Joint Task Force on Education Funding, 4/22/26, 3:30pm

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] All right, good afternoon. Welcome. I call this meeting of the Joint Legislative Task Force on Education Funding to order. Today is Wednesday, April 22, 2026, and the time is 3:33 PM. Members present are Senator Keel, Senator Cronk, Representative Storey, Co-Chair Tobin, and myself, Co-Chair Himschoot.

We have a quorum to conduct business, not that we need one. And I would like to remind members to please silence your cell phones. We are in the Betty Davis Committee Room 106 in the State Capitol Building here in Juneau, Alaska. The documents for today's meeting have been distributed to members, are available on the table outside the door and are on BASIS. I'd like to thank our moderator from the LIO, Susan Quigley, and our committee aides Ella Lubin and Mike Mason for their assistance today.

Today's agenda is focusing on— oh, welcome to Representative Ruffridge at 3:33. And we're going to focus today on funding structures of correspondence, residential, and charter school programs. We will hear presentations today from Lon Garrison, the Executive Director of the Alaska Association of School Boards, Todd Hindman, the former principal of both the Homer Fireweed Charter School and the Nome Anvil Academy Charter School. From Stephen Culkin, Assistant Superintendent, Ninana City School District, Jim Mariner, Director of Administrative Projects, Galena City School District, Dr. Doug Walrath, Director of NACTEC, Northwestern Alaska Career and Technical Center, and Conrad Woodhead, CTE and Residential Director for Kusilvak Career Academy. And I have asked all speakers to limit their presentations to 15 minutes because we have a, a pretty full agenda.

And I'm going to ask if the members could hold your questions till the end of each presentation. I think that's going to help us get through the material a little quicker today. And I would like to welcome our first presenter, Lon Garrison. Mr. Garrison, if you could unmute, introduce yourself on the record, and begin your presentation. Thank you for being here.

Yes, good afternoon. My name is Lon Garrison. I'm the Executive Director of the Association of Alaska School Boards. The presentation I'm going to give today is maybe a little bit broader than the specifics that the co-chair stated, and I think I'm going to go over the first portion of the presentation quite quickly. Part of that presentation we actually gave to the Senate Education Committee a couple of years ago.

So this information is a bit— has been seen before. So with that, I'll get into it. I'm going to talk a little bit about school choice within Alaska, and then I'll finish up the presentation talking more about correspondence schools. So if we go to the next slide. And Mr. Garrison, I'm going to interrupt for a second and welcome Representative Galvin at 3:35 as well.

Thank you. Thank you.

So the next slide, uh, I just want to make sure everybody understands the varieties of school choice that we have within the state of Alaska. We have a wide variety. We have traditional brick-and-mortar schools, correspondence programs, charter schools, residential schools, and homeschools. And I'll get into the difference between just a homeschool and a correspondence school a little bit later in the presentation. Next slide, please.

So, within Alaska, our schools are quite unique compared to many of the around the country, and our system is made up of 54 school districts, which include Mount Edgecomb High School. We have 34 city and rural school districts, 19 rural, and 1 state-operated boarding school, and they span, you know, border to border and all kinds of sizes from the Anchorage School District down to some of our smallest, which Isolution Region and Pelican District. Next, please.

In our traditional brick-and-mortar schools, we have 502 separate schools existing in 54 districts, including Mt. Edgecomb, and that encapsulates about 126,700 students total. Of that, it should be noted that within that 126,000 today, that 23,000 of those students actually are participating, at least in 2025, were participating in correspondence school. So really we have somewhere around 103,000. So we've got schools, you know, all across the state, as you well know.

Next, please.

So charter schools, charter schools are an important public school option within the state. They have been for a considerable amount of time. Alaska's charter school bill was first enacted in 1995, was amended in 2001 and allowed an increase in the allowable numbers of charter schools within the state from 30 to 60. And then that was amended in 2010, and there is no cap on the number of charter schools that we can have within the state of Alaska. Charter schools have to be chartered within a local school district.

In 2014, an amendment clarified the rental of district space to charters and limited the indirect rate that districts could charge a charter to 4%. And then charter school funding is determined roughly in the same manner that we determine funding for any other school within a district. Charter schools— next, please. Charter schools and public schools are chartered by local districts. In other words, parents and staff can get together to create the charter and get that approved through a local school district.

