Anchorage School Board: 10/20/26 ASD School Board Meeting

All right, good evening everyone. We'll call the Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 ASD School Board meeting to order. Present here in the boardroom are members Jacobs, Lessens, Blakeslee, Higgins, McDonough, and Wilson. Member Bellamy is joining us online. We've called ourselves to order and engaged in a roll call.

Dr. Bryant, would you please lead us in the flag salute and then read our land acknowledgment, sir?

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

We recognize— 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. Thank you, sir. 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 a draft agenda in front of us. Is there a motion?

I move to approve the agenda as drafted.

Second. It's a motion to approve the agenda made by Member Lessens, seconded by Member Wilson. Is there any discussion?

Seeing none. Is there any opposition to approving the agenda as drafted? Seeing none, we have an agenda. Thank you, everyone. Our first item under reports is a Military report, um, that will, um, be from Colonel Jacob Foley.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you for having me. Good evening. Uh, first of all, I'd, uh, like to express appreciation for our, our continued cooperation with ASD operations. Uh, we did survive our first snowfall last night, fortunately.

No impediment whatsoever to school operations or the busing routes. But somehow I imagine we're not going to keep that same luck going. So looking forward to our continued cooperation there. First off, we did send over a— between JBear and the Anchorage School District— a memorandum of agreement on the emergency response and active shooter drill, the rally locations. So it's been nice.

We've had a formal agreement regarding facilities on our installation that would be proper emergency evacuation and shelters should we have to evacuate any of the schools on Jay Bear. And so we're just continuing that and send it over to ASD for review this week. Additionally, we have a fairly short timeline to respond to a report from the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation. They do a family— what's called a facility condition assessment. And so all of the schools for ASD that are on Jay Bear land, and so that's not only Orion, Ursa Minor, and Aurora Aurora Elementary inside the fence line, but also Government Hill Elementary, Mountain View Elementary, and Bartlett High School on the government land.

We get the opportunity to respond to a questionnaire on facility conditions, to talk about expansion projects, construction, and essentially it's a tremendous lever that ASD can use to be able to make sure that those schools are in peak condition. And then we— it's an additional pot of money that we can tap into. So of course we get it with about a 10-day deadline to return it. But I do appreciate the cooperation from those 6 schools and being able to turn that back to the Office of Local Defense Cooperation. And so, yes, so we've been in touch with those principals and we really do appreciate it.

It can only help modernization and construction efforts. Last big thing I wanted to talk about was integration and cooperation. So in my first address to the school board last month, talked about the desire to continue integration between the JBear military community and all the population who lives on our base, as well as the Anchorage School District and the schools. We're looking forward to hosting, for example, the Eagle River High School Junior ROTC. They're going to be coming to visit JBear this week.

And so I look forward to chatting with 40 or 50 cadets on Friday morning. And I did some digging and last year we had, for example, a robotics demonstration from our explosives disposal team down at Central High School. I'm understanding so at each school there, it's Sometimes it's the principal, sometimes it's the graduation coaches who coordinate the, the volunteer and the community engagement effort. And I would just like to throw out there again, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is a very big piece of land with a whole lot of mission partners and a whole lot of things that are of various interests and educational applicability and never, ever hurts to ask. So if somebody is going down a particularly adventurous piece of curriculum or wants to call in some kind of like tangible expert to put some kind of hands-on project together, we are standing by to assist.

So all the principals and grad coaches are welcome to reach out to our school liaisons and see where it is. It's only a good thing when we get our members from the military, from our civilian workforce out engaging with the community and being able to open the gates and welcome in school teams as well to JBear. So anything we can do to help, we're happy to help. Finally, Dr. Bryant, sorry you are on your way to another job here soon. Congratulations and best of luck.

I'm well familiar with coming in taking on a job and feeling like there's probably a lot more left to do and getting called away too soon. So thank you for what you've done for ASD the past several years, and I wish you the best of luck. My oldest child is a teacher in Alexandria, so, you know, small world right there. But, you know, thank you for what you've done out here, and I wish you all the best. So with that, that concludes my comments, and if you have any questions, I'm available.

Thank you, Colonel. Member Higgins. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the report every, every board meeting. It really means a lot.

Bartlett is a big issue to me. I mean, because you go there, you got the leaks, you got the electrical, you got all kinds of problems there. And I know how much the military has helped us replacing a school there recently. Does that relationship carry over to Bartlett at all, or is that something we might be able to look for? Because that's— if I had to put the top of my list of schools that need to be addressed, What was at the top?

Yes, sir. I'm not positive of exactly how the legalities of it worked, but because it is on government land, um, there is an obligation for, uh, the Department of War to provide some of those construction funds back. So that's why, uh, the, uh, local— was it the local community, uh, local Defense Community Cooperation Office? Um, that's why, uh, I wanted to make sure that that information got out there so at least those those principals at those schools have the information and understand there is a little sense of urgency to get that back is because if there is crumbling infrastructure, is if there's something there, not only is it on government land, but that's the primary high school where students who live on Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson housing attend. It's bulk of our military high schooler population goes there.

So very vested interest in that. And there is a strong possibility that if there's needs construction expansion modernization at Bartlett, that's a very good avenue to go down is with OL DCC. Yes, sir.

Any other questions for our military representative? Seeing none, thank you for being with us tonight, sir, and thank you for your service.

Member Lessens. With hopefully a little bit of grace, I would move to change the order of the day. To hear from the superintendent, specifically to move item I to B2. Thank you for the motion. Is there a second?

Second. Motion seconded by member Wilson, I believe, had it first. Is there any opposition to changing the order of the day to hear the superintendent update next? Seeing none, um, Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours, sir. All right, thank you, Mr. President.

So on my end, I just want to share a few comments, and really they're, um, on the a note of gratitude. As you all have read, I'll be taking on a new position effective February 1st, and it's one that's been a big emotional roller coaster for me. And I think the toughest part is the fact that I've had a wonderful community here. I'm just so thankful for the school board for giving me the opportunity to serve, and for all of our wonderful educators, our staff, our principals, our community members who didn't have any idea who I was 5 years ago and really welcomed me into your community. And gave me the grace to earn your trust and support, and that I valued immensely.

So it's extremely difficult to consider moving on. I mean, frankly, ASD has been my entire universe for the past 4 years. I moved here with just a couple of suitcases 5 years ago with just a burning desire to be the right person for the moment for the children of Anchorage. And it's the best decision I could have ever made. I would do it again 1,000 times over.

And I think the other difficult part about my transition is that there's so much work to be done, and, and we know that. And I think one of the most humbling parts of being a superintendent is to recognize when it's time to pass the torch to the, the next chapter of leadership. And I feel a great responsibility to ensure that I use my remaining time to ensure that there is a thoughtful transition in partnership with the school board. And with that said, um, it's very bittersweet, and I could certainly see a universe where I could be here a lot longer. But I will say that the opportunity to see my loved ones every week instead of, you know, every quarter, um, is a huge deal to me, and I, I do look forward to that one particular part.

So with that said, um, you know, I want to use my time very judiciously. I plan to make myself fully available to the board and to the team for coming months, and my focus remains on a thoughtful transition in partnership with the school board. But gosh, this is really hard for me, and I'm going to miss my entire ASD family very deeply. And I will be rooting for you for my entire life from wherever I'm at. I have truly been honored to have held the seat for as long as I have, and gosh, almost 5 years flew by, didn't it?

A lot of snow days since then. All right, so with that said, that's my piece for tonight. Tonight. As I mentioned, my first day in my new role is in February, and I'll go ahead and hand it off to the school board to discuss next steps from here.

Thank you, Dr. Bryant, for your update. We don't have a military report— a student representative report tonight, so we'll pivot to board conference of committee reports. And under that banner, I'll just begin by reiterating what was publicly released at the end of this last week at the direction of the board We issued statement and a guidance to our ASD community to begin soliciting applications for the role of interim superintendent, and we know that it's a significant transition that will have to occur, and it's important that we get the process right. And so the board will be accepting applicants through the 30th of this month for the role of interim superintendent. More information can be— it will be found on our website, and the board is in the process of identifying the next steps while we identify the successor for Dr. Bryant.

And more information will be forthcoming at a future meeting. With that said, that's what we have for a superintendent update as well as the second half from the board perspective and what we've publicly disclosed thus far.

Are there any questions for Dr. Bryant or myself before we pivot to traditional board conference and committee updates?

Seeing none, is there a board committee chair who wishes to make a report at this time?

Member Lessens. Um, thanks, and I don't know if this is on behalf of all of the committees. One thing we discovered last year is that we shouldn't have scheduled committees on short school days. So next Thursday is parent-teacher conferences. Students are let out early, and we appear to have some scheduling challenges with that.

So it's likely but not fully confirmed that all 3 committees will be adjusted from the 29th potentially to the 4th, but that's also under— we have not yet finalized the date, but it needs to be adjusted And I will flag that February is also the same, and we are going to need to— it would behoove us to adjust the February committee dates as well.

Thank you. We'll go to Member Bellamy and then Member Blakeslee. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple, uh, I did attend the, uh, SAB, Student Advisory Board, committee.

I think it was on the 13th. Ah, what an amazing group of young people. I think our, the president, Stephen Gibson, will be joining us at the AASB conference next month. I think I also recruited two other students, so Mrs. Sullivan, you might hear from those students who might, who would like to join us. But they did the work they're doing around Robert's Rules of Order is truly amazing.

They actually had mock— they had mock scenarios where they practice the actual process, and they did an excellent job. I think Northern Lights ABC and I think Diamond were the spotlight schools. And they had their team basically showed a video and talked about some of the amazing things that's happening at those, at those schools. The next meeting will be November, I want to say the 8th, but I might be a little off, so don't, don't, don't write that down yet. I'll confirm, and we have invited Mr. Willis has agreed and approved the invite— given an invitation to the Federation of Community Councils to engage with the Student Advisory Board on civic engagement opportunities.

So that won't take place till December, but I do look forward to that. My second item has to do with the Right-Sizing Committee. As you know, we had to reschedule— well, we had to cancel due to very pressing information that we needed to deal with regarding the superintendent's search process. And so I am trying to reschedule that meeting. I've sent out an email.

When I hear from everybody, I will make sure I get— again, this is just a transition meeting for right-sizing. Member I mean, President Jacobs asked me to act as acting chair, and I was trying— my goal is to just figure out where we were in the process so that I can, and whether the committee wants me to continue as chair, and then I will, if so, I will move forward with a process. So keep your— please read the email that I sent out to a couple of to the committee members and to the president. I just did that today, looking for a day and time for to reschedule that meeting. There's so much going on, but I still think there's room for us to begin that right-sizing conversation and to start to gather the community's thoughts, dreams, and hopes when it comes to what education is actually going to look like in our future.

So with that, I thank you for the opportunity to serve, and that's all I have.

Thank you. We'll go to Member Plesley.

Uh, Member Lessens kind of beat me to it, but I was just gonna note that we have not had a Finance Committee meeting since the last school board meeting, and that it will likely, I believe, be postponed along with all the other committee meetings. Yes, November 4th. So we have not had a meeting since the last session, but that's when our next one is Thank you.

Uh, that appears to complete board conference and committee reports, so we will move on to goal monitoring. We welcome the team up at this point. Uh, we are now going to have our goal monitoring conversation on the technical report that was given to us at our October 6th meeting. Tonight our conversation will focus on our math goal, uh, 2.0, which is, uh, the percentage of grade 8 students proficient in mathematics on the state summative assessment will increase from 34.5% in May of '23 to 41.5% in May of '28. I want to confirm that the components of the monitoring report are present.

The report shows what is being monitored and focused on as a specific goal or interim goal. There is data for previous reporting periods, the current reporting period, and the target reporting periods. The superintendent's evaluation of performance is present, and then next steps and strategic adjustments are also present. I want to welcome the team. If you would like to begin by introducing yourselves and then statement before we transition to board questions, that would be welcome.

Thank you, um, Board President, Superintendent Dr. Bryant. Um, joining me tonight is Deanne Carroll, the Director of Assessment and Evaluation, uh, Joe Zawadny, Senior Director of Middle Schools, and Ed Bakar, who is the Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning. I wanted to take a moment and thank you for your thoughtful questions and your continued focus on improving math outcomes for our students. We have several highlights that we'll focus on tonight. Since 2023, 8th grade math proficiency has increased by more than 4 percentage points, approximately from 34.6% to 38.8%.

And at the size of this year's testing population, that difference represents approximately about 120 students meeting proficiency standards compared to our starting rate. While this year's results reflect a slight decline from last year, we remain above our starting point and within the report's on-target range for our 2020-28 goal. This is meaningful progress and worth recognizing and building upon. Assessment participation also increased across every student subgroup, giving us more complete pictures of the student performance and where additional support is needed. Our commitment to the district's academic strategic action plan keeps us focused on leading for achievement, strengthening every classroom, strengthening systems that support our schools, and making sure our communication is clear.

That work centers us on the students' experience every day in each classroom. It makes sure that we have standards aligned curriculum, strong grade-level instruction, appropriate math placement, which includes division vertical alignment, and timely support. Teachers and school leaders are using classroom observations, learning walks, and snap— snapshots to inform themselves. We also use collaboration in PLCs as well as professional development on high-leverage practices, which will soon be led by principals and department chairs on our November 3rd cross-district in-service. We also use the assessment data to identify student needs and guide instructional adjustments and our ongoing work to create a streamlined multi-tiered systems of support for our students.

We also use our fall and winter MAP assessments to help monitor progress and adjust supports before we begin the spring AKSTAR assessment. We recognize that this progress is uneven across some schools and subgroups, and that significant gaps remain. And understanding those differences and responding to students' needs is essential to our work. We appreciate the commitment of our educators and our school leaders, and we welcome your focused questions about this report.

Thank you, Mr. Prince and team. We'll start with Member McDonough. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, I really appreciate the breakdown on page 5, particularly the areas to think deeper about and then the questions to explore.

Yes.

And so I, I did— what I— rather than ask the question to explore, because it's in writing, I'm wondering who is then asked the question, like, could you describe to me the process? So the question to explore that stood out to me: what is driving the declines among Alaska Native, American Indian, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and English language learner students? And then what targeted supports could accelerate their progress? It's a very important question. Who, who really is answering the question to the ASD teams?

So could we get an overview of the consultation processes and then like what we can expect as far as getting feedback on that question?

