Anchorage Assembly: Worksession re Anchorage School District Outreach and Listening Campaign

Why don't we go ahead and get started? So this is our last work session of the day. Today is Friday, August 21st. I will note we have been noticed from 1 to 2 PM. We had a couple meetings run long for various reasons, so we're going to aim for 1:30 to 2:30 because I know it is the end of the day.

And so thanks for your patience, everybody who is here to present. So we will do introductions and then we will get into our topic. So starting with Mr. Perez Verdia. Cameron Perez Verdia. Janice Park.

Jeri Kerker. Sydney Scout. Anna Brawley. Laura Silvers. And do we have any members on the phone right now?

No.

Okay, and I'll note if anybody else shows up. And we are also joined in the room by clerk staff, a couple members of the administration, couple school board members, and members of Anchorage School District leadership. So with that, we are here today to discuss the ASD Listens campaign and hear from our Superintendent, Dr. Bryant. So I will turn it to Dr. Bryant and Mr. Timm. Thank you, Chair Brawley.

Can everybody hear me all right with the microphone? All right, appreciate it. Well, first of all, I wanna thank you, Chair Brawley, for the opportunity to give the assembly one of the first previews of this really important initiative for the Anchorage School District. Really the purpose of this initiative is to really engage the community in different ways, new ways, robust ways. And this initiative is what I would call ASD Listens.

And as many of us know, uh, the outcomes of the most recent 2026 bond and levy propositions were disappointing for the Anchorage School District community, and it was certainly an opportunity for introspection and growth. So over the summer, I took the opportunity to partner with Alaska Survey Research to conduct a pretty robust poll poll and survey that provided some initial themes and data points that I've been reflecting upon personally for a number of months now. The participants of that particular poll are about 1,000 Anchorage residents, most of whom voted in that bond proposition. And I read every single one of their open comments and started compiling their feedback into different themes, and that was truly the genesis for the work that I'm going to talk about this afternoon, but at a high level, um, what did I learn? Really, I learned that this is the time to ask questions and to listen.

And some of the questions that I've been asking myself are: Is ASD listening early enough on some of the biggest decisions that face us? And are we explaining the difficult trade-offs clearly enough? I do recognize that many of the topics that I'm trying to gather feedback on are very complex, and we need to meet people where they're at to make this content accessible and those dialogues authentic. And then lastly, are there even enough opportunities for the community to meaningfully engage on these topics? And I think that's an opportunity where this initiative can take ASD to a, a much better level of where we aspire to be when it comes to engaging the community on the issues that matter the most.

And lastly, I think this is a great time to begin engaging in this work work. I was really thankful to have the opportunity to be invited by Chair Brawley and Member, um, Erin Baldwin Day to participate in some initial conversations on the future of Anchorage and to really start engaging the public on trust building on a number of issues even beyond the school district. And the short of it is that ASD wants to be a part of the solution, not just to improve the district, but also to partner with the city. Because at the end of the day, if we have very strong neighborhood schools, choice offerings and programs that get parents excited, the whole city succeeds, and I want to be a part of that success. So with all that said, I'm going to talk a little bit about the initiative, but first I know the elephant in the room, or at least one of them, is we did open school this week.

So I did just want to acknowledge that. So if we could just go to the next slide. We had a number of challenges these past 12 months, but I know for me personally, going into schools was really just a heartwarming experience. Our educators educators and families have gone through so much, but when it came to the opening, the first day of schools, there was just so much joy and positive energy, and our educators and our leaders were just very excited to welcome our kids back. So I would say it was a strong start.

We have a lot of work to do, but the joy was visceral, and for that I'm very thankful. And then some of you may be wondering how was school opening despite the fact that ASD is operating with much fewer resources than we have had in the past. As this group is very familiar with, ASD had to reduce its operating expenses by about $90 million this year, and that's the equivalent of a $700 per student cut. So there was no way to completely shield the student experience from a deficit of that magnitude. But I do have a lot of gratitude for our legislators as well as our school board members because we did have a very unique opportunity this summer.

A couple of bills were passed that meant more resources for schools. And I'm just thankful for the leadership of our school board members, a couple of them who are in the room today, that sprung quickly into action and created a strong plan to add resources for students when they really needed them the most. So since July, we actually added close to 100 educator positions back to our schools. There's certainly more need beyond that, but this wouldn't have been possible without the leadership of our legislators and our board. So I thank them for that.

