The governor’s surprise veto of the education bill (SB140) has thrown school districts across the state into turmoil, and Sitka is no exception.
Even if the legislature rides to the rescue – as it has in the past – with some last-minute funding by the time it adjourns in May, it’s unlikely that it will come close to reversing the damage done by the governor’s veto, which is forcing school closures in the state’s largest districts in Juneau and Fairbanks.
In Sitka, it hasn’t come to that – yet. Right now, the district administration is only discussing reducing the number of teaching positions, but that could change.
School officials appeared in a forum on KCAW Wednesday night (3-20-24) to discuss the potential fallout from the veto.
You don’t even have to pay close attention to politics to realize that something was up in Juneau this year. At the governor’s request, a nearly-unanimous legislature approved a funding package for schools to make up for almost a decade of neglect, and then the governor turned around and erased the bill with a stroke of his pen.
The Sitka School Board’s student member, Felix Myers, said none of this was lost on his classmates.
“I think right now, there’s some, you know, talks about trying to do like a statewide student protest,” said Myers. “I think that’s something that we’re looking at… But, I mean, kids aren’t stupid. Kids know what’s going on.”
Myers said that nine years of flat funding for education by the state would eventually become apparent, as the Sitka School District is going to have to cut teachers, even if the legislature manages to pass a last-minute appropriation. The legislature, however, took extraordinary pains to shore up schools this year. He says there’s genuine anger over the governor’s reversal, and the impact it’s going to have on students’ lives.
“You might not have been able to see it before, you’re going to see it now,” said Myers. “And that is not something our children deserve. They don’t deserve to be pawns in a political game. Their education and their futures should not be sacrificed because one person wants to continue their political agenda.”
Gov. Dunleavy’s agenda is hard to pin down. He wanted to streamline the creation of charter schools, and he favored cash bonuses for teachers. In his veto of the education bill, the governor wrote “this bill fails to address the innovations necessary to allow Alaska students to excel.” He also said, “True reform must embrace a willingness to provide alternative methods of education to meet the varying needs of our student population.” People assume this is a reference to charter schools and cash bonuses – neither of which were specifically included in the bill.
Assistant superintendent Deidre Jenson said they didn’t need to be in the bill – more school funding was really the answer to both.
“Innovation takes money,” Jenson mused. “If you want us to do new things, we are just getting by doing the requirements, and the additional requirements with the Alaska Reads Act. Innovation is is key to what we would like to do. The charter schools reach just a small population. There are so many school districts out there that just would never have the ability to have a charter school formulated in their communities, it’s just so restrictive to meeting all of our students needs.”
The worst case scenario for Alaska’s schools would be that this legislature never rallies to send one-time money to schools, or that the governor vetoes it again. This is what the Sitka School District calls the “Zero BSA” option – which means no increase to the base student allocation. This translates to a budget deficit of over $3 million in the Sitka School District. Board president Tristan Guevin said the number of faculty positions to offset this is staggering.
“You’re looking in that 20-25 and above range,” said Guevin. “And that’s the challenge for us: We’ve been making those cuts, we’ve been tightening our belt for basically the past decade. Teacher classroom budgets are down, funding is frozen on some of those supplies and other things. And we’ve cut some of those other auxiliary positions. And, yeah, there’s really nowhere else to look besides staff.”
If teachers go, the main academic classes would all remain – perhaps in more crowded classrooms. It’s all the other stuff that’s at risk: shop classes, art, music, and activities . Felix Myers said he knows many students who attend just for these classes.
“It’s all those extra things that make school worth going to – and sports, extracurriculars, things like that,” he said. “Those are the first things that get cut.”
Board member Todd Gebler has served three years, and has seen this drama play out in Juneau every legislative session. He’s concerned about being forced to make decisions that are expedient now, but have lasting consequences.
“When those programs are gone, they normally don’t come back,” Gebler said. “As a board member, that weighs heavy on my head. These are things that I’m going to have to cut. These are teaching positions, these are people’s livelihoods that I’m going to have to cut. From the governor’s perspective of what he did, as a board member, it’s incredibly frustrating. You know, the anger is kind of going away, kind of not. And I don’t know why I’m so surprised, but the state has chronically disappointed us as far as education funding goes.”
Part of that disappointment is timing. Gebler and other board members have to settle on a budget by April 17 to meet the city’s deadline. The legislature likely wouldn’t take any action on supplemental school funding until the following month, when many teachers have already received pink slips, and have begun to look for work outside of Sitka.
