House Education, 4/27/26, 8am

I would like to call the meeting of the House Education Committee to order. It is now 8:04 a.m., April 27th, in the Betty Davis Room, 106 in the Capitol. Members present are, from my right, Rep. Eichide, Rep. Underwood, Rep. Schwanke, Rep. Dibert, Rep. Elam, Co-Chair Rep. Himschut, and myself, Rep. Storer. Co-chair. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum for conducting business.

Please take this time to silence your cell phones for the meeting. Thank you. The documents for today's meeting have been distributed to members and are available on the table outside the door and on BASIS. I want to thank Kale Brown, the House Education Secretary from Records, and Susan Quigley from the Juneau LIO for staffing our committee meeting today, and our co-chair committee aides Tammy Smith and Ella Lubin for their help. Today we get to continue to hear a celebration of education excellence, and we have Rep. Schwanke presenting something from her district this morning.

Um, and we will also hear House Bill 387 proposing an Alaska Native Language Task Force. This bill is a companion bill to Senate Bill 287. We will also hear 187 from Senator Wilakowski on an act prohibiting food additives in public school meals, and then House House Bill 237, an act relating to mathematics education, relating to the duties of the Department of Education and Early Development, and relating to the duties of school districts, from Representative Underwood. Up first, we have Representative Swonke. Would you like to introduce your presenter and start our celebration of excellence in education?

Good morning. Thank you, uh, Co-Chair Storey. So as a past super— or as a past school board member, I know that excellence in education is something that shows up in almost every strategic plan for every school district across the state. So we're— today we're very excited to have Assistant Superintendent Lisa Shelby with us today. She's from the Galena School District, and I think you'll find that her presentation really pulls together what it really looks like to promote excellence in education.

So you'd like— Good morning. Good morning, Ms. Shelby. Thank you for your time and your work. If you could please introduce yourself for the record and begin your presentation.

For the record, my name is Lisa Shelby, and I'm the assistant superintendent of the Galena City School District. And I just want to say thank you for allowing us to be here today, and thank you to this committee for helping us champion public education. Next slide, please.

So we are— this is our agenda this morning. We're going to talk about early childhood, and we're going to talk about how our early childhood then helps us elevate elementary math and literacy, our partnerships that help us make all this happen, and then just our reality. Next slide, please.

So through tribal partnerships and other grants, we have been able to establish a state-licensed child care center that is inside our elementary school here at Sydney Huntington School in Galena, Alaska. And this is done strictly by tribal partnerships and grants and The premise behind this was to help us not only with child care for employability for the entire community, but also to support the Alaska Reads Act in our ages 0 to 3, which that doesn't touch, to build capacity for our students beyond that into K-3. And so we, we use the same curriculum with our 8-months-to-3-year-olds in our licensed daycare center as we do in both our other preschool programs. We do a lot of social-emotional and physical education. We touch math and language and get these kiddos ready for science and reading by the time they leave here and enter our next program.

Next slide, please. So again, completely grant-funded through our state, tribal, and federal partnerships. We have a 3-year-old preschool program, and this again uses the same curriculum, just the next phase of it. Do a lot of oral language development here. Allows us to get in front of some early interventions that might be necessary for students who need that, and it gives our students the chance to again use those premises of science of reading by the time they're 3 years old and entering our 4K program.

Next slide, please.

So in our Pre-K-4 program, this is, you know, some state grants and some state support for us. This is a standard-aligned program, standard-aligned program, just like other programs around the state. And this is explicit science of reading instruction here and data-driven interventions. So you'll see our students coming out of these programs in the next few slides, what impact that creates upwards into our elementary program. So next slide, please.

So again, through grants, we have secured a grant for after-school activities that expand into summer school and also expand into our winter break. To keep kids— keep our kids busy, gives kids daily access for math and literacy. Our staff, our school board, our community, and our tribe are all aligned in the support for our school, starting with that early education daycare program all the way into our elementary school. The standard is the standard, and we have raised the bar. And if you'll go to the next slide, please, we have some data to share with you.

So this is our mCLASS math which is a new product, actually a new assessment in grades K through 5. And we like to compare ourselves to national data. So as you can see right now, this is only picked up by about 230,000 students nationwide. And if you're not familiar with how these great— these color bands work and what's good, you want to shrink the red and grow the blue and green. So the green is considered on grade level, the blue is above.

So you can see that what we are doing is working in our— those early programs pushed forward, the impact they're having on our elementary school students. So next slide, please. So here's our early grades. So these are the students who have come out of those programs. Again, shrinking the red, growing the blue.

You can see our data. This is our data specifically, beginning of the year to the middle of the year, and then we're about to start our end-of-the-year assessments. So the, the blue is very bright, and we're pretty excited about that. So next slide.

So again, our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, as you move through again, you can see the impact and what we're doing here. Some of the things, just to touch base, that we, we also did in addition to these early programs is we changed the schedule. We added some time to our day. We have 2 intervention blocks. We had a kind of a voluntary after-school program a few years ago after school, and what we found is the kids who needed the support most were not coming to school to access those interventions.

So we pulled that into the school day. We have two intervention blocks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and then we also are doing tutoring and hitting those interventions after school as well. Also during the summer, and like I mentioned, during, during winter break. So you can see the impact of that here. Next slide, please.

This is our reading data again, looking at the national data and comparing our school to national. So here The in-class reading, this is picked up by the Alaska Reads Act here in Alaska as well. You can see this product has been around for a long time, tried and true. 4 Million students out there using this one, and you can see how our green and blue compare there to national norms. So we are slightly above them in how we are performing.

We're pretty, pretty proud of that. Next slide, please. Here's our grades K through 6. Again, look at all that blue in our early grades. Those are those early programs pushing in and the success of the interventions we put in place, but even down to our grades 5 and 6, you can see that we are moving the needle.

And next slide, please. So again, this is all done through our powerful partnerships. We have very strong partnerships with our Loudoun Tribe and with TCC, the City of Galena. We partner for our secondary students. We have lots of dual credit opportunities, STEM opportunities that we partner with through UAA and UAF.

And then we also have nonprofits that we partner with to support our students. We have a fantastic grants writer and we have been able to get multiple grants, state and federal and tribal partnerships that help us make all of this happen. Next slide, please. So that brings us to the reality. So many of these successes you've learned about today, they are dependent on these grants and they're not sustainable long-term.

So the early education programs, we feel like that has been really crucial to our success, as well as all that we're providing through our interventions and supports in summer, summer school, and winter break, and activities after school. These are all built on the backs of grants. So just, just our reality, and I think that's also the reality of a lot of success around the state, is we need grants to help us make these great things happen. So next slide, please.

And I also just want to point out, you know, we, we spend a lot of time— I know you guys do too there at the legislature— talking about all the needs around the state. And I also just want to make sure that we are talking about the great things happening around the state. I've had the opportunity in my career to be a teacher on the North Slope. I was there for 6 years. I also had the opportunity to be a principal in the Mat-Su across multiple schools, and I was with the Matsu for 9 years as an administrator.

And now here in Galena City School District, I've had the opportunity to be a principal, a teacher, and now as assistant superintendent. And I've been with this district for a total of 9 years. And so I think I can absolutely say that there are really great things happening in education across the state because I've had the opportunity to participate in so many districts and and help support students from all areas. So we just need to celebrate that more because there really are great things happening. And thank you again today.

Next slide, please. Just thank you to you all. We really appreciate the work that you are doing. We know it's not easy. We appreciate your courage in the decisions that you are making to support all students across the state of Alaska.

So thank you. Ah, thank you. Ms. Shelby, very much for your dedication to the students in Alaska. Thank you for sharing all those different districts you've been with and your long-term commitment to Alaskans' children. I'm very grateful.

Do I have any questions from committee members? Rep. Himschoot. Thank you. Through the co-chair to Ms. Shelby, thank you so much. This is such a great way to start the week.

To just to learn about other districts and the great things that are happening there. I wanted to look at the slide about the reality, which I think third slide from the end or so. Yeah, there it is. And, um, so you talk about grant funding. Here's what I need to understand: what is your total enrollment, and how do you fund a grant writer?

So it must have There are so many districts that benefit from grants and they don't have a dedicated grant writer, and you said you have a grant writer. So is that a dedicated position? And the ROI in that, I'm sure, is something measured not just in the dollars you bring in, but in your student learning. So can you talk more about your grant writer and how you sustain that with your small enrollment?

Well, our grant writer wears many hats, so I say we have a grant writer, but she also wears the hat of federal programs as well. So that's the small district reality is they don't just wear one hat. And so yes, our total enrollment out here in Galena is a little over 300, and then our district's a little larger than that because that position funds— sits district-wide, right? So that federal program's position is across the entire district.

Follow-up? Thank you. Yeah, I know every— I have a lot of small school districts in my House district, and so many of them benefit from grants, but it's the principals writing them or whatever. So you're a grant writer who's doing multiple— wearing multiple hats. The evaluation part of the grant also falls to that person, is that correct?

And then I guess my last question is, is there any portion of what's grant-funded that you think has proven itself and should be not grant-funded but permanently funded through some source?

Yes, as far as the grant reporting and making the things happen on the ground, that's a hat that I wear as the assistant superintendent, so we do that and most of that falls on me. I also want to make sure that I'm clear that some of these are subawards. So, we partner strongly with our tribes. So, some of these grants are secured by our tribe and subawarded to us.