And the good news is that there is potentially more aid on the way. As I shared with the assembly, August 31st is the date that we're looking at where the revenue commissioner will determine the degree of surplus revenues for the state, which would then trigger funding to K-12 districts. And for ASD, that could be up to about $32 million. But again, more to come when the revenue commissioner makes that determination. But our goal is to really support our classrooms.

That's been the number one priority, and we walk the walk talk to talk when that funding came in and put it directly into the classrooms. Next slide, please. And then I just wanted to show the calendar of school opening. Just so you know, the first day of school was August 19th. If you don't have children in the system, you may be wondering why there was a multi-day start.

This is a practice that we've been doing for the past few years, really to recognize the fact that we have very special transitions at the 6th and 9th grades in particular. And we've actually seen over the past few years year some important successes in this area. One of our board goals is to monitor the graduation rates for the district, and I'm really proud to report that last year our graduation rates rebounded from pre-pandemic times, and they're on track to continue to grow. And part of that work is because we're being very intentional with those transitions to middle school and those transitions to high school. So we're monitoring freshman GPAs, we're monitoring the, uh, number of credits that those kids are earning, and they're doing much better than their upperclassmen peers were doing when they were freshmen because of work like this.

This is just one of several things that we're doing. And just lastly, we look forward to welcoming our preschoolers and kindergartners next Wednesday. All right, so let's go ahead and get to the, the meat of the presentations. So first of all, ASD Listens is a critical superintendent priority. I have 3 focus areas this year.

I'll tell you about the other 2 at the end of the presentation, but ASD Listens is really our opportunity to fulfill the promise that we made to the community after the bond and levy proposition. As I said in my letter that I sent out shortly after the outcomes were known, the bond and levy propositions told us what the community was feeling. They told us that now is not the time to make those additional investments in the Anchorage School District. We took that feedback in stride. But the second thing that I said in my letter is that this is the opportunity to understand the why.

And that post-bond levy survey, which I will share more with the assembly about at our next joint meeting gave us a lot of information, but really that's just the foundation of what's going to be a year-long effort to really understand where the pulse of the community is and how can ASD be a part of the solution, even if we're unable to accommodate every great idea that's out there given our limited resources. But how do we show our work and get the community excited about where we're headed? That's what ASD Listens is about at its core. It's not just a one-off survey or a one-off meeting. This is a robust community engagement strategy that I'll tell you about in the coming slides.

So let's talk a little bit about what this approach actually looks like. So one of the things that I've gathered from the initial post-bond levy survey that I've referenced is that there's uneven trust across the district. We have families that desperately want to invest in public schools, and they know what that means for the future of Anchorage. But we know that trust is not the same everywhere. There are places where we need to rebuild it.

There are places where we need to strengthen it. And in the places where trust is strong, it's going to be an ongoing effort to continue to earn it. That was one of my key takeaways from ASD Listens. So a little bit about the, the what. So one of the reasons why this is an urgent priority is because we have some major decisions to make at the board level within the next 12 months.

A few of them on my mind would be the question of whether or not ASD will pursue a bond proposition this upcoming year. At this current time, I would like to make the case to do so, but I know that we're not going to be successful unless we do things differently. So that's one of the— one of several reasons why I think it's very important to approach community engagement differently. The second reason for this is that the board has to navigate a $40+ million shortfall by February as we prepare to submit a balanced budget to the assembly. That's on top of the $90 million that we just reduced from our budget.

So we need to make sure that the community is engaged earlier and in a more robust manner. And then lastly, our community really wants to make sure that no matter what the financial reality is, that we always prioritize ways to make our schools stronger. We need well-resourced neighborhood schools, but our community also has a sincere desire for robust choice options and great programs that, that have been strong and ASD for many decades. So with all of that context said, ASD Listens is about just communicating clearly, and in addition to understanding what the public is saying, it's using what they're saying to create feedback loops. To close on this slide, ASD Listens is not one event.

It's about creating authentic feedback loops by asking the community questions about things, digesting what they said, responding back with what we heard, and reporting out the action steps from there. So let's get into the nuts and bolts of it. So it's, uh, I wouldn't say this is rocket science, but it's easier said than done when it comes to true community engagement. We break it down into listening, learning, acting, and reporting back. I've had the privilege of consulting with various assembly members, parents, and other community members, kind of giving them a sneak peek into what I've been working on the past few months, and the number one thing that usually comes up is is, you know, we have a lot of survey fatigue.

