Sen. Bert Stedman explains the benefits of merging Mt. Edgecumbe High School with the list used to maintain schools in the state’s Regional Education Attendance Areas (REAA’s). The move would allow maintenance at Mt. Edgecumbe — or even the construction of student and faculty housing — to be evaluated against the capital requests of schools, rather than against the needs of all state facilities. “I think the State of Alaska could do better for the kids at Edgecumbe,” said Stedman.
Senate Bill 146 would amend language already used to support school maintenance in the state’s REAA’s – or Regional Education Attendance Areas – to include Mt. Edgecumbe High School. REAA’s are generally communities that are too small to have a full-blown school district. Although Mt. Edgecumbe is located in Sitka, it is owned and operated by the state Department of Education (DEED), and not a part of the Sitka School District.
SB 146 was on the morning docket of the Senate Finance Committee, which sponsored the bill. Committee co-chair, Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, said that Mt. Edgecumbe had been unable to reliably secure maintenance funding in the past, because it’s on the same list as all the other state’s facilities.
He argued that this was an inequitable outcome for one of the state’s top schools.
“So this bill then would correct that,” said Stedman. “How Mt. Edgecumbe would rank with all the other schools – school needs – I don’t know, but I think they would be fairly treated. And I think it would be a more equitable analysis done on the maintenance. And when you look at that school, the quality of the students are some of the highest levels of all our high schools around the state. I think it’s the number-one high school, but it happened to be in my district, but if they’re not number-one, they’re certainly in the top handful. Also the construction needs for housing, for teachers, for dormitories – the girls’ and boys’ dormitories were built right before World War II and refurbished several times. Clearly, they’re 70-80 years old. And I think there’s also a need for an additional classroom. As an example, I think the last time I was in the boys dorms, they had four to five boys in each dorm room with one desk. The ladies dorm is a little bit different, but I think the State of Alaska could do better for the kids at Edgecumbe.”
The Department of Education estimates that the bill would cost over $300,000 in the first year, to pay for two full-time employees to address standards around the construction of housing, and just under $200,000 the second year.
Sen. Jesse Kiehl of Juneau wondered if the state didn’t already have a mechanism to deal with school housing, and whether two additional employees were necessary.
“There are schools throughout rural Alaska that have attached teacher apartments, various housing units, either in the school or adjacent to the school, and we have a rural teacher housing program that I think runs through the Housing Finance Corporation,” said Kiehl. “I wonder if a sharper pencil could find a way to partner up with AHFC, or whoever looks at major maintenance on those schools now, and maybe find a way not to need two new bodies to do something we always should have been doing. And I think do now.”
Senate Finance co-chair Lyman Hoffman, of Bethel, agreed, saying that the bill would likely not require additional staffing in the Department of Education. He did not call for a vote on the bill, and instead set it aside for further work.
In the meantime, Mt. Edgecumbe High School – along with public schools across the state – remains in serious financial jeopardy, pending action from the legislature on House Bill 69, sponsored by Sitka Representative Rebecca Himschoot, which would increase per-student funding in the state by $1,000. HB 69 passed the House by a wide margin in mid-March and was referred to the Senate Finance Committee Friday morning, April 4.
In previous reporting, Sen. Stedman told KCAW that he did not think a $1,000 increase would pass the senate. Many school districts – including Sitka’s – are hoping that a smaller increase of $680 will pass, and survive a possible veto by the governor.