That is multiple grants, actually, that is helping us make this happen. And as far as things that I would like to see that are powerful in making these results happen, that I would like to see not grant-funded, Absolutely, for early childhood. I think the reality in many small communities is there's not quality childcare, and most people may not have a preschool program until students are 4 years old, or kids are 4 years old coming into school. And what we expect of them by kindergarten, and now by 3rd grade for science of reading, is a lot. And so I think the power is the earlier we can get students into school and getting those experiences, the more gains we're going to see, especially that will impact the Alaska Reads Act and their later successes.

So if we could— I know, and we are working towards that. I mean, we're part of that state grant right now that is working towards trying to fund some of the pre-K programs, and so we would just love to see more of that and see those programs fully funded instead of 0.5. So, okay, thank you. Ah, yes, Rep Underwood. Thank you to the chair.

I'm thinking for your presentation today, you would think that you were in my invited testimony for my presentation on math later today. So I'm very excited to see the data that you have, and I was curious if you could just elaborate a little bit more of when you said that you went to more of interventions in school. How did you work that in? What are your time slots? How did you find the teachers did with making that adjustment, or did you have to bring in extra tutors?

Like, how does that function? Great question. And like all change, it didn't come smoothly and easily, but we did it for the sake of kids, and now we can see the data that it worked. So we extended our school day by 45 minutes. It did not extend our teacher contract, so that, that's still all within the negotiated agreement teacher contract.

They just have less, less time before and after school. So that's how we, we made that part happen. And as far as— I'm sorry, can you repeat the second part of what you asked me? Just for your— how do your interventions work? What's the time allowed for math throughout the day?

Did you have to change your curriculum? How did that work? Yes, so we have about 35 minutes twice a day for interventions, and we are using multiple curriculums to help make that happen depending on what the student needs. So, and I believe you also asked if we had to bring in extra tutors. So we again grant-funded the CLSD grant for reading, so not for math but for reading.

We did pick up some high-density tutoring through that grant, and that has been extremely helpful and successful for us in small schools who don't have enough staff to meet all of the intervention needs. So thank you for that. We do have two more questions. We have one from Rep. Elam and then one from Rep. Dibert. Rep. Elam.

Good morning. Thank you for your presentation. I was just wondering if you could maybe tell me a little bit more about the, the size of your district and the, the— from like a school's perspective, how many schools do you have? Because I just looking at your pre-K enrollments. I was curious kind of how, how your Pre-K numbers were, and I was looking at the, the slide there, the 8 months to 3 years old.

How did you have to accommodate those age ranges? Ms. Shelby? So through the chair, so our, our population out here in Galena, we have about a little over 300 students on the ground and in 2 schools. So we have the Sydney Huntington, Sydney C. Huntington School, pre-K through 12, and then our Galena Interior Learning Academy, our residential boarding school.

Follow-up? And so how did, how for doing the pre-K, how did you accommodate the wide range, you know, because ranging from 8 months old to 3 years old and then from 3 to 5. That's, you know, pretty big spread, and I'm just kind of curious how you, how you resource that. Ms. Shelby. So again, through the chair, supported by grants.

So our daycare program is a separate program, and then this year our 3 and 4 program is a combined grades 3 and 4 in one classroom. Okay, thank you. Or ages 3 and 4, I should say, in one classroom. Thank you. And I believe Rep. Elam was wondering how many students you can serve.

I know we need to have a higher, you know, staff-to-child ratio in the younger grades. So I think he was trying to get a handle for that. Do you know? Could you share that, please? Yes, and we rely on some volunteers.

We have rotating volunteers that come in and support and help us, and then we do kind of a staggered schedule, if you will, to meet those ratios for our early childhood center. Thank you. Ms. Diebert, or Rep. Diebert, excuse me. Oh, it's an honor to be called Mrs. Diebert. Good morning.

Um, thank you through the co-chair to Ms. Shelby. Thank you for your presentation and for your service to Alaska, for our youth. And just thinking of your community too, I know in the springtime you're watching the river ice, and I have relatives in Galena and the Stickmans, so they're my family. So just thank you for, uh, educate— being an educator out there. My question is, later on in the— this morning we're going to talk about House Bill 387, which is an act establishing the Joint Legislative Alaska Native Languages Task Force.

When it comes to Alaska Native languages out in your community, can you just give us a little snapshot of how this task force can help you or your thoughts on it? Thank you so much.

Yes, through the chair, that is a great question and something I probably didn't hit on enough here in this, but we have native language instruction here, and our teachers do that inside the classrooms. And that's really important to the community and the tribe here in Galena that we support native language. And part of one of the grants that we have, a federal grant, is kind of built on the back of cultural integration and cultural language. And so our cultural teacher who who is going to retire soon, and we don't know what's going to happen after she retires, is currently working hard to build a curriculum that has audio in it to support so that classroom teachers can keep using that language. And the language is probably the strongest in these early childhood programs because they're just ripe for learning that.

And they— part of what they do every day is, is look at pictures and those students can tell you the Native names for those animals and for the activities, simple activities that they do each day. So as far as what that task force could do, I think it's to support Native language acquisition, support writing for those where those languages— there's very few people still that could still hold those languages. I think supporting efforts to build curriculums to Before the language dies, curriculums that can be distributed by non-native speakers into classrooms so students can learn and maintain those languages would be important. Thank you, I appreciate it. Yes, thank you, Rep. Dybert, for that question.

I had a couple questions and then I realized we have to go on, but this is just really, as Rep. Hemmschult said, just really is a great start to the week. So a couple of questions Two questions. One was, we saw the, the numbers, and I'm wondering when you break them down for free and reduced lunch and for English language learners, how our students are doing in those categories. I'm assuming you have that information. And then my second question was, I know you have a big IDEA homeschool program as part of Galena, and how do you encourage the early early learning pieces to those families?

Yes, so through the chair, for free and reduced lunch, we are 100% free and reduced lunch out here in Galena, so those numbers are reflective of all of those students. And as far as English as a Second Language students, we don't have any identified ELL students in our early language or in our early learning programs, and most of our English language students come to us as secondary students through our residential boarding program. So, and as far as encouraging pre-K in our IDEA program, so we do support preschool in our early— in our homeschool support program, and we do support enrolling pre-K kids if they are siblings to help support those families granted— no, without funding. We do that just so that we can enroll them and get that support for those kiddos to begin those early learning for those families. We just really know and understand how important early learning is.

Thank you for that, and thank you, Rep. Schwanke, for bringing this program forward, the work that's happening out there. I really really appreciate this spotlight today. So again, thanks to your colleagues too, Ms. Shelby, for their, their work and for working your partnerships with the tribe and, and the community. It's, um, it's very commendable. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for this opportunity. Thank you. So I'm going to take a brief at ease and hand the gavel over to Rep. Himschoot as we move into the Alaska Native Languages Task Force bill. Brief it.

Okay, we're back on record. A little punchy this morning here in House Education. Uh, we're going to take up House Bill 387. I'd like to invite Representative And her staff, Tammy Smith, to present the committee bill, House Bill 387, which is proposing an Alaska Native Language Task Force. This bill is a companion bill to Senate Bill 287, and if you could please put yourselves on record and begin your presentation.

Thank you. Thank you, Co-Chair Himschoot, and thank you, committee members. It's good to be here this morning. For the record, my name is Andy Storey, proudly serving District 3, which is the northern Mendenhall Valley here in Juneau, Fritz Cove, Auke Bay, out the road to Haines, Gateway, Klukwan, and Gustavus. And Tammy Smith, staff to Representative Storey.

Thank you. So House Bill 387 establishes the Joint Legislative Alaska Native Languages Academic Task Force to address an urgent and escalating crisis, the rapid loss of Alaska Native languages and the academic infrastructure that supports their preservation. Decades of research, documentation, and teacher training, much of it centered at the Alaska Native Language Center up at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, are at risk due to staffing shortages, unstable funding, and declining institutional capacity. Recognizing the critical importance of research, preservation, and the continuation of Alaska Native languages, The state legislature established the Alaska Native Language Center in 1972. Now, more than 50 years later, House Bill 387 would create a bicameral task force to conduct a comprehensive review of Alaska's academic efforts in language preservation and revitalization, something very much needed.

The Joint Legislative Alaska Native Languages Academic Task Force will engage directly with Alaska Native communities, educators, and subject matter experts to assess current challenges, identify risks to expanding research, and recommend strategies to strengthen teacher training, expand research capacity, and ensure long-term sustainability. This bill lays the groundwork for a coordinated, forward-looking statewide strategy that respects indigenous knowledge systems, supports community priorities, and ensures that Alaska Native languages and the knowledge they carry remain preserved and accessible for future generations and to help in the great revitalization that is happening right now across our great state. And as Rep. Himchute said, this is companion legislation to Senate Bill 287. We do have a couple of invited testifiers online. We were thinking maybe would be best to go to them next, and then if you would like, Ms. Smith could go over the sexual analysis and we could have questions.

Okay, so, uh, did you want to do the sexual analysis now and then the invited testifiers? Did I misunderstand? Um, I was going to go to invited and then the sexual analysis. Okay, thank you. Um, thank you for introducing the bill briefly.