And as you all are aware, that's been a topic of great interest lately. The charter school is governed by the Academic Policy Committee, and then general overs— which provides general oversight of that charter school, and the local school board then works with that APC. Right now there are 31 charters in existence across the state of Alaska. And charter school staff are district employees and must abide by district policy and HR. Next, please.

Moving on, and you're going to hear, I think, testimony here shortly about the state's residential boarding schools and programs within that. But the first boarding school was in Sitka in 1878. And unfortunately, the state doesn't have a great history with boarding schools, and we have heard certainly about what had happened to boarding schools in the state's history in terms of the unspeakable harm that many of those boarding schools did to our Indigenous citizens. And by the late 20th century, most of those schools that had operated in that manner have closed now, and now we have a different of boarding schools, which you're going to hear about today. Those school districts with an approved residential boarding school may be reimbursed on a per-pupil stipend.

I'm not going to get into the details of this, but because I think you have people that are going to be speaking to you with much more authority on that issue than I have today. So next, please. And I'll skip over this one, but you can see where those boarding schools are located across the state. Next, please. So now I want to get into the, the piece of the talk that really focuses on homeschool and correspondence school.

So homeschool in the state of Alaska has a long history because it was the primary for many folks within the state historically in the early days of the territory, the way in which children were educated. And then Alaska's initial correspondence program started with the Alyeska Central School, and it was designed really to meet the requirements of educating students across the territory. And then when it became— when we became a state, to help facilitate meeting the constitutional requirement for providing an education to those students. Next, please.

So I want to talk a little bit about this differentiation between homeschool and correspondence school. Oftentimes when we talk about homeschool, we're talking about independent homeschooling, and for independent homeschooling, that's kind of the traditional homeschooling method, which is understood in state statute as a child is exempt from compulsory school attendance if they are educated by— at home by a parent or a guardian, and that education can be directed entirely by the parent without government oversight or funding. There are no requirements to notify the state, and parents pay for all materials themselves, and that is— and the parent essentially issues the high school diploma. So that's the, the kind of the truest homeschooling model that you might see. Next, please.

However, homeschooling in Alaska has gone beyond that, and now homeschooling and correspondence school often are intertwined. So parents may use correspondence programs, and they can use correspondence programs in their local school district, and they can also use correspondence programs that are available throughout the state. So parents may select a statewide correspondence program that is sponsored by another school district. Next, please.

So in short, just to clarify again, homeschooling is the act of educating a child at home either privately with no— either privately with no assistance from the state or through the use of either public or private correspondence programs. Next, please. So now I want to talk a little bit about how correspondence programs have evolved. And I just want to note that one of the individuals that you're— that may come online here, Mr. Mariner, has a great deal of experience with this part of the program as well. So next, please.

I want to talk about the history of correspondence programs. So as I mentioned, the first correspondence program really came to be as a territorial response to education in 1939. And the Alyeska, and that was the Alyeska Central School. Today there are 34 different programs that exist. An Alaska statute in 2002 allows a centralized program as well as those operated by local schools.

So in 2002, parents got the opportunity to branch out and use other programs statewide. Those programs included learning plans and allotments to families that are now allowable in the correspondence program. And that is as long as those programs are non-sectarian and nonpartisan. There is general oversight provided by the Department of Education. They're funded— those correspondence programs are funded through the base student allocation at 90% of 1 ADM of the BSA.

And today we can see they are extremely popular with homeschool families. Next, please.

A little bit about the legislative timeline and evolution. As I mentioned, 1939 it started. In 1959, obviously, we became a state and the Alaska the Alaska Constitution came into being. And again, a correspondence program really was the opportunity to be able to provide to students the ability to get a public education via the state of Alaska. Next, please.

And then in the '80s and '90s, we began to see some statutory, regulatory, statutory and recognition of correspondence programs that included authorization of districts to operate correspondence programs. Along with others, and transition began from a centralized program to a decentralized program. In other words, they were available across the state. And in 2000, in the early 2000s, that was really codified. It established statewide access among many programs, and it became in many ways a competitive situation.

