4/21/2026: School Board Meeting

Good evening. We'll call the Tuesday, April 20— April 21, 2026 ASD School Board meeting to order. It is 6:03 PM. Present in the boardroom are members Jacobs, Bellamy, Donnelly, Higgins, Holloman, Lessons, and Wilson. I should note Member Bellamy is joining us online.

Member Bellamy is joining us online, and Member Donnelly is with us in the boardroom. Okay, we've called ourselves to order, engaged in roll call. Student Representative Madison, if you could lead us in the flag salute and then the land acknowledgement, please.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We acknowledge that we gather here today on the traditional lands of the Dena'ina people of the Upper Cook Inlet. For thousands of years, the Dena'ina people have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. ASD is committed to diversity and inclusion, and it is with honor and respect that we recognize all indigenous people who live and learn in our community.

We have completed our land acknowledgments.

Want to welcome everyone to our meeting and thank you for attending and supporting the work of the Anchorage School District and this board. The board thanks students, parents, teachers, staff, school business partners, and the entire community for your investment in our district with your time, your talents, and your tax dollars. We will move to the approval of the agenda. First, is there a motion to approve our agenda as drafted? Move to approve the agenda as presented.

Second. A motion made by Member Holloman, second by Member Wilson. Is there discussion or amendments? Member Wilson?

Yes, I move to postpone the student hearing action item to the board's next regular or special meeting, whichever occurs first. Second. A motion made by Member Wilson to postpone the student hearing until our next regular or special meeting. Um, is there any discussion? Seeing none, can we have a voice vote on the amendment to our agenda, please?

Student Representative Madison. Yes. Member Lessens. Yes. Member Wilson.

Yes. Member Holloman. Member Donnelly. Yes. Member Higgins.

Member Bellamy. Yes. President Jacobs. Yes. That amendment is adopted 7-0.

Is there any additional discussions or amendments on our agenda? Member Lessons, is this an appropriate time to pull a couple of items from the consent agenda? Um, you can, yeah, them now. Um, we have another opportunity later, but now is fine. Um, in light of this afternoon's work session and the announcement of a forthcoming administrative recommendation for action status at an upcoming meeting to preserve the middle school model for FY27, I would move to postpone a vote on memorandums 148 and 149 to the May 5th meeting agenda.

Okay, does she need a second at this time? Uh, Member Bellamy, are you seconding the motion? I am.

And remember, lessons, just to confirm, you're looking to postpone memos 148 and 149. Correct. Specifically with the intention to take them up after a vote on the recommendation. Okay, is there any other discussion on this amendment to our agenda? Hearing and seeing none, we'll have a voice vote on this amendment.

Student Representative Madison. Yes. Member Lessens? Yes. Member Bellamy?

Yes. Wilson? Yes. Member Holloman? Yes.

Member Donnelly? Yes. Member Higgins? President Jacobs? Yes.

That amendment is adopted 7-0. Is there any other discussion or amendments on our agenda tonight? Hearing and seeing none, we'll have a voice vote to approve our agenda as amended, please.

Student Representative Madison? Yes. Member Higgins?

Member Donnelly? Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. Yes.

Member Lessens? Yes. Member Wilson? Yes. President Jacobs?

Yes. Okay, we have adopted our agenda as amended. We'll move on to reports. Uh, student report is item B1. Student Representative Madison, the floor is yours.

All right, thank you so much. So first, starting off, I would like to put out a reminder that, um, the Alaska Associates of Student Government Spring Conference is occurring this week. I'm actually flying out with my school tomorrow, as much many other Anchorage School District high schools are doing so as well. At this conference, we are going to be talking to legislators, having tea with them, talking about important bills regarding education funding, as well as passing different resolutions that students have written across ASD and even all over the state. So I'm looking forward to this trip, and I think it'll be great, especially for one of my last ASOG trips.

And I'm hoping to see new leadership take place that will truly inspire many of the students here in ASD that participate in ASOG. Next, I do want to mention that I believe my last meeting here on the school board will probably be on May 19th. I most likely will be having summer commitments with an internship after I graduate, so I will be looking forward to wrapping up my term around that time. But I am thankful for all the times I have been given to be attending these school board meetings up until then. Next, I do want to mention that 2 weeks ago I had actually attended a Juno conference, um, with 2 other ASD students from Stellar, and we had actually done some advocacy in the legislature specifically regarding a bill called HB 101 that regards raising the age of consent to 18 to protect children and teenagers.

And I wanted to highlight the other 2 students that came with me to be able to do so, as it was a very motivational, and it took a lot of strength to be able to talk to legislators about such sensitive topics in a bill. And we even had presented a position paper to these legislators, and it was a lot of work outside of the classroom. Next over, I do want to note that there has been many student perspectives shared about the different programs being cut at their school, such as East High School now having their band program being completely cut. I've heard many different voices of opposition to these different cuts, but specifically, we all know that this points to the fact that many teachers are being cut at each school, which then decreases the amount of FTE we have. And so Unfortunately, a lot of the programs that are being cut first are music or fine arts departments.

And at schools just like East and even like at Eagle River High School, classes like student government, yearbook are most likely probably on the chopping block, which is very unfortunate given that many students have been working hard. But there are still a lot of perspectives and debates going around regarding such. I do also want to note that A student, um, that's a friend of mine actually at Eagle River High School, had introduced the idea to write an op-ed about education funding and specifically regarding how these budget cuts are affecting the fine arts department, sports classrooms, and even more. And I will be helping on that op-ed to submit to the Alaska Daily— Anchorage Daily News. And so I'm looking forward to hopefully sharing those voices with the community.

Lastly, I do also want to send out a big note of appreciation to the new voters in our Anchorage School District, specifically seniors in our last Anchorage election who went out and voted. I do definitely want to remind people that voting is the number one way to make your voice heard. And so many students like myself had voted for the very first time, and I would say that I hope that many others will continue to do so for the rest of their life every time an election opportunity comes. Other than that, that concludes my report.

Thank you. Are there any questions for our student representative? Seeing none, we'll move on to item B2, our military report. I understand Colonel Hanson's with us tonight. Welcome, sir.

The floor is yours.

Good evening, President Jacobs, Superintendent Bryan, members of the board. It's good to be here, could be back tonight. And it's good to see you all. I'm Colonel Dustin Hanson. I am the 673rd Mission Support Group Commander on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

Tonight, I would like to express my appreciation on a couple different things. I would like to express my appreciation for just the solid collaboration that I have had with one of your academy's coaches.

Out of West High School, Miss Kendra Stolle. Working with her, I was able to share with her some of JBear's civilian positions that we're always looking to hire into. Talking with her, I was able to basically build a list that she was able to take and share with other high schools, other teachers, in order to expose those students to some of the positions that are available on JBear. Meaning that, uh, hey, welcome to JBear. We have positions for you that don't necessarily mean you have to don the uniform, but you can still serve your country and protect national interests as a civilian.

We have plenty of jobs for you. So working with Miss Kendra Stolle at West High School, sharing those JBear jobs, I was inspired just to see, um, uh, how much she was able to help us convey what we have on JBear to attract local talent and keep local talent and sustain local talent and build a career for our students. Additionally, April is the month of the military child, so thank you to all of your schools for celebrating our military-connected students. I, along with airmen and soldiers, showed up to Ursa Minor Elementary last Friday for Purple Up Day. We were able to high-five all the little kids coming in.

Some were more motivated than others, but that's alright. We were there to inspire them, motivate them, and then we were able to help make purple Play-Doh for some of their STEM activities. The jury's out on who was having more fun, us or them, but it was a blast. I just want to say thank you to your school administrators, your school staff, your teachers for just showing overwhelming love and support for our students. And I say That's true for most of the schools.

I do use the word most because, uh, in full transparency, I have fielded some concerns from Jay Bear families who have voiced to me that they don't always feel like their voice is heard at some of their kids' schools. I will address that with you via email, uh, so we can just kind of show you like what's going on, but I want to make sure that I'm being a faithful advocate for my families. And finally, I have a shout out to Principal Cindy Stroupoulos out of Orion Elementary. She reached out almost immediately to base leadership upon hearing that we had a couple families that were impacted by a fire, and everybody's safe and everything is fine, but I appreciate just how quickly she reached out hearing that some families were affected by a fire, and she was ready with backpacks, she was ready with school supplies, and she was ready to just engage base leadership, leadership to see what she could do. Thank you, Cindy Stroupoulos, for just being a faithful partner, mission partner with JBear, and for just loving on our students.

And then finally, speaking of Month of the Military Child, I have the new 2026 Month of the Military Child patches. I would like to just share with you all and our staff here on the left for just the faithful service that you've provided to us and our families over this past year. Some of you might have got— received patches from last year, but this is the new improved 2026 version, so I will pass that out to you now.

Um, thank you, Colonel, for your report. Um, do we have any questions for our military representative tonight? Member Wilson, just a, a quick comment. I had the privilege of attending the School Business Partnership Spirit of Tomorrow Awards and appreciate that you and other military leadership were there as well. So appreciate all of your partnership.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. All right, Colonel, I believe that's it for tonight. Thank you so much for your time, your service to our country. We will move on to board conference and committee reports, item B3. Um, is there a board committee chair who wishes to make a report at this time?

Seeing member Lessens, just a reminder that we will be having all all 3 committees meeting on Thursday the 23rd in the middle of the day, 11:00, 12:15, and 1:30 for governance, finance, and communications.

All right, seeing no other comments, we will move on to goal and guardrail monitoring. Item 1 is CCL cumulative grade point average, grades 9 through 12.

Dr. Bryan, any opening remarks? Then we'll ask the team to come forward and we'll engage in our goal monitoring tonight. Thank you, Mr. President. So we'll invite up our team members to go through one of our metrics aligned to the board goal on graduation rates. So just to zoom out for one minute while the team gets settled, so the board has been actively monitoring graduation rates for a number of years now, and this is one goal where the district has made noticeable progress.

So you'll notice that over time our graduation rates have rebounded to to pre-pandemic levels, which is something that we're truly proud of our, our team members, our teachers, our staff, and our parents for being partners in that work. And this is a really important discussion on grade point averages. So part of the ways that we measure our progress towards improving graduation rates are monitoring our CTE pathways. We spoke about that a few weeks ago. We also track the percentage of students who are not seniors, who are 9th, 10th, 11th graders, who are on track to graduate.

That holds us as a team accountable to making sure students are earning enough credits to be successful and to earn that diploma. But oftentimes when I speak to the community about graduation rates, they ask some really valid questions about, well, what is the role of a student's academic progress and performance when it comes to measuring graduation? We need to make sure that our students are able to read on grade level, that they're able to understand basic concepts in math, etc. And the research is very clear that when students earn a 2.7 GPA or higher, they're much more likely to be successful in post-secondary opportunities. So this is a really important metric that gets down into the academic performance and readiness of our students that translates into their preparedness for post-secondary.

So I really look forward to this conversation with the board. Again, we've made some really big progress here, and we have some big, um, you know, budget changes going into next year. But with your support, I think we can continue the momentum here. So with that said, we're happy to answer questions from the board. Thank you, Dr. Bryant.

We'll open the questions with Member Bellamy.

Sure, thank you. So, um, I did send in a couple of questions actually, um, on behalf of myself and another board member, um, so you should have them. But, you know, 9th grade showed the strongest improvement, uh, and I just kind of wanted to generate a little bit of a discussion around how the district is building on that momentum and ensuring that students remain on track as they move through, not just through 9th grade, but 10th, 11th, and 10th and 11th grade.

Thank you for the question, Board Member Bellamy, um, and for your questions in advance as well. You've given us an opportunity to prepare for tonight, so we appreciate that. Um, before I get started with a response, I'll just invite each member of our team up here to introduce themselves so board members know who we are and the folks behind us, as well as online, know who we are. Great.

Good evening, my name is Deanne Carroll and I'm the Director for Assessment and Evaluation. Good evening, I'm Sean Prince, Senior Director of Teaching and Learning.

And I'm Eric Backman, Senior Director of High Schools. Good evening, I'm Jason Halasny. I'm the Director of Special Education Instruction. I'm Bobbi Lafferty, Director of the English Language Learners Program.

Great. And so, you know, my, my first comment is we have a team representing various departments here tonight. That's deliberate. We're really focused on an integrated synchronized, supportive role from the Ed Center to our principals, to our teachers and staff, uh, and that's ultimately how we're making gains here. As you and the board are, are well aware, we've placed considerable emphasis on success in the 9th grade as that pivotal year of transition from middle school to high school.

Abundant research shows that when students do well in 9th grade it sets them on a trajectory for success through high school and beyond. We're looking at a couple of different metrics here. One of them is the On Track to Graduate metric. The other is GPA. In both cases, with our investment in 9th grade, we're seeing success.

We've seen considerable success with On Track to Graduate for our 9th graders, and more than any other grade level, we're seeing success in the 9th grade for the 2.7 GPA. And it's a shout out to our building leaders. It's a shout out to our teachers. A couple of things I would point out that I think are significant here.

In terms of the 9th grade, you know, our Academy coaches have done a really great job of keeping track on student progress and working with staff to intervene in a timely way when a student falls off that OnTrack metric or below the GPA target of 2.7. We've introduced things like the staggered start for 9th graders to make sure they have a strong start, a strong orientation in high school. We have Guaranteed Experiences, which are designed to create relevancy for our young high school students so that they see a purpose in what they're learning each day and how it connects to what they might be able to do in the future. Uh, we have the Career Exploration course, and I want to point out that I have seen that course, uh, in real time, teachers giving lessons on the importance of GPA. That's part of the curriculum.

How do you calculate a GPA? Why does it matter? Why does 2.7 matter specifically? So that's part of the curriculum. And then the last thing I want to point out, you know, our presentation tonight shows success, about a 3% gain for our 9th graders, actually outperforming students in the other grades in terms of GPA.

And that bunks national research, which typically shows older students have higher GPAs. So that is to say, this investment in 9th grade, um, is working, and we're really excited to continue the work. And, um, as Dr. Bryant pointed out, it's going to be a challenge, but I think we're up for the challenge.

Um, any follow-up? No, that, that's good. I can wait. But thank you. I'm excited, um, with that growth in, in grade— in, in 9th grade.

I just think If we can get our students off to a great start, that is going to sustain them through as they, as they settle in. 9Th grade is such a difficult year, so investing there is— I worry about our fiscal situation and how we're able, how we're going to continue, but I know, I know we have a strong team and we're going to figure it out as we go through it. So thank you. Thank you, Member Bellamy. We'll go to Member Wills.

So the district improved from 55.5% to 57.1% of students with a GPA of 2.7 or higher. What specific strategies are driving that growth, and which ones are expected to produce the greatest gains next year?

So I can get us started. Thank you for the question, Board Member Wilson. Um, I think there are a couple of really important strategies. We've mentioned a few with 9th grade, but, um, speaking more generally, the district has invested a lot of time and energy in, in the beginning development stages of academic strategic plan, and it has 4 areas of focus. The first is instructional leadership.

That's really at every level. Most importantly, in this case, I think it's the principals acting as instructional leaders in the, in the, in their buildings, elevating teacher practice. The second, which may be the most important to this conversation, is that we are focused on supporting the classroom and excellent instruction and very well-supported teachers. The third has to do with district-level supports and collaboration. For the classroom.

And the fourth has to do with clear communication. So instructional leadership, classroom support, collaboration, and communication. In terms of that second focus area, we're really working as a district toward making sure that all of our teachers are teaching grade-level district-adopted curriculum. Driving that work is, is, you know, teaching and learning department among many others. I want to specifically point out PLCs, the Monday morning practice where teachers are getting together.

In my own experience, which begins every Monday morning in PLCs, our teachers are digging into scope and sequence curriculum, making sure that what they're offering is standards-based and as engaging as possible. They're focused on making sure that learners are falling behind are getting well supported. So these are a couple of really important strategies we have in place.

I think important to let Mr. Prince talk a bit about the new CCL graduation coach position. That's going to play a really vital role going forward.

Thank you, Eric. The graduation coach position is going to be focusing on these, these guardrails. It's going to be really drawing a laser-like eye to our 9th graders as they transition from their 8th grade middle schools, and it's going to be making sure that we have collaboration in the counseling department and administration watching a student go from 9th grade all the way until graduation. And that intentional focus is going to really make sure that Given our current situation, we're not actually letting students fall but inside the cracks, and that we have someone with an active eye looking to care for those students in a way that we've tried to do when we had a bigger budget and when we had more resources, and that this is a strategy that we can make the best out of a bad situation and really try to make sure that every student matters. Because we're trying to prepare, prepare every student for success in life.