Is this just going to be some survey that we fill out and then gets filed away and we never hear back? I think that's a reasonable concern. I think we've all taken surveys and have never been followed up with on the results or how they were used or what we're doing with it. And my commitment that I'd like this community to hold me accountable to is to both take in the feedback, but then also show our work for how it actually made a difference and how it was incorporated in decision-making. That's the general framework, but I want to talk a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of how this works in practice.

Next slide. So at the end of the day, we need more engagement opportunities. So I need additional data points to really triangulate what I heard in that initial post-bond survey. And that's going to be a very thoughtful follow-up community value survey that really is laser aligned to what I heard back in April and to see where the community is at today, given everything that's transpired since then. So this community value survey is pretty robust.

It's not quite open yet, but I do want to talk a little bit more about that. But really, what it's meant to do is to help establish a baseline of trust. And for me, what I'm excited about when it comes to this survey is we're going to actually try to create actionable things that the community is telling us can help ASD restore trust. It's one thing to say that there is no trust in the system or the district or the municipality, but it's another to articulate as as an institution, these are the concrete ways our community is telling us that we can make a difference and earn that trust back. That's one of the things that I hope to gather from the community values survey.

And going back to the common refrain, what are you going to do with the survey data? What the community tells us is actually going to create the framework for what we call community conversations. You may be familiar with this format because we've used it in the past to talk about school closures and right-sizing. I think this is a great opportunity to go a step beyond that. I think we need to broaden our aperture a little bit and focus more about some of the bigger things that are coming.

How do we ensure that our schools are strong? How do we communicate that there is great value when it comes to making those investments in our schools? And this is where your money actually goes, and this is how your voice can be heard to maybe change directions if we feel that we're not getting value from our investments as a district. The—. One of the precipices for this, as I've mentioned several times, is that post-bond levy survey, which is actually a survey panel that is used by Alaska Survey Research, and I was so intrigued by some of the findings from the survey that I'd actually like to move towards creating an in-house survey panel within the Anchorage School District.

So what that means is that I would create a panel of ideally hundreds, if not thousands, of members of the community, and these are people that will represent every demographic group you can name within the Anchorage School District, different parts of town, different points of view, and we can really ask them just quick quick, like, you know, 2-minute questions that they'll answer maybe once a month or so, just to make sure that we're on pulse, we're on track, and we're holding ourselves accountable to making movement in the right direction. Implementing Pulse Polls is a very ambitious project, but in the meanwhile, I'm continuing to partner with Alaska Survey Research to use them while we build out our internal survey panel. Another thing I've heard from the community is that while these issues are really complicated, the district has to make a good faith effort in making this information accessible to everyday families. So I'm excited to launch what I'm calling the Demystifying the District series. So based off of what I'm hearing from community conversations and our community values survey, now we can start demystifying some of the things that cause a lot of frustration from our families, whether that is, you know, for example, um, we don't understand the difference between capital dollars and general fund dollars, and we haven't taken a lot of opportunities to really take a step step back and break it down into ways that people can understand.

Even very common things. All the time I hear from families that, you know, ASC is a little top-heavy. What are we doing to reduce administrative costs and expenses? I think that's a reasonable assessment, but we've never asked the community, what do you consider to be an administrator? Are we talking about the everyday tech person at the schools?

Are we talking about senior leadership? Are we talking about assistant principals? Let's really break it down so that I can show you the magnitude to which we're investing in those areas and what's possible when it comes to divesting so that we can put more money in the classroom. We're hearing what people are saying, but this is the opportunity to go a step deeper in demystifying just recurring things that we've been hearing about for decades. And then the most important part is showing our work.

What have we heard from all these different opportunities, and what happens next? And I recognize a couple of things about ASD Listens. Number one is the fact that we can't solve everything for everybody. I want to be very clear-eyed about that. This isn't about outsourcing outsourcing the board's governance process to the community.

This is about gathering information from the community so that when the board is deliberating decisions, they can make that decision. There may be certain areas where the board does choose to give that opportunity back to the, to the community, but there may be other opportunities where their feedback is directly influencing the conversation at the dais. I'm really excited about that, but ASD Listens is not intended to be a substitute for really good governance. It's intended to strengthen it and to make it more accessible to the general public. So I'm very excited about it.

So each one of these components has a different purpose, but collectively, and these things will be happening over the entire year, it's going to create a more consistent and meaningful way to engage with the public. So what's next? The first step is that community value survey, and this is where I could really use the help of the Assembly. We're going to launch it on September 8th. Why are we waiting?