I'll start. I think really at the heart of this question is an exploration of the partnership that exists between, uh, the work that's happening at the school and the work that's happening with teaching and learning around curriculum, the support that we are receiving from English Language Learners Department and Indigenous Ed. Um, we're in constant collaboration with leaders from across the district and at the building level. To help identify where those gaps might be and try and really— one of the tools we're using now is the, the snapshot work that we're doing where we're going in, we're looking at instruction happening in classrooms and really using data from across the district to determine trends. And so that's where we're starting with a lot of that work, is really trying to identify using data where are we seeing those gaps and what kinds of supports can we leverage across the district to help students in all of those subgroups.

I think right now with supports, we're focused, for instance, with our English language learners, with curriculum that's been implemented at the middle school level for 2 years now, our English language development curriculum. Our, our teachers and, um, and building leaders are becoming better at utilizing that and, um, and cross-pollinating that with Tier 1 instruction that's happening across our buildings. And so we're still seeing, I think, some of the gains that are coming from that partnership.

Um, okay, my— so reading out just for the sake of discussion, this year's Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island student group, 20 students in the district that are— that took the test were proficient, which was 9% of the cohort of students in 8th grade. Uh, 9% of our students in this ethnicity category are testing proficient. I appreciate that there's an internal scope on this problem.

What, if any, external scopes are we doing to reach into these community leaders? Because we don't— like, the Indigenous Education Department doesn't represent those students by federal statute. It's a federal code. Only tribally enrolled students or tribal descendants. Is there an external effort, and how can really the board improve and invest in those efforts to gain the insight from those communities?

Um, McDonough, I think this is an area where I am certainly open to suggestions on the external side. We do have advisory committees such as NEAC MECAC and our Native Advisory Committee, and there have been seasons where those meetings are structured around goal monitoring reports, but then there are other seasons where the chair would like to go deeper into specific areas that are of interest to that community. So for example, within MECAC, our focus is on reviewing bullying policies because there are true concerns that there are ways that we can improve our policies to make our schools more inclusive. So, um, all of that to say, I think there might be ways to improve upon the ways that we engage with these communities, but really what I've learned through the initial implementation of ASD Listens is that sometimes the best engagement is meeting people where they're at, and we're going to need a lot of help to understand what are the best modalities, times, places, and formats to have those structured conversations in terms of how do we work with these communities to provide the resources our students need to succeed. It's a huge, profound question, and I think it's one that merits the, the full input of this body.

Good. Uh, Member Higgins. Yeah, I remember when the presentation on goals was done, and that was when Dina Bishop was superintendent, and the question came up why the goals there are less than the reading, and it's back and forth. And one of the comments was this kind of lags behind because the reading skills are needed to help to improve the math scores, and so it ties together. Is that an issue we're dealing with feel, because I'm looking at the reading and I look at the different groups, but is there a connection that you see between how the reading skills versus the math skills are connected with these individual groups?

Is there some correlation that's there that gave us— that's why we had to set a lower goal, it's going to take longer to move it up. That's what we were told. I'm wondering if you see anything like that.

Was that a confusing question? I tried to make it confusing. I, I don't—. We tried again. I think, I think I know where you're going with that, and I, I mean, I would, I would point to the data that, um, that's in the report, um, that differentiates between our English language learners and our non-English language learners and their proficiency levels in math.

And I, I think it would be impossible to say that there isn't a connection between language acquisition and student performance on these exams. Yeah, they weren't limiting it to English language learners. They were, they were talking about just in general that our reading scores need to go up to help the math and that that's a connection. And I didn't know if that was valid for other groups as well.

That's certainly what, what the research says. We, we would have to dig a little deeper within the context of our students to take a look at proficiency rates in math and proficiency rates in language arts to see what correlations there are. If our, our proficient or non-proficient math students are also not proficient in language arts versus our proficient students in math and what their proficiency rates in language arts are. So that's something that we could potentially also take a look at. It's something we have not done.

We know the correlation. The question is whether it's a causation to it or not is a little bit different. And I understand that that's kind of where I was trying to head it. Is there a causation or not? But the correlation seems logical.

You got kids that may be struggling in school, they struggle in all of it, but the growth in the reading versus the growth in math, does one have to precede another in order to really be fully successful is the issue. Yeah, yes. And when we do our high-growth studies and we take a look at the metrics in our district, almost at every corner our students are mirroring what we see in national research. So it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that if we did do a deep— a deeper dive into this that we might see that same trend. Nationally, and then what, with what research says.

Thank you.

Go to Member Lessens. Um, thanks. I appreciate prior comments. What I recall about when Dr. Bishop was here and I asked about those, our math goal, why it couldn't be higher, she said we can't afford it, right? Because it takes dollars to put towards increasing student proficiency.

That was a short answer. And probably not a complete answer, but fundamentally she was aware, and I fully believe that we don't have the resources to fully address what our students need. And I'm just going to say that part out loud. Out loud. Okay, a little bit of an echo.

Um, thanks. Uh, but it's good to underscore. Um, and our McDonough's remark actually about our, um, Pacific Islander students about 3 or 4 years ago, we had a group of folks really representing the Asian Pacific Islander community, and, and my takeaway message, uh, which I have failed to act on, was that the board needed to go to them as community leaders and talk about the problem. And I don't know that we've done that, but they were very clear in saying, come to us. And tell us about the problems that our students are having.

I think that stakeholders in a lot of groups simply don't know the scale of students' needs unless we really are clear and say this is a problem. Absenteeism may be a problem, you know, math skills are a problem, but you can't work on your math if absenteeism is— and the root causes of absenteeism also have to get trust. Um, so I appreciate a lot of the questions. I wanted, um, I shared a lot with the administration. I'm not going to ask, or I'm not going to say everything, but I wanted to point out that when we set this goal for our students, um, Mr. Opitz was very clear that our, that our goal, uh, that, um, he was very clear.

I'm maybe less so. That nationally we could expect about 40% of our students to be proficient. That would be, that would be expected. Our goal is actually a little bit higher than what would be expected, and we are making remarkable progress from, I think, our post-COVID, right? Our post-COVID recovery is continuing.

Um, so that's just like a little bit of context. And I will say, based on my notes, that ASD students, 8th graders, this past year in 2026 and in 2025 actually exceeded the interim targets the board threw out. They're not exactly shown on this chart on slide 3, but the multi-year pinpoints that the board set in getting to 41.5%, um, we have exceeded them. So the rate of growth is not maybe what we would really like to have, but, but actually our students exceeded it. So that's just something I wanted to put out there on the record.

Um, I appreciated the response a moment ago talking about the importance of collaboration between teaching and learning and the building level. And the building level is what I guess I want to stress, and that was the, the crux of a lot of my focus is that if you look at the student outcomes in any— pick a demographic group. I chose economically disadvantaged students because there's a lot of them, because I think we move the district needle by figuring out how to improve the outcomes of a really big group of students.

But the outcomes of students who are considered economically disadvantaged in this data vary incredibly by school. We have one school where 50, 50% of students who are economically disadvantaged are qualified, are considered proficient. That's incredible. We have schools where that is less so. There's, there's like a 40% or 40, 40-point span.

So really it's the building level that I believe is actionable from the administration's perspective in support. And the building level is something I think that— this is not a question, this is like now becoming a statement— but the building level and how the board allocates supports to schools, I guess I, I'm fundamentally coming to the realization that what we have is a people-teacher ratio but doesn't account for student need, right? It doesn't account for the, the scale of inputs that students may need to get to where they need to be. That's like the short version of, I think, a lot of questions that I sent your way, but I'll be okay. At least I'll ask at least one question that I actually asked you.

Does the AKSTAR data tell us about students' mastery or struggles with different areas of math, right? Like in, if you look at English language arts, you're going to get different, I don't know, phonics and phonemic awareness, sort of different, different subcategories. Do we get a sense of whether students are struggling more with geometry or algebraic thinking or statistics? Like, what do we know about different subsets of 8th grade mathematics that students are doing really well with or needing to improve upon?

The short answer is yes. We, we are able to see the different strands—statistics and probability, numeracy, geometry—all of those things that we see for MAP Growth. That parents can see in the Parent Connect portal and how their kiddos are doing. We see those same strands for AKSTAR as well. The difference is that when we get AKSTAR data, those are distilled by strands down in— at the classroom level.

It's not distilled at a school level or the district level. By the state data that we receive. The raw data files don't come with that, and we have asked for those files for years, and so we, we continue to ask and hope that we get it. One of the things that would be challenging is actually looking at individual data, grabbing every single student from a building, funneling it into a spreadsheet or a computer algorithm to get that information, and it's extremely time-consuming. So we have, we have not done that yet.

One of the things we, we always encourage our classroom teachers is for that they are able to get those reports and see those reports at the end of every test window for their classrooms. And that's where we You know, we task our professionals in the building to know where their students are at and what best ways to form groups in their PLCs. And I think my counterparts can talk about the work that's being done in the buildings for that.

Yeah, one of the pieces I'd like to highlight, and then I'll pass it off to Sean, is As we're going through and we're, we're participating in our snapshots across classrooms, one of the data points we're really looking at is how closely aligned are teachers to the scope and sequence of that content. And we are really spending more time trying to determine how far potentially ahead or behind a classroom is from where it, it, it should be as far as the scope and sequence is concerned, because we know that that by the time AKSTAR comes, we want classes, you know, and in this case in 8th grade, to be at a certain place with content so that we know what they have had access to prior to the test. Some work that Deann and previous teaching and learning leaders have worked through is trying to determine what levels of challenge have students had with content that maybe either wasn't covered in classes because the classes weren't on, on schedule, or the content that was maybe embedded in a question wasn't supposed to come until after the test was actually administered right at the classroom level. So really trying to come down to the standard, the actual content standard, to determine are we getting the content in front of students before they're assessed in AKSTAR on that same content.

We'll go to Member Bellamy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, thank you for those opening comments, Mr. Prince. That was very helpful.

I kind of want to piggyback on Member McDonough's question and comments regarding, you know, working with stakeholders to kind of improve to improve outcomes for our kids in all areas. But tonight we're talking about math.

You know, I know that schools— I know 3 schools in particular at the— but they're high school— West, Bartlett, and East. They're doing some amazing partnerships and community connections engagement around all kinds of things. It's not just sports, it's also it's what, what everything that's happening in the school. So I know that, I know that schools are seeking input and giving opportunities for communities to engage. So I guess I think I'm more interested in, you know, what are we doing differently to improve the outcomes for, especially for the Alaska, our Alaska Native students, Pacific Islander students, English learners, and special ed students.

And I think, uh, and the other part is how, how are we sure that kids are getting what they need, the service that they need, they're receiving the strong math instruction that they need? What is that? What is the evidence of that? What, what are your thoughts around that? I know we're doing the best we can I appreciate Member Lessens' comments.

Uh, I hate to, I hate to put it in that terms, but she's absolutely right, saying the quiet thing out loud. Uh, but what, what, anyway, what, what, how are we ensuring that students with the greatest needs are receiving strong math instruction no matter where they are in our district?

It's a great question, Member Bellamy, and I really appreciate you bringing that up. I think it's, it's also important for us to remember that teachers have enormous class sizes. I know. And, and despite the fact that when we do snapshot visits and we walk through schools and principals are doing their walkthroughs and they see an algebra class with 39 kids in there, we still see these proficiency rates going up.

And that is a testament to the hard work of our educators in the room. Um, and I think it's worth just pausing there for a moment to realize that if you look at the last 3 years that the district has gone through with budget cuts class size increases, teacher reductions, loss of assets and support that used to be in place to develop professional development and increase our abilities to have strong classrooms. Our teachers have maintained the ability to improve and meet the metrics that we have set for them. Them. And we can't look away from that.

It's a beautiful thing that despite all of those headwinds, they continue to meet the kids where they're at and improve. When we look at what we're doing for all of our most needy students, I would say that our English language learner department, the use of the English language development classes are helping to strengthen their literacy, which will help in mathematics. As we talked about earlier, they go hand in hand. The access to Tier 1 instruction across the board and making sure that across the district with a 30% transiency rate, that if you were to leave one school at West and go to East, or you found yourself at at Service High School or anywhere across our district, that they would be within a week to 2 weeks of the same scope and sequence. So we're not losing ground and we're not leaving kids behind.

That they're, they're really focusing on their instructional leadership and they're getting in to make sure that teachers have the high-quality instructional material that is consistent. And seeing throughout all the research to show that if we are consistent in that grade-level instruction that is rigorous, that focuses on high-leverage practices, you can still do exactly what we're seeing with our numbers, and that is continue to make steady improvement despite the tremendous headwinds that our district faces.

Thank you. And if I could have a follow-up Mr. Chair, go ahead, Member Bowman. Okay, so, uh, and I guess it's what support— and maybe I want to hear from all of you— what support do you— we know that we are, uh, in a deficit financially, but what support, if anything, can you think of that the board, that we, that the board can give, can give to this outcome. We know we don't have the money to do it the way we want to do it, and I applaud the staff for working in incredibly challenging situations, and they're doing the best they can for our kids.

So before the next monitoring report, or before we get the results of the next AK-STAR, what are some— just what are some things that this board can do?

And you might not have the answer today, and that's okay. Well, I think we have all kinds of great ideas. Thank you for the question. Yeah, I mean, I, I would like to highlight first of all the, um, the great commitment that the board has already made to support the, the middle school model, um, through FY28. Um, that helps, that helps preserve a staffing structure at the middle schools that provides for consistent, uh, curricular implementation, and it, it creates calm in the system that I think is really important for teachers to continue doing the good work work that Sean mentioned, despite the challenges that we've had to provide resources and staffing, we're still seeing gains, right?

And that speaks to the expertise of the classroom teacher, right? And it speaks to the district's success in monitoring instruction and providing resources where they need to be. So I would like to start there. I think we're already on a great path to providing that stability that our schools need. To be able to provide strong instruction.

One piece that I would, I would bring up, and Member Lessens has mentioned it before, and it's the idea of high-dose tutoring and how can we provide targeted support for students, and especially those students that are, you know, 1, 2, 3 grade levels behind their peers, to be able to make sure that we're giving them those opportunities to make catch-up growth. And whether that's through some sort of summer school programming or after-school tutoring, just providing them that extra level of support that in a lot of ways we used to have. You know, the board was, was really generous in the past with providing staffing for co-teaching and some other inclusive practices that provided for extra staffing in our classrooms. Absent that, I think having extra time for our students with targeted sports is something that, um, would be really, um, well received at the middle school level.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would also like to say that, you know, like Mr. Zawadny had said, staying stable as much as we possibly can— the middle school model would be something that if it was to change again, that could send all kinds of chaos into the ranks of teachers. We don't need them to worry about where they're going to be moved or not moved. We want them just to continue to focus in the classroom. Having a consistent curriculum— there is a curriculum that needs to be purchased in, in the next year that has to be done, and it's not time to change to something new with our math curriculum. When we ran through all of the curriculum advisory committees, they were pretty clear in saying that they wanted to stay with what we have for K-8 math instruction.