Uh, Member Holloman. Yeah, touching back on the emphasis on grade point, um, I haven't done enough research on this. I've always had the idea that if we actually put GPA on the diploma, or perhaps a transcript on the back I know at least one district in Alaska has bars on the front for like language arts, math, science, and it shows the progress. It's bothered me. I mean, we have some students that work incredibly hard.

Some of them work incredibly hard for a 4-point-something. Some of them work incredibly hard for a 3-point-something, and others see that they're going to make a 2.0 and they're okay with that. But I've always thought that if we— they all get the same diploma, I think, is the problem to me. That if we actually differentiated the diploma by indicating achievement, that might still stimulate some students to, to put a little gas in the tank and try a little harder and maybe go for a 2.8 instead of a 2.4, where right now, honestly, other than just self-motivation, which some students lack, We, we just don't have that. I was just wondering if you've come across that in other districts, if that's something that could be implemented in Anchorage and would make a difference.

Uh, thanks for the question, Board Member Holloman. Um, yeah, a couple of thoughts and then I'll pass off to my colleagues, but I think that the most important thing we can do at this stage, uh, is First, to make sure that students understand why a GPA is important and why, why a higher GPA matters. And Dr. Bryant spoke to it in his initial remarks, but just to reiterate, that threshold of 2.7 is research-based and it suggests nationwide— it's a nationwide metric— but that that student who's hit that benchmark is, is better prepared to do well in post-secondary school. Whether it's a 4-year school, 2-year school, vocational school, what have you. But it also sets them up well for, for life in the workplace, for employment.

And I think that we can do a better job as a district of making sure our students know why it matters, making sure our parents know why it matters. And that is part of the district-wide work we're doing right now, is really educating people about it. I think that the district has incentives in place that encourage students to get a higher GPA. We're getting ready for graduations right now, and certain students get to wear cords representing honors distinction, for example. That's something students work very hard for, but I would like to see more students working harder.

And the last thing I want to say is, you know, typically when we set a higher bar for students, most of them can reach it and will attempt to do so. And that's another thing we're trying to do district-wide, is just grade-level curriculum, rigorous, good class instruction every day that's engaging. And I think as we do that across the board, more students will rise to the— rise to the occasion. And I'm certainly open to handing off to others who have thoughts here. It's kind of wide open.

Yeah, I'll just comment on that question. Thank you for the question. Through the chair to Member Holloman. I, you know, I, when I think about data points and GPA, I always, there's always a story and a student behind that data point. And we've, we have a lot of students in our district that have headwinds and tailwinds and headwinds, and we do a great job of, of serving all students.

And for some students, there may be trauma, life stressors, life events, things that happen that for whatever reason are impacting.

Their success, their GPA. So I don't know, I just, it's just something I think about with GPA and, and who's behind that and what the story is. And, you know, what can we do to support all kids? And GPA, it's, it's an interesting variable that has a lot of discussion points and debate because it's often not one thing that weighs in on a GPA. There's often multiple factors that accumulate over time.

So it's just an interesting thought. I've not seen it done that way, but my thoughts. If I could follow up, the other thing that made me think about at the time, and I actually introduced it at a board meeting, it did not have a lot of support at the time. In fact, it had some opposition. But the other thing I think is it would induce employers to ask for a diploma.

I've talked to a number of people, talked about, yeah, I had this kid that was ASD graduate, could barely add two numbers, barely filled out the application. I said, how do you know he's a graduate? Well, he said so. It's like, well, did you ask for a piece of paper? And I think if the piece of paper actually went into some detail, that might incentivize people to actually look for it, stop the impersonators, if you will.

But knowing that it might be looked at later again, I think it's part of that incentive I would never want to have a barrier. I opposed the high school graduation exam because I knew students that knew in the 9th grade they would never pass it, and that created a wall to school to them that they stopped trying to get over because they knew they never would. On the other hand, GPA is a hill you can always climb a little higher up. I just think we should try to reward those kids that make the effort and achieve.

Thank you, Member Holloman. We'll go to Member Lessens. I sent a number of questions in. This is not one of them, but can you guys speak— but I appreciate— I wanted to reflect on and appreciate that you talked about the new graduation coaches. And can you guys just tell us where the money for that's coming from?

Yeah, great question, Member Lesson. So we were able to repurpose funding from federal title grants, if I'm not mistaken. And the reason why that's really important is because there are strict federal guidelines on what you can use those dollars for. So for example, there are strict guidelines on, on supplanting. So these are dollars that we literally couldn't use to restore a classroom teacher position, which are one of the top priorities that I want for high school given the reduced elective offerings.

We can't replace a counselor that's reduced by the budget. So this is one area where we can try to maintain the district's progress on graduation rates as much as we can. We can't afford to do this at every school, so we're able to target it towards the 4 or 5 high— 5 high schools with the lowest graduation rates to try to stabilize where we're at. So I'm hoping that despite the fact that we have to make so many reductions at the high school level, that this is going to try to help stabilize where we're at for the board. So that's some rationale on that.

Um, thank you. You know, when I think about graduation coaches, I— Member Holloman comes to mind because he talks about them as existing prior to my time certainly on this board. And, um, I think it's a great thing that you guys are bringing that back and that your coaches are going to be able to focus on that sort of longitudinal duration of a student's growth from 9th grade to 12th grade and work in concert with the counselors and sort of entire staff to, to get those students across the finish line. And it's not a question, but since Mr. Prince is standing— sitting here, um, prior to your role here, you were a high school principal, and I had the privilege of sitting next to you at a graduation ceremony, and you sort of quietly said under your breath, I talked this student down from, you know, dropping out 3 weeks ago.

And that's one of those little things that has stayed with me because I think it exemplifies the importance of the relationships that our educators have, and they're able to make that difference, whether it's GPA or whether it's literally sticking with it to 3 more weeks to, to cross the finish line. You made a difference in that student's life, and, and that stayed with me. I couldn't pick him out of the crowd, but I know that there was an individual. So anyways, one of the questions that I had as I was thinking about all of this, and it's great to see progress. Um, can you— and I think to be succinct, which is not my forte— um, in some of our other assessments, we'll hear about students who are below or well below, far below, or above.

Um, can you just give us an understanding about the scale of students who are really close to this 2.7 or just a really long ways away from, from getting there? I mean, are we able to nudge a good, a good set of them? Like, where does— what does the bell curve look like?

Yeah, so that's a question we really appreciate receiving in advance. Thank you, board member Lessens. Um, Deanne and assessment and evaluation actually did a deep dive on that data for you. We're going to include it in the supplemental report. We can speak in, in generalizations, uh, tonight for you, so I'll hand things off to Deanne, who can share what we found.

Yes, so it's a great question. We did a lot of research to, to find what nationally that looks like, and unfortunately there just isn't. Part of the reason is there isn't a cohesive way in which districts and states and schools determine GPAs.

As far as, you know, what scale they use. Do they do plus or minus systems, things like that? So, um, whatever research we were able to find, you'd be happy to know that ASD sort of mirrors that. The majority of our students have a 2.7 GPA or above, and then we have uh, tracked kiddos that have a 2.5 to a 2.69, a 2.0 to a 2.49, a 1.5 to 1.99. Um, and so 40% of our kiddos across the board, 9 through 12, fall under that 2.5, and the majority of our students have that 2.5 or above.

And so we'll give you sort of that disaggregated data by grade level and by those quintiles.

Okay, it sounds like a great, great process for follow-up information, but just sort of succinctly, so if we've got, you know, a little bit, you know, 50— the majority are above, but 40% is below 2.5, 2.5. So we have roughly about, um, 19% of our students have a GPA of 1.99 or below, and then we have roughly about 20, um, percent, 25% of our students that have a GPA of, um, 2.0 to 2.5.

I guess in follow-up, it seems like the scale of intervention is different if you're talking about a student, but you know, if you're one of the 19% of students with a GPA below 1.99 versus, you know, maybe closer to that 2.7 cutoff. Can you talk about the kinds of interventions that a student who is far below that threshold versus sort of close to that 2.7 threshold. Like, if, if you're a principal, if you are a graduation coach, what are you going to do to support that kid?

We're going to have a lot of ideas here, but I would begin by looking at the student's attendance, which is a very important, essential place to start. Is the student showing up? 90% Of school days or not, and if not, why not? And if they can improve and increase their attendance, data show a strong correlation between academic performance and strong attendance. So let's get the student to school as often as possible.

Um, Dr. Halasny here mentioned, you know, that we have students with, with uniquely different stories and backgrounds, I think, and you alluded to it. It's important that the teachers and staff who know a student are checking in with that student. Each student has a story. Each student is facing different hurdles. If we can address those, talk about those, attempt to address them, that can make a real difference in the life of a student.

I think also, you know, targeted support, which our counselors do, which our teachers do, our administrators do. A student might be doing fine in many classes but really struggling in one or two. Let's let's target those two classes. Let's check in with the teachers to see where the student is falling short. And that's the kind of work that happens Monday morning in PLCs, by the way.

Teachers who share common students are able to discuss those, talk about what the most appropriate response or intervention might be, and, and get to it. So.

I don't know, Bobbie, how about through the lens of EL? So I'd like to talk about kind of two threads that we look at when we look at supporting these kinds of students that have these kinds of needs. So on the one hand, there's the personal intervention for a student who might be at risk. At all of our high schools, we have a student support specialist who is there to support students who are CIT and also ELL. So they have a caseload of students.

They're looking at those students on a daily basis to see who are the key students that need extra. And they're not tutoring that student. They're not helping that student with their, their work itself. They're not going into the classroom. They're sitting down with those students and having those personal conversations.

Checking in, are they there? Like Eric said, are they there today? Calling home if they're not, why are they not there? Checking in with families, making sure that they're still living at home, and if not living at home, what kind of supports do they need? Doing some goal setting with students.

They go through and look for missing assignments. Why are the, the grades in these classes slipping? If they're slipping, what can we do? What assignments are you missing? Talking to teachers to say, can this work be turned in late?

What kind of support do you need? Are you not turning it in because of that you need help academically, or are you not turning it in because, you know, you're working, you know, after school every day? What can we do to support you? So they're working every day with those students and really targeting those needs. And I know that there are equivalent positions in the Indigenous Ed and Migrant Ed departments also that work with those students to make sure that there's targeted support for those, those students.

When we see the students that are, like you said, barely under, they just could use a little bit of a nudge. We've been doing a lot of that work collaboratively across the departments, but also those students who are really danger, you know, red flag. What can we do? What's going on? Is this kid a danger to dropping out, slipping through the cracks, getting lost in the, in the scrum.

So that's one thread. The other thing that I'd like to talk about is our— is more longitudinal. So we have pivoted in the last couple of years in our ELL program specifically to a program that intervenes specifically in the area of English language development, and we talked about that a little bit earlier in the evening, but those ELD, English language development, classes, there's 3 different levels so that we can address some of those foundational key skills that students might not be coming to our high schools with. We have it in those classes in the middle school level and also in the high school level. We're on our second year in the high school and our first year in the middle school level, and we're hoping that longitudinally We have fewer students who are ELL students coming into the high school missing those foundational skills in reading and math, but also that language, the language of school and their language acquisition.

So improving those skills gives them that access to that content by the time they get to high school, or if they're just coming into the country and they're in those classes, then they have that social language to be able to access that. So I think that, um, that piece is a key driver as well to our, um, our, our work to improve academic success for our ELL students specifically. Thank you, Member Lessons. We'll go to Student Representative Madison. Yeah, I just had a quick clarifying question.

So are any of these GPAs considered weighted, or is it unweighted? These are currently all unweighted GPAs, and then important to note also, they include all of our students, whether they are our AP, IB kiddos, and our, um, some of our students with disabilities that are on non-diploma track. The majority of their, their courses are pass/fail, and so those do not earn them a GPA. They— and so some of our kiddos have a 0.00 GPA and are counted in this, but they are passing their, their courses. And so you'll notice in our, our data that our freshmen have the highest percentage of students below a 1.5 GPA, and that drops dramatically down to only 3.8% of our seniors with a GPA below a 1.5.

And so as students progress from freshman to their senior year, their GPAs are getting higher as cohorts.

Yeah, thank you so much. Let's see, any other questions for the member lessons? One of the questions that I sent Um, maybe it's kind of along the lines of Member Holloman's query about diplomas, but we invested in sports for next year for middle school and high school because so many— I voted to support that because so many people have said that this is something that engages kids, it keeps them in school. From my understanding, the minimum level GPA you have to have in high school is a 2.0 to play a high school sport. And I think there are parameters like it needs to be the semester before, you know, so if you know you want to play a fall sport, you need to be good by the spring.

What happens? Would we see— would we nudge more students if we said we want to increase that? We want it to be a 2.25, we want it to be a 2.5, or by, I don't know, 2030, we want you to have a 3.0. I don't know. Why not shoot for the stars?

Would students step up to the challenge, or is that an unfair expectation, especially in this atmosphere of austerity? Or like, how many students can we nudge if we set the bar higher?

Really appreciate this question, and if I could just take a step back, when we talked about assets in the previous thing that we have, like what's another way that we could address student needs. I—. We failed to mention one of the largest assets that we were never going to lose. That's our parents. When you talked about what is it that brings a principal to have a conversation with Jordan 3 weeks before graduation, it was his father bringing him to school and saying, Mr.

Prince, my son has something that he wants to tell you, and I didn't want him to just walk away from this without saying it to you first. So when we think about assets that we have that aren't in the jeopardy of a budget, we must remember our parents and our family members and our caregivers that are in the community trying to get everybody across that line. And that brings us right to this question, because when we think about expectations I, I just remember a situation when I was a principal and we had coaches who had sports teams that all of a sudden they woke up and they said, oh my God, we don't have a JV team because they're all ineligible because now they're not in their first semester as freshmen where they get to play sports without a GPA. And they said, what are we going to do about this?

And they said, well, we have a really big program, or we'd like to have a bigger one. So we're going to make a mandatory study hall for all of our student athletes. Student always first. And if they don't have a 2.5 GPA or higher, They have to come to the study hall an hour before practice, and all the coaches without a paid addendum decided to dedicate that time to making sure, kind of out of their own self-interest, that they wanted to have a team, right? Um, which I completely understand.

And I think you're on to something with the idea that students want to play sports because their friends are on those sports teams, they have opportunities after high school to go on to— I mean, I was a college athlete. I, I went to college because I had an athletic skill.

I think it's important that when we set these standards, we're also paying attention to some hazards. But I also saw a group of caring individuals that set a standard with a high level of support, which is the keystone of like a mentor mindset. We're not dropping the standard. And we're not trying to gatekeep and keep people out. I think what the, the coaches did at our school was they said, for this year it's going to be a 2.5, and after one year of doing that successfully, the other coaches around the school said, oh, I think we're going to do the same thing.

And then after a couple years, they actually raised it to a 3.0, and it just became a culture that all the students that were participating said, 'This is what we do. This is the Bartlett way, and we're going to maintain this.' And it caught on through a bunch of our other sports.

I don't— I think because it was a grassroots organ thing and it was out of necessity, but also those high expectations by the coaches and individuals, and they got parent buy-in to say, again, that asset that we're not going to lose, like what we value and what we talk about as a community, as a school, as a society, becomes important to everybody. So if we can drive home that need to say we have high standards, but we're also going to provide the supports. We can't just say as a school board we're going to make it a 2.5 and go against what ASA or the— our state governing says. But we can all say that if we want to collectively put this in place, we have to provide the supports as well. Those coaches made time out of their day to support students in study hall.

They brought in other people to help tutor them and make sure that kids were just doing their work, right? Turn your stuff in prior to going to practice, prior to participating. And as that culture built, built, and the students realized, I am a student athlete and I want to continue down this journey, it just became a way of being.

So I would say I've seen it work, but I also say And I don't normally say with caution that we be a little careful about creating a mandate that we can't support, because we all know how unfunded mandates work. Um, that's my two cents.

If I can follow up, I will say in some respects that question came from the latest SAB meeting when a student asked more or less, well, if we do better, will they fund us? Referring to, um, the state legislature. As a smart student, he's been paying attention and asking a lot of good questions, and I had a long-winded answer. But the idea of finding a carrot, if you will, clearly coming from the grassroots level, you know, surrounded by supportive adults who students know, trust, and want to level up for, you know, that is a better strategy. I think that is a great strategy, but it's not a policy change.

Anyways, I just, I wanted to reflect that I was reflecting on an SAB student's question. I think it's useful for further discussion.

Not seeing any further questions for the team. I want to thank everyone for the presentation and engaging conversation. Uh, we will move to our next agenda item, which is our guardrail reports.

Item C2 is guardrail number 4, ensuring students avail— ensuring available mental health services. Dr. Bryant, do you have any comments? Thank you, Mr. President. So this is our first reading of the technical report. So really the purpose of today is just to remind the board that in 2 weeks I'd love to have my mental health services team available to answer board questions, um, and we want this report available to board members to to look at in preparation for our next meeting.