We're going to go to our invited testifiers on Teams, and I'm going to ask the committee to hold questions until we've heard from both testifiers and then ask those folks to also stay online for questions once we've heard from both folks. So we have— I think we'll start with Samuel Alexander, Department Chair and Assistant Professor of Gwich'in Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. If you could please unmute yourself and identify yourself for the record. To the record and begin your testimony. Thank you for being here.

My name is— thank you, ma si tro. Can everybody hear me? You sound great.

Okay, great. My name is Sam Al— um, Chair, members of committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I teach with Chin here and have been department chair since December 2023. And I'm here today in strong support of this House Bill 387. Alaska Native Language Center was founded by this legislature in 1972, and for over 50 years we've worked to document, preserve, and revitalize Alaska Native languages.

That work has never been more urgent and has never been more at risk. The findings in this bill speak plainly to what we're living through right now. Budget constraints, staffing shortages, a lack of permanent leadership, and reduced research capacity are not abstract concerns. This is the reality we live in here at the NLC. We've lost tenure-track positions.

We've lost research staff. Our capacity to produce literacy materials and linguistic documentation that communities depend on have been severely diminished. So right now we see that we're losing a lot of the fluent— remaining fluent speakers, and that's going to occur within this next decade. Some languages, the number of qualified linguistic specialists worldwide can be counted on one hand. So when the knowledge is gone from our speakers, there's no chance to recover it.

There is no second chance once they're gone. So this is why this bill matters. The task force this bill creates would— has never been done in a coordinated legislative way. It would take a comprehensive look at the academic infrastructure supporting Alaska Native languages, teacher training, archival work, staffing, funding mechanisms, and the institutional responsibilities to make all that occur. And it's going to develop a long-term strategy that's real.

So, there's a few things that kind of stand out to me as I look at this bill. First, it centers community, and I think we need to recognize that the needs of the community over the past 50 years have shifted. The language community has shifted significantly. And so reaching out, holding these public meetings, and soliciting the input from communities and language experts is exactly the type of work that we need to see. Revitalization is only going to work when it is led and accountable to the people whose languages are at stake.

Second, it addresses the language teaching pathways. And so this bill calls for strategies to grow the number of licensed and certified Alaska Native language teachers and to recruit and retain qualified linguistic researchers. This is foundational. We can't preserve these languages without people trained and supported to teach and document it. And then third, you know, if this task force really looks at what's gone wrong, and this is important because we need to acknowledge the missteps that were made to ensure that those missteps don't carry on in the future.

And so the task force is gonna look at the risk associated with workforce shortages, funding gaps, vulnerabilities in data and archives, and it's also gonna look at the low morale that we've seen with the past and current NLC employees. And this, this is accountability. And I would like to see that occur because we haven't seen accountability I'd say in the last 26 years here. You know, the ANLC has done really remarkable work. It's done remarkable work.

You think about the revitalization efforts that are occurring with Eyak right now. All of that is possible because of the work that the ANLC has done. You know, you had a language where the last speaker died in 2008, and they're working towards revitalizing that language now, and it's only possible because the research that people from the AANLC has done, and that's— that tells you a lot. We don't want to be in the position where we're like some of the languages down in the lower 48 where not enough documentation has occurred, and so those languages are really struggling to revitalize. So I really urge you to pass this, this bill to get this task force established.

It is going to be foundational to the re-establishment in the It shows that affirmation that the state has towards our languages. And so I just want to say, maasi cho, for this and for the work that you're all doing. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you.

And I'm going to ask you to stay online if you could, and we'll go to our second invited testifier, Anna Burge—I'm not sure I'm saying that right—who is a professor of linguistics and Alaska Native language archive director with the Alaska Native Language Center at UAF. If you could put yourself on the record, please, and begin your testimony. Thank you for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

My name is Anna Birgi. I have been a professor of linguistics at the Alaska Native Language Center since 2001.

I have been responsible for the archives since my arrival but I've been director since 2019. So I am, in point of fact, the last person left who is specifically research faculty. I wanted to address you not with what— so much what the needs are as the benefits that ANLC has brought to the state, to the Alaskan communities and to the university, and why a bill, a task force to investigate how best to support ANLC is vital. ANLC from the start, back in the 1960s before it was even established, worked to transfer the ability to document and teach languages to speaker communities. Communities, from the Yup'ik language workshops in the 1960s, which focused on teacher trainings, to, uh, the, the, uh, about 15 years ago when we started producing PhD students and faculty at UAF.

Uh, now our Indigenous students have to go outside the state to get a PhD in documentary linguistics. ANLC was one of the biggest sources of grants in our college at the time. We hosted several international conferences drawing hundreds of participants from around the world. We hosted postdocs and international scholars. These scholars made contributions such as, for example, the Yup'ik grammar, the Central Alaskan Yup'ik grammar that came out by Professor Miyauka from Japan.

What is seminal about this grammar was that his Japanese background enabled him to see things about the Yup'ik language that most American scholars and American-trained Yup'ik scholars had missed, such as the importance of indirectness and politeness. We benefit from the internationalization of research in ways that we don't even begin to understand. We benefited from Knut Bergsland, the Norwegian researcher who worked for more than 40 or 50 years on Unangam Tunuu and created today still the most authoritative and comprehensive dictionary on any of the Yup'ik, Inuit, or Unangax languages.

It brought visibility to our state and to our university, prestige. Our publications and our archive are world-renowned, and our archive is still the biggest Indigenous language archive in, as far as I know, in the United States. How should we support ANLC? Imagine supporting it. You have a choice of buying and investing in a cheap product, let's say a trailer home built of cheap products on unstable ground.

It will only keep losing value and breaking down. In the past 15 years, ALC has lost about 95% of its expertise. In the last 4 alone, it's lost 60% of its permanent employees, and it has gained 500 100% in its temporary employees. Imagine buying an expensive house with good foundations and good materials. There are high upfront costs, a mortgage, continuing repairs, but it only gains in value.

ANLC is not STEM-based. It will not run on soft money. It will always need hard funding. It needs funding, stability, and expertise. But the benefits are incredible.

Funded— with good funding, it will only perpetuate further funding. It will generate money in the form of grants, postdocs, graduate students, international students, and so on. Stability allows us to produce our publications. For example, imagine trying to create an authoritative dictionary with temporary expertise that revolves every 6 months. It can't happen.

It allows us to transmit the languages and transmit the knowledge of those languages. And furthermore, expertise attracts students and money and generates wisdom. Expertise is cumulative and develops over time. Imagine losing the expertise of of someone who's worked for 20 or 30 years in the field and replacing it with someone who's brand new and enthusiastic and with new ideas, but it will take 30 years to regain that kind of expertise. Isn't that why we revere the Indigenous elders for their knowledge and expertise?

Why do we think it should be different in academia? That's why I urge you to set up this task force, to support it, and to support revitalizing the Alaska Native Language Center, which has been gutted and left to decay. We have an opportunity to build it up again. Do we want a cheap thing that will continue being a money sink, or do we want to sink the money in up front and watch a beautiful edifice grow from it? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your testimony, and if you could also stay online, please, we'll take questions from the committee.

Are there questions for either Samuel Alexander or Anna Berge? Apologies, now I know how to say your name. Thank you for helping me with that. Questions from the committee? Representative Eichcheid.

Thank you, Co-Chair Himschute. Thank you. I have a question for Mr. Alexander through the co-chair. Sir, thank you for your presentation. One of the things that you had said is you mentioned low morale, and I'm curious how that was determined, if that was based on a climate survey or if it's more anecdotal.

Some more details on, on the low morale assertion you made, which I recognize is an important thing because when people don't feel good in the workplace, they tend to produce less. So something I'm very sensitive about. Mr. Alexander.

Sam Alexander, department chair, NLC. So great question, how is it determined? And it wasn't determined through a survey. You have to realize that the NLC at this point has only so many people. It's a very small department.

We recently had our prior director, Dr. Waukee Charles, retire, and he retired early because of morale. That's, that's a reality, is he left because he saw the writing on the wall and the way he was being treated as a professor with a PhD, and he, he couldn't take anymore. He left because of the poor treatment he received here under the community— I'm sorry, under the College of Indigenous Studies. And so the answer is no, I don't have a survey that I can look at. I could just look at people's faces.

I could talk to them, and I know when they're, you know, when they're up and down. And the thing is that, like, Working with the students always brings us up. We love to see our students excel. We love to see when the students are learning new language or working on cool projects. But when we talk to each other, all of us, you know, we look around and we say, what's going on here?

We had, you know, Dr. Eliza Jones, who is, you know, the preeminent scholar of Koyukon, come to our office only like a month ago, and she looked around, she said, is this it? Is this the ANLC? And she'd worked at the ANLC for years and years and years and saw 4 offices and pretty much an empty little space when once upon a time we had a full floor and a bustling workplace where people were engaging in scholarly pursuit. And here we are now. Thank you.

Follow-up? Follow-up? Yeah, thank you, sir, for that. Um, you mentioned a small staff. What is the current staffing level at this time.

Uh, Mr. Alexander, we share— this is Samuel Alexander, um, ALC department chair. We share one administrative assistant with the College of Indigenous Studies. We have one research faculty— uh, sorry, research staffer who doesn't fall under us as the ALC, doesn't fall under, under our, you know, under our department. We have an archivist who doesn't fall under us, and we have an editor who also doesn't fall under us.