There's always areas to improve, but like I have said before, we don't need to go and buy a new car. We just need to learn all the features of the vehicle that we're currently driving and do it better. And I think that the evidence right now shows that our system is working, that it is improving despite some of these headwinds. It's not always perfect, and I'm not claiming that it's perfect, but massive changes are really destabilizing to the atmosphere of our schools. And so if we can make sure that we maintain the curriculum purchases when we need to do them, that we make sure that we don't disrupt giant models of our education and that we continue to have— like Mr. Zawadny said, if we have opportunities and ways to do targeted interventions like error reading that we're doing right now, and in the coming weeks we're going to be able to show the school board that we're having good success in that, and that's because we have set targeted dollars aside to do these kinds of interventions.

Um, that's really where I would land.

Thank you. I would add, um, the focus on our principals being instructional leaders. I think the walkthroughs that we're currently doing, um, with high school and middle school, the learning walks, calibrating what we're seeing in classrooms, where we can improve, um, you know, it's a big piece of the strategic action plan this year for instructional leadership and focusing on instructional leaders. I think, and I think Sean alluded to it with the MTSS, about multi-tiered support that we're currently revising and working through, and then just continue to work on productive struggle with our, with our students so that we keep the rigor high. We're using curriculum that's standard-based and we're following along with standards that are research-based, as we continue to coordinate that across the district, I think we'll continue to see the improvements that, that we're seeing.

Thanks.

We'll go to Member Blakeslee. Yeah, thank you. This is a meaty topic. Everyone's got a lot of questions. So my question, um, There are a lot of great ones from my colleagues already, so I won't, I won't repeat those.

But one question that I have is looking at the data on page 3, between the 2023 and 2024 school year and the 2024-2025 school year, there was a bigger jump in proficiency of kids who were, I guess, on target or are becoming more proficient of almost 5 percentage points. And I, um, I would like to hear from you what the conditions were during that time that made that possible. And maybe it's a series of conditions, maybe it's funding, maybe class sizes were a certain level, maybe there were resources, maybe— I, I don't know, maybe it was a lot of factors, but I would— that's a a bigger jump than any of these other years on this chart. So, um, what conditions existed that you think maybe facilitated that almost 5-point increase?

So one of the things, uh, we always want to talk about is, uh, the fact that each year represented on there is a different cohort of students. And so, um, we would expect percent or two variation between cohort and cohort. One of the other things that happened at that time was NWEA renormed their— and the linking study. And so with some of that renorming, there was some change. We can't say for sure whether or not the norms impacted, uh, the percent proficient, or what percent of the increase was attributed to the amazing instruction that's going on in our buildings.

One of the things I do know is that we did start work in PLCs and providing buildings some time to take a look at student data consistently. Um, there may be some other, other things. I think there are a few other contextual, um, things that were happening at that time that are worth highlighting. One is, um, at the middle school level, last 3 years really, we've been hyper-focused on making sure that we're getting as many students participating in these assessments as possible. We saw a significant jump in participation in AKSTAR this last spring from the spring before.

You know, and I think, I think what that helps us with the data is maybe numbers change a little bit, but we're seeing more accurate data, and I think that's important. Middle schools have been focused really intently on attendance and improving attendance across our schools, and pretty much every one of our middle schools now has some sort of incentive program, communication with families to get them engaged. Clark Middle School, for instance, just had over 2/3 of their students had 90% attendance first quarter, which is an amazing increase from the year before. And those are, those are intentional targeted interventions that they're doing at the building level. It's communication with families, and I think that, that really has an impact on what we're seeing in, in these assessment data.

And I would highlight just again the work that we were doing through inclusive practices at that time. We saw a lot more students with increased supports in the classroom, more one-on-one instruction through, um, certificated teachers and para support. And then I think that really had a lot to do with where we saw maybe that, that jump, in addition to what, uh, Deanne was talking about. And, um, that's— thank you, that's really helpful. And, uh, two follow-up questions, I'm just gonna ask them really quickly at the same time.

So, um, I would just— I guess maybe the first one is just a comment, not a question, but it. We're talking about the increase in the number of students tested. It doesn't look like that big of a jump in the number of students tested between the 2023-24 school year and the 2024-25 school year. I'm just looking at this page 3, right? It's, um, and maybe I'm reading the data wrong, but it doesn't look like a huge jump in the number of students tested.

Um, and if I'm reading it wrong, that's okay, but it seems like maybe there are some of the other qualifying factors that you talked about might be more significant and that jump. And then my question is, um, just for my own naivety, can you define what NWEA and renorming the linking study means?

So as you know, uh, the NWEA MAP assessment is a nationally normed assessment. And so what they did is they rank— students are ranked according to where their peers are across the country. So in 2024-25, at the end of that school year, they re— did a renorming, taking a look at all of the students across the country and figuring out where students lie.

Most of that was because of the impact of COVID The previous, uh, norming happened in 2020, so after 3 years of students back in session, they started to think we really needed to renorm because the 60th percentile in 2023 didn't mean the same thing as the 60th percentile in 2020. So students were renormed to what they What we discovered with ASD is that more of our students were at a higher percentile ranking after the re-norms than they were before. So while our students still had some impacts from COVID they were catching up a little faster than their cohorts across the country.

Thank you.

Member Wilson.

I know there was some talk about partnerships with individual schools, and I, I was at a, uh, Polynesian Association organization— I, I forget the name of it— recently, an event, um, and they talked about the 3 new partners partners, school partners that they have, and they're looking to expand that a little bit more. So I, I just wanted to recognize that we have a lot of our schools have wonderful partnerships with community organizations, and I really appreciate the work that they do with our students. It really helps to keep those students engaged in school and things relevant for them. So I I always try to recognize the many different partnerships that are working with community partnerships, school business partnerships that are working with our students and working with our schools. I really truly believe that they are making an impact in helping support our staff in many different ways, which our staff really needs as much support as they can, as they can get, and at this particular time as previously.

I do have one question before our next AK STAR assessment, how will we know whether the students are making progress, making enough progress? Is there some sort of assessment before they move into taking that AK STAR assessment? And, and if we are able to kind of gauge that assessment, how are we planning to adjust? Is there any kind of information you can provide?

So as you know, we do give the MAP Growth Assessment 3 times a year. In the fall, that's basically your benchmark or bench baseline for this cohort of 8th grade students. So we are already taking a look to see how this year's students are doing, K through 2, um, or actually 3 through 9. And when they take assessments in the winter, we will be able to get a new achievement percentile ranking for those students as well as a growth percentile. So we will be able to see how well our students are performing based on the expected amount of growth and where they also are ranking compared to their peers.

NWEA also gives us a projected proficiency rate based on those percentile rankings. So just for your reference, the new proficiency rate at which a student— or percentile rate at which a student is 50% likely to be proficient on the AKSTAR is roughly the 70th percentile, and that's what the linking study— so what the state has said is that the 70th percentile gives students a 50/50 chance of being proficient on the AKSTAR. And as you know, we already, um, had talked with the board earlier that, um, anywhere between the 40th and the 60th percentile is what a student typically would perform at nationally. And so the state has set a really high bar. They don't want just typical, they want students to be in the upper, um, 25%, basically, um, to be proficient.

And so for us to get 40% of our students in the upper 25% of kiddos nationally is, is aspirational, but we are working toward that.

We'll go back to Member Lessens, then Member McDonough. I think this is one of the, the very last questions that I sort of threw at all of you in the spaghetti on the wall that I sent you, really thinking about the concept of algebra test by 8th grade, which is a conversation that's taking place to some extent nationally. There's a question of should, should all 8th graders be given that opportunity or not? Does—. And, and I guess my understanding is that we have Math 6, Math 7, and Math 8.

Some students are able to take algebra, in some cases also geometry, in 8th grade. Does ASD have I mean, is there a goal within the administration to have more students qualify for, push themselves, be nudged into algebra in 8th grade? Or is the Math 8— and I know that everything was reconfigured, so pre-algebra and algebra are sort of maybe embedded within Math 8, but To what extent does Algebra by 8th Grade exist as any kind of beacon for ASD?

Uh, thank you for the question, Member Lessens. I think it's kind of hard to wrap our heads around the idea that what we all— I'm going to just age us all really quick— everybody that I'm looking at and everybody who's sitting at this table with me, 65% of what we would have called Algebra 1, those standards have already been moved into the elementary and middle school curriculum.

So it's sometimes conceptually hard for us to, you know, back in the day stories. But when we remember algebra as it was when we were in school, 65% of that is now pushed down, right? So our students are actually working really hard to grasp concepts of algebra very early, a lot earlier than we did when we were in school.

And it is hard for us to, to get that piece in our head because we have these old names that we attach to ways of thinking, and then we get really fixated on it. Right. And it's, and it's difficult sometimes for us to remember that when many of us were in high school, no one was taking Calculus BC unless you were taking a trip to the community college near your high school, if that was available. And we have, we have kids that are taking that. There's some sophomores students that are taking Calc BC right now in our schools.

We have a lot of freshmen that are taking Algebra 2. We have large cohorts of students that are taking geometry in 8th grade. And so to answer your question, I think our schools are leaning towards having what might be considered an acceleration model. The pathway is to try to get them very foundationally in the math curriculum.

So there's always pros and cons to acceleration, but right now it looks like if you are finishing Math 8, you are on track to being successful in algebra. And if I was to think about our success rate for algebra as a high school freshman, we still see students that are struggling with that curriculum. To say if we're going to even push that down even further, I don't, I don't know if we're going to get the desired response that we might be looking for. Um, we try to have those supports, but we also want to make sure that students have the foundational understanding of mathematics, because when they get to high school, they're going to have the opportunity to take all kinds of math curriculum that is going to far exceed algebra. Algebra 1.

Good. Member McDonough.

Uh, thank you. I will make, I think, pass to as quick as I can. Um, I appreciate how much the discussion has grown around the student groups, and I'd like to revisit that, um, starting with with a simple and very necessary recognition that all four of you in front of me, we have been removing resources from systematically year after year after year. And so seeing anything emerge out of a graph through so much austerity is, is really valuable. And Mr.

Prince noted that there's improvement And I'll push back just softly that I, I would say I agree in how, how much we've taken resources out of our schools. For there to be a level graph with basically a statistically insignificant flattening of -0.34%, I mean, that's remarkable. Like, these—. We're comparing against tremendous change even in the middle school that last year's kids who took the test, they simply had more resources. And especially if we zoom out 6 or 7 years, which is when these, these charts begin.

One thing in the data science that I'm very interested in is the, the trend is the intervention And two trends in this graph I think are very important, and we'll— I will then ask what the intervention is. It's on the last page here, but especially the interventions in the trend. So the trends that I see is that this data disaggregation has five outlier groups, statistically outliers, which means more than 1.5 standard deviations away from the district mean. Those 5 groups are English language learners, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander, Alaska Native American Indian, special education, which is not a racial category, but neither is ELL actually. So those are 4 low outliers, which means they're statistically on the left of the graph outside of the normal controlled range of performance.

And then there's 1 high-performing outlier that's barely over the cut, which is the white students on this list. Um, when you have 14 groups and 5 are outliers, the data science says there's a different story happening than what your metric is designed to study. And I, I really want to explore that story further. Um, basically 5 out of 14, which is, I don't know, like 30% of these student groups, don't fit within the acceptable range of performance. 4 Are too low, 1 is too high.

Um, the second data trend is when you have a K-shaped performance graph where some groups are going up and some groups are going down, and you get a letter K. And both tell us as data scientists, which I'm not, but I'm saying like we can learn from data scientists to see you have to have a different intervention because the data is telling you that these groups don't behave like each other. Um, all of that is a preface to my questions on the, um, it's on the last page, sorry, and I've already lost my pages. Um, the school-level priority action steps. I really appreciate how it's saying strengthen Tier 1 instruction, which for the layperson's Tier 1 means it's, it's what we expect of all students, like we're delivering that instruction to everybody who doesn't need accommodations, and then use a research-based MTSS fidelity framework to assess current systems. Both of those are in the communication and training.

Could, when, like, I guess it's, it's an open-ended question about how these interventions are going to be shaped as they advance from an early phase, the communications phase, into something that action— does it like an action plan with our schools? Um, the data shows us that 5 groups don't behave within the statistical, like, normal. How are these interventions going to be shaped to these 5 groups if, if we have that answer yet?

We don't have that answer yet.

Thank you. I mean, that's a, that's a powerful answer, and I, I think it's like an ownership thing where we all, um, want that investment. I think it needs to come from the board, frankly. So I started this by pointing out we took so many resources away Mr. Prince, you do not have your math coordinator this year, and you've been able to rely on this person for years and years.

And frankly, I think she's been a very talented professional. I'm asking you a question that I don't know if we've even given you the tools to answer anymore, but it's the question that I think the board ought to ask. And then I, I just want us to keep bringing this up as we keep looking at K-shaped student curves and groups that don't fit inside of our normal box.

We'll go to Member Higgins. Thank you. I just— a real quick question. I mean, we had the shift in math with the, you know, Common Core and other things that took place that one time. But right now, I remember a few years ago, one of the National School Board Association conferences, I had a chance to meet one of the two people that created AI.

And, and I know that right now those, those conferences are really focused on where AI is going with education. And when we got kids that's going to graduate in a new world, where we're at in regards to those. Is there groups out there or some other thing with the direction? Are we looking at the measuring where it needs to be, uh, for this and all the subjects? But where are we at, or has there been any discussions going on of how this might change the curriculum and where we may be focused in the future?

I didn't expect it to be an easy question. I didn't want to do that. Member Higgins, are you asking if we have an AI task force looking at our curriculum? No, I'm asking if you're aware of a task force. Have you seen information?

I don't expect you to. I, I think this is a national issue, and I think it goes beyond that. And, and so I don't expect that to be that sort of way, but I do expect that somewhere along here we're looking at trying to change what we're we hope to accomplish to get people ready out there. You made reference to what they had earlier and all. I remember before calculators, so I won't go any more than that.

But then at some point, their calculators were considered bad stuff, but when you got your job, you had a calculator. So the same thing with computers, same thing with everything else we've got. So the real world is when you do leave, AI is going to be there. You got, you got, uh, classes out there in AI, college, uh, curriculums and even, you know, majoring in this stuff. And I'm just kind of curious if you've been involved or know who's leading that, because I know at the national conference they're focusing heavy on AI upcoming.