Number one, I want to make sure the survey is translated into multiple languages and is accessible to as many people as possible. I expect the survey takes about 8 to 10 minutes to complete. We want to launch it after Labor Day weekend when people are in a different headspace to engage in these types of areas. And I'd like to send a postcard that looks similar to this to the general public, or like what you see on the screen. And we're going to make this QR code and link as accessible as possible because the more feedback we get from the community the more granular the data that we can get to make good decisions in service of our students.

And then as assembly members, I would really love the opportunity to personally give you this information to give your constituents so that we have a nice cross-section of all of your different neighborhoods and communities. So what happens next? I just want to break down some of the core themes that I just mentioned with ASD Listens in a more concrete way. Number one is learn. So once we learn what people are saying in that community values survey, we want to review and publish the results very transparently so we understand what the community is telling us.

Once you see what the questions are, you'll get a sense as to how people respond will really inform how we can have nuanced conversations on some of the critical topics that face us as a district. So we'll be doing careful analyses of all these questions that we're going to ask the community to take the time to fill out. Up. We want this to be a good use of their time. And we want to look beyond the numbers.

There'll be some quantitative data here, but our survey also has some qualitative opportunities for families to just express what they're feeling. If they don't quite see it in the multiple choice questions on the survey, the goal is to understand, the goal is not to defend, the goal is for better government, better governance, and better decision making. Next slide. So then once we have that learning phase accomplished, it's time to go deeper and start acting. So that community feedback will translate into community conversations that will take place in different formats, parts of town, places around the city.

And then from there, we'll be able to shape those conversations from the community conversations to translate into the next part, which is Next slide, please. The reporting back. Sorry, um, Madam Clerk, uh, if somebody could press okay so that the TV knows that we still want it to be on. Thank you.

We just want to make sure you're paying attention. Yeah, sorry, one second while we fix the tech. Um, and then also know, I know there, uh, we're almost at the end of the slides. I know, um, the intent is to have good discussion and time for that. So, um, if you can just at this point hold any questions and then we we can move through the queue.

But we're almost there. So thank you. Yep. And then, yeah, just, I think, one or two more slides. The most important part is reporting back and having that accountability, closing that feedback loop, and then opening new conversations to go deeper.

And then the last slide is really about just the, again, call to action. We're going to really lean on community leaders such as yourselves and others to spread the word about the survey. The more people that fill it out, the more robust the conversation, and I really look forward to engaging in that work. And then lastly, just to ground ASD Listens in the broader picture of the district, we have some big things ahead of us. I spoke at length on the community engagement piece, but at the forefront of our focus this year is on student achievement.

I am excited to launch our new academic strategic action plan, which really takes the board's goals and translates them into actions that are going to move the needle on student achievement. Some of you may be wondering, well, what does this look like? What areas will ASD be investing in? The good news is that over the past several years, we've actually seen some great gains in various parts of the district, and the academic strategic plan is just scaling what we know works well to even more schools in the district. You know, a lot of people seem to have the impression that ASD's been stagnant, and I admit that there's certainly room to grow, but a lot of people haven't realized that our graduation rates are the highest that they've ever been in a really long time.

Many people don't realize that this time last year we had made a 5% gain on the AKSTAR assessment on math, and then hot off the press, we just got our AKSTAR aggregate data back, and it's looking like ASD is on track to outpace the state averages on ELA and math. And then just 2 months ago, we reported to the board that 50% of our eligible 3rd graders made catch-up growth compared to their peers. What does catch-up growth mean? That means that they're growing at a rate of 1.5 times the rate of their peers that are already closer to being proficient. So at a big picture, that means you may see on the surface level that a school is not performing, but when you really look at the individual teacher and student level, you see that some of our most vulnerable student populations are growing the fastest, and we have to expand that work system-wide.

And then the last piece is the responsible stewardship. One of the most important decisions that the board has to make will be how to navigate our $40+ million structural shortfall in 12 months, and then also how to responsibly spend the $32 million that could potentially come in from the state in the coming weeks. There's multiple paths forward, and one of the outcomes of ASD Listens is to bring the community's voice into that really consequential decision. So I'll go ahead and pause there and answer any questions you all have. Thank you for your time and this opportunity.

Yeah, thank you. So I have Ms. Scout in the queue. Before we do that, though, I do— I have one question, and I think it's just helpful kind of setting who's doing this and what our various lanes are. So my question is, of course, you know, we have the municipality, the way that folks often say ASD.

Within that, there is the mayor's office, there's all the departments, and there's the Assembly. So my question is really digging into, when you say ASD is doing this, can you clarify, is this an administration and school board thing, or, you know, how basically, how is the school board involved in this or not this particular process? Because I think that's just helpful to put on the record, and then we'll move into other questions. Yeah, that's a really great question. So this is an administration-led initiative, so I'm— myself and MJ are the point of contacts.