And so really we have one part-time assistant, and that's really the only staff we have.

Okay, thank you. And then when appropriate, I had a question for Professor Bergy. Okay, Ms. Bergy.

Yeah, thank you. Through, uh, Co-Chair Himschoot, Professor Bergy, I heard, um, you talk about over your history there that there's been a switch from a permanent staff to temporary staff. Uh, can you, um, explain that further? And I'm just— in the back of my mind, I have this this mindset of how many universities have gone to adjunct faculty versus, say, tenure-track. So if you can just give us— give me a brief history of what you mean by permanent to temporary.

Then before we go to Ms. Birgy, I would like to remind the committee that we're talking about the bill here, so we could go pretty deeply, I think, into the current status at the center, and I think that's And that's what the bill is looking to do, is to look at not just current status, but where we've been and what can we do. I think Mr. Alexander said it really well. It's time to review, right? We've had this for 50 years. Let's take a look and see how things are functioning.

So with that, Ms. Birgi, if you could respond to Representative Eichide, and then I think we'll move on in the interest of time.

Thank you. Yeah, this is Anna Birgi, professor of linguistics and director of the Alaska Native Language Archive. Thank you for that question. About 15 years ago we still had most of the first generation of faculty that had founded the Alaska Native Language Center. We also had the second generation of faculty, myself included.

We had at any given time somewhere between 6 to 8 researchers. We had And by researchers, I mean research faculty, that is to say tenured or tenure-track. We had language teachers who were— there were a mix of instructors and beginning faculty. We had staffing and so on. When we transferred over to the College of Indigenous Studies, we lost a director in and, uh, tenure-track faculty member.

We lost, uh, our administrative assistant. We— in— within a year, we lost our, uh, permanent, uh, editor and so on. Uh, some— much of that was due to retirement. That being said, they were replaced by term faculty, or, uh, and we also lost, uh, our actual administrative help, uh, when And they were replaced, they were replaced with term faculty, and term faculty are now being replaced with temporary faculty. Temporary positions generally end up being about 6-month contracts.

We are losing people because of that. We've lost our expertise. We, as I said before, I'm the only tenured faculty, left on site. We are told that we have tenured faculty at the Bethel campus, but that person is not directly under AMLC and is not paid by the College of Indigenous Studies per se.

We have one tenure-track assistant professor of Inupiaq, and everyone else on campus is term or temporary. Thank you very much. Thank you for that. I think we'll move to Representative Elam. Thank you.

Appreciate the information and the background on everything. And so when I'm kind of looking through all of this, I'm kind of trying to get an idea of the size and scope of what we're going to be kind of studying and looking at, you know, from the task force perspective. But we've got a map map that was presented to us from ANLC, and it's the same one that's hanging on the wall over here. And I guess my question is, how many, how many, like, true different languages are we looking at, and how many different dialects are we looking at? And would we also be looking at kind of how that transitions from— so Northern Canada and Alaska, there's a wide range of stuff I mean, are we looking at just— yeah, can you help me understand kind of the scope of that?

I think that question might go best to Mr. Alexander, and I think that's a fairly involved question. So whatever— yeah, high level, high level. Okay. Yeah. The 30,000-foot view of— do you want a number, Representative Elam?

How many? Ballpark? Ballpark is totally fine. I'm not sure what— I'm just— well, I mean, that's something for the task force to figure out, but it's just— I'm trying to get a scope on what we're looking at trying to gather the data on. Okay.

Mr. Alexander, can you speak to that?

Sam Alexander, Department of Interior NLC. So you have 23 official languages, indigenous languages here in the state. There are many, many dialects within each language and I couldn't speak to every language's specific number of dialects. I could tell you here in Alaska with Gwich'in, which is what I study and teach, we have I'd say 3 dialects. You could argue that there's 3 dialects of Gwich'in here, but we're one of the smaller languages, so if you were to take a look at Yup'ik and Inupiaq, There is a lot of variation.

So 30,000-foot view, I think what we need to look at is I would start with the 23 languages, not to necessarily dive into the dialects because that's quite a bit. As we look at each language, we need to think about what languages are being taught and how they're taught. And/or if they're taught at all, whether or not they have a comprehensive grammar, whether or not they have any type of dictionary, what type of material supports any of the language revitalization work that's being done. I think that's really a good focus point because it's going to tell you a lot about the documentation. That's— and that's a big part of why we're here as ANLC is we do research, documentation, and analysis.

And so the products that you receive from that are grammars, dictionaries, teacher grammars. We need to think about how many of those 23 languages have all of those kind of fundamental, you know, I would say fundamental pieces of knowledge, if you will. And I think Dr. Bergie also probably should speak a little bit about this because she is our research faculty. Thank you. Okay.

Dr. Birgi, would you like to add to that? It's a complicated question. Thank you very much. Yes, my name is Anna Birgi.

I'm a professor of linguistics at ANLC and director of the Alaska Native Language Archive. It may seem like a lot for the task force to take on, but in point of fact, a lot of the groundwork is already there. As Sam Alexander said, we have 23 officially recognized languages. We have 54 years' worth, more than 54 years now, worth of information and knowledge on these languages and the work that's being done on them. We are not starting from scratch.

This task force need not start from scratch. So it It need not feel as overwhelming as it may sound. And I would start with those languages and not worry about the dialects. The dialects are absolutely critical and important, but they are more of a discussion, say, within the communities rather than something that the overarching Task Force needs to, uh, be worried about. I think, again, I don't want to speak for the community so much, but, uh, if we're looking at the 30,000-foot, uh, bird's-eye view of it, uh, I really don't think this needs to be as overwhelming as it sounds.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Birgi. And for the committee's awareness, I'd like to wrap up with in the next couple of minutes to stay on track for all of our bills today. One short follow-up.

One short follow-up. Very short. Yes, yes. Thank you. So would we— would it be the intent to do historical looking at it or more of a modern contemporary use of the language?

Dr. Birgi?

I think what we're— the task force is— my understanding is that we really need to be looking at the current stat— not just status of the languages, but status of the support and infrastructure. And that's really the crux of the issue. Linguists and language speakers and communities and activists, we know how to do the work. We need the support and the infrastructure to do it. I hope that answers your question.

Thank you. Yes, thank you. Thank you for that. Yeah, and I just refer to page 4 of the bill, starting at actually page 3 of the bill, where it outlines what we're looking at now. Really starting on page 4, um, starting at line 10, talking about recommended— or the task force would recommend statutory updates relating to certain items, and a lot of that is about about are we producing teachers of languages right now, I think is one of the questions in there.

Okay, very quickly, Representative Daibert followed by Representative Schwanke, and then we're going to wrap up. Thank you, Dr.— through the co-chair. Thank you, Dr. Berge and Mr. Alexander. My question is— I kind of got wrapped up here in the conversation. Just thank you for your 53 years of continuing this work.

I'm Koyukon Athabascan, and my family, on my dad's side, is from Cochrane, Alaska. And they left Cochrane a long time ago in the '50s and kind of dispersed to Ruby and Tanana. And so when I'm talking to my dad about language and trying to learn Koyukon through my dad, and I was also writing curriculum and trying to revitalize Koyukon. And I was working with two speakers, two different dialects, but it was okay for the curriculum because I would talk to one speaker that was from a village around the bend over a mountain and then talking with my dad, two different dialects. But we came up with language for the curriculum that was perfect.

It was fit. So my dad was happy and the other language speaker was happy. So when we talk about dialects, it's workable. And I'm excited to do that work with the task force. My question is— with the task force.

When I'm working with my dad, it does take a lot of funding. I was, you know, I had my dad, I could call him up, I could have coffee with him, meet him whenever. But working with elders and flying them to Fairbanks, or you flying out to communities, it takes funding. And also maybe what was helpful for me was recording my dad and doing these little videos. So I could hear him, see him speak, and kind of mimic, you know, how we learn language through just kind of watching and listening and learning.

Is that work at the ANLC? Is that going to be part of the discussion? And what I'm saying is that takes, you know, the framework is there, the dictionaries are there, But the funding to get these elders who, like what Galena City School District said, you know, that's very hard to find these speakers, these fluent speakers. And just if you could speak on that, thanks. Maybe Mr. Alexander for that question, as quickly as you can, please.

Yes, Sam Alexander, Farmitarian LLC. So that is exactly what we do. We work with speakers, we create material, and that's really one of the big challenges we have, which is we need a research— we need researchers and we need people who know how to teach. Those things together are combined. You can't separate them out.

So what the teacher needs informs the work that the researcher does. And, you know, that, that's really a very successful model that we have here. And so, you know, we've, we actually worked with Galena School curriculum, and we help that teacher work on that curriculum. And, you know, it takes a long, lot of time. And one of the things that we're able to do is we don't go to a speaker and say, "How do you say?" We're able to say, "Can you say this?" Because we understand how the languages work.

And so with our knowledge, we're able to, to really cover down on a lot of language very quickly that somebody that's stepping in without understanding how the languages work would be able to do. We do it 10 times faster. I mean, probably even faster than that. So that's the importance of the ANLC is that that researcher plus teacher combination really gives us a greater insight into the language. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll just add again on page 4, line 15, legislative support for Alaska Native language research and stable and sustained funding mechanisms for Alaska Native language research. Then starting at line 17, institutional responsibilities within the University of Alaska system. So these are tasks that the task force would undertake. Representative Schwanke, quick question.