They put that out there for you, and I've seen some stuff come out with that.

I would love to say that with our resources cut in half that we've been able to dedicate teams to look into this kind of stuff, but right now I think our focus is to hold what we got and to try to support the teachers that have overcrowded class sizes, that don't have the resources they need to do the work at hand.

I appreciate that. I'm not saying that. I'm just thinking you may be seeing stuff that says this is Horizon type stuff because we don't have the resource to change curriculums, to change other things. I realize that, but we're going to have to at some point, and I'm just wondering, you know, where we're at. But I'll get that from a conference perspective, I believe.

I, I would just add too that, um, there are conversations at the district level where we're looking at the use of student technology, the use of AI, both at the student and at the teacher level. Um, and we know that as these technologies evolve and as the use of these technologies become more widely used across our society and our, our educational system, we need to put, you know, left-right boundaries in place to make sure that we're using them effectively. And especially when we're continually constrained by budgetary needs, we have to determine at what level do we use certain technologies, right, so that they're best used by students. It is at the governance level to look at AI and to determine, you know, how are we going to regulate and monitor ensure how it's used responsibly across our system so that we are leveraging it for good and also making sure that students are engaged in the content and the curriculum that we have adopted and are using across our classrooms. The conference I attended, the focus was first is going to be administration has to do that for the, for the advantages, then it's going to be the teacher, then it's going to be the student.

But then I look at Finland, and, you know, they've got it at the elementary school just teaching you not— it's like good touch, bad touch, these things may not be true. Then they teach you how to ask the right questions and how to verify whether it's the truth. But the, the goal of the AI can kind of get you more focused on what you're trying to accomplish rather than the details of it. That's all. Thank you.

Those appear to be the extent of the board's questions. Thank you to the team for the presentation and review tonight, and especially appreciate you highlighting the amazing work that's going on in classrooms right now in a scarcity of resource environment. That completes school monitoring. We'll move on to Section D, public comment.

I want to welcome the community to the board's opportunity for public comment this evening. The board set aside a time slot at the start of our meeting to hear from all speakers. 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 facilitate public comment.

Specific provisions of Robert's Rules include: please do not attack a member or speaker's motives, no profanity or foul language, please refrain from disturbing the meeting. If you have handouts that you wish to share with the board, please hand them to Miss Sullivan, who's seated to my left. Additional details and information can be be found on the handout located near the door.

Our first speaker tonight is Sandy Thompson-Wallis.

Welcome, ma'am. You have 3 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Just checking, is it on? Good evening, members of the Anchorage School Board, Dr. Bryant, and ASD team. My name is Sandy Thompson Wallace, and I'm proud to serve the employees of the Anchorage School District as president of TOTEM Association of Educational Support Personnel, better known as TOTEM. I not only serve this association as its president, but I am a proud member of this group of dedicated employees and have been since September 1996. I'm in my 30th year.

Totem represents approximately 1,200 employees. Their contributions of dedication, hard work, and passion for our students, staff, and the community that we live in are evident each day. Whether they work in a school building or in a department, each employee plays, plays an essential role as part of the educational team. Totem employees are the support staff of the district. However, I like to think of them as the fuel that makes this district work and helps move us all forward toward the mission of educating all students for success in life.

We are clerical staff, tutors, and paraeducators. We support every facet of this organization. We are the caretakers, the fixers of copiers, computers, and boo-boos. We are the giver of hugs and the dryer of tears. We are teachers and colleagues colleagues and fill in a myriad of vacant roles or needs at our work sites.

We are the face of our district. We enroll students, order supplies, and keep the engine humming. Our employees love what they do and give of themselves above and beyond their job description entails every day in this district. In accordance with school board policy 4143, 4243, and Section 907 of the current totem collective bargaining This is our notification of our intent to negotiate a successor agreement to the current contract, which expires June 30th, 2027. Totem looks forward to working collaboratively with the district to negotiate a fair and equitable contract for all of our employees.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker tonight is Dane Sutterfield.

Welcome, sir. You have 3 minutes. You can begin when you're ready.

Good evening, President, Dr. Jharrett Bryantt, um, board members. I'm Dane Sutterfield. I'm, uh, have the good fortune of being the president of Anchorage Council of Education, also known as ACE. We, uh, are made up of approximately 125 different job classifications within this school district. Very complex local union.

Uh, we are, uh, I'm here to announce that we are entering into collective bargaining with the district through the collective bargaining process as outlined in Alaska statute and board policy and in our collective bargaining agreement for the next successful contract that will begin July 1st, 2027. We have been very pleased to see the collaboration and success of outcomes of some of the recent labor negotiations for some of the other collective bargaining groups, and we're looking forward to that collaborative effort with our team and the district's team to reach an outcome very quickly and efficiently to make sure that we retain these employees that are filled these very critical roles in the district that are the nuts and bolts of the district's operation, from supervisors and managers to subject experts, subject matter experts, to safety and security and beyond, from payroll and accounting to project managers and buyers. I just, just go on and on, from speech therapists and psychologists and interventionists and behavioral specialists I get, you know, I, I could just name nameless 125 different job classifications. So thank you very much. Looking forward to this opportunity to efficiently and collaboratively accomplish a great contract.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker tonight is Imre Magnoki.

Welcome. You have 3 minutes. You can begin when you're ready.

Hi, my name is Emery Manyoki. Um, I've been coming to these meetings for the past year, um, just trying to, uh, give the people that are in control of this school district a different perspective so that they may learn something and, um, have a different view so that you can try something different. And, um, I appreciate that one of the analytical persons that was here speaking just mentioned, um, a comparison to the school district like an automobile. And I think this is part of the problem with You guys not really understanding what I'm saying is that the perspective you're given is that, that it's like a machine that you just, you put curriculum in, pay teachers, and you pump out educated students. And my perspective is that it should be more like an ecosystem of life, and you are a curator that is, you know.

Guiding that life. Because, you know, what learning can be is that you just install a bunch of programming in your brain, and then now you know which date certain historical facts happened and everything. So, you know, that's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that you're learning and developing your mind so that you have a richer type of life, so that you understand the world around you better. And so that you have deductive reasoning and independent thought and problem-solving skills.

And the—. What I, um, the, the focus of a lot of the changes I'm proposing is about looking at the human lives we're talking about and understanding that they have a lot of untapped potential. And if you really tap into that potential and create a culture of life in these schools where students want to learn, the teachers are excited to teach, and it's not a frustrating thing where everybody drags their feet around and is, you know, not, not dreading going to school every day, but actually enjoying it and getting a sense of self-esteem and achievement from it. And I think if you really got through that and could tap into the potential that is there, then there'd be no need to compare on the national scale. We'd be just blowing right past them.

Of course, if they start copying us, then, you know, there'll be some more viable comparisons. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Our last speaker tonight is William Baxter.

Welcome, sir. You have 3 minutes. You can begin when you're ready.

I'm William Baxter, and, uh, FFA is growing really good now. Uh, forage is really doing good. And other things in agriculture industry is really doing good. There's a lot of things coming, a lot of like the Alaska Farm Bureau is next month here in Anchorage at the, at the Sheraton Hotel. I'm kind of excited for that.

And another thing is about me is my mom had many kids to raise. We had my— I lived with my uncle down in Utah. And one of the things is about my thing about what I hear is it's kind of like why I didn't read very good is because a little bit my— mostly my fault, but also my, my family. I call my family like the high school. If you had a high school degree back my mom day, that was a big thing.

And one of the things my mom and dad never did to me is, Bill, is your homework done? Bill, is your homework done? And I watch people that are very successful, like, uh, like people that are engineers and that, that's what they do to their kids. Is your homework done? That's the most important thing.

And that, and, and that too. And so, you know, I kind of like, I know that you're, the teachers here are really hard, hard, you know, press the kids to, to learn, but it's also themselves and the parents too. And that. And a lot of times, even, uh, you know, you ever talk— and sometimes it's not so much your parents, but it's somebody, your grandmother, your grandparents taking over and being leaders and stuff like that. And, uh, thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. That completes public comment for this evening. Thank you to those who came out to testify.

That moves the board to our consent agenda item E. Is there a board member who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda for discussion?

Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as drafted? I move to approve the consent agenda as drafted.

Is there a second? A second. Made by Member Lessens to approve the consent agenda as drafted, seconded by Member Wilson. Seeing no discussion, can we have a voice vote to approve our consent agenda, please?

Member Bellamy? Yes.

Member Wilson? Yes. Member Lessens? Yes. Member McDonough?

Yes. Member Wilson? Yes. Member Higgins? Yes.

President Jacobs? Yes.

We've adopted our consent agenda by a vote of 7 to 0. That moves us to action items. F, Section F, um, item number 1 is a student hearing, uh, to approve the student expulsion reentry incident number 1441624, as discussed in executive session. Is there a motion?

I move to approve student expulsion reentry incident number 1441624 as discussed in the executive session.

Second. Motion was made by Member McDonough, seconded by Member Wilson. Is there discussion? Seeing none, can we have a voice vote, please?

Member Higgins?

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

Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Lessens?

Member Lessens?

Oh God, no. Member Wilson? Yes. President Jacobs? Yes.

The motion is adopted by a vote of 6 to 1. Moves us to action item F2, ASD memorandum number 047-2627, facilities and land returning to the Municipality of Anchorage, to transfer $3.96 million in available prior year bond funds in order to demolish the Abbott Loop facility and relinquish management rights once demolished, relinquish management rights of the Campbell Lake Elementary facility, and relinquish management rights of the West Park parcel in Anchorage. The administration also recommends recommends that the school board approve a recommendation to declare the West Park property excess to the district's needs so the administration can relinquish management property authority back to the municipality of Anchorage. Is there a motion?

Okay, I, I move to approve ASD Memorandum 047, Facilities and Land Returning to the Municipality of Anchorage, to transfer $3.96 million in available prior bond— prior year bond funds in order to demolish the Abalute facility and relinquish management rights once demolished, relinquish management rights of the Campbell Lake Elementary facility and relinquish management rights of the West Park parcel in Anchorage.

The administration also recommends the school board approve a recommendation to declare the West Park property excess to the district's needs so the administration can relinquish management authority back to the Municipality of Anchorage.

Is there a second? Second. I will. Motion made by Member Lessens, seconded by Member Wilson. Is there discussion?

Member Higgins?

Yeah, my concern in here, it has to do with just the capacity of schools. We're at 2 to— at 99% plus. I think it's over 100. And, um, and because we've made the changes that we've had, we don't have the capacity to even reduce classroom sizes in that school without changing locations and making other issues. We've got a couple of activities going on, and I don't think Abbott Loop Community Council has really signed on to this the way it's going forward.

So I have some reservations about it. I understand the goal. If it was there, we're going to use existing bond money to go ahead and do it, and we hope to get that back. Although this not reflected in here as a condition in doing it, but the assumption is that we will get the support. Depends upon on who the administration is at the time, right?

So my concern is that just the community involvement in this process is not as solid, and I haven't seen the projections of how we're going to handle any increasing in funds. We've got some— at least this election might change how much support we get to try to low classroom sizes. And Tutor, we can't even close the way it is. I mean, it's just too full. I went by there and visited it.

And it is packed and there was no space to do anything. So, um, I have reservations about it for that reason. I also have reservations that we haven't looked at Abbott Loop, what we can use internally within the city, within the school district, for to replace some of the administrative type functions. So I'm not going to support it. I expect it to be approved, but I just want those things to be on the record that, that this thing represents to me some um, uh, the, the process that we choose and the impact we've got other schools involved.

I will go to Member Blakeslee. Yeah, so, um, I know this topic has been on our agenda a couple times now, and I know that the assembly is still deliberating, um, but in this, in this memo, it says at the very end, the very last sentence, it says the Anchorage Assembly will be discussing a resolution in October that will demonstrate the Assembly's intention to provide the sale proceeds to the district. Has—. Can someone just catch me up? I've been tracking the Assembly, but, but where they are in that deliberation?

I don't think that they have completed the, uh, the vote. We thought it would go a little bit quicker. I haven't received anything from the mayor's team that said, um, that they had done the final vote. So I think that then my follow-up would be— I, I mean, I guess I can make a motion. Well, I guess my What I would want to see is this language revised in the recommendation itself, so that instead of us, the board, approving that we're going to, to essentially use— authorize the superintendent to transfer $3.96 million in available prior year bond funds to demolish Abbott Loop.

Relinquish Campbell Stem and this piece about relinquishing management rights of West Park parcel, that, that it's conditional upon us actually receiving the sale of West— of the West Park property, that we don't just hand it over without that being a guarantee. Because what I don't want to happen is that we're— we pass something with the assumption that the sale of the West Park property means will get those proceeds. But right here in the end, it says the assembly is going to be discussing their intention to provide the sale proceeds to the district. So without that guarantee, it feels a little risky.

Um, thank you, Member Blakeslee. My understanding, um, and we'll take a 5-minute break just to confirm, is that the assembly voted on resolution regarding the West Park property at their last meeting, but I want to take a second to confirm. I was— I believe the vote on that was 11 to 1, but we'll take a second to confirm and we'll check with administration too, and we'll come back to address that point, if that's okay.

See a thumbs up, so that's good. Okay, we'll take a 5-minute recess. We'll be right Back.

Okay, we'll call ourselves back to order at 8:06 PM.

I want to note for our record that, um, Mayor LaFrance has, um, provided for board consideration and questions her chief of staff, who's made the.

Join us for tonight's meeting. Susanne Fleek-Green, could you join us, um, here up front? Welcome to our meeting. I— maybe as a starter to a conversation, could you confirm the board's understanding that the assembly at their October 6th meeting passed a resolution pledging to allocate the proceeds of a sale of the West Park property mentioned in ASD Memorandum Number 047 to the district, and then discuss any knowledge you might have about the origin of the resolution and what you understand the mayor's position on this to be. Yes, of course.

For the record, Suzanne Fleek-Green, Chief of Staff to Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. And you are correct, that assembly resolution did pass 11 to 1 at our last assembly meeting, um, and that is after very, uh, long and constructive conversations with both, uh, the superintendent and members of his team, where after the school deficit last year, we were looking for ways that we could collaborate with the school district to bring additional funding to the table. And this was one of those options. And so you— in that assembly resolution, you will see the bundle of schools that are included with it, but also a very direct expression of the intent of the assembly that also echoes the mayor's intent that the proceeds from the West Park sale would go to the school district. Thank you.