Okay, all right. Do we have any initial questions right now from the board before we move on? Member Lessens? No, but I would just flag that if we're going to be having a discussion at the next meeting, that the board members who will be sworn in should probably receive a copy of this in advance. That is a great flag, Member Lessens.

We are noting that right now.

Okay, we will move on to Item D, public comments.

Welcome to the board's first opportunity this evening for public comment. We typically set aside 1-hour time slot at the beginning of our meeting for public comments. Public comment in excess of 1 hour will be heard the second opportunity. We typically include everyone at our first opportunity if at all possible. The school board welcomes the public to observe and contribute to our meetings.

However, to be productive, our meetings must be structured and civil. We utilize Robert's Rules of Order to operate our meetings. Provisions of Robert's Rules of Order include: do not attack a member or a speaker's Please no profanity or foul language. Please refrain from disturbing the meeting. No cheering, applause, outbursts, or waving of signs or posters.

If you have handouts you wish to share with the board, please give them to Ms. Sullivan, who's seated to my left. There's more information as you enter the boardroom regarding to quorum.

We'll call 2 testifiers at a time to ensure that we hear from as many people as possible before a meeting gets too late. We'll begin as always with our student testifiers. If we could have Elara Bradley and Adeline Pudge come forward.

Welcome, Elara. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening, members of the board. Every winter, students arrive at school in the dark and leave in the dark.

While we focus on grades and attendance, we overlook something more urgent. What that darkness is doing to our minds. I see it every day. I see classmates struggling with depression, anxiety, exhaustion, and sleep disruption. I see self-harm, suicide attempts, and people quietly losing hope.

This is not rare. It is not isolated. It is everywhere. Light is not just light. It regulates serotonin, sleep cycles, and energy levels.

When that disappears for months at a time, the consequences are biological, not just emotional. Seasonal affective disorder affects a considerable portion of high latitude populations, and right now It is happening at our schools. So if we know this is a problem, why aren't we treating it like one? There are realistic solutions we can implement to save lives. First, education.

Teaching students about seasonal mental health, vitamin D, and sleep. We could incorporate vitamin D deficiency awareness into our health curriculums in partnership with nonprofit organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness to come and teach at our schools. Second, light. Therapeutic vitamin D light devices are proven to improve mood and sleep. Effective units cost as little as $30 to $100.

If cost seems too great, we can even begin with adding a vitamin D light onto our school supply list from parents as an item that remains completely optional. So when we talk about funding challenges, we need to be honest. How much greater is the cost of doing nothing? Because the cost of inaction is visible in our students.

It is the ones who can't get out of bed, the ones who stop showing up, the ones who are suffering in silence, and sometimes the ones we lose. We cannot change Alaska's winters, but we can change how we respond to them. We can bring light into our schools, we can bring knowledge into our classrooms, and we can bring hope back to students who are struggling in the dark. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Welcome, Adeline. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, my name is Adeline Pudge. I'm a 3rd grader in the Bowman Open Optional Program.

We call it BOOP. I want to ask the school board to let us keep expanding our program. I think all kids deserve to have the opportunity that BOOP provides. BOOP focuses on project-based hands-on learning like STEM rotations where we mix with other grades and teachers. My favorite was when we got to make clouds.

Our favorite— our class also does my class economy. We had to apply for jobs, get references, and we were hired. My class job is payroll. We get paid for doing our work and jobs and have the chance to earn bonuses. We get to spend our money and earn more at our class markets.

I spend weeks preparing for one of the markets where I made handmade travel watercolor kits. They were a big hit. I love having two team teachers, and I love getting to be an elder and a good role model to the youngers in my class. Because of BOOP, I am learning me how to be a good leader, a creative thinker, a confident mathematician, and a public speaker, just like I'm doing now. I'm worried about the impact that not letting all 50 kids into BOOP will have on me and my friends next year, and I am worried about the future of the program.

Please let all 50 kindergartners into BOOP so our program can continue to grow. Thank you for listening, and thank you for your testimony. If we could have Wyatt Wyatt Pudge come forward, then we'll hear from Jen Pudge.

Welcome, Wyatt. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Hi, my name is Wyatt. I am a second grader at Bowman in the Open Optional Program. I am here tonight because I feel that Bowman Open Optional Program needs to continue its expansion. BOOP allows for opportunities like mini courses where we get to do a deep dive into a special topic. We also do a lot of STEM learning.

Another reason is that we do a lot of hands-on learning, and that helps me remember what I am learning. Also, I like that I get to stay with my friends and my teachers for multiple years. So please give us the 50 kindergartners that we need. I love being a Bowman Bobcat. Thank you.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for your testimony. Uh, welcome, Ms. Pudge. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

My kids made it look easy. Hello, my name is Jen Pudge. I'm the parent of a 2nd and 3rd grader in the Bowman Open Optional Program, or BOOP. I want to acknowledge the difficulty of the decisions in front of you, and I appreciate the emotional weight that comes along with doing what's best for thousands of children. I'm here because families recently learned that the BOOP— that BOOP will receive only 25 kindergarten lottery spots instead of the 50 we expected.

That wasn't just a number changing, it shook the foundation of a program that has been steady, reliable, and deeply meaningful for decades. Boop is not just another school option. It's a place where children who struggle elsewhere come alive. It's where kids who learn differently feel understood, where quiet children find their voice, and where confident children learn to lead with empathy. Learning is hands-on, active, and rooted in real projects that build curiosity, confidence, and ownership.

Teachers stay with students for 2 years, forming relationships that allow them to meet each child exactly where they are. Students move through school in cohorts, building friendships that are steady and long-lasting. Both of my kids are thriving. The optional philosophy, multi-age classrooms, team teaching, and project-based learning aren't just buzzwords. They're the reason my children feel safe, challenged, and proud of themselves.

Parent choice matters. Optional programs keep families in the Anchorage School District. For many of us, including my own family, OOP is the deciding factor in staying with ASD. If it weren't available, we would be looking at private school or homeschooling. This program runs, runs at full capacity and has a waitlist of more than 170 families.

That's current as of today. Cutting kindergarten spots from 50 to 25 puts the multi-age structure at risk and threatens the long-term stability of a program that has served Anchorage families incredibly well. We're simply asking for the original 50 kindergarten spots to be restored. This cost-neutral decision protects parent choice, supports a program with proven outcomes, and keeps families engaged in public education. I'm asking the board, Dr. Bryant, Mr. Gustafson, and Dr. Johnson to please restore the original allotment and protect a program in this district that is actually working.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next two speakers are Lucas Lugatnov and Marie Jackman.

Welcome, Lucas. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Dear Anchorage School Board, hello, my name is Lucas Luke Potter and I'm a second grade student in Turnagain Elementary. Please, can you keep Please, please can you keep our teachers and save Russian immersion program?

And my teacher, Miss Ashcraft, does a really good job teaching us and helps kids a lot. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your testimony. Uh, welcome, Miss Jackman. You have 2 minutes.

Please begin when you're ready. Thank you. Hello, my name is Marie Jackman, and I'm the parent of 2 students in the Russian immersion program at Turnagain Elementary. I'm here to express how important the Turnagain Russian Immersion program has been to our family. Turnagain has helped my sons build confidence and connect to their family history and culture.

It has allowed our family a unique opportunity as one of the only public Russian immersion programs in the country to gain skills in the language their grandparents and father speak. Our family has chosen to keep our kids in Anchorage Public Schools despite constant threats to funding and programs because of just of how much we value this program. The teachers at Turnagain are some of the most dedicated professionals I have ever met, and their work does not stop at the classroom. The program is already stretched thin with staff due to funding cuts over the years and consolidation of other schools into Turnagain Elementary. Every one of the existing teachers is crucial to the success of the program and the community.

I'm here today to ask you to retain all of the existing teachers in the Russian immersion program and English partner teachers, especially Miss Ashcraft, a 17-year Russian teacher and native Russian speaker whose experience will be next to impossible to replace. Please also maintain the 7-period middle school schedule, which allows immersion students to gain access to electives while continuing with their language program. To cut any additional staff will threaten the future of the program and make families like mine feel less committed to staying in Anchorage Public Schools. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Our next two speakers are Eliana Raidmay and Alice Velasco Raidmay.

Welcome, Ileana. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, my name is Ileana. I am in 2nd grade in the Russian Immersion program.

I like Russian Immersion because I like learning a different language and Russian poems. Next year there aren't enough 2nd and 3rd graders will be in the same class. That's so much students because there is not enough room in the classroom, and the classroom will be too noisy. Thanks for listening and have a good rest of your day. Thank you for your testimony.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Good evening, school board members. Um, my name is Alice Felsko-Raidmay, and I am the parent of two students in the Russian immersion program at Turnagain Elementary School.

I acknowledge that the level of funding for our school district is inadequate and out of your control. However, I'm asking for your help in saving the immersion programs due to the loss of teacher positions. We're looking at only three teachers to teach sixth grade in two different languages. I am afraid this will ultimately lead to the end of the program. The 3 Russian teachers my daughters have had so far are exceptionally talented.

However, asking one person to teach 2 grades in 2 different languages in an overcrowded classroom is asking too much, even for the best teachers. This will lead to teacher burnout and make it harder to replace the teachers that leave. Students will drop out of the program as parents watch their test scores and grades drop due to the decrease in personalized attention. Parents will be reluctant to sign up for the lottery for a program that will automatically place their kindergarten students in with first graders. Eventually there will not be enough teachers or students to make the program function.

These programs are a unique draw to our district, and once they are gone, they will be hard to replace. As a small business owner, I would like to be able to recruit out-of-state talent by telling people what amazing schools and programs we have, but right now I would not recommend ASD or any Alaska Public Schools. I am also concerned about the cuts to the fine arts programs. Music was my favorite part of elementary school, and band was my main activity through college. My daughters also love to sing and play musical instruments and long to be in choir.

I appreciate your consideration of a zero-hour class for middle school to allow more students access to music electives and feel like we were heard the last time we testified. However, in one week I learned that a friend who has dedicated her life to teaching public school music resigned for feeling unappreciated. Choir practice at her school was canceled as the music teacher was at a job interview. They're planning to get the band program at Alaska's largest high school. This is heartbreaking, and I hope it's a trend that can be reversed.

Thank you for your time. I know this is not easy. Thank you for your testimony. Our next two speakers are Noah Amstislavsky and Tasha Amstislavsky.

So we'll do— it'll be Noah and Ben.

Welcome, Noah. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Hi, my name is Noah, and I've been in the Russian Immersion Program at Turnagain since I was in kindergarten. Right now I'm in 5th grade, and I'm going into ROMIC next year. Every day has helped me grow, not just in language, but in who I am. The teachers have been so dedicated to staying after school, helping us whenever we needed. But now some of the teachers might lose their jobs, and if this happens, the whole program might disappear.

Keep all of our Russian teachers. They matter. Shout out to Miss Pustina. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony.

Uh, welcome, Ben. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Um, hello, my name is Benjamin, and I'm in the 10th grade at West Anchorage High School. Today I have come to speak about the Russian immersion program, which I've been a part of for nearly as long as I can remember.

This program has been like one big family for me and many others. From Kerning Elementary to West High School, we've had fun, worked hard to learn new things, and as a reward received an in-depth exploration into a rich culture and community that is not accessible through your everyday elective course. The type of bonds this program and others like it create are scarcely seen in educational environments and deserve to be protected. Furthermore, uh, the things we've learned and experienced are indescribable in value. And even though in 2 short years I will graduate and receive my seal of biliteracy, these memories will stay with me for a lifetime.

Considering how great the program has been to me and my classmates, I see no reason for others to be barred from putting in the work and obtaining these unique skills, just as I and many others before me have. My teachers have been a crucial part of this journey.

And work harder than most. While I understand that funding is out of my— out of your control, uh, many and others and I would not be who we are without them. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your testimony. Welcome. Absolutely welcome.

You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hey, hello, and thank you for hearing our testimony. My name is Tasha Amstasovsky, and these are my children, Benjamin and Noah Amstasovsky. We've been a Russian immersion program family by choice since my oldest was in kindergarten.

As he's mentioned, as my daughter has mentioned, this program has been absolutely invaluable to us. I recently did hear about some of the cuts in the program, not just some, but quite a few, and the program is most effective when there are 2 teachers, an English and a Russian teacher per grade. So kindergarten is a Russian teacher and an English, and same all the way through. What I'm understanding is the program is being cut, so there's one teacher for two, uh, grades. So there'll be a kindergarten and first one, second and third, and then fourth and fifth.

And that puts a lot of stress on the teachers and on the students. The program works most effectively when it's set up in the way it was originally set up. So I'm hoping that the school board can continue that format. The kids, as I've mentioned, love the program. They've continued in the program by choice, and in order for it to be the most effective, it's to continue in the way that it has in the past.

Mrs. Ashcraft has been a teacher for both of my students. She's an excellent teacher. I was saddened to hear that she may not be able to be continued. That being said, I would like to put in a request that, that she is continued in, in the program because she's a native Russian speaker Also, Mrs. Hess, um, is the high school teacher. I recently had the opportunity to be a chaperone for, uh, one of the West High School field trips for the Russian immersion program.

I got to see Mrs. Hess in her operations with the students. They love her. She's amazing. I was saddened to hear that she could possibly be reduced to 0.4. If anything, a 0.1 for her.

I'm cheering for her, uh, and high school students. She's amazing. Thank you so much, and thank you for your testimony. Our next speaker is, and our last student testifier, is Cora Mo.

Welcome, Cora. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Hello, I'm Kora Mo and I'm in 5th grade at Turnagain Elementary School. I'm part of my school's Russian immersion program, newspaper club, and choir. I was just here a few months ago for the same reason: language immersion funding, middle school sports, and 2 electives for middle school and high school students. I've been doing Russian immersion since 1st grade and have great teachers. The immersion program helps students explore other cultures, and opens graduating students up to different job opportunities.

Also, learning another language at an early age helps students improve their problem-solving skills, social skills, and creativity. In Russian immersion, we learn the different holidays and tradition celebrated there. We do multiple performances throughout the year. ASD has a unique program that students love. I want my younger brother and sister to have the same opportunities I have.

Please keep the language immersion program and all the teachers so students can keep having these important experiences. Next year I will be going to Roaming Middle School and I'm hoping to have a good middle school experience too. This includes keeping middle school sports and having a 7-period day with 2 electives. Students need 2 electives because that allows them to have a music elective and another option like the wheel. Sports are also important to keep students active, build friendships, and confidence.

I've done my part to help advocate to our legislature in Juneau, and I will be sending in a testimony for HB 261 to help increase school funding. Please take action to protect the budget for the immersion program, middle school sports, and 2 electives. Spasibo ochinoga. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony.

That completes our student testifiers tonight. We'll move to community speakers to be heard. Our first two speakers are Charlie Hanson, if he's present, and then David Hardy.

But it's okay. Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Um, thank you for everything that you guys do. Uh, I appreciate your time and energy it takes as a board. I am totally, uh, not going by what I was going to write initially because, uh, after listening to everybody, they're saying everything, and I back everything that everybody is is saying here. Okay, but I'm a Turnagain person myself. I serve on the board of Russian Immersion.

I've been in education as a teacher for 26 years, so I'm very familiar with what goes on. And one of the things that I would just really urge you to think about— when you had your gentleman up here and the ladies up here talking about graduation rates, I was a high school teacher for 15 years, and now I currently work at West High as the in-school suspension gal because I only want to work part-time. Um, I'm going to tell you that what you are contemplating of cutting is exactly what they're talking about. All of these programs that are here are all what I knew of years ago as smaller learning communities. Smaller learning communities keep kids in school, keep GPAs high.

This is old knowledge. This is—. I'm an old person, this goes way back. The Russian immersion, the Chugiak optional, all of these programs, especially the ones that go K through 12, that's where you're going to find your success. I don't understand why you pay all of this money to these gentlemen up here and these, these folks up here that talk about this research.

It's old research, and yet we're still talking about cutting these programs that we know are tried and true and have been around for eons. Um, so I just think you need to reconsider where you're going to spend your money. Initially, I was going to talk about where I want you to put your money and where it's going to come from, because I also understand there is limited money around. But I don't know what you're going to do, but don't cut the programs that are successful. They're smaller learning communities.

They work. It's tried and true.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. I'm going to ask that we limit applause so we can hear from our community speakers in the first hour of our meeting. Thank you so much. Uh, Mr. Hardy, welcome.

You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Uh, good morning, board. Um, Madison, I appreciate the comment about, um, the FTEs. You must have heard this being thrown around a lot, as you know, FTE reduction. So I just want to put a face to FTEs and reduction. And really what you're talking about is not a reduction in FTEs, but it's reduction in the quality of education.

