount will be, um, when we're looking at the FY28 budget. But essentially, if we are to try to feed the kids that need to be fed, we will have to take from elsewhere. And That very much falls at the level of responsibility of the federal government, a failure at the federal level. We talk a lot about failure to fund public education at the state level. This is a federal failure, and it's an example of the district having to come and make these choices that are incredibly difficult about what the priorities are around truly basic necessities.

Um, and so I would echo that any additional sort of recognition in terms of state legislation would be be really beneficial to help relieve some of that burden at the local school district level. And I speak from experience as a former teacher in Title I schools of, you know, watching my preschool students save their free and reduced-price lunch or breakfast and put it in their backpacks to bring home to eat for dinner that night. And then because they're preschool students and they're only 4 years old, they forget that it's in their backpack, so then it rots in their backpack, and then you as a teacher go and find their rotting food that they brought home for their siblings and their families. And that is consistent and pervasive among many, many of the families that we serve. So I would say feeding kids is a priority, and yet educating kids is also a priority.

So those are sort of the trade-offs that we're contending with.

Seeing no additional discussion, can we have a voice vote on this item, please?

Member Bellamy? Yes. Member McDonough? Yes. Member Lessens?

Yes. Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Higgins? Yes.

President Jacobs? Yes. ASD memorandum number 059 is approved by a vote of 7 to 0. That completes action items for tonight. We'll move on to non-action items.

Board members, does anyone wish to discuss a non-action item before we address it at our next meeting on the 17th?

Seeing none, we'll move forward to a superintendent update. Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, just two quick things. Um, our team is in the process of analyzing our ASD listens data, and I look forward to coming to our next school board meeting and sharing the full report, and I hope to highlight a number of themes that I think will be of particular interest for the district to engage further with the community in the coming months and coming year.

I'm very excited about that. And then lastly, at the next board meeting, the 2027 bond proposal will come before the board, and this proposal was prepared keeping in mind community feedback and is structured to focus on high-impact school safety and structural upgrades that impact buildings across municipality. So So we look forward to sharing more with the board and with the community at our next meeting. And that concludes my report.

Thank you, Dr. Bryant. That brings us to school board comments. We'll start to my right, Member Higgins. Thank you. I'm going to comment real quickly about the survey results because the survey we're getting from the public, from different groups— some people have been reservations about participating because you got to put your, your your email address and you can find out who's sending it.

But what's more important is that we recognize the public's not fully aware of what's everything going on. We're trying to do more education. And, and when we go forward with an issue, our primary focus is the kids' safety and academics. And we're not focused on just a public vote without looking at those particular issues. If we want to look at whether or not we should take some particular action, it's, it's, it's important to get public feedback, but it gets meaningful feedback, not a pick a number and here it is for you.

So I'm concerned that if you want to say, okay, we did a survey and people are supportive of schools, but we asked it in a way if it addressed $90 million and we closed Campbell, that doesn't represent to me a good approach at all. That's not consistent with saying, okay, let's talk about the impact to kids, let's talk about the impact to safety, let's talk about the long-term impact, because we're going to save $51,000 per year for each school that we close, and it's going to cost us more than that when we consider the number of kids switching from neighborhood schools to our charter schools. So looking at all these sort of things, I hesitate to want to say that the public is weighing in, uh, based upon limited information, and that we should act upon that without first analyzing the options we have, what we can do to improve, uh, academics, uh, what we can do— we can avoid doing that's going to negatively impact our academics. Uh, with that, we took away with Campbell the parents' right to use a different program. If it was a charter school, it would be really more sacred.

Uh, the only STEM program in the, in the state and one with high academics, and we're saying, oh, they support closing of schools. Closing a school and closing Campbell isn't the same. And, uh, looking at it from an academic standpoint, this one really had a negative impact. So I don't want to— I, I'm not going to support that the public is voting, uh, with a survey that some people won't participate in, and it's limited information that the public has when they're providing it. And it depends upon how the question's worded as to what the results will be.