Thank you. Through the chair, it's probably not going to be quick. Oh, okay. Can you figure out a way to make it quick? I will try.

So there's a lot of information that you two presented. I want to thank both of you for your years of service, obviously Professor Bergy, if you've been here since 2001, you've done a tremendous amount of work trying to document and create these archives and keep them up, and I do want to thank you for that dedication. And Chair Alexander, I appreciate the input that you're bringing here, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around what this task force would do and why it is necessary. And so I want to point out that some of the things that you're mentioning here are HR issues. These are leadership issues.

These are concerns that you are bringing here to our committee that pertain to University of Alaska internal HR issues. I, I have a question there for Chair Alexander. Are you certain that this program, this department is seeing a different shift towards adjunct and remote campus or online type of courses than other departments within the university. Yeah, before we go to Chair Alexander, I think Rep. Sinisteri, did you want to respond to that? Ah, yes.

Thank you. And through the Chair to Rep. Schwanke and to the committee, in the sectional analysis in Section 2 of that, it outlines what this task force is hoping to do, is called to do actually. And I agree with Rep. Schwanke about we may— this task force focuses on on the work that needs to be done, analyzing what's happening now and how we can move to— it's a comprehensive review of the current state of the academic activities and with a focus on research and getting teachers out there and what needs to be done. I wanted to point out in the packet, it is in statute that we— that this is a priority. We want this to happen with our indigenous languages.

And so I am just going to suggest asked. Maybe we've got those questions on record that you want, that those can be brought back to the whole committee because I am aware we have two other bill presentations today. And when we come back, we will do the sectional analysis, the fiscal note, and take public testimony. And then we can ask those more detailed questions. Any— but quick follow-up, quick follow-up.

And Representative Story, can I confirm that the document is on BASIS as well? Yes, it's in our packet today, the document It is on basis. About the original establishment of the center? Yes, the statute is on there. Representative Schwonke.

So I appreciate that, but that was not an answer to my question. I specifically want to know if this department is seeing different shifts in adjuncts than other departments, and I ask that very specifically because I reached out to the University and I received quite a bit of information back kind of as far as some of the current courses. And between the three, the Interior language, the ANL, it looks like course numbers are pretty stable at 12 to 15 per year, per academic year. The Inupiaq languages, pretty stable between 11 and 15 courses offered per year. Yup'ik languages pretty stable between 14 and 18 courses per year, and, and I see a lot of those courses are actually offered in remote areas and online.

So I'm just trying to wrap my brain around the concept here and how different this particular department is in what you've— what we've seen, because what we're hearing today in largely our internal HR concerns that I don't think warrant having a task force. I recognize this is in law. So, Representative Schwanke, I— we do need to move on. I don't mean to cut you off. I see that Chair Alexander would like to respond.

This is the, the intent of this bill is to do a 50-year look back and say, okay, we created this thing, we're hearing that things aren't the way people want it to be. So I would like Chair Alexander to respond briefly, and then we're going to move on and, uh, and bring this bill back another time, and we can go a little deeper at that time. Um, Chair Alexander. Sam Alexander, Department Chair, ANLC. Yeah, I'd like to say that what you're talking about, Representative Schwenke, is that that's language teaching.

That's Alaska Native Language Program, which is language teaching. So our teaching course numbers, that's not changing. What we're saying is that these primary mission is research and development of materials to support language revitalization. Teaching is just one component of that. We have 4 other missions in there, and so if you look at teaching language alone, it looks stable, but the reality is that the research underpins the teaching, and our teaching won't, won't progress without more research.

And so that's what we're here today is to say we need researchers to do research on these languages And that is clear as day that with Dr. Anna Bergie being our last tenured researcher and us losing our research staff, that we have a big problem. Thank you. I appreciate it. I need to hear from the university on this, and I think the entire—. Well, Representative Schwanke, we'll get back to that.

What I'm going to tell you right now is we are moving on to the next bill. So thank you for your input today, Representative Story. I'm going to just keep moving. If you'd like to come back and take the gavel, or do you need a quick at ease? I just thank Thank you.

And yes, we will— we can have the university back at our next hearing too. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Actually, we are going to take a quick at ease to shift to our next presentation.

At ease.

State Senator for East Anchorage. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Good morning. For the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern to Senator Worlachowski. Thank you.

I'll give a very brief introduction of the bill and turn it over to Ms. Pepper. This bill would prohibit 7 synthetic food dyes from school breakfast and lunch programs. Both the, the dyes are considered dangerous to consume in large quantities, but in small quantities in food, they have been previously considered to be safe by the FDA. FDA. They provide no nutritional value and are purely cosmetic.

However, numerous studies have found these food dyes to be linked to harmful effects including hyperactivity, inattentiveness, allergic reactions, reproductive issues, and cancer. The studies have noted that these dyes particularly affect children who are twice as likely to be allergic to food dyes. We know that 1 in 9 kids in the United of the United States has ADHD, and that means roughly in an average-sized classroom there's probably 3, 3 kids who have ADHD, and food dyes have been found to exacerbate the conditions of ADHD. The FDA has acknowledged these studies that proving food dyes are harmful since 1990 when they banned Red 3 from makeup products after concluding that it would cause cause cancer. However, the ultra-processed food industry has lobbied against their removal from foods.

And red dye— happy to report, Red Dye 3 will be banned from food effective in 2027. However, the other dyes are still approved for use.

There are a number of other states that have enacted similar legislation as this. All across the political spectrum, states such as California, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Arizona, Delaware, Louisiana, Virginia, West Virginia. These states make up roughly a third of the United States population. And what this has done is it's pushed food producers to offer alternative same-cost products for the schools. And so in our communications with 10 school districts districts across the state.

We have found that this bill would not have a fiscal impact on the school districts because there are other healthier alternatives available. This bill has a zero fiscal note. I appreciate you taking this up and happy to answer any questions. I'll turn it over to Ms. Pepper for any more detail that you might wish to request. Yeah, good morning.

Thank you. For the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern of Senator Wilkowski. For the sake of brevity, I'll skip over some greater details, and I can— happy to elaborate through questions. Um, but SB 197 would improve the health and subsequent academic outcomes of our children by prohibiting synthetic food dyes from meals served in public schools. Of course, as Senator Wilkowski said, these food dyes are non-nutritious, they have no nutritional value, and they're also— their entire purpose is just to be cosmetic, to provide great color to the foods that they are put in.

And they were once previously considered safe by the FDA, but health scientists and the FDA themselves have since challenged that notion, raising concerns related to the side effects of these additives, including hyperactivity and inattentiveness in children, allergic reactions, reproductive issues, and cancer. Experts note that synthetic food dyes are an increasingly unnecessary addition to foods, citing their lack of any nutritional value and the existence of nutritious produce-based alternatives. Um, as he said, the FDA has acknowledged the cancer-causing nature of these dyes back in 1990, banning the usage of Red Number 3 in makeup products. The FDA did then pledge to remove that same food dye from food and drink, and that process was delayed by 35 years, largely due to the ultra-processed food industry lobbying against the removal, especially back then, and continuing as we move towards the future. And they were a lot cheaper than these produce-based alternatives, but we've, we've discovered ways since and produce options that are same cost.

Um, but due to this lobbying, um, Red 3's authorization only began to be revoked last year and will be banned by 2020— excuse me, 2027. The remaining 6 dyes, however, do remain approved for use and are seen in 19% of products sold by the top 25 food producers in 2020. The effort to remove these dyes from the food supply has been focused on schools due to the neurobehavioral and allergenic effects of these dyes disproportionately affecting children. Those under the age of 18 are over twice as likely to be allergic to synthetic food dyes. And additionally, research from the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, along with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which are both included in members' bill packets today, concluded that synthetic food dyes disproportionately definitely affect children with ADHD and autism, and that removal of these dyes from their diets would, would reduce the severity of their symptoms.

The affected population from this particular side effect is not only these children with ADHD, but the students around them and the teachers, teachers that are managing these growing classrooms. As these classroom sizes start to grow, um, any disruption in the classroom significantly can impact every student's learning environment. Um, so the culmination of both the heightened effect of synthetic food dyes on school children and decades-long uncertainty surrounding federal regulations has led 9 other states to take initiative and prohibit these food dyes from, from school meals. These 9 states amount to 31% of the population, as the senator said, and that includes Texas, California, Tennessee, Utah, Arizona, Delaware, Louisiana, Virginia, and West Virginia. Alaska school districts are subsequently seeing a decline of these harmful dyes from their supply, with all the schools we spoke to, including Sitka, Petersburg, Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Matsu, Lower Kuskokwim, Delta Greeley, and Nome, stating that the implementation of this legislation would not cause a burden to their respective districts.

Many school district administrators shared that compliance with this legislation has started on the distribution level due to the many other states with larger populations implementing this in schools across across the country mostly use USDA and similar food producers. These food service administrators also noted how surprised they were to see natural colorings already present in their food supply. And these range from beet and red radish extract to turmeric. And these alternatives go beyond providing nutritional value and do the opposite of their synthetic counterparts, reducing cancer risk and boosting brain function. Though outliers do still slip slipped through the cracks.

