School districts from across the state came before the joint Alaska House and Senate education committees on Monday for a “legislative fly-in” organized by the Alaska Association of School Boards. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District was among the many districts that sent a delegation to Juneau to speak before the state government.
Districts spotlighted staffing, music, sports, electives, counselors, schools and food service as key programs that they’d already lost over years of stagnant funding that hasn’t met inflationary pressure. And, they said, more is at jeopardy.
Students came before the panel alongside teachers and school board members in tears or in anger at the opportunities they’d seen taken away or feared soon losing. They spoke of schools closed, roofs leaking and teachers who’d left their careers because they couldn’t support their families.
Little of the testimony was new to the House or Senate committees, which include local Sen. Jesse Bjorkman and Rep. Bill Elam, both Republicans from Nikiski. School districts from across the state had already called in to both bodies for hours of testimony in the first two weeks of the legislative session.
The Kenai Peninsula was represented Monday by Board of Education member Penny Vadla and student representative Emerson Kapp of Soldotna High School.
Vadla took aim at the rhetoric surrounding school funding — that the state is failing to see a return on its investments in education.
The KPBSD, she said, is not failing. The local district is offering quality academics and career training, opportunities to pick up college credit through the Kenai Peninsula Middle College, robust career and technical education opportunities, job shadow programs, special needs support and more — “the things that really matter to all the students.”
The school is seeing growth in its reading outcomes, she said.
“Our schools are not failing, they are being depleted of resources,” Vadla said. “Due to a lack of providing sustainable funding, every year people are leaving the state.”
In the face of stagnant funding, Vadla said, the district is losing teachers, programs, support staff and families.
Kapp, in her comments to the committees, voiced opposition to House Bill 57, sponsored by Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage. That bill describes a bar on the use or possession of cellphones and other communication devices by students inside public schools during school hours — including lunch and passing periods. A similar bar on phones is included in the education reform package introduced and championed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Jan. 31.
While phones can be distracting in the classroom, Kapp said they’re also tools that students can be taught to use appropriately. Further, she said, the decision of whether or not to reject those tools should be up to each school based on their “unique culture and climate.”
A full recording of the testimony by all the school districts is available at ktoo.org/gavel.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