So when you hear the word FTE, we're going to reduce FTEs, what you need to do is translate that in your head. And really say we're reducing the quality of education when we do that, okay? Because teachers, they teach, right? So, um, and this quality versus quantity discussion, um, is what I wanted to just kind of highlight. And that is that these 3 days that I've— of extra school that have been thrown around and changed back and forth, it's mystifying to me why we're having a discussion about the quantity of education when the core problem is the quality.

We don't have funding because of the quality. It's not because the quantity. Who is having a discussion about we don't have enough school days? Okay, it's the quality of why. That's why we don't have funding.

That's why the public didn't fund that levy. That's why the state didn't give us money. It's quality of education, not quantity. Quantity is old. Okay, give me 4 months with a highly qualified teacher.

Great. Instead of 9 months with unqualified teaching. Okay, we really need to have a discussion about quantity versus quality. Focus on the quality. Get rid of those 3 days and fund the Russian program or fund something else, you know?

Okay, thanks. Thank you for your testimony. Our next two speakers are Courtney Horzowski and Jocelyn Doremus.

Okay, um, so, uh, Courtney, if you could star 6 to unmute, and then you have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Uh, Courtney, we still can't hear you. If you could star 6 to unmute, then you can begin. You have 2 minutes.

Hello. Hello, can you hear me now? We can. Please begin your testimony. Okay, hi, my name is Courtney Horosowski.

I live in Chugiak. I have 3 students who are in.

In the Spanish immersion programs at Mirror Lake and Chugiak Elementary, and one preschooler. I am heartbroken to see our school funding languish due to the politicization of our children and our community's future. Cuts to the middle school electives and teachers overall will probably cause some or all of the students in my family, and certainly those of others, to leave our wonderful immersion program as it's suffering from death by a thousand cuts. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] For those same reasons as the Russian, immersion students talked about combo classes with combinations of grades and teachers teaching more than 30 kids in two languages. Um, I was one of those parents that took up the banner for school funding.

You have begged ASD parents to engage with our lawmakers to convince them to first fund schools and then override the governor's veto. And while it wasn't all that was needed, that last year that was accomplished. But this year we've seen inconsistency and a lack of consideration of parents' input. Or seeking it out at all, both with the closing of schools that were decided not to be closed and then almost immediately reconsidered and quickly closed or added to the list with almost no notice. The failure of the levy shows that the district has lost the trust of more than just the community at large.

That's those people who we say haven't been in a school forever and don't want to fund. You're starting to lose the faith of the parents who have supported you. Um, the fact that the city and the school board didn't see that this, this extra funding was available to be added into the budget until it had to be put to a vote is so frustrating. Um, and again, this calendar decision and the knee-jerk reaction to add 3 more days to the front or the end of the calendar with even or uneven, um, even or uneven, um, Quarters.

Thank you for your testimony. You're welcome to submit written comments to [email protected]. Uh, we will move to our next speaker who's also online, uh, Jocelyn Deremos. If you could star 6 to unmute, then you have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Yes, can you hear me? We can. Yeah, please begin your testimony.

Excellent. My name is Jocelyn Deremos and I am the parent of 2 middle schoolers within the Anchorage School District, and thank you for allowing me to testify I'd like to speak on action item memorandum 160 that will be voted on here shortly. I am requesting tonight that the school board vote no on the newly proposed school calendar changes for the 26-27 school year. I'm against adding 3 additional days to the end of the school year, which I believe moves fourth quarter to 50 days, leaving the first quarter in the mid-30-day range. Your decisions directly and significantly impact the education and well-being of students and their family systems.

Clearly, based on the changes made to the school start schedule 2 years ago, you also recognize the importance of scheduling. In that case, and in the case of PLC Mondays, the public got plenty of advance notice. Please do not vote to extend the 26-27 school year to the final week of May. The fourth quarter already has many challenges, and it is so close to summer solstice that even right now, keeping a routine is difficult for families this late into the spring. The average sunset for our area in April is 9:23 PM, and in May it's extended by almost an hour and a half to an average sunset at closer to 11 PM.

In addition, you know, the sun is coming up earlier as we draw closer to June. The daylight by mid-August closely resembles April patterns and is much more suitable for students. Your original choice to start the school year earlier in August was on point, but the timing was poor. Adding the 3 days to the end of the school year is not the next best option. I recommend, if at all possible, coming up with another solution for 3 additional days.

Maybe consider using some of the professional development days for student education, or even better, and in line with other recent changes.

Uh, thank you for your testimony. Our next two community speakers to be heard are David Balmer and Bradley Kelb.

Welcome, Mr. Balmer. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Thank you. I am here to advocate for my son, who is a freshman at Eagle River High School, and for the rifle program.

I'd like to respectfully request that you reinstate the rifle program for next year. Our family's impression, uh, after we saw the decision was that maybe the school board thought that the rifle program was not important or wouldn't be missed. We're here to advocate for it and say that it would very much be missed next year. Uh, it's a great program. It's very unique.

To my knowledge, it's the only truly co-ed sport program in the system where boys and girls can compete together and against each other at the same time, giving a lot of opportunity you don't get elsewhere. It's a great community that they have. Um, the freshmen entering in get to participate in ways they couldn't otherwise. My son was really able to incorporate with the school. The older kids are fantastic.

They mentor the younger kids. So it provides leadership training opportunity right off of the bat. The community is incredible. I promise you haven't seen a party until you've seen a rifle party. As far as opportunity goes, it allows kids that are, in my son's words, maybe not super athletic to be able to compete.

The kids that are maybe not the fastest, jump the highest, they can really compete and feel that pressure of having to perform, which is a great opportunity. It teaches them discipline. I asked my son after practice, what did you practice today? And he'll say, I practiced the kneeling position. I say, how long?

He said, 2 hours, Dad. Like, you were in one position for 2 hours? Absolutely. It's really incredible what it teaches these kids to do. Uh, also it provides opportunity for scholarships.

We know of multiple student athletes that were able to get scholarships to go to college with. Finally, and potentially most important, we don't think it's that big of a cost. We can be self-sufficient. We can provide our own transportation. We can get our own equipment, and we think that any savings that would happen by cutting RIFLE don't outweigh the benefits of the program.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome, Mr. Kelb. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Good evening. My name is Brad Kelb, and I'm here because I care deeply about our students and the future of this community. The closure of Campbell STEM is not just about one building. It reflects a pattern of decisions that are eroding the trust between this board and the public. Public.

For months, we've heard finger-pointing at the legislature and the governor for budget challenges. While I agree, we must also acknowledge the damage caused from within. When voters lose confidence in leadership, they stop voting for funding. The recent failed propositions were a clear message: the public does not trust the current direction of this board and administration. By continuing to close Campbell, you are doubling down on the exact behavior that caused that failure.

You're stepping over dollars to pick up pennies, chasing marginal short-term savings while sacrificing the long-term enrollment and community support that actually sustains a district. A program is not just a name on a door. Moving accreditation to CLAT is a hollow gesture without the principal and teachers who spent years building the culture of excellence at Campbell. Without the people, the program cannot thrive. This move signals instability to families.

Who are already questioning whether to stay in this district. The superintendent has stated that this board needs to do better earning back trust. Restoring Campbell STEM is the clear first step. It is a tangible action that proves you are listening. I urge you to pause, rebuild, and engage.

Take responsibility for the role your decisions have played in bringing us to this point, because without trust, no plan, no matter how well-intentioned, will succeed. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next two community speakers to be heard are Narissa Thorson and Susan Ritter.

Welcome, Miss Thorson. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Uh, good evening. My name is Narissa Thorson and I'm an elementary art teacher at Trailside Girdwood in Inlet View.

When I first heard about this new fine arts position, I saw real potential—opportunities to create meaningful, engaging experiences for students. But that potential has been lost because no one has asked art or music teachers how to make this change successful. As it stands, the current plan is deeply flawed. In schools with more than 12 classrooms, there will be 2 music and 2 art teachers per semester, increasing itinerant positions and reducing consistencies for students. In smaller schools, there will be multiple days each week with no music or art teachers present at all.

I want to quote Kirsten Johnson from the February 17th board meeting. Quote, we would rely on staff expertise, particularly in our fine arts, to develop the best possible experience moving forward for our kids. End quote. Yet not a single art or music teacher nor any fine arts director was included in designing this plan. Instead, it was developed by the elementary education department and principals.

The result: every position now has itinerant teachers traveling between multiple schools— 2, 4, 6, and in one case 7 schools. 7 Schools for one teacher in a single year. That is not.

Sustainability. That is not consistency, and that is not what's best for kids. You, the school board, approved the budget with certain expectations, and what the district presented to you about elementary specialist change has not been upheld. I have provided you with a copy of what an ideal fine arts model could look like. Why couldn't we have one full-time art teacher and one full-time music teacher at larger schools all year long?

I've also included Uh, sorry, uh, slides from the February 17th meeting where ASD presented their plan for new specialist model. I want to draw your attention to the final bullet point on the top slide. Reducing the number of schools served by individual specialists supports stronger relationships, clear expectations, and more sustainable workloads. This current plan does the exact opposite. Please stop this from moving forward and send this plan back for revision.

Include art and music teachers in the process. Our elementary students deserve a specialist model. Delivers quality art and music instruction that the current model does not support. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Welcome, Miss Ritter. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Hi, Susan Ritter. I am a life skills teacher at West High School.

I have worked at ASD as a paraprofessional and as a teacher since 2003. For well over 20 years, money has been an issue with ASD. Some, some teachers are let go, money's found, touches, they are rehired. Not this year. According to the local news, ASD has pink-slipped 56 teachers.

In addition to these layoffs, 203 teachers are being displaced. The connections these teachers have made in their schools are now forfeit. The governor and the legislature have yet again let down public education. Next year, ASD will close schools and get popular and successful academic programs. Some of these programs have received national and international recognition.

They will be shadows of their former selves because the teachers who made them successful are displaced. And what is happening with the nurses? Will schools have a nurse in their school next year? As a life skills teacher, this is deeply troubling. The most vulnerable of our student population may or may not have a full-time registered nurse in the school building.

And I say registered because there are students in the life skill program who must be seen and treated only by a registered nurse. It is written into the IEP for a reason. What is the plan if there's not enough registered nurses for schools? Has anyone even tried to recruit new nurses? What are the plans for art and music in schools?

Are you purposely ending music programs in middle school and high school by getting rid of introduction to band? This will impact the future of music education. You are sowing chaos among your employees, families, and community. Your communication to us is deplorable. You are not providing a plan of action that your employees can follow in good conscience.

Do you know what you're doing? Do you know PLCs are not popular? They take away from instruction and student contact time. Do you know that the school start time is ridiculous? Holding middle school races, ski races at 6 PM in the dark at Kincade is wrong.

I feel let down by this organization. Leadership in ASD does not have the best interest of students or teachers in mind. This is chaos. You—. Thank you for your testimony.

Our next two community speakers to be heard are Karen Levy and Amos Thomas.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Good evening. My name is Karen Levy. I'm the classroom music teacher at Rogers Park Elementary, here to also talk about the new fine arts model. Many elementary schools currently have music and art teachers with an extra 0.1 or 0.2 FTE at their home school that's used for additional duties. I understand the need to consolidate positions, but But switching over to a semester-on, semester-off is not the best way to go about this.

There's a lot of research out there that shows how important it is to have consistent reinforcement when learning new things. The longer a person goes between reinforcement, the greater chance there is to forget or regress in the skill or knowledge base. Schools like the Stafford Music Academy note that it can take a student 2 to 3 months of regular lessons just to return to their previous skill level, even after just a month-long break. In the semester-on, semester-off model, students would be going 7.5 months minimum between their last week of music and the first week of music the next school year. And if they transfer schools, which happens a lot in our district, and happen to have the opposing special schedule, they could be experiencing a learning gap of an entire calendar year.

This is unnecessary, as the Arts Department has provided ASD with multiple options that use the same amount of FTE. The same amount of money could be saved by keeping teachers at their schools every week of the year and and simply consolidating how many hours teachers are at their schools. Not only does it save money, but it keeps 2 or more teachers affiliated with each school to provide additional adult stability for kids. Art and music teachers don't just teach a curriculum, we teach students how to be members of community. The original proposal was to create more consistent adult contact and to reduce itinerancy.

The plan currently in place for next year actively goes in the opposite direction, removing stable adults and eliminating many of the traditions that schools have built over the years. At my school, this would look like a loss of a decade-long ukulele ukulele club, one that has started an annual ukulele festival that is just now starting to build traction throughout our district. It would be a loss of our traditional swing dance unit in the spring semester that kids ask about starting on the first day of school. It would look like significantly smaller number of students who are able to participate in activities like choir and our talent show. These community activities are critical for students as a strong sense of—.

Thank you for your testimony. I welcome you. 2 Minutes, please begin when you're ready. Greetings, my name is Ames Tonneson and I currently work at Bay Shore and Clatt Elementary, although I am pink slipped, so I do not know what that looks like next year. I want to tell you a little story.

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom nestled between mountain and sea that had thrived for generations. One day, the king and his court announced there would not be enough dough coming in for the local bakeries. The king's message was clear: to make sure bakeries stayed open, they had to get by with less. When faced with outrage, the king and his court responded, "It's not our fault. The higher state won't give us what we need." And so the cuts were made, less bread went out to communities, and people began to starve.

But what if we can change this story? If the state won't do anything, what can we do outside of a levy? Can we create an education fund that brings in extra money and gains revenue through tax-exempt charitable donations? Are there grants that we can apply for? Can we, like the state of Colorado, the state that I am from, levy a tax on marijuana and tobacco products to fund schools in the Anchorage community.

If there already is a tax such as this, can we have a say in where that money goes and have a say on that money going towards our students, the most vulnerable population in this community? Because of the cuts being made everywhere in this district, our students are going to be held back. Communities will be destroyed. Programs of excellence in the arts will be eradicated. Students will only show up because they have or art will struggle to remain in school.

I know because I was that student. The community wants arts and music for their students, but one teacher at 7 schools or the elimination of a band program at East— that's not the answer. We need you to start getting creative. These kids don't have years for the state to figure it out. They need you to show up now.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next 2 community speakers to be heard are Adam Wilson and Galina Rybova Houston.

Welcome. Do you have 2 minutes? Please begin when you're ready.

Is this on? Great. Good evening. My name is Adam Wilson. Thanks for the opportunity to talk and for all the hard work that you guys do.

I'm one of two vice presidents for Mission is Russia, which is the nonprofit that supports the Russian immersion program. More importantly though, I have three kids in the Russian immersion program: Corinne in 10th grade, Kaisa in 9th, Bjorn in 7th. ASD recently laid off the only high school Russian immersion teacher. Moving middle school to a six-period day has put ROMIG in a position where it does not have the money to offer the Russian immersion language class. Other immersion programs are seeing a similar reduction.

We have been blindsided by the cuts, and we are eager to see them restored. Anchorage School District actively promotes language immersion programs. Parents commit to a 13-year program and make life adjustments to participate. We spend hundreds of hours volunteering and attending school and community programs in support of immersion education. We run nonprofit organizations and develop industry partners to support and promote these programs.

Collectively, we donate tens of thousands of dollars to the schools and supporting programs to supplement what ASD provides. Our children are invested in the cultures they're learning and spending hundreds of hours outside of school making cultural dishes, visiting historic sites, attending community cultural events, practicing dances and speeches, making clothing and other cultural artifacts. The outcomes of all this work are significant. They are able to attain Seal of Biliteracy in a second language. It enhances their opportunities for college education and acquiring jobs.

It equips them for greater success in a global economy. Families and industry partners have committed to immersion programs with the understanding that language immersion programs are a priority for the school district and will be adequately funded. We've adapted our lives around these programs and they have shaped our children. We expect all of you to champion the funding of these immersion programs. You have students, parents, teachers, nonprofits, industry partners that are here to support you.

Some of you have met with our Immersion Advocacy Committee and know that all of the immersion stakeholders are eager to find ways to fund these programs. In closing, you're all invited. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome. You have 2 minutes.

Please begin when you're ready. Hello, my name is Galina Houston. Um, I am a mom of 2 children who are in Russian immersion program at the Turnigan.

Currently, one of them going to start the Aromic Middle School next year. I'm also a member of the board. I'm a treasurer for MEER. I work with Adam and Charlie, who presented earlier. We are advocating for our immersion teachers, our immersion students to excel in the, in their schools.

I'm also on advisory board for immersion, all of the immersion programs.

I've been on this seat before. This is my third time and this is disheartening to prove our program, to defend our program year.

Every year seems like it, and I'm sorry, but this year it feels like we are. I feel like we are more singled out and this is really hard. And we're trying to defend our teachers. I had my speech, but everybody on behind me, they gave such a great speeches. Our kids, our parents, our teachers.