Artificial food colorings hide in unsuspecting foods including pickles, fruit jams, and salad dressings. Through this legislation, we have an opportunity to not only protect our children from these harmful additives but encourage food producers to create more wholesome, nutritious foods that benefit all Alaskans. Thank you. Ah, thank you very much for that. And I must say, I do appreciate that you've reached out to the school districts and asked them how this would affect them.

And I see the sectional analysis is pretty self-explanatory. Do members feel a need to go over that or are they comfortable just in reading the analysis? I had one question. I see a question from Rapin Shute. Thank you, Co-chair Story, through the Co-chair.

My question is, in the sectional analysis for the CS, you change from school nutrition or meals to specifically breakfast and lunch. What's the advantage of narrowing it to breakfast and lunch versus school meals? Because we had another bill where we had— where we broadened it from breakfast and lunch to meals, and this is going the other direction. Yeah, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern, through the co-chair, co-chair Himshu. That's a really great question.

That was something that we did in the Senate Education Committee when we changed it from version A to version N. That was committee substitute that we did due to concerns that this would apply to programs related in rural schools, especially summer programs, and then community meal programs that— where the school may be serving food to the greater community and not just students. So this, this, this language particularly narrows it down to school breakfast or lunch that is provided by the school district to enrolled students. So that, let's say, a teacher having a pizza party or the school in the summer providing using their extra supply that might expire to feed the community or anything along those lines. We are not restricting anything that is outside of this bill's intention, which is to improve academic outcomes for those students. Thank you.

Thank you. I see a question from Rep. Elam. Not about the sectional though. Okay. So if we are still on the sectional, I can wait.

Any other questions about the sectional? Seeing none, please Elam. Thank you. I appreciate the, the information and everything here. I did have some questions around scope.

What kind of options would this, would this limit? You kind of hit on some of it whenever we were talking about particularly, you know, potlucks and like those kinds of things.

What, what kind of range and scope would our, our districts be limited to in options for breakfast and lunch? Uh, so for the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern, through the co-chair to Representative Elam. Um, it's a really great question, and that is continuously changing. Um, if, if we were having this hearing in 2020, it would be a lot, but as we narrow things down, it's, um, it really ranges. But I've had— one of the things that we ask school administrators to do is go through their supply and look and see what they have.

The school district the most synthetic food dyes, it was 5 products that they had on hand out of their entire supply that contained those synthetic dyes. And the way they're— most of their ordering systems, if they use USDA, is they all preorder in February and they go online and so they preorder in February for the next school year. So they looked in that system and there was at least 2 or 3 for each of those items, options that were either same or lower cost where it was just usually more natural versions of those foods, less— most of these guys are going to be found in ultra-processed foods, all the chips and stuff, but also there is the salad dressings and stuff of the world. But all of those, they did note that there was going to be alternatives and it wasn't extra cost to them. Follow-up, please.

Follow-up. Have the other states kind of been working in collaboration of like what's allowed, what's not allowed sort of process? I apologize if the question isn't as structured, but it just seems like there's probably some opportunities there, and I don't know if anybody has, or is it all just kind of on the FDA at this point? For the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern. That's a really great question.

So, I would say, the first person, the first state to actually implement this legislation was California, though the effective date for all all 9 states that have implemented it has not happened except for one, which is West Virginia. And West Virginia did see producers and distributors, um, a collaboration between officials and then distributors, just through the, through distributors calling the state and like what, asking like what is expected of them. Um, and there is some level of collaboration through that. And you're right, that is a really great opportunity. Um, so what, what we do see is that these states have collaborated with the distribution level, and that mostly takes off of, like, most of the labor or any concerns off of the food service administrators, these very busy food service administrators, the concerns off of their backs and puts it more on the producers and the suppliers of most of America's schools' food.

Okay. Maybe one more follow-up. Um, brief follow-up. Okay, thank you. Um, are— it sounds like there's been efforts going on for a little while.

Have we seen any kind of market shift where industries are now starting to say, ah, we probably need to take a look at some of this and narrow it in? Yeah, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern through the co-chair to Representative Ebeln. Absolutely. Kellogg's and PepsiCo, which are two of what I call the greatest offenders of these food dyes, and especially for breakfasts like Lucky Charms and stuff, have pledged for a lot of their product to move to these natural alternatives because they do see the FDA with these concerns, the FDA has finally, after 35 years, been like, "Look, these food dyes are cancerous. We really need to start looking at getting rid of them." As of right now, the FDA has just said that they will work with the industry to remove these.

This is the same industry that lobbied against the removal, but to their credit, they actually are responding. There's been pledges from— So those top 25 food producers I listed, I would be very comfortable saying at least two-thirds of those have made a pledge to remove synthetic food dyes from the majority of their products within the next decade or so, or even shorter terms. Kellogg's, I believe, is 2 or 3 years. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

We do have an invited testifier online. I'd like to go to her now, and then we have public testimony scheduled. So we'll do that, and then I'll bring it back to the committee to see if there's any more questions. So we have Brit— Brittany Robbins from the Alaska Alaska Community Action on Toxics online this morning. Welcome, Brittany.

Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you, Co-Chairs Storey and Himschoot. For the record, my name is Brittany Robbins. I'm the Civic Engagement Coordinator for Alaska Community Action on Toxics, previous school board vice president and current Budget Committee chair for Wrangell Public Schools. Thank you, uh, committee members, for allowing for testimony today on Senate Bill 187, an act prohibit— prohibiting certain food additives in public school meals and providing for an effective date.

Senate Bill 187 targets synthetic food dyes including Red Dye Number 3, Red Dye Number 4, Yellow Dye Number 5, Yellow Dye Number 6, Green Dye Number 3, and Blue Dyes Number 1 and 2. The Environmental Protection Agency recognizes There are synthetic food dyes, which are man-made color additives derived from petrochemicals, and natural food dyes, which are food color additives that are derived from natural sources such as fruits, vegetables, flowers, and so on. The chemicals targeted in this bill fall under the synthetic food dye category, meaning they are man-made chemical-based food coloring that are derived from petrochemicals, and these additives are non-nutritional and used primarily to impart vibrant, eye-catching color to foods, drinks, medicines, self-care products, candy, and other products. These particular color additives are primarily used in foods that are designed to appeal to children. Three of the above food dyes—Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6—which account for 90% of food dyes used in the United States have been found to contain benzidine or other carcinogens.

And at least 4—Blue 1, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6—have been found to cause hypersensitivity and histamine reactions such as hives, swelling beneath the skin, eczema and pruritus, asthma, rhinitis, nasal congestion, nausea, abdominal pain.

Diarrhea, and in extreme cases, anaphylaxis. Numerous microbiological rodent studies of Yellow 5 were positive for genotoxicity, which is the property of a chemical substance or agent that damages the genetic information within a cell, causing mutations. These synthetic food dyes have also been linked to behavioral issues such as attention deficit disorder, attention hyperactive deficit deficit disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Additionally, these dyes are associated with increased inflammation of the digestive system, increasing the risk of colorectal cancer, gut bio disorders, damage to DNA, memory deficits, um, the ability to learn and retain information, and difficulty following multiple-step instructions. And while class sizes have grown year over year in Alaska and nationwide, really, they making it more difficult for educators to effectively manage their classroom while providing individualized treatment to each student, making it increasingly more difficult to mitigate the exasperation, these attention and retention issues that are caused by the consumption of these synthetic food dyes.

You can see where these effects could disrupt every child's ability to learn in the school environment, not just the children affected by the, uh, food dyes themselves. While simultaneously causing some level of permanent damage to individual growing brains and nervous systems. These chemicals were last reviewed by the FDA decades ago to determine the safety of their use in products in the United States. And children and youth are particularly vulnerable to the harmful exposures to food additive chemicals because their brains and nervous systems are rapidly developing, making them more easily damaged by toxic chemicals. Exposure to these toxic food dyes for no reason other than aesthetics is detrimental to children's growth and development, and these exposures are preventable.

I urge you to pass 187 out of committee, and thank you again for hearing testimony today. Thank you, Ms. Robbins, for your testimony. Does anyone have any questions for Ms. Robbins? Seeing none, again, we appreciate your testimony today. Next, I would like to go to public testimony.

Testimony. Individuals wishing to testify may call into the Legislative Information Office using one of the following numbers: from Juneau, 907-586-9085; from Anchorage, 907-563-9085; from all other areas of the state, 844-586-9085.

I am going to now open public testimony.

Do I have anyone in the room who would like to testify? Seeing no one, I will go online. Do I have anyone online seeking to testify? I do not have anyone online, so I will now close public testimony.

Do we have any questions at this time? Rep. Schwanke. Thank you, Co-Chair Storey. Maybe for the bill sponsor, first off, I just want to say thank you for bringing this forward because I think honestly the Maha movement has been long overdue and I'm glad it's finally coming up and specifically we're talking about schools.

My question is Kind of after hearing you talk about reaching out to the different school districts and hearing that they don't have very many of these in their kitchens, and then I see that there's no monitoring and/or enforcement in the bill. Is this just an educational bill, or I guess what's the impetus behind bringing an actual piece of legislation when it seems like we're moving in the right direction and we're not going be following up with districts? Yeah, so through the chair, uh, Rep. Schronke, for the record, Phoebe Pepper, legislative intern. That is a great question, and my, my response would narrow down to two different things. The first one is that while we have really good momentum for the removing these food dyes right now at the national level, we have no way of promising that it stays that way.