I think the other question that I have, and I think other board members may have some as well, is, um, do you have any estimate at this point when and how much time might elapse between tonight's meeting and when the municipality could realistically see a financial return from the sale of West Park? Our goal is that we are able to do that early in the new year and that we want number to be available to the school districts with at least an appraisal of the property and have it out for sale so that before the turn of the calendar you have at least a rough dollar amount of what that sale could go for and that we could execute the sale early in the new year.

Thank you. Those are the questions I had. Do other members of the board have questions. Uh, Member Bellamy.

Thank you, and thank you for being here, uh, Suzanne. Uh, a couple of questions came up during community council meetings this past week, and one of them regarding the West Park parcel. Uh, and the question really had to do with whether or not it was legal that the Muni could sell a property and give us the proceeds. So, um, I didn't quite understand the question, but I'm wondering if there is— if in your view or the mayor's view there is any restriction, uh, legal or otherwise, that the muni could not return those funds to us. Thank you.

Yes, thank you for that question. Um, and no, there are not legal restrictions. In fact, um, for one of The parcels in the West Park acreage that we are talking about, the school district actually bought that parcel. So that is really easy that you get the returns on the parcel that you bought. But otherwise, no, there is not any legal restriction on our ability to transfer those funds to the school district.

And our municipal attorney has looked into that deeply, and we do not have any concern of that occurring. Awesome, thank you so much.

Um, I'll follow up on that question just briefly because I think it might help answer Member Bellamy's underlying inquiry. Miss Parrott, if through the superintendent, if you're available, could you discuss the other half of that from your knowledge? Um, on our side, are there any Are there any challenges that have merit regarding our ability to accept the proceeds from the West Park property if it's sold? Would we have any issue accepting those proceeds for any reason?

So, um, those proceeds could be received to Specific funds, and I think that what you're referring to, President Jacobs, is the statutory cap on local contributions, right? So we would have to stay within that cap, and the, the way that the current statute and administrative code reads is that contributions to other funds outside of the operating fund are allowable. Now, that was the topic that was the source of a lot of contention not too long ago, if you remember, when there was a proposed regulation change to be able to incorporate a cap on all funds that are received locally. And so we would want to be really aware of any future efforts to adjust that and be strategic in how those— how we did receive those funds and how they were allocated and how that corresponds with our existing fiscal year. And then the fluctuation of that ceiling in the statutory cap, because as you remember, at the point in time that we approve a budget and that we convey that to the municipality, there's usually legislative action that takes place later in the cycle that will adjust that ceiling.

And so I think that we would need to just be very strategic and mindful of the timing and the other components and levers that are taking place in the legislature and elsewhere that may impact how that money is conveyed. Does that answer your question? I think it does. I just have a quick follow-up, again under the topic that Member Bellamy raised. Are there— what I think I understand is there are other items that the municipality contributes to that are outside of that local contribution cap, and I'm thinking of student transportation.

Are there ways that we can absorb any additional funding past the local contribution cap if we manage to hit that cap and incorporate those funds into an item that doesn't fall under that cap? Yes, absolutely. So funds are available to, to go toward capital projects, obviously, as well as other funds such currently with the current law and interpretation, such as student nutrition, transportation, as you mentioned, potentially student activities, and those items that are truly outside of the operating fund. Thank you. And I agree that we're using the current law and current interpretation, and with all the other uncertainty regarding public education, I don't know that I can incorporate potential future modifications to that understanding.

So that's the best available information we have. Thank you. Okay, we'll go to Member Blakeslee.

Yeah, I guess a couple of questions. One is, is there any mechanism— well, maybe I'll back up. The Assembly's intent and the mayor's intent to allocate those— these proceeds to the district. Is that at all change with a future assembly, right? Does like a future assembly— are they beholden to giving those proceeds that have been made by potential different body on the assembly if, for example, the sale of that property happens after a new assembly is potentially elected?

There we go. Um, two things. One, again, the speed of the sale is that I do not foresee that scenario happening. We are already taking steps to move this as quickly through our process as we can. So for example, we have put signage on the property saying that there will be a public hearing by the Heritage Land Bank Advisory Commission.

So we're taking steps, as many steps as we can before for the board action so that we can move this quickly. And there will not be a new assembly until well after we foresee this sale going forward. Um, there could be one seat that changes, but otherwise there are not other assembly members, uh, coming onto the body in the next 16 months. And then second, if they did choose to do that, they would have to take a new action to reverse this current action. And given the swiftness and the 11-to-1 vote, I don't want to predict anything, but I think that would be a high bar.

Okay, uh, thank you. I'm going to pause, hold my next question. Go to Member Higgins. Thank you. Let's see if I understand correctly.

If when we get the money back, it really needs to stay in the capital, otherwise it offsets the funding that we would have otherwise for operations? And because then we got your limit, right? So they can't give us the excess money. It would raise how much they contribute for operations, but if they give it for capital, it's not covered, right? So generally speaking, there are— there's contributions to certain funds that are outside of that cap.

However, there are— there are timing components that potentially more could be received than we had initially projected depending on legislative action. So there are ways that we would be able to receive that potentially for operating if the timing aligned with other, other actions that did raise the ceiling because we set our cap very early in the cycle. Where more often than not the legislative action does end up changing the allowable number that we can receive after the budget has already thoroughly gone through all of the process and the taxes are set. So I think that there's a lot that depends on the point in time that the property would be sold, how much was received, and what the timing would be of the conveyance of any of the proceeds. And so we could also coordinate with, um, the municipality on, um, being really strategic based on that point in time and knowing what the needs of the district are across all of our funds.

Um, we would be able to evaluate, um, where we have the ability to receive funds to our operating fund versus other, um, funds and other needs or projects. So I think that we, we could structure this in a way that it kind of meets a variety of needs and that we could work very closely at the time that— closer to the time where we would have the revenue available.

And the other question is, I know this group at Abbott, and I live real close to that, is not as loud as Campbell Lake, not as, as, as Anchorage.

Voicing their concerns is loud, but has there been any community meetings at all in regards to what the plans are with Abbott? Because I live in that area, I don't see anything where we've given a chance for the community to provide input as to what they would like to see accomplished. Because I have heard different things at these— at the community council meeting, which I regularly attend and give reports. So I've just kind of curious, has there been anything like that that I've missed?

Well, um, through the community council meetings, we have had our staff attend. I think you were also at the last one where, uh, our Deputy Chief of Staff was there and talked about, um, what next on Abbott Loop. I think up until this point, um, we did not want to get ahead of the school district. This is your decision on the board of what you want to see with this appropriation. And so we, we do not want to get in front of the school district on that decision.

Once the school district has made that decision, we intend to go through a process like we are right now with Campbell STEM, where we are meeting with a much larger community, including the nearby community councils, to talk about what people would like to see that addresses the best next public step for that property.

So the assumption is that the school is going to be leveled, and then we're going to talk about what's going to happen after that, as opposed to using that for anything at all. We are waiting for the school district to make a decision about what you want to do with that property. Before we further engage a community so we understand what we are working with. So, so you're looking for us to say we're surrendering it and then you're going to look at the, the community there as to what you want to do with the property? Correct.

So we had a meeting because we already knew that you were accessing Campbell Lake and that you were— that the building plus the land would be coming back to the Municipality of Anchorage. So We had a meeting with that neighborhood— neighborhoods to talk about their interest. We put out a request for information and we got those responses back for Campbell STEM. We had that public meeting. We will now put out an RFP that has— that is built around what we heard both from the RFI and that public meeting.

We will put that out. We will then again take, take public comment, um, and then the administration will make a recommendation about how to repurpose Campbell STEM, both as a building and, and land. We are not there yet, again, with Abbott Loop because we are awaiting further action tonight or whenever it occurs about what the district's plan is for that property before you access it to the municipality. So you're not expecting us to go ahead and, and level it until those meetings take— until the meeting takes place and then confirm you want it gone? Or you, you, you— is that decision already left the, left the gate?

We are waiting for this decision tonight, what you do there. My understanding— I mean, Jim can talk about your timeline for what next of what to do with the building. Again, I— that is not our decision. Um, but after tonight, depending on what you do, then that will help create the framework for the type of conversation that the municipality will have with the community.

So you're not interested in committing 3.96 based upon the outcome of the thing? You want us to go ahead and go forward and then talk about what we're going to do afterwards because we've already made the decision to eliminate the school before we have community meeting? What I'm saying is, we are waiting for the school board to make a decision.

We'll go to Member McDonough.

Yeah, I want to, like, while Miss Fleek-Green is here, I think, I don't know every, like, all 50 states, but of the states I do know, like Texas, California, Washington, the property management laws are much easier to navigate than Alaska. And so, like, hats off to the mayor's administration and to our administration for, I think, figuring out how we share the ability to manage and then ultimately sell and then redistribute those funds. Like, it's a nightmare to even conceptualize And so hats off. I have— I think it's not really a question at you, but I think it's just— it's worth stating that the board chose to close in 2022 the Abbott Loop facility. At the time in 2022, we did perform extensive town halls.

That was actually the first year of the— it wasn't even called right-sizing, but we brought up a consultant named Shannon Bingham. And he had said that Abbott Loop was consistently on the possible demolition list because of its runaway repair costs. Um, the board did eventually vote through those very extensive town halls to close the school. It didn't declare at the time to demolish it, but it voted to close it because of the reasons given by the consultant. Um, so I, I would I would say that not only do I think the mayor's administration has done a great job at building community voice and consensus around that property, um, this school district did in 2022.

I think we did an excellent job at the time showing people what the— basically the corner of their neighborhood will look like as, as we navigate through that. Um, Now their vote doesn't really bind our vote. We do have to make a decision, but I'm really here to respect the leadership in 2022 and then the demonstration of really good community stewardship by this administration, both sides, the ASC administration, the mayor's administration, in being able to support this. It is a very complicated thing. I think we could spend hours continuing to look at how property management in Alaska is hard.

But in the end of the day, I think the, the two sides of this have put up, put together the cleanest proposal possible. So thank you both for at least showing us what a finish line looks like, because I didn't know if that could be possible 5 months ago. And, um, and so I do intend to support the way that this memo reads.

I don't see any other questions. I'll jump in with one of my own. I have a question, sir. Member Bellamy, please. Thank you.

So, as I recall— thank you, Member McDonough. I am inclined to support this as well. We have, as I recall, the fire— there is a person called the fire marshal that condemned this building. They let us use it until I think 2027 or 2028, I can't remember which. We opted to move Ricashula into there for a couple of years while we helped figure out their final location.

Um, so I— Abbott Loop, if we're going to put another $3 to $4 million into Abbott Loop, that's a whole nother story. Uh, but the fire marshal— and I think if anybody, we need to maybe consult with the fire marshal because it was on their recommendation that we— and I don't think I'm wrong, but I could be, so Jim, you can correct me, or whoever. Um, so having said that, my question really is, um, I'm trying to understand what would be restrictions on the money for the sale of the west Park parcel. So, and I'm— so I just need to clarify that those funds can go to literacy, wellness, transportation, activities, pre-K, literacy. Is that correct, Katie?

It doesn't have to go— I mean, it can come to us in various different buckets. Is that correct, or am I wishful thinking?

It's possible for that to come to us to support those things. Okay. And we— what we would need to do is at the point in time that the revenues would be available, we'd need to evaluate our standing for that current fiscal year that those funds— not just that the municipality would be receiving them, but but the year in which those are conveyed to the district as revenue. And then we would need to take a look at our up-to-date statutory cap on local contributions to see what could be received to the operating fund versus administering those funds to other needs of the district. Okay, and follow-up.

Can those funds, whatever the sale of the property is, can they be spread over a period of time, or would they have to be done within a fiscal year?

So the way that, um, the way that the law works on the state cap is, is for that fiscal year period. Okay, so there's the potential that, um, the, the municipality, depending on when the revenues are received and depending on when those could be approved to be conveyed to the district, that that could span multiple fiscal years. Okay. So it just really kind of depends on how the sale goes, when we receive, or when the municipality receives the proceeds, funding, and then when they would initiate a contribution to the district, and then when the timing of all of those things happens in what manner. And so there's a lot of contingencies around, or I guess considerations around planning for that to happen and when that could potentially happen.

Thank you. And my final question, final follow-up is, Katie, for you and for Jim, is there anything wrong with the memo as it's currently written that you think we need to reconsider?

No.

Katie?

Thank you, guys. I don't believe so. Sorry, I apologize. That's okay, I feel you. Thank you, guys.

I'm going to jump in with two questions that I have. Um, Ms. Fleek-Green, thank you so much for being with us tonight and hearing these questions. Um, I'm going to ask the opposite, I think, of what Member Bellamy asked, and that, uh, the resolution the assembly adopted indicates that the mechanism for how AST will begin receiving the funding from the sale of West Park will be to submit a budget, a supplemental budget. Um, if the board were to pass a supplemental budget that allocated the full proceeds of the West Park property in early 2027.

Does the mayor— is it the position of the mayor's office that they don't have any opposition to that being done? In other words, would Mayor LaFrance prefer the funding be spread over multiple fiscal years, or if the board chooses to allocate those dollars for FY27, or FY28, um, would that be appropriate?

The mayor's position would be we would work with the school district in whichever way you prefer. Per Katie's, um, information, is what works best for you is what the mayor would like to do. Her goal is that the, the sale of this property is most beneficial to the school district. So if it works better to split it over a couple of fiscal years, we will do that. If it works better to do it in one, we will do that.

We would— again, her goal is to be most beneficial to the school district. Understood. Okay, and then last question I have, um, relates to— I think maybe the— I think it was a press release that followed, um, the assembly adoption of the resolution. Um, in it, it appeared to outline the mayor's post-at-that-time plan for the Abbott Loop Elementary property. And I'm just going to read.

It says, ASD concluded that the existing Abbott Loop building needs extensive repairs and maintenance to be safe and usable. The municipality will accept the Abbott Loop lot after ASD has removed the existing building and prepared the lot for redevelopment. Mayor LaFrance and Assemblymember Baldwin Day will conduct community conversations to gather input for future views— future use of the property in November. Um, is that still the municipal administration's position? I don't think the board has any preference, but I want to say that the reason why our memorandum on our side indicates that we're allocating $3.96 million in available bond funding to— for demolition is based off of that information and kind of the lead from the municipal side.

But if that isn't the case, if there's another path forward we should be pursuing that makes more sense for the municipality, I think we're supportive. So does that question make sense? Yeah, let me just be clear that we have proceeded based on information from the school district that it was the intent, and certainly, um, you've heard from other members here of the background on, on the building itself, is that it was the school district's intent to demo the building. And so that's why you see the information in the press releases that all along that has been the indication that we have had from the school district. If there was a change in approach by the school district or the board and you were going to access the building plus the property, I, I think we would have to evaluate then what the cost of us taking the building and either demoing it or fixing it so that again, um, it could pass fire marshal's evaluation.