This is a superintendent's office specific specific push, but it's in service of advising the school board on some of the big issues that they face. Thanks. Yeah, and I think, as I know, again, people often say ASD the way that they say the Muni, and so in this instance I want to be helpful. So I have Ms. Scout and then Mr. Gerger.

Thank you. I have a number of questions I'm going to try to consolidate, but I guess just backing up a little bit, like I'd love to hear from your perspective, Dr. Bryant, like the objectives of this and our quarterly meeting together. How can we best work together to build trust and public participation between the municipality and school district? Yeah, sure. I mean, I think space— how do these spaces contribute to that, I guess?

Yeah, that's a great question, Member Skow. I think one thing that we can do is I can commit to unveiling as much data as I have by the time we have those joint assembly meetings. Our next one is September 15th, if I recall correctly. So that's interesting. Or 18th.

Um, so I'm looking at the timeline here, so we'll be right in the middle of our survey data. But I'm thinking the next meeting, maybe the focus of our meeting can be to really dive into some of these data points, especially those that are of mutual interest to the school board assembly. So I think that's one way the ASD listens. Listens can also just make us better partners and communicators with one another for how we can support. Awesome.

Um, and that actually leads into my next question. I'd love to circulate the survey to my constituents.

I'm curious whether we at the municipality, or if our right-sizing committee liaison, would be able to both weigh in on questions circulated in the survey and see raw results. —Not summarized. Yeah, we can certainly show the raw results. I had intended to show the ad hoc right-sizing committee the questions in advance, but we haven't been able to get the committee up and running quite yet. So we won't have the opportunity to change the questions, but I would be happy to share what we have so far.

The survey is about 15 questions, and there are maybe 2 or 3 that are specifically on attitudes and viewpoints on school closures and consolidations. I actually have a copy of the survey. It's not a secret. But essentially we're asking the community, what would best characterize your current viewpoint on how the district should approach school closures and consolidations? Very general questions.

Cool. Yeah, I'd love— personally, I would love to learn people's hopes, dreams for future uses of these buildings. So yeah, if there's any way that could be reflected, would appreciate it. I'm curious how you differentiate the ASD Listens campaign versus the hypothetical work that the right-sizing committee will do. Maybe I'm going to jump in, not to answer on behalf of Dr. Bryant, but I want to again be clear.

I think it's important to understand and think about what a— basically what the school board, or what the school board, which is a legislative— well, it's not a legislative body, it is a governing body that has certain decisions, and then ASD administration is more like— I don't want to say it's like the mayor, it's almost more like the muni manager. There's a different executive role. Be clear that the discussions about joints— just to answer your prior question too, I think joint school board assembly meetings or joint conferences, I think I have a plan to have us kind of unpack a little bit legally what those mean. In a different venue, but we should not be conflating the administration or the governing body. And again, I'm hesitating to say legislative body.

It's not the same. So I want to be clear that the joint meetings are between the school board and the assembly, in which the executive branch in both, or the executive entities in both of these bodies participate. And then similarly, I think it is a good question, but the question is who is use it for is the, the committee questions I think are for the school board, um, and then the questions about this campaign are for the folks running the campaign. So I just want to be really clear, we got to think about what those different roles are and who's doing what. So not to say that it's not important, but I think there is a risk that we— if we muddle those things together, it can be confusing.

Yeah, and that's actually like the heart of my question, is if we're having these two different new initiatives, a Right Sizing Committee and an ASC Listens campaign, how are they the same or different? Do they feed bleed into each other at all. And I love the perspective of ASC administration on that. Yeah. And I guess just to— I guess just make one addition.

The goal is to give the community confidence that we're not operating in silos. I really admire the work that Member McDonough will be leading as the chair of the ad hoc rightsizing committee, as well as the assembly members that will be participating in that work. So I want to be an open and transparent partner to make that collaboration as robust as possible and really the 3 questions that we have on school closures and consolidations will really just give that committee another data point if the community is even interested in pursuing closures or consolidations in the first place. And then if they are, my understanding is the work of that committee is to really start creating an evaluative set of criteria that can be transparent for the community. So that's a little above and beyond what ASD Listens is trying to do, but we're trying to accelerate, catalyze, and make that work more coherent.

