With the upcoming legislative session, it is hard to believe that we are about to sit through the same bad movie. Currently no one has put a plan on the table as a solution for us to avoid the same outcomes. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is facing an enormous multimillion-dollar budget deficit. Deja vu all over again.

As a KPBSD board member, I have recently attended discussions with local legislators, state and district employees, parents and even students in an effort to understand or develop a way to restructure the engrained processes for state education legislation. After reflection, I am concerned that this legislative session will be the same sad story we have witnessed in the past 30 years. The legislative migration is underway with the same dire predictions being considered to hopefully squeeze a drop from a financially empty bucket.

As an Alaskan educator, now retired, I was ethically proud to keep personal and political views out of the classroom. I never truly recognized how tenuous the nuances of how our funding was. I always did more with less, developing a naive headset to commit to our youth education no matter the financial and personal costs.

Now as a local school board member, the revelation of what reality is for our most important resource: the youth of the state of Alaska. I have personally grown in my understanding of educational trends that seem to have become hot-button emotional issues stifling our educational system. Legislators, it is beyond time to make a plan for the alleviation of these issues. We need a reasonable way to address the concern.

I have recently been asked to chair the local district’s charter school committee. During the last couple of years there have been contentious issues broached by the committee without basis and created by misinformation. I recognize that in Alaska there is a true need for PUBLIC charter schools. However, the value of these schools should not be evaluated on irrelevant standardized tests.

The real metric for evaluation is the societal values deemed necessary for quality learning environments identified in successful school charters. Examples include: skill proficiency, attendance, hard work, commitment to schools climate, parental involvement and community needs.

Standardized testing and accountability in schools has been an expected mantra for years but we continually compare apples to oranges. In reality, we have not had a credible instrument that measures the same proficiency outcomes over time. There are features of the data collected in these tests that have not had any validity, but we continue to pass it on as the yardstick to measure educational proficiency.

Another anomaly is that there is a state funding component of the educational public that does not engage in standardized testing. Many students choose not to test with an opt out provided by their parents. Why are we not required to test all students who receive state educational funding? Is there an idea how to solve this problem?

Hesitantly, I have been convinced to participate as a board member in negotiations with our local education unions. Again, this is another hot-button topic in our education discussions. I have been a union member, and those roots run deep in my family. I have also seen how districts and unions have interacted in my many years of education and confrontation is the expected norm.

At this time, educator contract verbiage is all that can be negotiated because salary and benefits which are the priority are vague because funding is held hostage. Futility creeps into the mind when faced with the reality that neither side has resources to “negotiate.” When like-minded people sit down without any bargaining chips it is like circling the wagons and shooting inward — it’s a no-win and this breeds contempt.

Having worked both on the road system as well as the bush (or rural Alaska?) I have seen how the state has neglected our school facilities. Many of our community crown jewels are falling down around our students. I have seen windows covered with plywood to keep the cold out. Fuel costs and transportation to heat schools and feed our less fortunate communities has put some students at risk for personal survival not to mention their education. I have seen students totally dependent on the school food program for the only meals they have that day. What is the plan for saving the resources, facilities, and people we have already invested in?

Legislators, your work has just begun. Please make a fiscal plan early and execute it for the best interest of all Alaska residents. It is time to run our state differently! Agree with your cohorts and work cooperatively to achieve policies and procedures that enhance education, public safety, roads and infrastructure of which you are constitutionally bound to do. Develop a fiscal plan that is manageable and sustainable. That may even mean tapping the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, a state income tax, or other revenue generators.

NOW, is the time to formulate a different process for budget development. Please make a fiscal plan.

Gov. Dunleavy, you tout yourself as an experienced educator and there are better ways to deliver the product. Put a plan on the table now and maybe we can educate our legislators and youth rather than kicking that BSA football for another year. You have the power, time, resources and responsibility to lead the state — go to work.

Education is at a pivotal point in our state right now. Not because we don’t believe, but we choose to put petty partisan politics in front of the good and benefit of the citizens of Alaska. I challenge you as elected leaders to work as a team and get the job done.

Tim Daugharty is a 40-plus-year resident and educator of the state who has taught and coached on the Kenai Peninsula and was principal at Nunamiut School on the North Slope. Tim is currently on the KPBSD school board and is an advocate for the students, parents and schools of which he has dedicated his career. This is in no way the opinion of the KPBSD school board or district but one person’s observation over time.