We would have to consider that. Does the municipality have a preference for whether it would like to accept the property with the building on it or not?

For our budget circumstances, we do not want to take on an additional capital expense. Okay, that's— I think is the information I need to know. Um, I'll just say from my perspective, I can understand that. We just received a briefing on our deferred maintenance backlog, and I can certainly relate.

Um, I just want to say that I, I mean, well, we're happy— I'm happy to be a partner. I personally don't have any, um, preference, so whatever makes sense for the municipality, in my opinion, it's our job to be a good partner and facilitate that outcome. I think those are the questions I had. Again, extremely grateful for you taking the time to be with us tonight and answer those questions. Is there anything else from the board at this point.

Mr. Chair, Member Bellamy. Thank you. So, uh, am I just dreaming that the fire marshal condemned Lake Otis? Um, Jim, I don't know if you would have that with you, uh, uh, right now, but, uh, and the cost to repair Abbott Loop so that it could be inhabitable.

We decided as a board— thank you, Member McDonald, for bringing back the 2022 decision and the process. We've gone through a process with that community. They understood, at least didn't agree, but they understood that the building had been condemned, would require an excessive amount of money to, uh, upgrade it. Uh, so in my mind, demolishing it is actually the most fiscal and, um, responsible decision to make. What am I missing, uh, Mr. Anderson?

Is that no longer the case? I know we got a new fire marshal at some point, uh, but this is not like a random decision to demolish Abbott Loop. We had a process, and while we may disagree with the process, the process did work, uh, well, we carried it out. People did disagree, but some people agreed. So I don't know if there's anything you can, uh, highlight, Mr. Anderson or Katie, Or Superintendent Bryant.

Member Bellamy, I can, I can certainly provide a little information. Originally, when we first did the bond to put in a fire suppression system for Abbott Loop, well before that building was ever looked at for closing or rightsizing, that was the bond year, if you recall, where all the projects were cut by 10%.

We went out for bid. We had to de-scope it. Originally, we were going to try to raise the roof because that was the best way to put a fire suppression system on the ceiling. We didn't have the funds to do that, so we de-scoped it and decided to basically punch holes through all the walls and run them on the top side of the classroom walls. And that's where the new fire suppression system would run.

When we went out for bid, we didn't get a single bidder for that project. A couple years later, we ended up closing the school. When we moved ANCCS into the school, the fire marshal gave us a waiver as long as ANCCS was there, and it was going to expire when they vacated that facility. They gave us one more extension when Rikka Shula moved in, but currently we do not have an approved waiver from the fire marshal to occupy that space as a school. We had explained this to the mayor's team.

I think now it's been a couple months now when we first started talking about this. They knew that we had the original $3.96 million from the original bond. Anchorage where we couldn't get any bidders to do the work.

And, and we did discuss that they would like us to use that $3.96 million in order to demo the building. You know, we're the building manager. We don't actually get to determine disposition, but I think Suzanne was at that, at that meeting. We had several, but they made it very clear that they would like us to demo it because they were looking at a deficit building the next year's budget and, and didn't have the funds to either demo or renovate it. So, you know, everything in this board memo is really supporting and supportive of our discussions with the mayor's office.

And, and again, as Carl read out on the press release where they talked about using that land for development after it had been demoed. Okay, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, thank you. Um, we'll go to Member McDonough, the member Higgins. Yeah, I think this is a quick answer, but I actually don't know the answer. Um, uh, in researching this, I noticed that the board actually did declare the Abbott Loop property in excess in February 2026, which was Memo 137, um, to the team. Aside from relinquishing it to the municipality, what else could we do with a property that's in excess?

So we don't get to determine actually whether it got demoed or not. We only can determine— the board, not me— the school board only can only determine whether The building and the land are excess to our needs, and then it's the city that determines the disposition of the building. In this case, knowing the history of the fire suppression system, knowing that $3.96 million, which was approved many years ago, is, is certainly not enough to put in even the alternate, alternative fire suppression system. That's probably, you know, not quite double of $3.96 million, but certainly, certainly more than it was 8+ years ago when we came up with that dollar amount. And so they asked us if we would use that to demo the building so they could develop the land.

Just in a hypothetical, or in the advocated position to vote no, that I've heard from members. What else could we do? I mean, to me it's, it's, it's a decision of we demo it and give it to the muni for use, or we hold on to a dilapidated building indefinitely. We could renovate it.

You know, frankly, it's a vacant building right now. We have no one maintaining that building every day. Whatever condition it was in when Rick Ushula left, it's only degrading at this point. Um, we are looking at ways to secure that building so unauthorized guests don't decide to move into that building during the summertime or during the wintertime and, and cause even further damage. And we don't have the security staff to routinely check on that building.

It's, you know, it's problematic. Neither does the city.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Member Higgins. Yeah, I just want to put things a little bit in perspective because 10 years plus a year ago, the community was told that essentially because the roof has to be raised, the cost is so great, we need to rebuild this, build a new school. And so put it in a different location because it wasn't possible. Then I remember the predecessor here with the COO came out, did a presentation and said, you know, we looked at it, we need to put $1 million into it. We can put something on the roof that will provide— meet the requirements of what we need to be done.

And so it's really a million-dollar fix if we do it, and that would address all the fire marshal issues. So it changed dramatically at that point in time. Then we've had estimates come through that included a lot of other corrective actions on top of the roof to say, if we're really going to fix it right, we need to fix the school completely. I am not arguing to keep the school right now, to change anything else. I'm just suggesting that the community engagement here to be able to— because they've expressed a lot of interest in this in the past— to at least having heard them would have— would be something that I think is relevant.

But that's something that's going to end up being part of the administration to decide how you're going to use that land, what you're going to do. But there was a lot of discussions that took place, a lot of presentations to the community council where I was at. It wasn't on the school board at that particular point in time. And, and that's what concerns me, because then I've heard the descriptions that said, uh, if, you know, even the arguments that it really isn't an issue about truly, if you could appeal the fire suppression system because you got two doors to every classroom, which gives it a whole different requirement. But regardless of which step they took or they take, it's just this thing's shoved through without that community engagement is what— only thing that bothers me.

I'm glad Campbell is having those meetings in regards to what you do with the school. I just feel Abbott hasn't really been fully engaged.

I don't see any other questions. Um, Miss Fleek-Green, any additional comments before the board votes?

I guess I would just reiterate again that, um, one, both of us have very challenging budget situations in front of us, both on the operating side and the capital side, and The conversation and the collaborative work with the district has been productive over the last year to find other ways that the municipality can be fully supportive of the district. And so I think this is one good avenue and again addresses multiple needs in our community and for this region of our community. So appreciate the district's interest and the board's interest in that. Thank you. Thank you again for appearing tonight, and I agree the collaboration here I think has been remarkable and good for our community.

Um, with that said, I think we're going to have a voice vote at this point on ASD Memorandum Number 047, Facilities and Land Use Returning to the Municipality of Anchorage.

Member Blakeslee? Yes. Member Higgins?

No. Member McDonough? Yes. Member Lessens? Yes.

Member Wilson? Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. President Jacobs?

Yes. Esteemer memorandum number 047 is adopted by a vote of 6 to 1. That concludes our non-action items this evening. There are— apologies, I was looking at the paper agenda. We have one last action item, uh, that was pulled, AO 2026-130.

Is there a motion?

It's not an action— sorry, point of order. It's not an action item for today, but I did want to pull it for discussion. So no— yeah, sorry. Oh, is there any reason?

Oh, I see. So this was a I could read if that helps us. So to your point of order, Member Lessens, AO 2026-130 was noticed as a non-action item. I think in— you sent an email to Ms. Sullivan indicating your interest in pulling it. I think that was— I think it was just communication quirk, and that got moved to action item status.

Really, you don't need to pull any item from non-action status to discuss it. And so we can discuss the non-action item during the non-action calendar.

If the board votes to discuss or the board votes to take action on a non-action item, ultimately it's our purview to discuss the merits of doing so. But I think there's also— yeah, if there's time sensitive, we can. Go ahead and proceed. But anyway, um, I think it's just, uh, not best for the action calendar because that wasn't where it was noticed. But either way, we can discuss and then take action if we'd like.

So we'll move on to non-action items. Member Lessens, you wanted to discuss AO 2026-130, and then it's my understanding there's a member who has a motion, so we can discuss. Okay, well, thank you. So yes, my intent tonight was to make sure the board had an opportunity to discuss, um, this assembly resolution, which for everyone's reference is the resolution to— and I'm paraphrasing— um, have 6 board members be elected on a district basis and 1 board member to be elected at large over a multi-year period. And the ordinance has specific language, but that is the overall intent.

My intent, or my hope, was that we would have it on on-action today for discussion, that we could talk about it in governance on the 29th, and that we could then discuss it again as an action item at our first meeting in November. But if the governance meeting, um, is moved until the 4th then we need to have a more substantive discussion, I think, this evening, but could still have a timely action on the second. But I'm interested in what Member McDonough has to say as well. So my thought is that I would be interested at this point in hearing from board members about their support or opposition to either asking the president to to prepare a letter to the Anchorage Assembly on the board's behalf, or a board resolution which could then be brought to the first meeting in November, essentially expressing opposition to AO-2026-130. Um, then the board could vote on either the letter or perhaps a resolution, which might have a little bit more clout on the 2nd for transmission prior to the Assembly's November 4th meeting.

That was my thought, essentially, to take— to have a conversation about the ordinance, to get a sense of where individual members stand, if they had any particular thoughts they wanted to share with the body. But I am happy to pause and hear from Member McDonough as well.

Go to Member McDonough, then Member Higgins. Yeah, thank you.

Um, yeah, the timeline part here is where I think I can contribute the most to the early discussion. Member Handeland proposed AO 2026-130, and it was moved to be voted on at the November 4th meeting. Um, if we postpone— or if we don't— if we don't, um, really resolve or direct any actions tonight, our next window of opportunity to inform our colleagues on the assembly would be November 2nd when the board next meets. And that only gives the assembly and and their mechanisms of analysis effectively one day to synthesize the positions we have. And I think, um, us waiting as late as that, we could lose some assembly members who will have perhaps cemented their position with incomplete information.

So my, my first comments on this item is to urge that we do take some action tonight to publicly express a position. I would also, at a point when a motion is raised, like, I think we need to come in firmly as a yes or a no collectively, um, and, and provide specific rationale. I do believe within the board's policies and within the structures of Robert's Rules Um, we wouldn't be able to— like, I don't think any of us have drafted a resolution for tonight, but we can make a motion to direct and have the president draft a letter that encompasses the positions that we debate.

I think for the purpose of us being able to decide that, I will at this point make that motion.

So, um, I move that the Anchorage School Board direct the board president to draft a letter on behalf of the board to the Anchorage Assembly urging the Assembly to vote down AO 2026-130. I second.

Okay, motion was made by Member McDonogh. And seconded by Member Bellamy. Member McDonough, do you have additional comments?

Um, maybe I'll have the seconder provide the first comments while I send them to Miss Sullivan here. Member Bellamy.

Okay, so, um, you know, as a school board member, you know First of all, education is a community responsibility. It's not a district responsibility. It is a community responsibility. Uh, AO 2026130 actually delegates that to individual districts. It does not consider education as a system.

Nowhere in this ordinance does it mention anything about students, and that concerns me. Because students, the needs of students, the services we provide to students, the system that our families and students function within should always be, um, must be accessible regardless of our students' zip code. So while I understand how the assembly, um, organizes around communities and community needs, Education is a total full community responsibility, and it deserves that every board member, no matter what their zip code is, no matter what our students' zip code is, that we make systems or we create systems that are accessible and are reflective of the needs of every student in the city, not by district. So my fear and my concern is that If we, if we support this ordinance or change in ordinance, we are creating pockets of haves and have-nots. People who have the loud voices will get the— and I've seen this at work in other communities.

I mean, Florida does it by district, and believe me, those board members are out for their district. They are out to get whatever they can for their district, not for every kid in the community. So I believe that education is a community responsibility, and I don't think— and we should not be limiting the community's voice and, and how they vote for representation for education. So I'll stop there. I'm just not— I mean, I'm, I'm so strongly against this.

I'm actually being quite calm right now, um, and I know that Member Hanlon has reached out, uh, to board members, uh, and as I— we have— since we had not had an opportunity to discuss it as a board, I have not engaged with him, uh, but, but I support the motion, uh, that the president draft a letter on behalf of the board to the assembly urging the assembly to vote down this ordinance. It's been done 3 times in the past, so it's not new. I mean, I've been around long enough to know that it came up in '75, it came up again, and I think '93. Um, so I, I, I think this community deserves to be on on its, uh, to represent every single kid in the system of public education and not undermine public education through divisive district representation. And I'll stop there.

Thank you. We'll go to Member Higgins. Yeah, I've got two sides to this one. I did meet with the assembly member in regards to this proposal. That was interesting.

Very, very friendly and not an aggressive type of presentation by him. He was open to both sides of it. I appreciate that. And within that, I see both sides to this issue. Of course, we represent all the kids in the whole community, and everything we do has to be— should be focused on kids.

I'm not going to say it is, but we— because we get so many distractions going on within that. But the advantages of this is that right now most people don't know who their school board members are. Whatever you're supporting or actions that you're taking, people don't know within that group. I did a presentation to two school board members I thought was interesting. I tried to give the advantage to it by saying, well, if you've got a school board member that's assigned to your district, they will probably be more engaged with you.

You probably know who to contact because right now you come to the school board, you give a presentation, no questions. You send stuff to us, very few people get back in touch with you. If you put a phone number there, I call and I leave my phone number at community council meetings, but you don't see that much engagement in taking place with it. That's, that's one of the advantages. One of the disadvantages is you don't want people fighting for your district over another district.

You want to say which one's best for the whole group. And I asked one community council, I said, which, where do you stand? About 25 or 30 people there, unanimous. We want this change. I mean, unbelievable.

The next community council, I gave the same presentation and they weren't supportive of it. They didn't vote say no to it, but they said, you know, we—. This is—. We want to keep this wide open. Everybody's there.

So it's a divided issue. I want to hear what the public says. I don't care. I do not think that if I was elected to a district that I would not be thinking municipal-wide. I know there are some that's going to be a little more vocal because they know what the issues are in their district and they don't feel like they're being addressed.