Thank you. Um, I have a couple more questions, but I want to respect other people's time, so do you want to go and then I can jump back in the queue? Yeah, so I've got, um, right now I've got Mr. Gerker, Mr. Beresfordia in the queue, and then I can put you back. Okay. Yeah, thanks.

Awesome. Thank you guys so much for being here. Dr. Bryant, it's always a pleasure. Uh, great presentation. I'm excited to hear, uh, what what you guys are working on here to try and get this out.

Actually, my question's spurred on by something that you mentioned in the last slide about graduation rates. And so I've been told by a previous school board member that it's not ASD's practice to hold anybody back from a grade or from graduating. Is that right? So there's actually been some statewide conversations on this topic. So with the passage of the Alaska RES Act, for example, there are opportunities for parents to opt in for their child to not be retained if they're not making progress, but ultimately that decision rests with the parent.

So we support that spirit of the Alaska Reads law, really giving that autonomy to the parent. So, so is there a scenario then where we're—. Our graduation rates really aren't maybe a good data point if we're not— like, if we're not ensuring that there's— like, if they're able to graduate or if they're able to move on, if they're not being held back, is this actually good data for us to use? And is there some other way we can quantify it if that's the case. I would really just defer to the state's requirements for graduation.

So the state, for high school students, want to make sure that students are completing, you know, at least 3 years of math, 3 years of English, and once they earn those credits, they are eligible for a high school diploma from the state of Alaska. So we're not veering from the state's expectations, and if students aren't receiving those credits, then they have to recover them. They may have to go to summer school, and the reasons why our graduation rate's not 100% is because sometimes students aren't able to receive all those credits credits, but there is no standardized testing requirement to graduate from high school. So I wanna be very clear that we have to follow the state law when it comes to graduation. Okay, thanks.

Thanks for clarifying that. Thank you. Next I have Mr. Presrudia, then Ms. Scout, and then Ms. Park.

Yeah, just one question that I'm curious about, and maybe the answer is both, but From your presentation, it feels as though this is an effort to do more than just simply gather data from the community to make a particular decision, right? So that if there's a choice or a decision before the school board, the administration, on whether that's school closures or whether that's budget priorities, then you could go to the community and specifically say, here's a question we're wrestling with. Help us answer it, give us your feedback, your thought, right? This feels broader in terms of values and building a better relationship with the community over time and doing something much larger than that. Is that, am I correct in saying that, in that you're doing more than just in this effort gathering specific data for a specific topic?

Yeah, I would say it is much broader because some of the things that we're asking about are related to trust and perceptions of the district. It's also ways that people perceive complicated issues. So one of the earliest, this is kind of pre-ASD listens, but it spurred the conversation, was I was curious to know the community's perspective on how the district should use one-time funding that comes in from the state, just as one example. Because the common assumption had been, when we get money from the state, we need to spend it all right now to make sure that we help our kids. And it was fascinating that when I asked the community that question, explicitly through a poll, they actually pushed our assumptions and said, we really want to see the district think more year over year and incorporate upcoming deficits into their spending plans in the previous year.

So that was something we had never explicitly talked about at the board level, but because the community showed their viewpoint on this complicated topic, now it's changing the orientation of the decision. So it is much broader, and it's also intended to specifically ask the community to choose between choices that show them intuitively where they are at? Where is the pulse and temperature of the community? Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's— so, um, years ago when I served on the school board, we, we engaged in a similar process where we were facing budget cuts and we wanted to hear from the community what their priorities were to help us to try to make some of these hard decisions.

I guess, but what the, the piece that, that strikes me is that is that we often go out and do this when there's a crisis or when there's a problem, and then we're maybe not doing it for a long, long period of time. And so I guess my— one of my comments would be, how do we institutionalize something like this so that it's not something that only happens once every 10 years and that we don't just do it when we're in a problem state, right? If we want to build trust and build relationships with the community and reshape this, which is partly what I see in terms of the priorities, is how do we make this something that we do on a regular basis and the community becomes familiar with it? Every 2 years we do this process and I'm used to it and I'm excited about it because we get to do it, or that sort of thing. So I love this idea.

I'm supportive of it. I certainly have, like probably others, my own ideas and feedback for how to do it and where to do it and that sort of thing. But I also am I am concerned about the fact that I think we build trust with our community when we listen to them and talk to them more frequently, and that we— and we do this in a way that makes it seem that their voice matters on all issues, not just the big ones. So that would be just a comment. And the second conversation is, how much does it cost?