I'm asking you guys to keep all our teachers as they are. We already have not enough teachers. We only have 8 teachers and 2 of them received the letters of termination and the high school teacher also might not get enough. Um, hours for, for the next year. And with this, that our program might not be able to, um, function anymore.

Um, also as a note, we received more than 60 applicants for the kindergarten, and how can they begin their studies if our program under the attack? Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next two community speakers to be heard are Chaim Wenger and Mike Neal.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Members of the board, my name is Chaim Wenger. I live in the Campbell neighborhood, and I've worked up here for 28 years flying aircraft.

And I come to you back again saying that we are still allies, that I need you to be an ally with— to be a good educator and be running an effective program for my children. And when I read Superintendent Bryant's letter saying why— that we understand that these bonds failed But we need to understand the why. I'm here to repeat again that this is— your entire program is based on trust and credibility, and the credibility has been shaken all the way through. Campbell STEM is not just what you see on the door. It is an immersion program.

It's a science immersion program. It's a math. It's an all the way STEM program immersion program, but it's STEM immersion. People make the mistake of just thinking that they can do science, they do technology or engineering or math. But it's teaching creativity.

It's teaching how to build something from the basic blocks up or to re-engineer it better. And so just transferring the label over to another school along with a very small percentage of the students into another school that will be at maximum capacity and not offering that much options is literally ripping out a jewel of the Anchorage School District and by its roots and scattering these roots around and hoping that somehow these things will regrow. And it can't. So, or it will, and I'm really glad that you're focused on this of regrowing it, but I'm urging you again to please consider keeping this program intact with its current leadership, its staff, its students to actually make the difference of keeping it there, and then we can grow the program. We have come up with our creativity of ways of funding this program.

I've been advocating for the state, but we've also come up with grants and other opportunities. We can make this program work if you just give us the chance. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome, you have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Hello again. Um, took the liberty of printing out this letter from the superintendent, um, highlighted a few areas that I think need to be addressed here. Um, This vote to vote down the bonds, it says, reflects genuine concerns of affordability, trust, and how the district operates.

It would be a mistake to assume we fully understand the reasons without listening more deeply. That work starts now.

Is that our problem, that you haven't heard us before, though, that we keep talking at you and you're sleeping up there?

And a couple pages later it says this is not the end of the conversation, but I haven't seen a beginning to this conversation. All we've ever wanted from the beginning here is a conversation, a two-way conversation about closing Campbell Stem. That is yet to happen. We had a conversation with the mayor but not with any of you. 1,440, That's how many homes immediately surround Campbell Stem.

You lost your vote by that many. If you don't understand why then you haven't been listening, and it needs to start now. All these different things you're doing— moving STEM, um, no closures for next year— you're, you're twisting the knife. So I testified here a month ago on the 17th, and it wasn't nice. Uh, in the end, I said, we will never stop advocating for our school.

We will never be quiet, and you will be accountable. There are two ways to hold you accountable. One is voting. 2 Is a lawsuit. The lawsuit is coming, and you all have your day of reckoning coming where you get to sit in front of the judge under oath and answer for it.

Thank you for your testimony. Our next 2 community speakers to be heard are Amanda Thompson and Amali with no last name given.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. I'm Molly, and I thought I wrote down my last name, so, um, hello, welcome. I am— welcome to your own meeting.

Sorry, I've been listening to a lot of testimony. Um, thank you so much for work that you do. I'm— I know it's not easy to sit and listen to all of the public testimony of all the programs that are so deserving Um, I'm here to talk about community engagement. To echo a lot of the things that have already been said, um, we are still waiting for real engagement. Uh, you voted to close Campbell STEM where my children attend, and there was a lot of talk about, you know, reaching out.

We finally got the assembly to kind of get, you know, like, hey, will you guys please talk to Campbell STEM families? They are very upset. And I have not seen that. We would have loved to work with you. We'd love to have ideas.

There's a foundation now that's established for STEM. There's so much good that we can do together, but we have never had a chance beyond this one-sided conversation, and it's frustrating. There's so much creative power. I love that the fine arts teachers were here saying, here's our plan, we came up with one. We want to work with you so desperately.

We are here, we are engaged. It's a lot of work to ask the 7 board members, to ask the administration to do all of this thinking and planning and problem solving on your own. Campbell STEM teaches collaboration. It drives my son crazy because he just wants to tell everyone what to do, but he's learning. And we are here, we're willing, we want to listen to you, we want to work with you, but we don't get a chance.

We just get to come up and say 2 minutes worth of something. And then you guys go decide. I've seen so many emails come out about, we didn't listen, we'll try better, we're going to listen better next time, we're going to engage with the community more. And I, I'd love to see that. I'm, I'm waiting for that.

I'm eager to participate in those conversations when you let them happen. So I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

Welcome, Ms. Thompson. You have 10 minutes. Please begin when you're ready. Guten Abend. My name is Amanda Thompson, and what you have before you is something about the importance of drawing and learning.

As human children grow, they learn from trial and play with voice and hand to communicate. Words in the native language of the speaker are modeled, and as the child's efforts to copy are selectively reinforced, their sounds, gestures, and facial expressions become language. In the same way, the marks they make with their hands become drawing and later writing, as the written language of the culture is modeled by the teachers. At the same time, they learn also by copying what's important to them, and the response of their elders to their trying teaches them about the quality of their own performance as learners. These teachings, ingrained at the deepest level of mind and heart, become part of the very nature of the person.

It is at this same time in our own culture that we learn to value language in its oral and written form and to undervalue drawing as child's play, thus losing a method of communication potentially rich in expression of both thought and emotion. In this way, we set aside the natural human.

Inability to draw. Untutored and undeveloped beyond the simplest primary explorations of children, this ability is discarded by most of us along with play in favor of the more serious adult-valued study of language. Can you imagine a mother saying to a young child trying to make up a sound that approximates "mama," "Don't copy me, kid. Make up your own language." Or a teacher complaining as a child tries to approximate her letters so that he can write his name, saying, "Make up your own script." By the time children are 10, drawing even for pleasure is usually regulated to the last hour of Friday afternoon. I just want to remind you that this change that was voted on, 8 elementary schools will not have art instruction due to STEM being the elective instead of art, and just how important this is to language development and to their learning to continue.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Our next 2 community speakers to be heard are Kirby Kaufman and Cadence Galagos.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Thank you for your work and leadership in a difficult season. I'm Kirby Kaufman. I'm the band director at West Anchorage High School and also fine arts department chair at that school, and I love my job. My kids, my families, and my colleagues at West. I'm here to strongly advocate for band to be offered from beginning to high school level and offered equitably across the district.

ASD's own data shows participation in the arts in high school leads to better school engagement and better graduation rates for those students across demographics. My understanding is that beginning band is cut at the middle school level at this time across the district. If temporary, this would create another COVID-type dip that will echo through the grades. And at worst, if this was a permanent cut, this would be a teach-out-and-close scenario for band, um, as the middle school and high school programs shrink due to no new students. I regularly hear from my students that band is a highlight of their day.

It's a motivator for coming to school. The community and creative expression in band and being a core part of our school identity and culture and spirit are protective factors that foster resilience in students. And BAND is a multi-grade class where students move from being led and being mentored to leading and mentoring others. And it's a really cool thing to see over 4 years. Um, it's part of that good 9th grade start that we were talking about earlier tonight.

I'm very hopeful to hear at the start of the meeting that it sounds like middle school model might still be, um, on the table and up for discussion May 5th. So I'm asking that you please consider continuing to offer beginning band opportunity at the middle school level. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome, you have 2 minutes.

Please begin when you're ready. Hello, board members. My name is Cadence Gallegos. My 4 children are students at Campbell STEM. You may remember my 5-year-old presenting her class's scientific findings about there being no such thing as too much chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie.

If you haven't spent much time around kindergartners lately, I highly suggest you take a few hours and see just how many questions they can ask. I'm here today to ask more questions and request some clarity on the STEM plan that was presented at the last meeting. First, how can a STEM accreditation follow students that equal less than 13% of a school's population? My email to the school board 2 weeks ago received one response. Thank you, Member Donnelly.

That equals a 14% response rate, only counting the 7 board members. That rate does not accurately represent your group as a whole, so how could the small group represent Campbell as a whole. Second, according to the email to Campbell families on April 16th, there remains a strong commitment to continuing and expanding STEM learning opportunities across ASD. How is it continuing when there are no projected teaching spots to follow the program? How can it even be presented as moving the program when the STEM integration is not there?

Superficially, STEM aspects and projects are there, but they aren't woven into every subject. Is CLAT being set up to fail on such a rushed timeline? If they wanted to become a STEM school and they have some former Campbell staff, why haven't they done it before now? Are all the staff on board like Campbell leadership had to get everyone to sign off when the process started 10 years ago? And lastly, how can the slides about STEM accreditation highlight equity and accessibility along with leadership and program vision as important components, but then make the program inaccessible to about 60% of currently enrolled students and 100% of the leadership along with their vision that was proven successful and beneficial?

This goes directly against the ASD core values and beliefs, taking away the opportunity for many students to achieve their potential. School choice is not an option for many families in our community, whether they wanted to follow STEM or not. Without walkability or busing, the new program would be out of their reach financially. As someone who attended 7 different elementary schools and would not have been able to access lottery programs, I'm asking for an accurate representation.

Thank you for your testimony. Our next two community speakers to be heard are Brian Mason and Christy Sitz.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Hello, my name is Brian Mason. I'm a teacher at Chugiak High School, also a parent of two Anchorage School District students. First of all, I wanted to thank the board for listening to community concerns about the calendar changes and for being responsive. I totally appreciate that, and I encourage you to vote in favor of the new proposal. That said, looking forward to the next 2 years, I have some really serious concerns with regards to whether cultural considerations were given in the formation of this calendar.

Um, I, in reading ASD communications and comments in the press, it seemed that, um, you know, you were looking at balancing instructional days and other academic concerns, and I'm a teacher. Totally important things, and I appreciate that. That said, I don't think it can be overemphasized how important those days in August are to the cultural practices of many of our students, their families, and of course even our staff members. In late May, it's lovely, it's nice. I want to be outside too.

But in mid-August, that is when berries are ripe. That is when fish are in the rivers. That is when many of my students are still in their fish camps with their families. Many of our students, many of our families still maintain connections to rural Alaska. Many of our students and families and staff members still maintain subsistence practices that are very important to them.

If we move the first day for students to August 11th, hunting season starts on August 10th. Many of our students will not be able to participate in these vital cultural practices that are important to them, to their families. We talk a really good game at ASD about being culturally sensitive. We do our land acknowledgment, but does that carry over to our planning? It is vitally important that we protect these days in mid-August.

I, I cannot overemphasize how important that 3-day change would be. Those 3 days would be the difference between me being able to take my son hunting or not, and that is a vitally important thing to my family. It is also vitally important to many of our families. When we made this change from a post-Labor Day start, a lot was lost, and I hope that we do not continue down that road. Please consider cultural practices when we make future calendars.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Sorry, thank you. My name is Christy Sitz, the president of the Anchorage Education Association. Today my testimony was dramatically different before I heard the end of the special session where I heard a very disheartening comment that Fine Arts is going to be great and it's going to be sustainable next year. So here is a new testimony that has not been practiced, so sorry for that. Following the reports of today's regarding the budget cuts, I'm writing to express my concern regarding the claim that the new Fine Arts model is sustainable.

Transitioning to a model of one semester of art and one semester of music is not sustainable for students. Expecting children to retain information for over 6 months and build their knowledge is unrealistic. The resulting regression in learning will have long-term negative impacts on middle school and high school art, band, and choral programs. Furthermore, the logistical demands of next year's model are highly questionable. Some educators are assigned to 4 buildings in one week.

That raises several urgent concerns regarding the feasibility of instruction. Will the anchored teachers be required to vacate their rooms so the visiting teacher can instruct? Will instruction occur in general education classrooms when it's a designated time for planning in multiple locations and collaboration? Will the district purchase extra materials for that teacher to drive around in their car? Will you pay for them to store it in their car when they drive to a different school 4 days a week?

Those are some serious concerns that you need to be thinking about.

Thank you for your testimony. Our next 2 community speakers to be heard are William Baxter and Emre Menyoki.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Let's power it up! Power up your, uh, wives and full plows. Power up your husbands' full plows. Power, power, uh, Martin over here could power up his, uh, John Deere tractor. Let's power it up!

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Um, so first off, just a few notes from today's meeting. Um, so it sounds like there's— you have this optimal number of GPA 2.7, uh, and roughly half the kids at the school district are below that GPA. Uh, Member Lusson mentioned, um, the possibility of using sports to, um, entice higher GPAs by raising the GPA requirement. Uh, my recommendation for something like this would be to, um, you'd have to do it on an individual basis at the individual level, you can make goals and you can even, you know, for students that might be capable of a 3.0, you know, you can make a much higher GPA requirement for the sports. Um, I do appreciate the student that brought up mental health issues related to seasonal darkness.

There was a student at South Anchorage High School that died of suicide around this time of year last year. And, um, I, I think that is a great indicator of, um, educational achievement, that, uh, students are willing to research these issues and bring them, uh, bring awareness to them on their own volition. Um, I'd also like to point out that I submitted, uh, 15 recommendations to the, uh, Anchorage School Board earlier today, and I would appreciate it if the, uh, school board would consider my recommendation seriously. And, um, as always, your honest feedback is appreciated. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Our last two community speakers to be heard tonight are Derek Musto and Terry Wood.

Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

Okay, sorry about that. Uh, my name is Derek Musto. My son attends second grade in the Russian immersion program at Turnagain. Last year we had a lot of students interested in enrolling, and I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not, but many of them were denied due to limitations with FTE or not enough teachers. Uh, not sure what's going to happen this year, but I suspect we may be in the same position.

Capping numbers of enrollment early, uh, automatically punishes the program, forcing smaller classroom sizes in the future. Immersion programs provide kids who would normally be monolingual an opportunity to be bilingual and leads to improved outcomes, as we all know, and we strive for. In my opinion, the standard pupil-teacher ratio doesn't adequately work with an immersion model, and I encourage you to consider different staffing mechanisms when it comes to the immersion program. We all know that the program provides better outcomes and results. Sometimes one size does not fit all.

Russian has been labeled as one of the most critical languages necessary to learn the economic— to learn to strengthen the United States economic competitiveness and national security. We all know ASD's immersion program is just one of a few in the nation. I cannot relay to you the growth and benefit my child and his classmates have received by being a part of this program. My son's smarter than I am and can already, uh, relay and, uh, interpret for me, family, and friends. If there's anything that you can do to ensure this program continues and prosper and reevaluate the FTE needed for the immersion model, We greatly appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Welcome. You have 2 minutes. Please begin when you're ready.

My name is Terry Wood. I'm a longtime employee of this district, having worked at both the charter program and neighborhood school, and a parent of 4 graduates who attended alternative charter and neighborhood programs. I've seen the system from many sides, and that's why I'm asking you to address a fundamental issue of fairness and process. Please allow all neighborhood schools under 85% capacity to participate in and accept students in their spring lotteries, to accept students to reach that 85% or similar capacity. Right now they're not being given the same opportunity to succeed.

With the vote to close Campbell STEM Elementary, a program families wanted to and supported, but that was never allowed to be accepted into, uh, in the spring lottery, not even kindergartners. We were never allowed to accept students in spring. I've become acutely aware of how significant this issue is. At the same time, charter and some alternative programs are allowed to grow early and secure enrollment and build stability before the school year begins. That difference in timing matters.

By fall, families have already made decisions. They've committed. Neighborhood schools are left with fewer students, not because families didn't want them, but because they weren't given a fair chance to choose them when it mattered the most. And then those same schools are labeled under-enrolled. We've now closed 5 schools with under-enrollment cited as a key factor.

So we have to ask, are we measuring true demand or the outcome of an uneven system? If schools are not allowed to compete on the same timeline, enrollment cannot fully reflect community interest. It is also critical for teachers to be able to move to these schools in the spring, uh, with increased enrollment when staffing decisions are made. This is not just about one school, it's about the integrity of the process the transparency of school choice, and the community's trust that decisions are being made fairly. Families need to know where their children will attend school in the spring, not weeks or days before school starts, and certainly not after it begins.

They are planning transportation, child care, and work schedules. When we delay access, we create uncertainty, and when families face uncertainty, they look elsewhere. That erodes trust, and trust once lost is very difficult to Miss Wood, thank you so much for your testimony. That completes our community speakers to be heard and our student public comment. We will take a 5-minute recess, then continue on with our agenda.

Thank you.

We'll call ourselves back to order at 8:22 PM. We'll move on to our consent agenda. Is there a board member who wishes to pull an item from the consent agenda that hasn't already been addressed?