Um, we could within 3 years just completely revoke any FDA author— like any right now there's, there's no actual formal thing in writing that is making the industry remove these 6 remaining dyes that are still approved from use. So we could lose all that momentum within 3 years. And then another thing is, you make a good point with the enforcement level of it. And one thing the bill would do is it would encourage food service administrators to, to take a second look at Nutrition Facts, and it it would be very helpful to consider that on one end. But this also empowers parents of students to be able, let's say, even though the state ourselves will not have like any way of enforcing this law, this does empower parents to go and ask a court, for example, to have an injunction of just ask the schools, look, we— there's state law that says these are harmful and that we— that they should not be in school meals.

And these parents would like to see these removed, we're going to have an injunction to remove those products. And they would be, of course, even though if it's still few as we can hope, it would be a simple implementation. But hopefully it will be mostly complied with on the distributor level. All right, thank you. Thank you.

I do not see any other questions, so I, I'm going to hold Senate Bill 187 over, and I'd like to set an amendment Deadline for Thursday, October 30th at noon. April. Oh, April. What did I say, October? Hmm.

And it says April right there in the script, so.

Anyway, so that is— April 30th at noon. Okay, so thank you very much. Thank you both for being here this morning. Thank you. Thank you, Patricia.

So now we are going to go on to Representative Underwood and her staff, Buddy Witt. Thank you for coming forward this morning. Please come to the table, identify yourself for the record, and begin with your bill presentation. Please. Please.

Free for these.

Welcome, Rep Underwood. Welcome, Mr. Witt. Uh, please introduce yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. For the record, I am Representative Jubilee Underwood representing House District 27 and the sponsor of House Bill 237.

Thank you for the opportunity today to present this bill. House Bill 237 is focused on improving math outcomes for Alaska students by strengthening instruction, support, and expectations in our schools. Right now, Alaska is not where we need to be in math. We're seeing too many students struggle with basic skills, and that has real consequences for their future. Math is a language opportunity— a language of opportunity.

It's the foundation for good-paying jobs, technical careers, and a strong workforce, and we need to do better. The bill requires a minimum amount of daily math instruction in the early grades so students are consistently building foundational skills. It also ensures that schools are using high-quality, evidence-based curriculum and assessments aligned with state standards. For students who are struggling, the bill requires a school to create a math improvement plan and provide targeted support to help them get back on track. For students who are excelling, the bill creates clear pathways into advanced math, including placement into higher-level courses in preparation to take algebra before high school.

House Bill 237 also keeps parents informed about their child's progress and the support available to them. At its core, this bill is not— is about making sure every student, whether they need extra help or are ready to move ahead, has a clear path to succeed in math. Thank you, and I will now turn it over to my staff, Buddy Witt. Thank you. For the record, Buddy Witt, staff to Representative Underwood.

Madam Co-Chair, As we said kind of offline there, I would like to skip reading the sectional analysis to you. We've all— you guys were able to read by 9:00, so I don't need to really do that. If there are any questions about the structure of the bill, I'm happy to answer those offline or get back to the committee. I will just say the first section is legislative intent. The second section adds new sections in the law regarding what we're trying to achieve here.

And it— there are some areas for expansion, some items that we will be working on in the interim to bring this back. But with that, I would rather hand it over to our invited testimony. Lindsay Henderson is the Senior Policy Director for Math for Excel in Ed, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, and she was gracious enough to give us her time today and go through go through some of the challenges associated with math learning, where Alaska stands right now based on some of the reporting, test— testing results, and how these policy proposals in this— both in this bill and an expanded bill that's forthcoming probably can help us to get where we need to. And I will just simply sit back and go through the slides, and then hopefully we'll have time for some Q&A once once Lindsey is done. Thank you.

That sounds very well, Mr. Witt. So we will go now to Lindsey Henderson, Math Policy Lead for Excel Education. She is on Teams with us this morning. Welcome, Ms. Henderson. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.

Thank you so much. Lindsey Henderson, Senior Policy Director for Math at Excel in Ed. Members of the committee, it is my pleasure to be with you this morning to talk about math policy and to talk about how Alaska fits into a broader national landscape. Next slide, please. I pulled some NAEP data from the most recent 2024 NAEP.

You can see that there are 4 bars there. So we go all the way back to 2003, give some metrics. 2002 Is the second bar, give some more metrics. And then 2024 2024, which is your most recent NAEP data point. The bottom bar is a national reference.

So as you can see, the scale— the average score for students in Alaska has dropped by 10, almost 10 points since 2003, and it is significantly below the national public average score as well. If you zoom in on 2024, you can see that 30% of Alaska's 4th grade students are proficient or advanced at the 4th grade math NAEP, and that means that 70% of 4th grade students in Alaska are below the proficiency level. And to put this into just a little bit more relief and make it a little bit more tangible, I'd like to go to the next slide and talk about what the math concepts are that 70% of 4th grade students are struggling with. First, reading data using a pictograph. Solving a multi-step story problem, identifying a figure that is a polygon, and comparing data given in two bar graphs.

Fourth grade NAEP math questions are very much the fundamentals, the basics of a good solid foundation in mathematics that sets students up for further mathematical discovery and for engaged citizenship post-high school. Next slide, please.

At Excel in Ed, we've taken the burden of scraping all of the evidence and research that we have available for how students learn mathematics and how the system can best teach mathematics to children. And we've come up with 11 fundamental principles of math policy, and you can see those here on the slide in front of you. They're divided into 4 categories, and what I wanted to show you was —next slide, please— how Alaska's House Bill 237 and Senate Bill 197 is aiming to reverse that curve on math performance for Alaska's 4th grade students. So House Bill 237 and Senate Bill 197 includes universal screening and progress monitoring for students so they don't fall far behind, parental notification so that parents can help keep their students on track, that math is taught for at least at least 60 minutes every school day. The adoption of high-quality instructional materials so that students have materials to learn solid mathematical foundations from.

Individual math plans for students who struggle so that they can be— gaps can be filled early and they can be set up for success. Parent math at home plans so that parents know how the, the resources and the activities to do with their students at home to ensure that they are building a solid math foundation, and then guaranteed access to advanced math to make sure that Alaska students who are performing high on math are consistently challenged and are able to take Algebra 1 before high school. Next slide, please. I'd like to show you a, a little bit of comparison with some other states who have stuck their neck out and taken on math policy reform. The Alabama Numeracy Act, which was passed in 2022, includes these elements that you see on your screen of our comprehensive math policy recommendations.

And when Alabama students in 2024— that's just 2 short years later after the end of the passage of the Alabama Numeracy Act— when they took the NAEP, Alabama was the only state to have statistically significant growth in their 4th grade math outcome. On the NAEP, and they were able to move in their rankings from 38th place all the way up to 30th out of the United States. Now, Alabama recognizes that there's still a lot more work to do, and they are still implementing different parts of their comprehensive numeracy plan, but the whole country was shocked to see such progress in only 2 short years after enacting this comprehensive math plan in 2022. A state that's nipping at the heels of Alabama is Indiana with their House Bill 1634. It includes a lot of the same elements and 4 of our fundamental principles of math policy.

It was passed in 2025, and Indiana is right now thick in implementation. They're communicating to their districts and to their schools about the resources and the expectations for teaching math, and we are really excited to see the next NAEP test come out and to see how Indiana's 4th grade students are progressing. Next slide, please.

This slide shows Alaska's House Bill 237 and Senate Bill 197 and the overlaps between the Alabama Numeracy Act and Indiana's House Bill 1634. Lots of green on that screen, which is amazing to see. Next slide. I want to share that we have a website called mathmatters.org where we have looked at our 11 fundamental principles of policy and done a 50-state scan. We have a specific Alaska report about how Alaska is comparing with the rest of the nation and comparing to our 11 fundamental principles of math policy.

The good news is that Alaska, by having this conversation, is well on its way to reversing the curve on student math outcomes and has a lot of opportunity to grow and to be a leader of the country in terms of student math achievement. That concludes my presentation, and I welcome any questions that you might have. Thank you for your testimony. Do I have any questions right now? I do have a question, and I'm wondering if you know those states that you referenced what sort of resources they put into their support for this MATH Act.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] That's a really great question. I'll answer it through the chair. The Alabama Numeracy Act includes— they've done funding over many years, so they've incrementally funded different aspects of the program. Over the 3 years that it's been in progress. And the biggest piece, the biggest lever that they've had to pull in terms of a fiscal note has been for math coaches, having a math coach at every elementary school, and for that high-quality instructional materials, making sure that districts are adopting from an approved and vetted list of high-quality instructional materials.

And it has been a significant lift, but it has been— they targeted schools that needed support first, and then from there they went and expanded out over many— rolled it out over many years. I thank you for that answer, and thank you again for your testimony, Ms. Henderson. So I'm going to bring it back to the bill sponsor now and Mr. Witt. And do— what other questions do I have from the committee?

Rep. Elam, and then do I— Rep. Himschoot and Rep. Eichide. Eichide first? Okay, Rep. Elam and then Rep. Eichide. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation.

I think it's a really good topic to be talking about. And so it seems to me like what we're trying to do here in this is really prioritize math, right? Put it so that it's getting a bit more of a focus and spotlight. Do you see any changes to curriculum or any of those areas of mathematics? Within our schools, or they still kind of get to use the curriculum that they've got, but we're focusing our efforts and making sure that we're intentionally teaching math.