Does— and is this— in terms of the financial challenges that we're facing, Do you feel like this is something that, that the district can afford? Sure, yeah, I think the biggest cost is just really my time. I really want to personally dedicate a lot of time to, one, I personally put together a number of these questions, and two, the time to review and make use of the data points. But this isn't about, you know, curriculum or some sort of product or that sort of thing. It's really just staff time and investment to put on a community conversation, which is typically held at a school, so there's not really a facility cost.

When it comes to demystifying the district, we have an in-house communications team that will just reallocate their time to put together short videos or online blurbs. I'm trying to think about the other components. Yeah, I guess the publications, like the cost for the postcards. And then, you know, there will be a lot of time needed needed to get enough community members to join the panel. It's a lot of time, more than a cost.

Thanks. Okay, next I have Ms. Scout, then Ms. Park, and then Ms. Silvers. Okay, similar to the question about cost, I mean, I think this is also an elephant in the room. It's just we're in a tight fiscal environment here across the municipality.

And I'm curious whether and how you all have explored consolidation between the school district and municipality for things that we kind of have redundant operations, even staff time that do similar things. Yeah, so a little bit of an off topic, but would love to learn more about that while you're here. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's certainly something that comes up from time to time when there are reasonable and appropriate opportunities to collaborate, we will, but we also, or at least I personally, do respect the autonomy of the municipality from the school district to operate for our unique needs. So for example, when I speak to community members, many of them say, well, why can't the city and school district coordinate better on transportation because you all both operate buses.

One of the issues is that a number of families wouldn't want their child on a city bus if they're young with the general public. We have unique needs. Need for our students, but we've met halfway where the city stepped up and they said any ASD student could get onto a PeopleMover bus for free with their student ID. So the parent can make that decision with their child to use those services, but we have a unique vantage point in the sense that we're serving minors and their particular laws around privacy and data and safety that the city doesn't have to directly deal with in their day-to-day operations. Great.

Yeah, something I'd love to keep discussing in joint meetings and as we approach budget season. Getting back to the ASD Listens topic, I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more about how these— how this campaign will differ from past community conversations. I know that pre-school closures there were community conversations that happened as well, so would love to learn what we've learned from that experience and how this will be different this time around. Sure, I mean, some things will be the same. I think the community conversation format itself had been successful.

So for example, the past two rounds of consolidations, we did have, you know, decent turnout. One of the things that I want to be different is I want even more people to turn out from more parts of town. I think the other thing that I want to explore are different modalities in terms of times of day in terms of, you know, considering digital options to make things more accessible for parents who may be working during the times that we're choosing for community conversations. But the format itself, if you haven't participated in a community conversation, are typically dozens of administrators with different areas of expertise, from transportation to finance to academics and other areas, are having one-on-one conversations with community members to really go deep on very nuanced topics. So we want to continue that part.

And I think the other part that I do want to continue are the surveys that we give to those people who participate in the community conversations. Like, for example, I was blown away when we polled everyone at a community conversation on school closures as to whether or not they even supported a school closure. And believe it or not, 70% of people who attended a town hall on school closures support school closures. They just didn't support the school. So I think we need to continue asking to ask those critical questions so we can test our assumptions.

Yeah, and that's— I think I've heard that data point before, and that's really inspired me to think about how can we get community members excited about reuse of buildings in their neighborhood so that it's not— conversation isn't as much a negative we're closing something, but can be more oriented towards positive. Here's this opportunity for a new facility in the community. So thank you. Thanks. And I'm gonna also mention, I know, again, in the kind of space of boundaries and what our roles are here, so I just want to remind folks that the work session that was noticed was on ASD Listens and speaking with the superintendent.

I am reluctant to go too far into conversations about about a joint committee with the school board about what the school board's doing. I see that it's relevant, but I want to remind us that we notice things for a reason, so that basically the public doesn't know at this point that that was the intention that we were going to talk about. So I want to ask folks to remember, again, our work sessions are informal, and I know this is a good opportunity to speak with the superintendent, but I will have to start calling points of order if I feel like we're straying too far outside of those bounds. Thanks. Because otherwise, again, this is not just for us.

Process. It's for the public. And so we have to give the public reasonable notice of what we're talking about in public. Okay, next, uh, Ms. Park. Thank you, um, Superintendent.

I understand that recently, um, the DEI, uh, department, uh, was changed and that someone, uh, was, was replaced with a slightly different job. And given the ethnic diversity of our community, when, when And if you want to say ASD listens, how does that comport with reaching families who are not possibly being served equally? That's a great question, Member Park, and this will be my first go at demystifying the district a little bit. So you're correct that we did have a position called Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, Equal Employment Opportunity and Compliance and Community Engagement. So it was a really long title.