I agree with that within that group. So I'm— I feel like we should be listening to the public. This is not— this just leaves it up to the public and we're saying no, the public will— might make a mistake because it's different than what I want. We got to back away from that. We did that with the school closures.

We paid a price. Don't want to— you don't really want to hear them. Got to close schools because we know what's best and took away schools within that, closed the only STEM program. Now we want to do this to basically that voice that should have been out there with Campbell allowed and say, I know what the issues are, whether it's the other districts as well. Right now the hillside is concerned about a couple of schools that we probably will be trying to focus on next year and that the change is going on.

I want to make sure that the community is more engaged with discussions that are taking place on schools. I want the public to, to say, you know, we work for you. If you want to vote this way or not, it's okay. I'm not afraid of these votes, and I don't think we need to get out there and say we, we have to, we oppose this because we don't want the public voice to be heard on this issue. They want to go forward with it with the public.

And let them decide. Let them decide. Uh, I— those two community councils stand out with me. The fact that they were so dramatically different in regards to how they viewed this, it was, it was shocking. So I'm not going to support trying to say don't let the public decide anything else again.

Uh, we've already got that reputation. We're only reinforcing it with this. And I just— it's— it doesn't mean that every school board member here is not responsible for every student. I'm not saying that. But when it comes to issues associated with that district, having someone in that district coming into the board, I think they bring with them more voices and they're going to have more engagement.

And I think that will be beneficial for the school board and the community. And we're trying to restore some relationship with the public that's been seriously damaged.

Um, we'll go to Member Lessens, then Member Blakeslee. One of the things that strikes me about the ordinance's proposal is that it would eventually change things entirely. But there's going to be an awkward few years where iteratively board members will be elected to a district. I'm looking at members Wilson and Blakeslee. You'd be elected to a district, you'd be elected to a district, maybe not you, but someone, and you would be representing those two districts.

Other— the remaining board members will be elected to represent the district at large. The next year, 2 more board members would be elected to districts, and the remaining 3 board members would be elected at large. There are also some awkward years where board members will run for shortened terms. All of that would happen at, quite frankly, an ongoing period of time in which enrollment levels don't appear to be going up, significant conversations about right-sizing may need to happen. Um, our financial picture may or may not change.

Um, and it strikes me that in the, the next few years, to have certain areas of town with a dedicated representative on the school board for their district would be profoundly unfair.

So that's just a logistical problem, but I think it's real.

I also want to underscore a point that I made when I attended the assembly hearing on, um, on the ordinance, and that is that a significant portion of our students attend a school or program— program within a school sometimes— outside of their district. So if you are the family of a student who lives in District A and attends school in District B, or however we want to number them, Who do you— who's your phone-a-friend? Who's your representative? Is it the person that you are empowered to vote for and hold accountable, or is it the person holding the next seat over, over, you know, over whose existence on the board you have zero say?

So I think that as long as we have a pretty robust choice system where 35 to 40% of students are mobile. Um, I think the district-based representation, to bring it back to Member Bellamy's point, really, really fails to serve students. Each of us is accessible to the community as a whole.

That's 7 board members.

I would support the motion.

I'm going to— member Blasey.

Um, I—. Yeah, um, this is a— I've been chewing on this topic for a while in my head. Um, I think kind of dreading having a conversation at the board level about it because Um, I think, I think like Pat, I can kind of see both sides. I think fundamentally, um, I agree with all of the logistical problems that Member Lessens just laid out, highly concerned about that and how it almost sort of inherently doesn't accomplish the, the very intent of of what is being proposed, right? Like, it's sort of— that's like a whole other sub-issue in, in sort of the mechanism by which this would be rolled out amid many competing factors.

So I have— I'm, I'm like still chewing on that. And then I think about, um, what the, the fundamental question here is about sort of my opinion versus the opinion of a constituent. And I think that I am wrestling with sort of the component with the question itself of it being put on the ballot. And, and then there's the separate question of my personal opinion about whether I think that board members should be elected by this, by district, or by a citywide election system. And if I try to remove my personal opinion out of it, I'm, I'm grappling, I think, with my responsibility to just to, to use this position that I have to state my opinion to try to influence an outcome.

Versus listening to what other people think, listening to what constituents think. So it's the putting it on the ballot piece that I think I'm really stuck by. So, and so I guess I wonder, I wonder if the— if this motion, this motion is urging the assembly to vote down ordinance, is that, is that voting down the, the— is that a position against what the ordinance is saying, like our opinion about the issue in the ordinance itself, or is that voting down putting the question to the public? And I I, I guess that I'm clearly very much still in a digesting phase of this question, so maybe I'm putting this question out to all of you as my colleagues is what, what it like, what by making this sort of resolution here, what is it that we're voting down regardless of our Opinions, personal opinions.

Jump in the queue.

I would prefer— I really would— I really wish I'd get to a point where I would prefer our board not weigh in on this and trust the assembly to vet the proposal. And do our work advocating directly to assembly members, um, as constituents. I, I think I have a space where I can weigh in without any potential conflict because I— the proposal wouldn't impact me, um, personally.

But it does occur to me that, you know, there are other members on the dais who could in theory, their career serving as school board members, could in theory be impacted by this proposal. And I don't know how I would weigh that.

I'm grateful I don't have to consider that extra dynamic.

As a person, I look at the one piece of empirical data that I could find on this topic of at-large or district-based school board elections. And there was a 2014 study by the Fordham Institute and indicated that districts where at-large board membership elections occurred had correlated better with positive academic outcomes. Specifically regarding their ability to outperform expectations. I don't think that's enough to say that, that one study indicates that it's definitively a model that's best for students, but I couldn't find an alternate study that demonstrated that students fared academically better in an at-large in a district-based elected school board setting.

Another thing I think about is a conversation I had with Representative Andrew Gray on his podcast last year, and he spoke about how what representatives, what his colleagues say about the urban school districts like Fairbanks, Matsu, Anchorage, um, especially those that represent rural school districts, and there being a have versus have-not mentality, and there even being some, um, frustration with urban school district fiscal issues when rural school districts are struggling so mightily to operate and condemn buildings in some instances. And I wonder if that level of dialogue of haves and have-nots in a quasi-Hunger Games model might come to exist given enough time. In a resource-scarce environment within a school district in the same way that it, um, apparently operates in some circles at the state level. And that's what makes me nervous. Um, I don't want there to be sections of town that have better advocacy or, um, have a tighter grip on a district's budget that would result in resources being disproportionately allocated, unintentionally or not.

I, I think my service is easier on this board knowing that I can advocate for the best interest of all students and not have to worry about what part of town I'm from or what part of town I'm representing that year through our self-appointed geographic distribution.

I worry about future board members having to bring home resource wins for their district in the way that is often celebrated at the federal level, very often, but at the state level somewhat often. And so I personally don't think the proposal has merit. If the goal is to best serve students. But I also don't think that's the goal. Um, Member Handeland didn't mention students once in his proposal, as I think, um, Member Bellamy brought up, and I think Member Lessens brought up during the work session.

Member Handeland has been pretty transparent that he's trying to address a perceived political problem, and that's where I, I have some heartburn about potentially weighing in. If the assembly wants to inject politics with public education.

I don't know that we want to be on the other side of that argument, but I also think that if we're a firewall for what's best for students, that might push us past the tipping point of being the right thing to do to weigh in.

So I don't know if that was helpful for anyone. That was kind of my line of thinking. Those are my comments to my colleagues. We'll go to Member Wilson. Member Blakeslee, do you have a point of order?

Oh, I was just, I was just trying to say that my— the question that I had, it was the last one, was, was really— and it's less about my personal opinion. I also have lots of concerns about equity. I like— I, I do. But my question is, is around like what it is that we're deliberating on right now around the ordinance, this particular motion itself. That's what I'm trying to get at.

Answer to from the makers of the motion. If you were looking to direct— I was making comments on my own behalf. Oh, okay. If your point of information is to ask what exactly this motion will do, we are asking the assembly to vote down 2026-130 and not put that proposal on the ballot. That's what the effectual— the effect of this language will have.

So it's both. It is the substance and it's also the action of posing the question to the public. It's both, both decision points. If they vote down 2026-130, the, the nothing will be put on the ballot. Okay, um, I have more comments, but I'll, I'll put myself back in the queue after someone else.

Okay, Member Wilson.

School board elected officials are, are different in nature than most elected, elected officials. We're, we're nonpartisan. Our, our focus is, is students, and what's best for all students. Again, my personal opinion. Um, I think it's incredibly important— I personally think it's incredibly important that school board members bring a variety of perspective to the position so that they can advocate for students in many different ways, but that doesn't limit to— it's not limited to students that live in a particular area of town.

For me, um, I don't feel like having school board members that are advocating for students in only one particular district, um, would be beneficial to our school district as a whole and to our students as a whole. So I, I would support this motion. I would not support the Assembly moving forward with AO 2026-130.

Thank you. We'll go back to the queue. And Member McDonough? Thank you. Um, so as, as I made the motion and then didn't utilize the time to really describe it as I was getting the wording up for the screen here.

Um, I'd like to start with the trail of logic that I think the assembly member, and frankly a lot of the community, have been tracking. Um, they feel there's a problem with being represented and What they're describing— well, actually, what I believe is they feel there's a problem with being heard that they're conflating with the problem of being represented. And during extended periods of austerity, it makes sense that they feel unheard because their advocacy is, don't cut my program, protect my program, keep my class sizes small, things that we have as a body continuously realize we can't do. Um, I think there's also structural reasons within both the Anchorage School Board and the Anchorage School District administration that it is very difficult to show and actually effectuate hearing and listening. So when people come, come to me and say, I'm not sure I'm represented by the school board, what they're describing, and I believe the same people who go to Member Handeland go to me, and they're describing, actually, I don't feel heard.

To the point of representation, this system, as Member Bellamy mentioned, is the system— and Member Lessens— that best represents the extremely unusually high rates of both student choice and, um, like, student going outside of their designated boundary. Sometimes it's not by choice, but it's by need, like the gifted program or special education services. And we move students out of their neighborhood a lot. I don't know the rate. I believe I, I would request that we find that percentage and use it in a public education campaign through this letter.

Um, just to point out, this is the number of students who don't attend the school that they're zoned for, because it's— I believe it's 12,000 students in ASD, and that's 12,000 families the ordinance would disenfranchise with really no representation because is it their homeschool that should represent them, or is it the school 5 streets down? And our system is all of us represent them, so they're represented by 7 people. Um, to the point about listening, I think that the ordinance— if I'm giving it as charitable of an assumption as possible— it tries to presume this will be more democratic, and really it's just a different shuffling of the democratic boundaries. Um, I would propose we take on ourselves a longer and broader discussion, hopefully after this is shut down, to make ASD more democratic, because I think that is what the community is asking me as a new board member, asking member Rachel Blakeslee as someone who said you're kind of on the fence. We owe it to those voices to improve how ASD empowers a family to connect with their school, which is fundamentally what they want when they think we need to shuffle how the school board operates.

Really, they don't really want to be in charge of this high-level stuff. They just want more influence over their school. Um, the assembly shouldn't tell us how to do that, and they can't, and the charter would be questionable at trying to do that. But we need to really respond to the community in, in our course of action. How do we want and see ASD to become more democratic below the level of the board?

The board really should divest its power down to the schools. Now, as far as the empirical evidence, I did find quite a lot, actually. There's a 2002 study, so this is quite old in the literature, but it's in the Journal of Political Economy that says cities with more districts spend more. The reasoning in this study said that members of individual geographic zones will basically like agree to support another person's Like they'll say, if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. And you get these isolated frivolous projects where you could get above a majority's vote just because you're trading around enough like pet projects.

They call that logrolling in poli— poli sci. There's a 2023 study of switching to— it's in the Journal of Politics. This is only 3 years ago, that said switching to district elections has empowered neighborhoods to block shared decisions and has led to reduced housing approvals. So something that's in the benefit of the public, which is like we should be building more housing during an extended nationwide housing crisis— cities that switch to the proposed Handeland model decrease their ability to serve the public interest. Again, for the reasons of you can entrench yourself and obstruct a majority vote, um, even if it is not in the interest of the public, uh, just to like pocket a decision for later.

Um, now to the merits of this, because I did— I've tried to look through an empirical lens on both sides. There is a 2008 study in the American Journal of Political Science that says that single-member districts— and this was a study in California— single-member districts instead of at-large elect more officials of color where the communities are residentially segregated. And then a follow-up study in 2021 in the same journal showed that the increased minority representation on the boards was linked to better student outcomes for students of color. Both studies, however, lean towards the analysis that it's not that the, the districting of the seats created a governance shift in favor of the students of color, it's that because these students were already racially segregated forcing there to be basically a racial blockade around a district's zip code, at least it gave those people representation. But it— what it does is it entrenches segregation and at least allows the segregated communities a seat, but it doesn't remove the factors of segregation.

It just, again, it shuffles the deck. It just, it replaces it. So the, the studies that are developing out of that are questioning whether this is a sort of new redlining phenomenon where we've decided that the communities of color are an other community and they can have their other representation, but what that does is it further entrenches the ability to blend and integrate communities. So there's research on this. It is, to the president's credit, it's like very— it's not a hugely studied part of political science, but I can't find something that looks at ASD's mission, ASD's demographic makeup, our presence of racially and economically segregated communities and says that districting seats will improve what we're doing.

Um, the only thesis I can come up with is distributing board power to school-level autonomy will achieve what the community is yearning for. Um, and really the best way we can do that is by retaining 7 at-large members. We are not going to compete over geography But if we make resolution in a long-term plan to shift power to the school level, that will get what I believe Member Handeland thinks he wants, and what I know a lot of the community says they want. So, um, that's kind of all on my, my, my speech here. But thank you to so far those who support.

I do hope that it does answer some of Member Blakeslee's questions. Uh, that's all.

We'll go through a second round here.

Um, uh, okay, yeah, well, so we'll start with Member Lessens and Member Higgins. Um, thanks. I'll be very brief. One of—. That was a lot.

Thank you, Member McDonough. Um, one of the things that I found bizarre about the ordinance is the reference to other districts in Alaska that have pivoted to districting. And before I mention them, recall that Anchorage is about 2,000 square miles. It's a big place, about the size of Rhode Island. However, Mat-Su and Kenai are each larger than the state of West Virginia at about 25,000 square miles.

Really big. It maybe makes sense to have a district when you are serving an area the size of West Virginia. The Lower Kuskokwim is 22,000 square miles on roadless terrain that's accessible by boat, plane, and snow machine. You cannot drive across town. And the Bering Strait is 80,000 square miles across islands and vast terrains of land.