Hearing and seeing none, is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended?

I move to approve the consent agenda as amended. Second. Motion made by Member Holloman, seconded by Member Higgins. Uh, seeing no discussion, we'll move to a voice vote. Miss Sullivan.

Student Representative Madison. Yes. Member Donley. Yes. Member Bellamy.

Yes. Member Wilson. Yes. Member Higgins. Yes.

Member Lessens. Yes. Member Holloman. Yes, President Jacobs. Yes, our consent agenda is approved by a vote of 7 to 0.

We have one remaining action item, uh, F2, ASD Memorandum Number 160. Um, is there a motion, Member Wilson?

I move to approve ASD Memorandum 160, the update to ASD 2026-27 school calendar, to approve and adopt an updated school calendar for the 2026-27 school year. Second. Motion made by Member Wilson, seconded by Member Holloman.

Under discussion. Member Higgins, your mic's on. I'm sorry. Okay, it sounds like no. We'll go to Member Holloman.

Understood. Member Holloman, do you have discussion on this item? Um, well, I have to say, when, when I saw this at the last meeting and it jumped the start date by several days, I, I felt like maybe I should flag it, but my past experience with the— I served on the Calendar Committee quite a few years ago. It's a large committee with a lot of different inputs, members of all the bargaining units, parents from the PTAs at different levels, administrators from the different levels, and it is a committee that met several times, a number of times over weeks, and really kind of hammered things out. And, and that stopped me because I felt like Uh, we can't possibly undo that work.

We can't possibly duplicate that work in the meeting. But my understanding is the revision committee was not that inclusive or detailed. Um, and so the, the problem I have tonight is I think we're about to repeat the same thing of modifying something that was worked on a great deal without actually going through that process again. And I do understand You know, this is unprecedented. We, we had a contract that changed the number of days for next year.

We wouldn't normally be deciding the fall calendar at this time of the year. Um, I do support that we move the starting date back to what the previous starting date was, but before we change the other days in the year, I would strongly urge us to reconvene a full committee that has everyone represented to try to come to some sort of agreement about what the best way to do it is. And I don't think this board is a place to do that. I want to make that part clear. I mean, we're, we're talking about a large committee that had a lot of discussion over many days, and the people on the committee were chosen to bring those different viewpoints to bear.

Um, how no one flagged the early start date as a problem at this time of year, because I— it's just known there are any number of parents and a large number of employees that make their travel plans a year out precisely on this calendar. And my— I've seen a couple of emails from people that the change at the end of next year is a problem for them. So I, I know that every single thing is a problem. That was the greatest lesson from serving on the Calendar Committee, is you can't change a thing without it having a negative impact on some people. Um, I do support us changing the start date back, and that needs to happen immediately so that people can make plans.

Um, but I do think before we change any other days in the year we need to reconvene a full committee and act on their recommendation. Thank you.

Uh, Member Higgins. Yeah, thank you. I, I concur too. I think that's a big issue. I'm getting feedback from all kinds of things that, you know, what people are looking for is the opportunity to be heard before the decision, not after the decision.

And the issues here, there's quite a few. I've got questions too. I mean, even our, even our early start time, there were studies before they made it 9 o'clock in the morning, an hour later on Monday, that sometimes it's beneficial, sometimes it isn't. It depends upon the engagement. I'd like to know the data on that or something on that to show in regards to that, because we get a lot of feedback from businesses, university with employees.

I know we get a cat check on that one, uh, but a lot of different employers out there. We don't have the preschool type of or the daycare type of services that are needed to adjust that. It's impacting our employment and people spending, staying home. And so some schools have support, some schools don't. But the whole calendar issue, having a discussion, what works, what doesn't, and be willing to, you know, accept, you know, the results and say, look, we're looking into these and we have an eraser at the other end of the pencil if it does work out that way.

Would be, I think, well received from the public. I don't think it's a matter of being transparent. I think it's a matter of allowing them to be engaged in it before we get to the decision, not telling them after the fact, this is a decision, now you get a chance to speak, 'cause the likelihood of us changing it isn't very great. Our history has not been very big on that one, on that. So, but the calendar, I just think it's a good opportunity to look at all the issues real quick, do it fast.

We got to have it done. But I think it would be beneficial from a morale standpoint to actually be listening to the teachers and the staff and the like in regards to this. I, I just— it needs to be a fast process, but I do think that needs to be on the table.

Not seeing any other discussion. I Let's go to Member Donnelly. Just want to confirm there aren't any other changes from what was before the board 2 weeks ago.

That's correct.

Member Lessans. I think I would want to make sure that Member Donnelly is aware that this is a different recommendation than what was before the board 2 weeks ago.

Right there, as with 3 days, as with the girls. Okay, but as with 2 weeks ago, we're talking about the placement of 3 new days, but these are a different location.

Oh, so let me rephrase. Is there anything other than the 3 days that's changed in this proposal? Because I didn't see it, so I just want to confirm that. Okay, remember, was there any additional discussion? I think, um, you know, to— so I guess I wanted to begin by, um, thinking retrospectively, and I wanted to express my gratitude to Member Higgins and to Member Donnelly last week for having made and seconded a motion— sorry, 2 weeks ago— to pause.

And then I spoke up and said, well, I heard that the administration really needs to move forward and they need a decision tonight. And so I am, um, I really felt a lot of remorse. Oh, I still do feel remorse. We're in that pickle in part because I spoke up under the belief that we needed to have a decision sooner rather than later. And so I know that I voiced my encouragement for making a decision 2 weeks ago.

So, um, it's— it was a vote that caused me to reflect in the days afterwards And so I appreciate the administration bringing a new recommendation— excuse me, a new recommendation forward. I think my question at this point, given Member Holloman's suggestion, is what, what a new process would look like from a timing standpoint, from a process standpoint. If the board were to delay adopting a calendar tonight in favor of looking for a solution at some unknown point down the road?

Member Lessens, I think that's a great question. So I'll get started that I would encourage the board to approve this calendar that maintains the start date. That was the primary feedback that we received from the community. But what I've also heard is that there's a need to improve the calendar committee process. So I'm all on board on making that committee more inclusive of more voices But I will also just note that we did move this, but the previous calendars through the Calendar Committee.

But what was missing is what we also do, which is to survey individual families to provide their input on the calendar. And I want to remind the board that this is not the first time that the community's contemplated where to put extra days. Um, frequently community members request, and this is mostly coming from families, just as one example, families would prefer to have the entire week off for Thanksgiving. That's a very common request. So we frequently have these conversations of if we were provide a full week off for Thanksgiving, just as one example, where would those days go?

And what we found year over year is that the community is very split between adding the days to the beginning and adding the days to the end. So to the team's credit, when we had to make a very fast decision on adjusting the calendar, it was with the input that we had in mind. But what we realized is that we need to make sure that anytime that there's a change to a calendar, especially a start date, that we need to make the time to get that feedback. That is the message. So what I would recommend are more longer-range plans plans to make sure that before the second and third year calendars move forward, that we've had that opportunity to collect feedback from families through both a survey and a calendar committee.

And I'm very open to even additional innovations such as focus groups or other ways to engage families in multiple modalities, formats, and ideally languages, so we can ensure that these are as responsive to cultural needs as well. This is not easy work, and there's not a single change that we could make to this calendar that wouldn't result in Some families being upset or blindsided, so I.

I think that this is one way to make the most of a very difficult situation that in the big picture is about the Anchorage School District being able to add more days and more time for learning in the school year when there's a district in Oregon that's trying to reduce instructional time for kids. So I just know that this was a very difficult situation, but it came from something that is very positive, and I wish that the order of events could have been very different so that we could be celebrating right now versus deliberating how to fix a process that certainly needs attention. So with that said, I do want to provide Mr. Gustafson or Dr. Johnson an opportunity to add to anything that I've shared, or any corrections for— to what has been done, what will be done, and what we recommend to the board moving forward with this calendar. So I, I, I do want to back up to what the committee was.

Last summer, from the spring into the summer, we held— we did a survey of the community and we had over 2,000 responses in regards to the calendar. In the fall, the calendar committee came together. We looked at the history of the makeup of the calendar committee, and that's who we invited to the calendar committee. It was a large group of people, the same groups of people that were in the last two calendar committees. Because, you know, those calendar committees happen about every 3 years.

Um, that's what the first iteration of the calendar came up. Since it is the same year that we're in, we use the same calendar committee to come together with the looking at the 3 days. They went back and looked at the survey results, they talked it over, and that's how they came out with the first 3, the 3 days at the beginning of the year, because like Dr. Bryant said, survey results say if we're going to put days in, it's about split half and half before and after. Um, these calendars are pretty difficult now because we put a lot of stuff that we want to have happen, such as voting days not being on the calendar for actual students in the schools because of the amount of people that come through those schools. We have days that we look at to have as non-work days in the calendar that have been put in over the years.

So we— the whole committee looked at this for the 3 days. If, you know, if we go back, it takes a long time. I mean, it isn't just over a few weeks, it's over a few months that they came up with the first, because every school year is different. And to come up with a 3-year plan especially now with all the particulars that people are asking for. It's really hard to actually come in.

So, you know, coming up with another process, you know, we can do that. It takes a while if we do— if we're going to do the new process to just figure out the end of the year. We have people scheduling their end of the year trips here pretty soon because they'll start booking a year out, right? So we kind of need some guidance as to what, what that's going to be, because right now we have staffing, we have end of the year, we have graduations, we have all this. How can we pull this off is something that my staff would be asking, I guess.

We'll go to Member Holloman. Um, a question to the administration: when you reconvene the change committee, did that have the full original committee on it? If so, I was misinformed.

All right, Mr. Prince says they— the entire committee was invited. Not everyone showed. Okay, I'm not seeing any—. Mr.

Chair, Member Bellamy, I'm sorry, I had put my hand down. I'm thinking about an amendment, but I, I just need to, um, because it seems like the— if we revert back, if we accept, if we accept the, the calendar part of it where it says the recommendation right now is to revert back to the, the original start dates, can we then I guess this is a question to Dr. Bryant. Is it possible then to have a— to convene where those 3 days would go beyond the beginning of the year? Where would we put those 3 days, get a committee together to figure out where those days would go given the input we've had so, you know, over these last few these last few weeks relative to where we have put— where those days are, where the 3 days are. So if we could convene a— we could accept the start date as recommended, but convene some process to look at where those 3 days would go.

I don't know, does that make any sense? Through the President, Member Bellamy, that, that makes sense if the board were to go in that direction. I just caution you that we'll be entering a similar situation that we— okay, in the fact that the community has made it clear that they want at least 6 months, ideally a year in advance, in advance, yeah, the calendar. So the issue with what you're proposing is, to Mr. Gustafson's point, we're about to enter graduation season and summer, and I think if we want the optimal attendance and the right format for a new calendar committee to help us address those 3 days, there's a lot of upside to that, but we'll realistically need to do that work in the fall semester. We could certainly set a deadline for that to happen prior to, let's say, you know, November or October, but there are going to be families that said they've booked their end of the year plans for that school year, and then I worry that we're going to be in the situation again.

I want to underscore the fact that what the community is telling me is that they just need a decision instability, right? Make the best decision based off the information that we have. And again, I want to credit and thank the community, thousands of families, for sending in responses to those surveys, and we need to keep those responses up. But I think in order to make sure the fam— the families feel that they have an entry point into this conversation, they need to understand what the final decision is. So we're about to enter into a territory of adjusting the same calendar 3 times.

So again, the board could go down that direction, but I, I just caution you as to what the the cons would be. But of course, the pro would be is that we'd include as many voices as possible to make that decision. Okay, makes sense. Thank you. Then I won't offer an amendment at this time.

Um, I will offer a motion that we refer this back to the administration with the understanding we support the original start date. But would hope for a full public process in determining the rest of the days. And I hope that's the most awkwardly worded motion I've ever made. So, second, we refer this back to the administration for reconsideration with our support of changing the start date back to the original day. And I second.

Um, any additional discussion on the motion to refer back to the superintendent?

I would just say I think it's important that we express our support for that so that they know that's, that's not part of the debate, but that we really get full public and professional, our workforce and the public, to contribute and be part of coming up with a plan for this coming school year and the, the additional school years. I, I don't know if there's time to do a full 3 years. I understand you may just want to do 1 year again and get that back and get it settled. Or if you really are able to convene a full committee shortly, working on all 3 years again. But, um, just the feedback I've gotten from so many people, they wanted the original start date.

I think we all got that message, but there also is discussion about the days during the year. Thank you. Dr. Bright. Member Holloman, I think I might need some clarification on this motion because my understanding is to send it back to the administration would mean that the previous calendar that the board approved 2 weeks ago would be in effect, which would mean the, the later start date, which brings us 2 steps back to where we were.

I'm hearing that the optimal resolution for families would be to keep the start date as families planned for a year ago. So to send it back to the administration without voting on it would put us in an awkward predicament to where families wouldn't know what the first day of school is.

And, and that is the awkwardness of the motion. I, I think, and the board members need to put themselves on the record, I fully support changing it back to the original start date before we voted on it recently. Um, simply voting down what has been brought to us.

Leaves it totally unclear. I am asking the board to make it clear that they support that later start date, which urgently needs to be decided. But the other days in the calendar year, we've got a little bit more time on, and those are the ones I'm asking to seek public input on. So yeah, I don't actually want to vote down what the administration has brought. But if we pass it, then we have passed the end date as well, which several people have complained about that as far as the last teacher day becomes after Memorial Day weekend, um, and some people already have plans on that, at least out of habit, if not actual reservations.

So, Dr. Bryant, um, I think what members Holloman is indicating is that he views, uh, this amendments. No, it's actually— it'd be a motion to refer. Um, uh, the motion to refer, if adopted by this board, would direct the administration to do two things. One, uh, revert the start dates, uh, to the original positions that are indicated in ASD Memorandum Number 160. And then two, engage in a process to identify where the 3 additional instructional days will go during the year and bring back a recommendation for them.

Does that, does that provide administration sufficient clarity?

Um, Mr. President, if I, I just may underscore, the board did approve a calendar, Mike. I, which is why I would be very concerned if the board passed this amendment expressing support for the original later date, but we haven't adopted calendar. So I'm very concerned that we're about to make this much more confusing for the public than it would need to be. If anything, if the board were to move in this direction, I would be more apt to support what Member Bellamy suggested, which would be to adopt this calendar with the understanding that we need to come back and reconfigure what the 3 days are. Um, this is a really— I think we're Um, I would just caution the board that we're about to make this a very confusing process.

I, I'll say that, um, if that's the understanding administration has, I would withdraw my amendment and support our adoption. It's a motion to refer, just to be clear. Member Higgins, do you withdraw your second? Second. Okay, so the motion's— the motion to refer is withdrawn.

We're back to the underlying motion, which is to approve the recommendation from administration as written in our agenda. Member lessons. Not that I want to muddy the waters anymore, but I think procedurally— and I'm not going to offer this, but I will put it out there— procedurally, if someone were to move to strike a section of text from the memorandum, specifically April 19th, 2027, as a school day, through these changes convert the previously designated possible closure makeup days on the '26-'27 school calendar approved in September 2025 to the newly added instructional days. The school calendars no longer identify separate days as possible closure makeup days. There's just a chunk of text which itemizes the 3 new days.

If you were to strike those— if you were to strike that text and then adopt Memorandum 160, adopt what's left of it, you would essentially only be adopting Um, actually, you would also need to strike, uh, corresponding language. I would have to show this to America. Um, you'd have to strike additional language talking about the 3 new days. But if you were to retain the section of text simply saying revert back to the start dates on the '26-'27 calendar, you would be adopting something that gives clarity on a start date. But what you would not have And what I was going to ask is clarity on when a calendar will be made clear to the public.

There needs to be— there would need to be a timeline for families and educators to plan. So, uh, understood, Member Lessing. I guess to refine that to administration, if the board approved only the change in start date that's referenced in ASD Memorandum Number 160, When does administration anticipate it could generate another recommendation after a public process for us to adopt the rest of the calendar for the year that's, that's upcoming this August? Thank you, Mr. President. I will say that procedurally, Member Lesson's approach makes a lot more sense to me, with the caveat that the board would be accepting the fact that we'd be passing a calendar that doesn't have a specific end date right away.

So in other words, families would leave this meeting today not knowing when the last day of school is, and employees might also not know when their last day of work is. So can we bring back a new recommendation? Absolutely. But the root problem that I'm hearing is that we need to make sure that this process is as inclusive of as many voices as possible. And I think to take that feedback from the community and to implement it with fidelity we would need more time.