So we've retitled it to Equity Engagement Compliance so that it's clear to the public exactly what it is. And it's intentional that the first word in that title is equity because that is our commitment as a district to serve our diverse populations. We're proud to be one of the largest, most multicultural school systems in the country. That has The title changed.

Next I have Miss Sophie.

Yeah, my question is along the lines of long-term planning. And so what I'm wondering is, are you planning to use these data points to inform a long-term plan I know we talked a little bit about it in the last joint meeting, and I know that there's difficulties with uncertain funding and also with the school board that operates on a 3-year cycle, election cycle.

But I do think a long-term plan is really important. And so do you think that, you know, you'll inform a plan with these data points and maybe ask the school board to support a long-term plan?

Great question, Member Silver. So you're actually going to notice that one of the questions in the survey specifically around facilities asks them explicitly that, um, would you be more supportive of a bond or consolidation situation if it were incorporated in a multi-year plan? So that's just one way that the community can let us know that data point that would inform the conversation. The community may say that that's not the issue for them, but if it is, then that's going to be a mandate for us to strongly consider to consider in terms of a multi-year either academic, fiscal, or facilities plan.

Okay, thanks. Other questions from members? Mr. Persaud, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I've gotten all the information that I need. I will just— again, I think this may sound repetitive, but even the title of this speaks to me that it's something more than just— it's something more than just we're going to do this one-time thing this is one topic.

So I'm anxious to see the questions and anxious to sort of see the nuts and bolts of how it actually is going to work. But I think selfishly, I think a lot of us want to understand what the community thinks and feels. And I think creating a way for us to gather better information about what— where folks are actually at. I think it's really unfortunate right now because most of the narrative that I hear in the media and social media and press, that sort of thing, I don't think accurately reflects our educational systems at all. I think that it's been politicized.

I think there's just a tremendous amount of negativity. And when you actually go and talk to people who have kids in school, it's a whole different story. I think generally people are really happy with their schools, are really happy with the teacher they have, and are really excited about taking their kids to school here in Anchorage, and are really sad about the fact that we have to make some of these changes. And then the movement towards, you know, standards and standardized testing and grading schools and grading teachers and grading principals based on a small amount of information and using that information to determine whether our schools are good or bad is probably one of the worst things that we have ever done, because I think that it doesn't tell the story of what's actually happening in our schools. So all that to be said is that this is an opportunity to talk with people about what they actually feel and think in our community and to capture that in a in a very real way.

So I'm excited about that, but I would just say that I think that thinking about what those questions are and how it will not just inform one or two or three things that are in front of us, but inform a broader array of issues. And I think as an assembly member, I'm really interested in hearing about those. And so the last thing I would just say is that you came here to us to inform us about this, which is great. I don't know if I heard in your presentation what we can do for you. I don't know if I've heard, you know, what role could we, should we play?

How do we support this effort so that it's successful and that you actually are able to have the conversations and get the information you want so that we can all benefit from that? Great question, Member Presbordia. The big ask is I could really use your help to get this in front of your constituents, and I know that there's a lot of survey fatigue and reluctance to participate in these types of things, but if you could just relay my sincere sentiments that I truly need the to participate in this community values survey, because you'll have context that they may miss. Great. One last idea is—.

Sorry, before you go there, I just want to say also, maybe we can go back a couple slides, because I think you had just a couple takeaways, so just to put those on the screen. Yeah, there you go. Go ahead, Kim. I— this sounds strange, but I think there should be some prizes, some kind of— Donated prizes. I think there needs to be some prizes, like if you fill out this survey, if you complete this survey, you could win X, right?

It works. It really works. And so I will just say that doing some of those things, I think, will really help us get more results. I love that. And I hear from our Chief of Staff, he had the same idea.

And if anybody's listening who can donate something to give away, I'm all ears. Yeah, I think, I think the term is incentives to complete the survey. Okay. Any other questions, comments from members?

Okay, not seeing any. Anybody wish to provide audience participation?

Okay, then I think we are concluded with our business today. So thank you again for being here. And then I'll just note, we do have, related to ASD matters, our next joint meeting with the school board is going to be on Friday, September 18th, 10 AM to noon. It's over at the ASD Education Center. And I know in the meantime, separate from this particular discussion, There is ongoing work on the Joint Committee and participation from the school board and assembly on the discussion of right-sizing.

So just to put a pin in that right now. Otherwise, this is the last meeting of the day. So everybody have a good weekend and we are adjourned. Thank you.