I'm very concerned about overstating that and says we made the right decision because— without discussing the impact to kids, without discussing what our job is The boss is the public, is the staff, is the students. You're our boss. We do want the feedback, but you're— but my obligation is to make sure the kids are safe and do what we can to help them academically in line with that. And so this survey form is being used to— with, with different ways to word questions to somehow state that this is the right answer. I, I— without a discussion, without listening firsthand to the public and without first educating the public more upon the issues that we're looking at, I think is a mistake.

I think we're overplaying it, and I, I just don't think that's in the public's best interest. More importantly, it's not in the kids' best interest. That's my obligation, is safety and academics and being responsible to the public. And these survey forms are not, in my opinion, a replacement for that process.

We'll go to Member Lessens.

No comments.

Go to Member Bellamy.

Kelly, you all right? You don't have no comment? Just joking. Anyway, um, I think, uh, contrary, um, when it— our public There are so many ways that we can, that are available to us, so many ways that we are trying to reach out to our constituents, and surveys is only one way.

I don't know that there's a perfect way, but I do know that we have to keep trying, and we are asking a lot of we're asking for a lot of input. We have not even kicked off the right-sizing committee yet, that plan, and that is on the agenda for our next meeting, which is Wednesday. So, uh, I, I do invite board members to— you guys are great with the committee meeting, so please show up so that you can give me some input on how we are going to move forward with, uh, with, with that process. I have, I have a suggestion, but, um, I need your approval, which we'll talk about on Wednesday. The other thing is, is that this week, uh, November 5th through 8th, is the AASB conference.

It is in the Egan Center this time, so I invite board members to— I know several of you have already registered registered, and I think there is a possibility if you haven't, you can register on site. But that is a great time for us to connect with our fellow board members from across the state. And I think this year— well, I know this year several board members will join Dr. Aguilar in doing a presentation, and that's Member Lessens and myself. So I look forward to that. Other than that, I do want to thank the president for sending the letter to the assembly relative to, um, the proposed ordinance that would allow— that would separate or elect school board members by district.

Um, and I, I do look forward to testifying at that, uh, to the assembly on Wednesday night. I think that's when they are, um, having a hearing on that. I also submitted an op-ed. It hasn't been published yet, I don't think, but I did, uh, basically, uh, oppose that. And because these are all of our kids, they— we don't educate kids by district in Anchorage.

We educate kids in the public education system that has, uh, that gives kids what they need, how they need it, and where they need it. I'm real, I'm real picky with my community council. I know what I want for the community, what bothers me in my community, so I do participate in community councils. When it comes to public education, we have to have a system that serves all of our kids. So I look forward to seeing some of you there or online, or even if you can't be there or online, uh, please do something in writing.

All right, that maintains our current structure, uh, for each board member, for responsible for each kid regardless of their zip code. Thank you. We'll go to Member Blakeslee. Sure, my comments will be short and sweet. I will also be at the AASB, uh, uh, yeah, conference I went last year just as a participant, but I'll be there this year and I'm presenting with another, another education advocate.

So on Saturday, which is exciting. And I think I just echo that I continue to believe we need to improve our process of engaging the public better and incorporating the input of stakeholders and people who are most impacted. I think a lot of that right now in a resource-scarce environment is focused on the way we spend money and where our priorities are. So I'm excited to be working with Ms. Parrott about lots of ways that we've been sort of brainstorming to help create innovative strategies to do that around finance. So if you are so inclined to participate or listen in on Finance Committee meetings, meetings, we will be continuing to talk about those topics.

But I will also commit to continuing to try to, um, work on that in my own personal endeavors and engaging members of the community. Thank you.

Member McDonough.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'll, uh, I'll keep the comments here short, but I did want to thank to thank the board tonight for the endorsement to the AASB Board of Directors.

That was 2 meetings ago now. I had an interview with their selection team and they indicated that they will be.