In Anchorage, we can drive. It's a stretch from Chugiak State Park to Girdwood, but you can drive there, and I think that it makes representation entirely possible.

Go to Member Bellamy, then Member Higgan.

Thank you. So, um, I appreciate all the comments. I will tell you that this particular ordinance hits me in a very profound and historical way.

I grew up in a public education system that was separate and unequal.

The affluence and the political affiliation totally decided who got what and who got it when.

So because I am a little emotional, I want to read for you part of an op-ed that I started 2 weeks ago.

As a sitting Assembly School Board member, I am responsible for every student in our municipality, not just those in this— in one district. So I strongly oppose 2026-130 because it would weaken that shared city responsibility for our students and for our families.

Under this proposal, voters would choose only their district representative. And one at-large member, which would limit their voice in selecting the full, the full board. District-based elections could encourage members to put neighborhood interests ahead of needs of students and deepen competitive competition between communities with unequal wealth. Unequal influence and unequal resources. We know who those communities are in Anchorage.

Geographic representation and community engagement matter. It does. I know it matters. Not when it comes to public education, but these geographic representations and community engagements should strengthen not replace the city's obligation and accountability to public education. Decisions about funding, programs, facilities, and student opportunities must serve the entire district, especially those students whose communities have the fewest resources to advocate for themselves.

We are their voices. We are their safety nets.

Anchorage must maintain a school board that is united around every student.

We are not in the '50s and the '60s.

A child's opportunity should never depend on their zip code or the influence, the political influence of their neighborhood. Thank you. I support the motion.

Thank you, Member Higgins.

Yeah, I, uh, had a couple of issues, but I'm going to add one to it now. First of all, this is the vote on whether the vote— whether this particular issue should go in front of the public. If they approve it, it goes on the ballot for the public to decide. It's not being decided by the assembly. The assembly is only deciding to put it on the ballot and do we support letting the public make that decision.

I don't really— I just comment that I don't like the term right-sizing at all because we haven't had any of that. It's been downsizing. But if we had more input, from the individuals in those areas with schools being impacted, they would say, we want this instead and use some of this space for other odds and ends. We would have had some advocacy that way. We didn't have it.

But I want to respond. I appreciate the comments, Margo, you were making. I grew up and attended school in Louisiana when it was separate but not equal. Then we had forced busing, then we had the segregation, and then it moved past that, you know, and I don't view this as associated with that at all. And I take objection to that.

What we're talking about is different areas of the city with different schools, and it's not segregation. I came up here in '83 to get away because I don't want my kids growing up and going to attending school in Louisiana for some of the reasons that you you have it, you mentioned within that. I think our resources are divided differently throughout the whole area and there are all kinds of issues that needs to be addressed with that when you got a total absence of them within it. But I think we would've had some pushbacks on some of the decisions we made if we had input more from the community. At the end of that session where everybody raised their hand, one person asked me, and And what's your name?

They don't know the school board members. Okay, they get 7 school board members elected throughout the entire municipality. Yeah, you know, I joke to people that I got elected because people saw my picture in the post office. Just kidding around because nobody knows the individual school board members and our responsibility to the, to the public. I want the public to know what their individual school board members are supporting and the actions they're taking.

You can't do that when you got 7 school board members and expect to have that type of response. We're not listening. I visited, uh, 5 schools last week. Anybody want to come close to that? I've got 3 this week I've got scheduled.

I am visiting the various schools and listening to different issues, and it's really, really interesting. I visited different departments as well, but right now I'm visiting that We close schools without the administration visiting it in advance. We don't have the input from that local community other than the people that speak, and then they get 3 minutes goodbye and we don't talk to you again. I don't see that many people contacted when I contact people because phone numbers there, nobody's there. Nobody else is saying, well, nobody else is calling.

We are not engaging the public. And if you had a district area, it doesn't mean you're not responsible for every child in this school district. It means though that you're more engaged with what the public's trying to tell us because we're not listening. We didn't listen when it comes to school closures. We shut it, cut it short, and that's going to be an issue that's going to be discussed further and further this year.

And, and we don't have their engagement. They don't see that. Eagle River, I attended those for 2 years in a row, community councils, but they were always upset that there was not somebody from that area but at least that we had good communications and I understood what they were coming from. We don't have enough. We rotate people around from one district to the other, so they meet one person, then they meet somebody else.

Who do they contact? They don't— they can send a number email to the school board, and the president always responds by saying thank you and gives you all the little bit of information, but that's not a discussion of the issues and concerns that they want. And, and I just see this as something more viable within the process, but I'm not advocating that it pass. I am advocating that we turn around and say, we let the public decide this issue, not us. Quit taking it away from the public.

Quit saying we don't want the public to have any involvement. Let's try to correct the damage we've done this year because we've done a lot of damage. So vote no, Member Higgins. Member—. Thank you, I'll take that advice.

Go to Member Blakeslee, then Member McDonough.

Yes, um, well, I want to first say I really appreciate, uh, Member Bellamy's comments. I thought that was brave. Um, very eloquent. And yeah, I think that there is a lot, um, there's a lot sort of wrapped up in this particular ordinance, in this topic that reaches really deep into some, um, hard issues that I think are at the forefront of our community, um, in a lot of ways right now, in a lot of different levels. Um, I really liked— I, I appreciate so many comments that I've heard, but the first one that you said, Member McDonough, was the one that I just— I was like, oh, that's it, that's the nail on the head.

Um, when you said that, uh, people feel like they're not being heard and so they therefore think that they're not They feel like they're not being represented. I think that is sort of the heart of the issue still for me, and I'm not saying that I'm supportive of this ordinance, but I want us to sort of self-reflect and have the humility to self-reflect enough to recognize that while we are members of a body that are elected to represent the city, all students, that's, that is what we're supposed to do, that we all have inherent biases. And I have seen those biases show up, right? And it's not a criticism of any individual person, and I'm, you know, I'm human too. We're all sort of, um, it's all, it's, we're all sort of subject to this in different ways.

Um, but I have seen some of those biases play out just even in my short time on this board in ways that are geographic, that do allocate more attention to specific geographic regions over others. And so maybe where I lie is less on the ordinance itself that I— you know, I'm not saying I'm not supporting this ordinance, but On examining sort of our own norms at the board level and how our own actions and norms can be improved and truly taking sort of a humble self-reflection about maybe the ways that we are even unintentionally maybe doing the very thing that this ordinance kind of instigates and in sort of leaning and inherent bias towards one geographic region or another, or a bias in, in along any other lines. So those are conversations I personally would really like to have at the board level to strengthen the very, the very thing about people feeling like they aren't being heard, and in a way that I think needs to go even beyond ASD listens, but really come from the board level, sort of our own actions and the way that we show up is different than the way that the administration shows up, right? And, um, you know, we have different roles, different responsibilities. And so I— it is a conversation that I, I would like to move forward at the board level.

And I will just say too, I see every board meeting that group of teachers that sit out in the lobby that are here. And I don't know if you guys have noticed them, you probably have, but they sit out in the lobby and they are there for us to come and speak to them and listen to their concerns and their issues because they feel they have no other mechanism by which to get our attention in many ways. And it's an imperfect system because we can't really interface with them because we're stuck in back-to-back meetings. So you don't really get a chance to go chat in the lobby and listen. But they are making a true effort, and that in itself to me is a representation that they don't feel heard and that there is something to— there is an urgency to fix that, right?

They're showing up in the lobby every single time we have a board meeting. Um, so if, if we move forward with this motion, I would, I would also just like us to prioritize having some real conversations about how we do things differently, um, and self-examine how we fix our own norms and evaluate our own potential inherent biases, um, that might be showing up in different ways.

So, okay, I don't see anyone else in the queue, so could we have a voice vote on the motion which is, uh, that the Anchorage School Board direct the board president to draft a letter on behalf of the board to the Anchorage Assembly urging the assembly to vote down AO 2026-130.

Member McDonough?

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

Oh, uh, Member Bellamy? Yes. Member Wilson? Yes. Member Lessens?

Yes. President Jacobs?

Yes. The motion is adopted by a vote of 6 to 0.

That completes a review of— well, let me ask it. I'll ask a second time because we went just a bit out of order. Um, is there a board member who wishes to discuss a non-action item this evening? Um, those are listed on your agenda before you.

Seeing none, we've, um, addressed public comment this evening. We've heard our superintendent update this evening. Member Chair, I'm sorry, I— you said the vote was— what was the vote?

The—. On that last—. The zero on the— to address AO 2026-130. Member Pat Higgins wasn't present in the room during that. Oh, okay.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

If a member of the prevailing side wishes to make a motion to reconsider, we can reconsider and then revote with all 7 members present. I'm— I move to reconsider and vote a revote so that all members can participate. Second the motion to reconsider. Is there any opposition to the motion to reconsider?

Seeing none, we're reconsidering the previously adopted motion.

Um, we don't have it up on the screen at this point, but it was to draft a letter— direct the board— would direct the board president to draft a letter in opposition of AO 2026-130.

Is there any additional discussion before we revote?

Seeing none, can we have a voice vote on the motion to direct the board president to draft a letter in opposition of AO 2026-130? Member McDonough? Yes. Member Blakeslee? Yes.

Member Higgins?

Member Lessens? Yes. Sorry. Member Bellamy? Yes.

Member Wilson? Yes. President Jacobs? Yes.

Okay, that motion is adopted by a vote of 6 to 1. Um, so we've dispatched with our non-action items.

We've heard our public comment this evening. We've heard from our superintendent this evening. We have school board administration comments. We will start to my right, Member Higgins.

I guess I should put the sound on. Um, believe it or not, I don't have many comments tonight. Um, I appreciate the discussion that took place. I understand the different positions we take. I think we've got a lot of serious issues to take care of, um, and I just want to throw in I wish the superintendent the best, uh, and congratulations on his selection, and, um, looking forward to the process that's involved.

And I hope that our, uh, efforts to improve communications with the public becomes a high priority. I will also share that I told people I would have the FOIA request, the information I wanted from the district, available. And I will make that available for people that want to get copies. Thank you. Member Les.

Um, I will echo, uh, the kind words that Miss— uh, Member Higgins shared about the superintendent and, uh, will wish you well when it's eventually time to go. Not time yet. And confirm that we will be having committee meetings on November 4th. We just got an invitation pivoting from the 29th to the 4th, so thank you to everyone who is adjusting and accommodating so that board members can be— and staff can be present. Member McDonough.

I'm holding what Member Bellamy was expressing earlier on the motion.

The supporting public education in this time is hard, and I do appreciate anyone saying, here's an idea. How to do it, and not to like comment on already resolved business, but from my own personal perspective, not to the letter, but just to what it means to lead in a district like this.

An easy statistic to pull up is I'm the first person from Chugiak State Park or Eagle River to sit on the board since I believe the last member was Crystal Kennedy. And she left the seat. Oh, okay.

So it's been— yeah, Micaela. So that's been— what was that, 8 years?

21. Oh, she left in '21 then. So, um, there's long stretches of time where my neighborhood isn't represented, uh, but even like more to-the-points member Bellamy making. I'm proud to be an Alaska Native representative here, and it wasn't something that was arbitrarily zip-coded to me. It was a lifelong identity.

Interrogating data sets like the one we looked at earlier this evening, um, where Alaska Native students— I'll read back in 8th grade last year had a 15% proficiency rate. 46 Of the 8th grade Native students last year were proficient in math. 46. Um, and at one point in my life, I was one of those small cohort of proficient and successful Native students in this district. So I'm one who has spent the majority of a 20-something, 28 years—.

Oh, where's the tab? Yeah, the majority of like a 28-year relationship with the Anchorage School District feeling like I'm an other or I'm an outsider or I'm not a part of the decision-making, and I'm not heard. Uh, so the spirit of this debate is one I overwhelmingly agree with, but the approach to cementing the lines that have made me feel discriminated— uh, I'm grateful that we have an overwhelming resolve to oppose that. And I will ask that we continue to invest in how do we find those invisible students, those invisible neighbors, not just because of their zip code being a couple of blocks over, but because their, their voice matters a lot. I've been that invisible voice, invisible neighbor, and I've, I've also been very lucky, and a lot of people do agree with me and asked me to sit here and voted for me.

But I think that while we oppose this solution, I'm hearing also to a lot of my own glee or relief that we're all committed to improving the effect of invisibilization, the effect of not listening, the effect of telling somebody that your voice doesn't matter as much as theirs. None of us want that, and we all will entertain the opportunity to break that. So I just, I just wanted to point out, like, we all sit here as firsts in something, or firsts in a long time in something.

And I really celebrate that we've all broken down barriers that society has put so that we could sit here. And that should be the way that we help this problem advance instead of saying, well, let's just move the lines of the barriers so that there's a really rigid geographic zip code line that we say really there should be no barriers. And so I appreciate and I love, I love that we get to like really hold this And, and member Bellamy, your op-ed, I hope you finish it. I hope you publish it. Um, like people like me, people like my kids, the Native community, the Black community, like we need these voices shared.

So I, I really appreciate that. Um, and on a lighter note, I've only been able to sit here with Dr. Bryant for about, what, 4 months now? And I'm sad that it will only be about 4 more months, but it, it's been an honor to work under you a previous part of my career and now to work beside you. I think you have really helped us put on the right glasses of looking at these issues, and I'm sure you're going to bring a lot to Alexandria.

To Member Blakeslee.

I have a lot of, um, thinking about a lot of heavy stuff right now in the world, and I think I'm not totally prepared to comment on everything that I am feeling, but I do appreciate, um I appreciate the discussion today, and maybe I'll have more to say next time.

Member Wilson, there was a lot of great discussion today, um, great advocacy, so I'm, I'm very excited about that. I, I do want to, um, end off with an invitation. So one of the boards, um, I have been fortunate to participate on is a School Business Partnership Board for, for many, many years. And now as a school board member, I get to participate on that board. And there is a networking event coming up this Thursday where school representatives and school business partners get to come together and both are invited so that they can do meet and greets and essentially make connections to bring more partnerships to the schools see how each of them can work together in the future.

And I always enjoy that event. I want to invite all of you board members. I want to invite any representatives from schools and of course our business partners, new and, and old. The old business partners bring perspective and bring experience that they get to share, and new, new business partners get to come in and meet schools, meet school representatives, and see how they can work with our students. So that will be this Thursday, October 22nd, from 3 PM to 5 PM here in the boardroom.

So please come if you're available. Thank you. Okay, um, Member Bilney has no closing comments, and so that resolves our business tonight. Uh, is there a motion to adjourn? Move to adjourn.

Second motion made by Lessens, seconded by Wilson. Seeing no opposition.