And the more time that we take to make sure that the process is strong, the less time that families have to plan. Because realistically, given that graduations are coming up, given that summer is coming up, given that we have our own beginning of year priorities that are— that will involve many of our families and parents and teachers' attention, realistically, this process wouldn't be complete until sometime in the middle of the fall semester. So my question to the board is, is that sufficient notice for families to know when the last day of school is? And if it is, then we could move forward, but if it's not, then we're about to enter into, into some more uncertainty. So I just want the board to truly understand what we're discussing right now.

I, um, I'll jump in the queue to say that I, in theory, support, um, what's being proposed and being asked for by Member Holloman. Um, I don't know that it's in the best interest of the district to approve a start date with providing no clarity to families and staff and the community as to when the last day of school will be and what days are not instructional days and what days are instructional days for the upcoming year. I, I will vote— I personally would support a vote either in favor of this recommendation or against it. And then look to refine our process for years to come. This is my personal stance.

I don't think the community would well receive a partial calendar adoption by this board, um, just about a week away from May. Those are my thoughts. Is there other discussion?

Seeing none, we'll have a vote to approve, uh, or deny the AC Memorandum Number 160, uh, which is, is the administration's recommendation that the board approve and adopt the updated school calendar for the 26-27 school year. Um, board members can reference the memorandum. Again, the vote is to approve the changes or to not approve the changes. Miss Sullivan.

Representative Madison? Yes. Member Wilson? Yes. Member Higgins?

Member Donnelly? Yes. Lessons? Yes. Member Holloman?

Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. President Jacobs? Yes.

A statement, Memorandum Number 160, is adopted by a vote of 7 to 0. Move to non-action items. Is there a board member who wishes to discuss a non-action item before they're in front of us at our next meeting? Okay, we'll go to the superintendent update. Dr. Bryant, the floor is yours.

Uh, thank you, and thank you to the board for your expediency in approving this calendar. I truly appreciate it, and we look forward to communicating very clearly what the calendar is, and I want to make sure on the record that I share that we need to make sure that this process is better and more inclusive of voices, and we want to make sure that we avoid this type of situation moving forward. Our families deserve that clarity. So I want to start by acknowledging just, um, some of what we heard tonight, which is, you know, families showing up to advocate for their children, their programs, and their schools because they care very deeply about them, and They, they should, because these are incredible schools, and that advocacy is part of what I believe makes this community very strong. And I also want to be very clear-eyed with the board about the moment that we're in.

So we reduce next school year's budget by roughly $90 million. So for the public's awareness, because I know the board knows this, that's equivalent to about a $700 per student BSA reduction. So in other words, there are no viable paths to preserve everything exactly as it was. And the hardest truth that is in front of us as a governing team is that we can't solve this program— that we can't solve this problem one program at a time, because every time that we make a decision to add something back, it's going to have to come at the expense of something else. And I hope that we'll be lucky enough to receive additional one-time funds, but even that decision point will bring us to an impasse where we have to decide the impact on future structural deficits versus the impact on student achievement right now.

Going into next school year. That's not an easy decision for anyone to make, but we have some.

Difficult moments ahead, and we're going to get through this. But I will say, um, our responsibility as a district and as a board is to take a step back during these very turbulent few months that we have ahead, and we need to ask ourselves what matters the most for the 40,000+ students and families that we serve. So for me, one of the most important priorities that I see is making sure that we have strong classrooms and making sure that we retain and support as many of our excellent teachers as possible, even in these resource-scarce times. And a big part of that will allow us to, to make choices about what programs and offerings that we want to provide to kids. Um, but I also recognize that ASD serves very diverse communities, and no matter what we decide to do as a board, I would highly encourage us to always remember that we can make targeted investments And one of the things that I think is very important for ASD is to make investments that help accelerate growth for the students who are below reading and math proficiency.

I think that once we can elevate the quality of our schools, we're really going to do a lot to help make sure that our families believe in the potential of our students in our school system. There's a lot at stake here, and we're not going to be able to restore everything, but we can make sure that we know what's important, we know what's right for our students, and we know what the stakes are if we get it wrong. And that's not easy work, but you know, I'm just very humbled and have a lot of gratitude that I'm working with some very fine elected officials who are going to help us get there. But this is not going to be easy. So I just want to take a few moments to recognize that we've had to make difficult decisions, including reimagining programs and services that are incredibly valuable.

But we also have to remember that some of these programs, they serve very small groups of students and it comes at a higher cost. That's not to say that we shouldn't make those investments, but we have to start thinking of it as just that, an investment, and what return do we want to see, because we have so limited dollars to move the needle on student achievement. So I want the public to understand that, you know, not accelerating the growth of one program doesn't mean that that particular program doesn't add immense value to families. In fact, I think that tonight showed that we know it does. But we have to weigh everything we do against what benefits the greatest number of students, as well as accelerating academic growth for students who need extra support.

So our team has worked to protect schools as much as possible. As we shared earlier during our work session, we reduced dozens of departmental positions, um, centralized services first. There's certainly an impact of that, but the, uh, The strategy there was to try to protect our classrooms as much as we reasonably could before we started to have to look at program changes. So while much is out of our control, here's how we can respond. So at our next meeting, and I'll work with President Jacobs to identify a time, it sounds based on our conversation we'd like to have a special meeting to specifically talk about possibly keeping the middle school 7-period day for one more year.

And I want to be very clear because there's a lot of information out there and the public's digesting a lot. So we didn't get new money. Um, that is not the situation here, but we have done deep analysis and we have major concerns about the impact of the 6-period day if we go too quickly. So what we're proposing to do is to repurpose one-time grants, largely from the special education department, to make this investment happen for at least one more year. I don't believe that a 7-period day is something that we can afford long-term at this time.

Those circumstances might change, but at least at the very minimum, the board has an opportunity within the next couple of weeks to create a 1-year bridge to give families and staff the time that they would need to make that transition. One of the reasons why— there are certainly a number of things that we could be having this discussion about. It took us an hour just to brief the board on all the cuts that were in the FY27 budget, but the reason why I'm bringing middle school specifically to the table is because this change would benefit almost 10,000 students across the district. And one of the values of this investment is that it would specifically enable the district to really support our special education students, our English language learner students, our students with other programmatic needs such as language immersion and other electives. And this would give us the time and space to really turn community engagement on its head and to have more time with families to get their input before we operationalize that change.

I wish we could do that with more programs changes. But at least for this one, we have an opportunity to get it right. So what we're going to do if that's successful is we're going to continue to listen. And regardless of what the board decides to do about middle school, we're going to continue to get into the schools, hear from families, adjust where we can. Again, we don't have more resources to work with, but what we can do is try to meet people where they're at with what we have, and we can communicate clearly so that there are no surprises headed into next year.

That's one of the reasons why I wanted to have this work session tonight, because what I'm hearing from families out in the field is that they— it's so hard for them to digest everything that we've reduced in our budget. It takes time. And what I've realized is that our families are not just navigating the challenges that the public school systems are facing, they're navigating real affordability challenges and other things in their lives that are really taking up a lot of mental space. And I'm trying to extend that runway as much as possible for them to take it in. So today was just the first step.

I do think that that we need to have robust engagement over the next several months so family knows— they know what's coming and why it's coming and why it's not possible to restore everything the way that it was. Because I don't see a universe— I think there is a 0% possibility that $90 million more comes into ASD next year, and that's the bottom line. And I haven't heard anything to suggest otherwise from the legislature or anybody that's in the know. So for that reason, it's my responsibility to help set the district up for long-term success. So with that said, What I can do is be transparent with the community as much as we can about the situation and our funding outlook.

So just another thing I want to share, really for the benefit of the public, is again, a permanent increase, as I shared earlier this afternoon, to student funding at the state level, very unlikely this year. I wish that were not the case, and I'm certainly trying to do my part to advocate for a different outcome. I do want the community to understand that one-time funding is a possibility, but that's going to create a really important choice for those of us on the board to make in the coming months. You know, every new dollar that comes in, we can use those dollars to protect programs and offerings just as they are right now. We could also choose a path where we set funds aside, knowing that we have a $40 million deficit on top of everything that we cut for next school year.

That's a valid path forward that would allow us to stabilize what we can reasonably afford to offer in the years to come. Or maybe we can split the difference and take a balanced approach and do a little bit of maintaining what we have, but also bracing for the stabilization that's going to have to happen in these resource-scarce times. So I don't want to undermine how difficult those decisions are. They're incredibly difficult, and they're coming very, very soon. So I'll close with this.

This is a challenging moment for the Anchorage School District, but our focus has not changed. We're committed to delivering an exceptional education for every student using the resources we do have and building a system that we can sustain competently over time. And we're going to do that work in partnership with the community. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Bryant.

I will go to Member Donnelly. Thank you. I had a couple questions regarding Campbell STEM. And I do think there's a, there's a strong possibility that the courts are going to find the, uh, what did not comply with the reasonable, uh, requirement for the Public Meetings Act before that was voted on. And now that we've had the temporary restraining order filed and you've had a chance to read the, the arguments that it was in violation of the, of the Public Meetings Act, what contingency planning has has the district done for the impact of a, uh, of a temporary restraining order by the court undoing or delaying the implementation of the closing of Campbell Stem?

Thank you, Member Donnelly. I will certainly keep the board up to speed should there be an injunction that is successfully put in place by a judge. That has not happened, and our legal counsel has no indication that that will be happening anytime soon. So what I can commit to the board is in a future executive session sometime time to ask these legal questions. I'm very limited in what I can answer right now, but I do value the question.

Remember, Donnelly, do you have any additional questions? Yes, thank you. There was a question posed by a member of the public, uh, during the public comment period. I, I'm going to restate it here because I think it deserves an answer, and it's: how can a STEM accreditation be transferred from one elementary school to another when only 13% of the students are moving from the first school that is accredited to the second school that doesn't have a current STEM accreditation. Um, Member Donnelly, briefly, that.

That comes from our accreditor. Our accreditor believes that a certificate should follow the students in that program. And the last thing I'll say on this topic is that this is one of the reasons why we wanted to open as many spaces at the CLAT STEM program as possible, even if that means that we need to reconfigure certain programs like preschool, moving that to a different location so we can accommodate more students. It's also one of the reasons that we offer the opportunity via a special lottery to interested families and based off of their demand to enter the CLAT STEM program, then we can make those adjustments. It could be more than just the 14%, and that's all I'm able to share on that.

Thank you, Dr. Bryant. Member Donnelly, any other questions? No? Okay, um, we'll go to board member comment. Member Lessons.

Okay, for a question for Dr. Bryant. Yeah, um, thank you. I just I wanted to say thank you for the enormous amount of work that you and other folks in Team ASC have put towards the calendar, towards just so many of the things that we've been grappling with in recent weeks. I also kind of wanted to use this opportunity to clarify what might be a piece of misinformation And specifically, I guess I've heard allegations that the district is hiring a second deputy superintendent. Can you— not true.

Oh, can you possibly clarify the number of deputy superintendents that we do have and will have next year? Yes, thank you, Member Lesson. Very important question. There will only be one deputy superintendent. I would love to hold on to Sven Gustafson, but he's chosen to retire retire, even though I've repeatedly asked him for it to stay on for as long as we're around.

Um, so we'll be replacing his position. Member Bellamy, do you, you have a member comment or you have a question for the superintendent? Just a clarification, uh, there is a difference between accreditation and a certificate. Um, I mean, all of our schools are accredited, uh, through Cognia, and I, I just wanted to make that clarification. It's not— we're not transferring accreditation.

We are transferring the STEM certificate. Thank you. Okay, we're going to pivot to board member comments at this point. We'll start to my right with Member Hallman.

I, I do think one of the imbalances we have is everybody that was here tonight to speak is gone, and this is really the first chance we get to respond to them. Um, I got a sense from a lot of people that spoke tonight that they really felt their program was being singled out, or that we had the option, um, that we just didn't recognize the value of it, and, and we should find a way to save any of a bunch of different programs. And for, for those of us that spend a lot more time with this, we are making so many cuts and I can't think of a single one that I actually support emotionally. They're, they're all things that do good things for kids, and it's really hard to judge which ones matter more because to certain kids, certain things matter tremendously, and to other kids, it may not be that big of a deal. You look at the number of kids I mean, the, the riflery program pops to mind.

It's not a huge number of kids, but the ones that are engaged in it, extremely engaged in it, and it's the thing that helps connect them. And basically, if you go down the line for every other cut, that's kind of what we're looking at. Actually, dismantling middle school is a huge one.

And I, like so many other people, I've been here 29 years and 10 months, and lots of those years there were cuts and we made adjustments. They, they weren't great, but things still functioned. But last year and this year really began to see things fall apart. And when I look at the range of things we're cutting in the fall I, I don't see a district that reminds me of the district I've seen for 29 years. The changes at elementary, the changes at middle school, what we're doing— I think we're going to wind up eliminating a tremendous number of electives at high school, um, and, and possibly passing off work study as a way to— for students to get their elective credits.

So those teachers can teach core classes, which they have to get at school in order to graduate. The other part that's difficult is I have a lot of years going to constituent meetings, sitting with legislators, talking to people, and for a long, long time, it could just be a given that you could say, oh, you know, the district's got— they're overloaded and they have all these problems. And, you know, the, the kids aren't doing very well. And it could just be a given statement, and there was not pushback in public. I watched our legislators stand up in front of roomfuls of constituents and say that, and if I didn't say anything back, no one said anything back.

Um, but then when we as a board turn to parents and say, well, we've got to cut this We, we hear really heartfelt testimony that this is the thing that matters to them. And I did realize a long time ago, especially if you take like an elementary parent, the school and the district to them is the teacher in front of their kid. And, and there could be complete chaos in every other room in the school. But if that teacher is doing a good job with their child, they feel like the Anchorage School District is pretty good. On the other hand, if that teacher is the only one doing a terrible job, they feel like the whole district is a disaster.

People tend to see the thing that's right in front of them, um, and, and I felt like that tonight. If, if some of the people defending these good programs— Campbell STEM, the, the sporting activities that we're going to cut, the immersion programs, um— and in other years there might be a pocket of money somewhere we could reach into and save that one There's not this time, um, because of a confluence of things that, that have really just exhausted the funds. We need those parents to speak up all the time and recognize that unless the whole district is reasonably funded, things like this are going to happen, and it's going to be worse next year. The only thing better about next year I can think of is I won't have to vote on it. And I really— I'm very much looking forward to that.

But on top of where we're at this year with the things we're cutting, the administration is going to have to go back in and find more. And it really will raise the question, is it time to close down an immersion program? Is it time to close down a charter school? In the time when we were growing, which was the first half of my time with ASD, we could not build schools fast enough. As a student teacher in '94, I had over 40 kids in a science class at Hanchu.

Wasn't a lack of teachers. There were 3,000 people wanting to be hired by the Anchorage School District, and there was a reasonable amount of money. There wasn't anywhere to teach them. They already had about 10 relocatables and they didn't have room for any more. Um, so we've shifted into a completely different situation, and no one in the district has expertise in this because we've never faced this before.

We've never faced a long, steady decline in students, and simultaneously we've begun to offer more and more and more options that pull people out of their neighborhood school I love the options. I have a child that went to Polaris, that went to Bowman, that went to spend a year in correspondence with Family Partnership, went to Early Honors with APU and a service seminar program. All magnets that pull people from the particular school they might go to. But in combination with the population decline, Now we're having to try to figure out how to, how to deal with that. And, and the problem is they never draw from one school.

That would, that would make it so easy to close that building and, and relocate those teachers and just keep going. They, they draw 5 or 6 here and 5 or 6 there and a few more here, such that there's no one place that you can move them. I do. I mean, I love the Bowman Open Optional Program. It was great for my kid.

I watched it be great for lots of other kids. Huge parent involvement. It's exactly the kind of thing we want to have happening that integrates families into the school district in a completely positive way. But if we let in 50 kids this year to kindergarten, that means we're going to have to have at least 2 first grade teachers in addition to the 2 kindergarten teachers. And a year after that, we're going to have 2 kindergarten classes and 2 first grade classes and 2 second grade classes.

And on and on. And unless we pull them from another program, we— or unless funds turn around, we just don't have the capability. It's a math Tetris problem where you've got 80-some buildings scattered around town.

And no one really knows how many kids are going to show up at each one until they do, and And you've got to move teachers around, which is disruptive to their professional lives. Parents get to move around somewhat at will. We control that to some degree.

It really has created a nightmare. And I will say, I don't think we handled it very well. But then again, I'm not sure how we would. I do want to add, just for the few people that are listening, We do try to go by the Open Meetings Act, and it means that outside of these meetings we don't talk to each other a lot about school business, um, which means you get to see everything, just about. That's why it's so awkward, and that's why the meetings can be so difficult and, and hard, is we're trying to have really what would just kind of be like a head-scratching conversation by Robert's Rules of Order.

