By Jake Dye and Chloe Pleznac

Facing a $17 million deficit, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Board of Education this week began a conversation about potential closure of schools that will continue at their next meeting in March.

A presentation from borough administration to the board on Tuesday outlined a series of scenarios for closure of up to nine schools: Homer Middle School, McNeil Canyon Elementary School, Moose Pass School, Nikiski Middle/High School, Nikolaevsk School, Paul Banks Elementary School, Seward Middle School, Sterling Elementary School and Tustumena Elementary School.

Across the different scenarios, the presentation details which schools might be closed and where students might instead go. Homer Middle could be combined with Homer High; Seward Middle could be combined with Seward Elementary and Seward High. Some students from Nikiski, Moose Pass and Nikolaevsk could end up traveling to neighboring communities for school.

The district faces a significant deficit, has spent down its unassigned fund balance to less than a single day’s operating cost and has no assurance from the state that increased funding will materialize. That’s why Board President Zen Kelly said he asked district administration to prepare the presentation, and why he said the conversation has to happen.

The district and other education advocates have said this year that the base student allocation — the amount of money districts receive per student — has failed to keep up with inflation over the last 10 years. The district drew deeply from its fund balance last year facing another deficit.

This year, in conversations about a $17 million deficit and without savings to draw on, the district says it is considering cuts to staffing, programs, sports and building closures to balance the budget.

“Maybe I should apologize to the board for not bringing up these school consolidations last year,” Kelly said. “It is gut-wrenching. I keep hoping that our Legislature and our governor will step up and do their job and we can stop having these kinds of conversations that rip our communities apart.”

The district is “absolutely” in the position where it needs to discuss school closures, Kelly said, but that doesn’t mean the district isn’t still calling on the Legislature for “adequately funding our schools.”

Closure considerations

After Tuesday’s presentation, the school board didn’t voice any defined pathway forward for the school closure conversation. They asked district administration to develop additional information about student transportation times, estimated costs of outstanding deferred maintenance, and other potential pros and cons of any closure. That information would come before the board during their March 3 meeting — scheduled to be held in Homer.

The timeline, Kelly said, “is very compressed.” The board needs to complete a balanced budget by April 30 to provide to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly — regardless of whether the Alaska Legislature has passed a bill or defined how much funding the district can expect.

Before any school closure scenario moves forward, Kelly said that the board would need to hold further conversation, and the district would need to host community meetings to receive feedback.

Board members said they support the closure conversation continuing. Member Kelley Cizek said the district needs to move forward with closures because the continuing decline of the district’s savings shows that larger changes need to be made.

“We were in the hole last year, we knew we were going to be in the hole this year,” Cizek said. “Even if Christmas comes early and we get this BSA increase, we still need to move forward and begin to cut our budget so we don’t have to be in a position every single year to go through this drama and trauma for all of our communities.”

Members of the board spoke favorably about a possible closure of Seward Middle School and opposed closures of schools that are the “heartbeat” of their communities like Nikiski Middle/High School.

Each scenario can be considered, Holland said, but the inclusion of multiple south peninsula schools on the list doesn’t mean that the district is planning to close all those schools — just that there are different “potentials that the board could consider for this year or for the future.”

In determining which schools “should or could” be considered for closure, Holland said the district evaluated the potential savings from salaries, benefits, travel expenses, utility costs, supplies and others.

KPBSD Finance Director Liz Hayes explained that any closure implemented by the district would have diminishing returns because of the state statute defining school funding’s “hold harmless clause.”

When a school is closed, there are a few years where lost funding from the state isn’t reflected. Closing Homer Middle, for example, would save the district over $580,000 each for the first and second years. Savings fall to $346,000 in the third year and there’s actually a projected net loss to the district in the fifth year of $131,000.

Each of the other projected closures similarly produces diminishing returns, though none of the others fall to the point of a net loss to the district.

The district receives different amounts of funding based on the different sizes of schools — receiving less money from the state for Soldotna High School, for example, because of the efficiencies of running a larger building with students in one place compared to small schools.

There are also considerations when combining schools regarding capacity — different grades or uses have different needs.

In all of the possible closures described Tuesday, Holland said, only financial costs have yet been weighed. The realities for students, families and communities, “the emotional aspect” hasn’t yet been explored.

Southern Kenai Peninsula

For residents of the southern Kenai Peninsula, the proposal suggests closing Homer Middle School, Paul Banks Elementary, McNeil Canyon Elementary and Nikolaevsk School.