Thank you. Excellent question. Oh, excuse me, Ms. Henderson, I think that is meant for the bill sponsor. Oh yes, sorry, apologies. That's fine.

If she would like to answer that, she is more than welcome to as well. Chairman Elam, thank you for that question. In the bill there, it basically states that the department will work with the school districts, but they're going to— the department's going to develop evidence-based math curriculum approvals that they may already be using in some of them, but just to make sure it's evidence-based math. I don't know if Mr. Witt has anything more you want to add. Through the chair, Representative Elam, I was just going to offer that answer to Lindsey if she's able to tell a little bit more about what has been done in other states when this bill has passed, given where they were and then where they needed to be once the legislation passed.

She could give that insight. I assume that Alaska would be much the same way. If we're trying to improve, I think you have to make some changes in curricula in order to make that step, but I would let Lindsey answer that. Ah, Miss Henderson.

Thank you, Representative, and I'll answer through the chair. Lindsay Henderson, Senior Policy Director for Math at Excel in Ed. In other states, there are several of the fundamental principles of math policy that have been enacted that haven't required a fiscal note or a heavy lift. It just relies on things that are already in the system, such as that required 60 minutes of daily math instruction per day. You're simply carving that out and making it a priority that it occurs every single school day so that students get consistent math instruction.

Automatic enrollment, or guaranteed access to advanced math, uses the state summative exam to identify high performers and then gets them on a pathway to take Algebra 1 before high school, which is considered advanced. And that also is very low implementation, and it relies on structures that are already there, just simply changing it from an opt-in approach to advanced math to an opt-out approach to advanced math. In other states that have implemented curricula and high-quality instructional materials in the state, you really need to pay attention to— the evidence says that there are 4 strands of math proficiency that need to be developed at all times. Those are procedures, being fluent with your facts. Those are conceptual understanding, understanding what those facts mean and what they do, what efficiency efficiencies you gain from having those facts memorized.

The real-world problem-solving, how knowing math applies to daily problems that you're solving in your, in your real life. And then the final one is productive dispositions. That's when students see math as sensible and useful and worthwhile to study because it gives them certain efficiencies or certain insights that they couldn't gain. And as long as high-quality instructional materials are developing those 4 pieces of math instruction at every grade level, states have seen really great outcomes from implementing those. Thank you.

Thank you for that. I'm going to go to Rep. Eichide now. Yeah, thank you, Co-Chair Storey. I think through the co-chair, this is— I was taking notes and I thought I heard Ms. Henderson mention math coaches. And I thought on the comparison between this bill and other states, this bill does not have math coaches as a requirement.

Is that correct?

Yes, it sounded like that question was for Ms. Henderson. I saw that too on the slide. And then for the bill sponsor, it could be why did you not— you know, what was your thought about including including math— not including math coaches.

So, Ms. Henderson, do you want to confirm that? Madam Co-Chair, if I may. Sure, Mr. Witt. Buddy Witt for the record. I will point out in Section 2 of the bill, we are adding mathematics education under Section 1430.850.

It does— in that subsection 3 of the bill, it does have some language about creating for teachers who have been identified as specifically good at teaching math. I want to point out this is not a new license. This is just something the department under this— if this were to pass and be statute, the department would be helping to identify. But as to if we were to compare it to Read by 9, where we had specific reading interventions specialist type of thing. That is not currently in the bill as I read it.

Whether that is an expanded policy bill that's been— that Excel and Ed has been working on, I would like Ms. Henderson to touch on that if she could. Ms. Henderson. Thank you. Lindsay Henderson from Excel and Ed, and I'll answer through the chair. Math coaches are a vital resource for any school.

We highly recommend them at every elementary school in a state. They can be relied on for professional learning. And first of all, doing the identification of finding people who are— who know the evidence-based practices to teach math and know how students acquire mathematical knowledge is a really important part of the process. Like, it's like you want to builds fertile ground so that you can have a cadre of math coaches to pick from, right? So what, what the bill is trying to accomplish really sets the stage for being able to make the identification of people who would be a good math coach.

And then back to my original comment, they can provide evidence-based professional learning for a school. They build relationships with teachers that are not evaluatory, that are simply there to help them be better math teachers. They can also help administrators know the look-fors—what are the evidence-based moves that the teacher is making during a math lesson and how are students responding—so that they can really highlight what is going well in a classroom. Math coaches are a significant investment, but they are very much worth the investment. Many states who have adopted math coaches, again, start with high-needs schools and deploy math coaches there, and then they, over several years, they'll either, once the school has achieved a certain level, they will move the math coach to a different set of schools, or they will hire simply more math coaches.

Thank you for that. Follow-up? Yes, follow-up. Just a follow-up comment through the co-chair. So I believe in coaches.

I think they're critical. I heard there is no coaches in this this bill, it just creates the groundwork for future coaches. But, you know, a concern I have is if you don't have coaches, you have the best instructional materials in the world, but if you don't have a talented teacher in front of kids, I think that actually matters. And I guess the other thing I would say is we have a funding issue here in Alaska.

It's, it's— we're losing teachers. So just a comment. Thank you for that. I see that Rep. Schwanke has a question. And, oh, Rep. Hemmich, did you have a question?

Okay. Rep. Schwanke. Thank you. Through the co-chair, I just want to thank the bill sponsor for bringing this. One of the things that jumped out to me that I think is really critical is this really pushing districts to allow kids to move forward on a more regular basis if they need it.

And that's, it's actually one of the experiences that I had. In my understanding of correspondence programs, there's an awful lot of students that are removed from, from brick-and-mortar public schools because it's not really an option. And but during correspondence opportunities, uh, the parents have an opportunity to advance their, their child. Um, that's exactly the process that I took with my son, and he took Algebra 1 in 8th grade. One of the other things is Math Counts programs.

So math coaches are very common during these volunteer— largely volunteer and educator-led Math Counts programs outside of general brick-and-mortar schools. And so I really think that this bill offers an opportunity for us to really encourage that advanced opportunity, whereas districts will drag their feet if they're not pushed to do that. My question for Ms. Henderson is, um, do you, do you have any concerns with locking in 60 minutes per day knowing that so many of our brick-and-mortar school districts have gone to digital math curriculum and having a child sit in front of an iPad or a computer for 60 full minutes of math?

Miss Henderson. Thank you, Lindsay Henderson, Excel in Ed, and I'll answer my question through the co-chair. That's a really great question. We— there's nothing more effective on student learning outcomes than a really high-quality math teacher, a human being, especially in the early grades for students. There's something about that.

Math is a social learning experiment, and it really comes through, especially in those early grades, when you have a human being leading the mathematics instruction for students. There is a— digital math programs are important, and they're an important part of math learning now. I don't— we don't have an official position at Excel in Ed about the quantity of time during that 60 minutes that should be person-to-person and the quantity of time that should be a a digital program. We just ask that it is thoughtfully implemented and done with care so that all students can achieve mathematical success. Thank you.

Thank you. And then we will take one more question, and it is time to wrap up. And Rep. Dibert, did you want to go with that? Yes, thank you. Through the co-chair, um, to the bill sponsor, thank you for bringing this forward.

As a third grade teacher for years, math was one of my favorite classes to teach, and I just wanted to echo the words of the guest speaker today. The early grades are really important, and I think if at any point we could add math coaches, it's for the kindergarten, first, second, third grade educators, because there are a lot of hands— like, students learn learned through hands-on learning, through tactile things like dice, playing cards, base-10 blocks. And when you're managing 30 kids, it's nice to have a coach to come in to also teach classroom management to educators, as long— along with math. I think those two are very important. It helped me, and I know it'll help other educators, so it's more of a comment.

And also I think just playing like games, time for playing like Chutes and Ladders and, you know, where there's communications and in the classroom. I know my kids played a lot of games too, board games in my class to learn math skills. Thank you very much. Thank you for that comment, Rip Diver. I agree I agree too.

This is a really good bill and things for us to be looking at. I have some questions. I know Rep. Hemmich has had some questions too, but it is now almost 10 o'clock. So I was hoping that at a further hearing we could be hearing maybe from some school districts or finding out how much time is allowed to math. 60 Minutes, I don't know what different districts are doing, but it would be interesting to learn that.

We do have a presentation on Wednesday, kind of getting an update on the teacher certification process and our vacancies right now, and it would be interesting to ask about math, people with their math credentials and math teachers and how that's going. And Rep. Hemmich, I didn't know if you wanted to say some of your questions or if you just want me to wrap up. First— too many questions. Too many questions. Okay.

And if you want to get some of those to the bill sponsor, so during the interim, if they know what to be looking at and working on, that would probably be very helpful. So anyway, thank you very much, Rep. Underwood, for bringing this to— before the committee. On Wednesday, April 29th, we will be having two presentations, one from the teacher education programs by Dr. Bridget Weiss from the Alaska College of Education Consortium, University of Alaska, and a presentation on this— our teacher certification project— process by Kelly Manning Deputy Director of Innovation and Education Excellence, and Commissioner Bishop will be online with us too to talk about the status of how that's going in filling our teacher vacancies. And so thank you very much for informative hearing this morning. Uh, the time is now 9:57, and this committee is adjourned.