And, and it just is not always pretty to watch at all. So it really is sad to me. This will be my last speech at the end of a long meeting because the next one will just be a short meeting. Well, I'll get to get up and leave while everyone else has to stay along with Mr. Donnelly. But I do think everyone tried to do the best they could, but it is new territory.

There isn't anyone with experience in exactly how to approach this kind of rock bottom level of funding that is causing us to have to shave things that we've accumulated because we did have money. I think the immersion programs are incredible. And if you talk to families that have been in them for 5, 10, 12 years, they'll talk to you about that. Our charter schools have done a remarkable job, and ideally we want to expand them if they're successful and people are lining up to get in. That's kind of the whole idea, we'd make them bigger.

But it is creating a nightmare for our neighborhood schools, and when we try to close them, suddenly people are extremely thrilled with the Anchorage School District and the job that school is doing. But I hope they will turn to the legislature, because that has been the choke point. Um, we have less money per student— not just less money, but less money per student— than 3 years ago because of the way the funding has changed. While so many people have the feeling that we have more, that we got a huge increase, but it is a complicated story. Trying to run the district is a very complicated thing.

I think we've stumbled through the spring, and it's been unfortunate, and I, I wish everyone the best in trying to solve it in the coming years. Thank you. Thank you, Member Wilson.

Well said, Member Holloman. I, I will keep mine short. For, um, I, I wanted to say I am thankful to have such a thoughtful and articulate student, um, as our board member. And I look forward to hearing about all the amazing things that you're going to be doing in your future. So congratulations, Madison, and thank you for all your work on this board.

Wanted to make sure that you were acknowledged. Um, also wanted to share that there is a vaccine clinic on tomorrow, April 22nd, from 2:30 to 7 here at the Education Center, as well as another one on May 12th here at the Ed Center for families that are interested in the vaccine clinic. There's also a link on our website with some free opportunities for vaccines at other clinics in town.

I did want to acknowledge the efforts that School Bonds Yes, Great Alaska Schools, and other partner organizations that came out to support and help ASD with the Prop 1 and Prop 9. I really actually always appreciate the community support and folks that step up to help schools in, in every way they can. So thank you. Thank you. I understand that both Vice President Bellamy and myself have no comments.

We'll go to Student Representative Madison. Any closing comments? Yes, um, other than thank you so much for the recognition, I also appreciate everyone else's work that I've seen over the year on the school board. I did want to bring up one issue that I've been hearing a lot of students talk about. Um, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but obviously the discussion about middle school models has been ongoing for a while, and especially at the next board meeting, um, there will be a vote that concerns how this will be structured.

But as it was actually brought up in public testimony today, one of personally mine, and as well as many of my peers' biggest concerns with this middle school model and what it will become to be is striking out the required music classes for 6th graders in middle schools. And I think what I really want to put here to perspective is that this isn't necessarily just about music. Making it to the point where these 6th graders will no longer be exposed to fine arts is also more of a reach of inequality. And the reason I say that is because personally for me, I play the cello. I've been doing orchestra all throughout high school.

I did it all throughout middle school, but I would have never picked up an instrument or would have never been exposed to fine arts if it weren't for me being required to do it in that 6th grade class. And in doing so, I also recognize that given my background and many other students' backgrounds, especially the demographics in the school I went to— I went to Beggage— I don't think any of these other students would have been exposed to music if it weren't required because of simply the equality behind the resources of being exposed to that stuff. Things like orchestra, band, choir cost a lot of money to be able to practice that in the home and outside of the classroom. So it really isn't just about music, and I want to make that clear. I think that going forward that this board should make sure to prioritize this requirement for 6th graders to continue doing music in this model no matter what, because again, it's not just about music.

It's about continuing to allow students to use resources at home and in the classroom that will improve overall their whole school experience, including academics. And it is scientifically proven that when they are exposed to fine arts and they have to challenge themselves to try something new, no matter whether it's really something they enjoy necessarily, it does improve their mental well-being and their focus in any other ways, and it increases post-secondary career opportunities. Because it shows that you have a diverse amount of understanding of, uh, technically, like, for music, an almost a new language, and being able to comprehend and understand things in new ways. So just to kind of conclude, I highly recommend that this board, no matter what, prioritizes to keep continuing the requirement for 6th graders to do music because it transforms the rest of their middle school and high school career after high school as well. And it isn't just about music, it's about equality and our resources and perseverance for academic performances.

Thank you, Madison. We'll go to Member Donnelly.

Yeah, I've been looking over the last 9 years kind of retrospectively. Um, and Mr. Holloman and I first got here, it wasn't very long before we were faced with a huge earthquake. And kind of derailed all of everything else. Uh, we had a lot of ideas that I thought were really good at the time we wanted to work on, but most things got pushed aside for the immediacy of dealing with the— that crisis. Um, and then COVID came, and I was doing a little research into, um, how long it took us to get back our kids back in classrooms after COVID.

The vote we had when it was a, it was a 3 to 4 vote. I was one of the yes votes to get our kids back in the classroom was on December 15th, 2020. And by that time, the Anchorage School District had that year had over 50 days of not having our students in our classrooms. And the national average was only 10 days. So the vast number of school districts around the country had reopened schools.

So we were more than 5 times the national average of having our kids out of school. And I think the damage that occurred from closing down schools, we all know, is we're still paying the price for that with academic progress. And it's going to be very difficult for those, those, those students that went through that, to a lot of them, to make that up, um, it's going to take years and years. Um, but I just wanted to mention that as a caution to the future. If ever, God forbid, a similar thing happened and there was no data justifying, you know, I specifically identifying a threat to school-aged children which was why most European countries kept their elementary schools open during COVID.

We should be more cautious about closing down our schools than what we were back in 2020. I think it really had a serious damaging effect and proved to be not the right decision at that time. Glad to be part of the close vote to get our kids back into the classroom though.

Member Lesnas.

Um, thanks for the poignant thoughts I'll try to be brief.

My youngest was a kindergartner in the fall of 2020 and will be a 6th grader next year. So I have a visceral connection to that particular cohort of students. I would go in when I could and volunteer once they were 1st graders, and you could see the range of students' readiness to learn and what they had or had not accomplished in their first year, year and a half in the school system. There were moments of extraordinary compassion and teacher innovation, and there were a lot of moments of significant challenges, and those are lasting, and I think we all know that. It's one of the reasons why I fiercely fought to carve out, uh, the zero-hour educational opportunity to retain a semblance of a middle school model.

And I am— I will be glad to relinquish that $400,000 and change in support of an actual middle school model for next year and look forward to finding ways to do it for more than one year. I will say that is an intention that I have to, um, to sustain as long as I'm on this board, and I think I have 2 more years, um, in my current term. So I'll just, I'll just say that, um, I wanted to encourage board members, administration, and any members of the public who walk through the Education Center and this evening out the door, or anytime you come in Look at the art around you. I was here the other day when the beautiful, um, portraits that have been put up on an annual basis over each of the last 4 or 5 years were taken down. These were portraits that the district's most outstanding fine artist made of the district's most outstanding musician, and so they were pictures of students with their instruments.

Those are taken down because the funding ran out for the program. I watched the Fine Arts team take those things down the other day and they put up some other student artwork in, in their place. And the message that I understood was this may be the last round of student art going up in the Ed Center. So we're talking about fine arts, um, we're talking about A lot of things are going to be devastated in next year's budget, but you can walk— literally, you're going to walk past sort of remnants of this year and what we have been able to maintain. And I hope it's a reminder to all of us about the importance of equitable access to the fine arts, both music and all of the other media that our students are able to explore.

And then I would also say, encourage I encourage community members to go listen to ASD students who are going to be on stage at the PAC this weekend performing with the Anchorage Symphony. These are choir students. I have my tickets. It's something to celebrate. Over the years that I've been on the board, it's been really extraordinary to walk into a music classroom and see a music instructor for example, using plastic cups to practice rhythm or something like, you know, drumming, and they're probably doing more technical things than that.

And then a few days later, see that music teacher, the ASD music teacher, on stage performing because they are part of, part of one of the local companies that do perform. We have so many ways in which people affiliated with the school district enrich the community as a whole. And the evisceration of the arts in Anchorage will impoverish the community as a whole. So I say that even as though, even as the much-needed bond to pass to improve the Performing Arts Center has passed, there may not be musicians from ASD to perform there, or at least not at the scale. But now I'm I'm gonna pause.

Thank you, member Higgins. Thank you. Um, I'll start by just, uh, with the testimony. The kids were fantastic tonight. Uh, I gotta tell you, their presentation, what they did, uh, I hope the parents are keeping a resume right now for their activities.

It makes a difference with their selections in colleges. They, they just did fantastic. I really appreciate that. I really enjoyed the information about middle school. The efforts of the administration working to do that.

I am totally supportive of that. It is a critical issue. It impacts so much stuff that that's important, and I appreciate it. What, um, my, my issue is the issue of transparency and trust. And let me just say that the, the issue where we are today, we earned it.

Um, we did a lot of closing of schools, and every time I go to all these schools, I've never seen one where the school was talked to before they were selected. And I go back to Bear Valley when that was selected of one of 7 schools by the administration, and I remember when they pulled it back and said we didn't know how much it was being used by the community. How can the administration not— that they just— it doesn't make sense to me. Then you look at the thought about how we're going to handle Tudor if we close it. It's going to oversize the other.

If you go— went in the school and you really worked it with them before you just hand it this week, you— good luck, you've been selected. You would have gotten more information, but our process doesn't allow that. Uh, we just don't engage the public. The, the calendar is another issue, but there's— it goes on and on and on within it. Uh, and some of these are just a planning issue.

6Th grade goes to middle school. We have 2 middle schools with 120% of capacity. That must have been something planned out, I would think. And if so, Why couldn't we be told about it? But we didn't.

We were told they may have to have audibles and that's it. And all the academic data shows that that is not going to benefit the kids. That was being discussed in the meeting. So I'm trying to figure out right now where we're at. Well, if we say, okay, we're not going to do downsizing, we're going to do rightsizing, I've seen nothing done with rightsizing.

But it— these are things in the past we're trying to go forward. And I appreciate that, um, um, and, and it's critical that we make changes if we want to be respectful to include the staff and the principals in the decision makings and feedback and, and all that. So we can do that, we need to do that. I just don't see that happening. Um, but, um, uh, so there's a lot of issues, but today and the last 2 weeks has been an issue where transparency, to me, my definition of transparency didn't exist.

Bowman— I don't know who in Bowman was engaged, and I still don't have a good understanding of why Bowman's going to go from the, um, 2 classrooms for, for, uh, kindergarten to 1. We're going to have those kids someplace, and it's going to impact and undermine their program. I understand that. So now we're looking at the issue of funding. I understand, but we know there is a possibility here we're going to get some money from the state, whether it's one time or whether it's recurring.

I believe that we've got money coming. The question then is planning. How are we going to address that? In the case with Bowman, once you've cut it out, you had the— you had the lottery, it's already done. How do you restore it?

If we get enough money to add up all the staff back we had and to continue it. How is— how are we going to reestablish that? How are we going to correct that decision that we didn't engage the school, we didn't engage the parents, we took it away? They're begging us to look at a change. What can we do to kind of correct this decision?

Where is the transparency? And why would we have that trust? Campbell gave us trust when they voted the year before to give money to fix the school. Then we said, oh, we're going to redirect it someplace else. We're not going to live up to what you just approved.

That's pretty disappointing. Lake Otis, we asked for the money for this school. We're going to give it to somebody else. I'm not surprised that we lost the bond. I think we should have won that.

We should have won it, but it's a, it's a transparency issue, not when you roll out the final decision. Now you can raise your voice and complain. It's being engaged in the decision process. Let us know what you plan on doing. Are we going to, if we get the money from the state, handle the— is the plan administration to restore, uh, the Russian immersion teacher or other teachers that are out there?

Where are we at? Can we give them— these are the contingencies, we got some idea of what we're going to do, or are we going to let them think this is already set? I know we have a nightmare with staffing. We don't know how much money we've got. We got to go.

The notices of separations. We got to do transfers while we got challenges to even closing the schools. It is a mess. I sympathize completely, I promise you, with everybody in administration having to deal with this, but we are isolating out staff from being engaged in this process. And I got to tell you, I have tremendous respect for the principals and teachers and what they're dedicated to and what they're trying to do.

And being left out and being surprised and not being given any information undermines that confidence. We, we, within it, I mean, that, that respect, it's a sign of respect when you include them and you want their opinion because it's valuable information. But we need a better relationship with our staff on that issue. It gives you a better outcome. The process is always defined clearly upfront what you're trying to accomplish.

Then talk about alternatives to select something. We, we skipped the clearly what's established. Why did we close schools? Is it just because we could save in 5 years? It's going to be $51,000 per school.

Is that why? Is there another? We, we going to close, we're going to close the only STEM school that we have elementary, but we're adding a high school and we've got it. We've got a middle school that excels. So we're going to do that.

What was the goal? Why that school? And so we could have said, what are the alternatives to that school? There are other schools out there. The other issue is some of those schools may not be considered because they might be considered for, for childcare.

We're running out of time on that. We got grant money right now. We can get it paid for out of that, get it done, affect it, the economy, everything else that we're doing. But we're not moving in that direction, I don't believe. So we're going to wait, and in a couple of years we're going to ask them, the public, to pay more property tax to pay for the changes that we might be able to get free now.

I just want to say, just establish clearly what it is you're trying to accomplish. Then let's talk about the alternatives before we argue about the selection. We don't go through that process right now. We're not going to establish that area of transparency explaining what we're trying to do and why. Why are we closing Bowman the, the second, uh, kindergarten thing?

I'm not sure from the explanation provided other than that we're doing it for others. I don't know what the goal was. I don't know if we discussed alternatives before that's selected, and I don't know if there's flexibility now to listen to what the public our boss. They were at the top of the pyramid, okay? They're our boss.

What they— you know, are we listening to them? Are we trying to respond? They are our boss. We should listen to them. If it's not best for kids, we gotta do best for kids.

That's it. But I don't see this as necessarily best for kids. Some other motive. And I'll tell you what bothers me the most is talking to parents from Bowman When I'm talking to them, they're pretty emotional. When they put their phone number on an email, I call.

Okay, I've got that practice. I've shared my number with everybody. I'll put it out there for anyone. And to do that, what they're afraid of, that Campbell, they heard, wasn't allowed to bring in kids that wanted to go there, and they kept it smaller, and then they downsized it. I don't call that rightsizing, downsizing.

Bowman's afraid that they're next on your list. In 2 years they're going to be next because you're keeping the school, you're making it smaller, and that's what they're afraid of. And you know what? They should be afraid because they are watching stuff and they don't feel like they're being heard. They don't feel like we're giving them the information up front and we're not being honest with them.

That's how they view it. So they want to know why you want to do it, what are the options, and have a voice. They want to do that. You've got You've got good teachers. You've got— you've got engaged parents.

You've got kids. What else can you— you're not going to find parents more emotional than fighting for their kids, and you shouldn't. Why are they being left out? Don't we want to hear them? Don't we care about that?

I'm sorry if this is emotional to me, but it is. I didn't get on this board just to approve something and to report to the superintendent. Everything that comes up to us either comes from his staff, either comes from either at his direction or with his consent. Everything goes through the superintendent. I don't know why Bowman was closed.

I mean, the second class is being done after you go out there with the lottery and what they're being told. I don't know. But I do know that you've got people out there that you're not going to establish their trust unless you're transparent in the process process in which you are making these decisions up front and not just sharing it with them afterwards so you can complain. That's not— that's not how you treat your, your boss. They're our boss.

And so I'm hoping that somewhere we have an explanation or we reconsider what was being done with Bowman Optional. It's going to impact it long term if we get more money for the state. How are we going to reverse that? We're doing an irreversible type of decision. Is why, why are we doing that?

Why are we disregarding? It's a program that's keeping kids from leaving the school system because parents get engaged with it. There are parents out there and they've shared it. They're there, but they're going to lose them. They're going to lose them because they're not going to be there.

They can't bring their grandkids in. Who are— when they've got other kids already in the program because they may not have the space. I think that we need to listen, but we need to listen before the decision's made. We need to communicate and not feel like our job is to somehow get it done even if the public doesn't agree. Well, our boss is important.

Our boss should be heard. We should be listening and we should be paying attention and we should be able to defend what the goal is, alternatives we looked at, and why we selected. And if that's justified, go for it. But if it isn't, let's allow it to have an eraser at the other end of the pencil and reconsider what we're doing so that we are more responsible to the public and we're not doing stuff that we know may not be best for kids because we haven't looked at alternatives and is not respectful to staff. And the parents and the kids.

That completes board member comments. I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn. Made by Holloman. Seconded by Wilson. Seeing no opposition, we are adjourned at 9:40 PM. Thank you, everyone.