Homer High School would absorb the entirety of the middle school enrollment, as well as older students from Nikolaevsk. Kelly noted during the meeting that the high school building has been under capacity for years and can fit up to 600 students, although he admitted that it could be shocking for community members to consider that number in a space that has traditionally housed around 400.

Nikolaevsk — a small, mostly Russian Old Believer community to the west of Anchor Point — would send younger students to Chapman. Chapman is already over reported capacity, but the board said the small increase spread across grades at the school would likely be insignificant. Per previous Clarion reporting, Nikolaevsk families have twice unsuccessfully attempted to develop a charter school in the community.

Under the prospective plan, students of Paul Banks and McNeil Canyon Elementary schools would be integrated into West Homer Elementary. McNeil Canyon is located roughly 12 miles from West Homer and has generally served students who live on the eastern side of the community, reaching into Kachemak City, Fritz Creek and Voznesenka.

Fireweed Academy, a charter school that currently serves third through sixth grade students out of the west wing of West Homer Elementary, would be made to relocate if more students were brought into the building from the closures of the other elementary schools. That school may be able to move into the vacated Paul Banks building, but borough administration was unsure about statutory restrictions about reopening a school in that location.

Central and eastern Kenai Peninsula

Possible closure scenarios for the central and eastern Kenai Peninsula would close Moose Pass School, Nikiski Middle/High School, Seward Middle School, Sterling Elementary and Tustumena Elementary.

Students from Moose Pass, Sterling and Nikiski would all have to travel to schools in Seward, Soldotna and Kenai. Holland noted that for Moose Pass, the trip to Seward is 32 miles each way. Middle and high school students are already making that trip, but it may be more of a burden for younger elementary schoolers. In Sterling, he said, many families already drive toward Soldotna where parents work.

The closure of Seward Middle School, conversely, would be less disruptive to students because of its proximity to both Seward High and Seward Elementary. Holland said there is support in Seward for the move, which has been explored by the school’s site council. The city, too, has said it’s interested in purchasing the middle school building for recreation and child care facilities.

Board member Virginia Morgan cautioned against mischaracterizing the requests from Seward to combine Seward Middle with the other schools. That is not, she said, “their preferred choice.”

“The preferred choice would be to have an increased BSA and properly staff all of the buildings to have the programs that they want,” she said. “The request for information on the possibility of what it could mean for closing that school has come out of a sense of desperation. I want to make sure that we’re clear about that. They do love their middle school.”

There was almost no discussion Tuesday about what the possible closure of Tustumena Elementary would mean, because the board needed to move their agenda along to bring in a guest speaker. Per the presentation, students from Tustumena would instead go either south to Ninilchik or north to Redoubt Elementary.

Community outcry

The presentation, and the list of nine schools considered for closure, was published online Monday morning, and many people came to speak before the board during their regular meeting that night, ahead of the closure work session.

Students and teachers from Nikiski Middle/High School filled the assembly chambers, speaking about what their community school means to them.

Milly Hornung and Halle Blades, both Nikiski students, said that their school can get overlooked because it’s small. But they said it’s a special place that’s integral to its community.

To lose their school, longtime Nikiski teacher Carla Jenness said during the meeting, would be to “tear the heart out of Nikiski.”

“Every kid deserves a fully funded, functioning school in their community,” she said. “If anybody thinks that Nikiski will go down without a fight, they haven’t met many bulldogs.”

Board Vice President Jason Tauriainen said during the board meeting on Monday that he wasn’t interested in closing any schools, let alone Nikiski, where he has taught and where his kids attend. But, he said, facing such a steep deficit the school board has to explore and understand all of its options.

“This is about having the conversations that we have to have, because we’re in a place where we don’t have good solutions,” he said. “I love my school, and I will fight for it … I’m going to fight for the teachers and the kids in our district.”

Full recordings of the school board meeting and school closure work session will be available at the KPBSD BoardDocs website.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is asking for input from staff, parents and community members at districtwide KPBSD budget development meetings. The meetings will take place in Homer on Tuesday, Feb. 11 at 6 p.m. at Homer High School library; on the central peninsula on Wednesday, Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. at Kenai Central High School library; and in Seward on Thursday, Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. at Seward High School library.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com. Reach reporter Chloe Pleznac at chloe.pleznac@homernews.com.