And this led to the accelerated growth of programs like IDEA, IDEA, and RAVEN. Next, please.

So in 2014, 2014 is one of the most major inflection points in terms of homeschooling and correspondence school programs in the state. So in 2014, the legislature codified the correspondence statutes and expanded program flexibility. It established student allotments. It allowed families to use public funds for curriculum, educational services, and other approved materials. And it shifted the system from a state-directed system, a district-directed system, to a parent-directed model, the individual learning plans.

And it removes many of the prior regulatory constraints that were found before that time. Next, please.

So again, 2014 to the present, this expanded the idea of the school choice model. Correspondence programs evolved into major statewide options. And as I mentioned before, now there's at least 34 correspondence programs in Alaska. Enrollment has now grown. In the early days of the centralized program, where we saw anywhere from about 3 to 7% enrollment across the state, we're now looking at 17 to 18%, um, enrollment of students in our correspondence programs.

In 2022 and 2024, as we all know, there were some legal challenges regarding the use of allotments, and so that ended up ultimately within ended up at the Alaska Supreme Court. I think that was remanded back to Judge Zimmer, and I think we're still waiting to see what happens with that.

Next, please.

So what has changed? I think just to kind of encapsulate that, we went from how do we deliver education to every child to how do families choose and direct education for their children. We went from a centralized system, the Alyeska system, to a decentralized multi-district system, and from a uniform statewide curriculum to individual learning plans. And I might just add that I've got direct experience kind of with this transition. My previous career was as a fishery biologist.

I worked at a remote hatchery here in Southeast Alaska, and my girls were enrolled in the Alyeska program for about 3 years. And then We got to a point where the Alyeska program was phasing out and we moved to the Sitka School District correspondence program. So I do know and have personal experience with both systems. The Alyeska system was very rigid. It was a very good education, but it was very demanding, and a lot of accountability went along with that.

When we moved to the Sitka District, It was a great program as well, but it was certainly much more flexible. Next, please.

I wanted to give you an idea of how correspondence enrollment has changed over time, and so this table, which was taken from information that I got from the DEED website as far as I could find, Gives you some indication of what correspondence attendance has looked like over time, going back to about approximately 1990 and moving up to the latest full-year results that we have are from 2025. And you can see in 2025, correspondence attendance in terms of the total number of students attending correspondence schools, it's around— it's just over 18% of our student population has migrated to correspondence programs. Next slide. That same information is just presented in a graph, so you can see over time how rapidly this has increased and what that looks like. Obviously, right after and during the, the pandemic, we saw a huge migration of students to correspondence programs, which seems reasonable, right?

We were dealing with a very difficult situation. Next, please. So this shift over time, again, looking at this, is pretty dramatic. And again, the key inflection point in 2014, I think, really helped lead more parents to decide to move to the correspondence programs because it included student allotments and individual learning plan. And it also provided the opportunity for parents to allow their students to opt out of testing.

We'll talk about that shortly. But correspondence then evolved from, again, this access model to public education to a major school choice program.

So the 5 largest programs in the state today are the IDEA program in Galena City School District, The RAVEN program with Yukon-Koyukuk School District, Cyberlinks with Nenana, Denali Peak program in Denali, and then the FOCUS program in Chugach. So just those 5, and these are figures that I got from the Department of Education website, totaled in 2025, 15,357 students. So it's quite significant.

So now I'm gonna talk about funding a little bit, and I'm gonna be the first to fess up, I am not the absolute expert on funding. I think there can be, you may have questions that I may not be able to answer that others within the Correspondence School Program would be more suited to answer. But what I do know about it is that full-time correspondent student is funded at 0.9 ADM of a regular full-time student. So, only 0.9. There are no factors applied to correspondent school funding.

So correspondent students are counted, they're held out initially, and they do not go through the foundation formula as all other students do. So that means they don't have any factors applied to that 0.9 ADM, and then they are added back in essentially at the end of the formula to account for that funding. So, that funding then has to cover— it has to cover program administration, it has to cover the staffing and support, it needs to cover the allotments that are allowed, and those vary by program. It would also need to cover any special education and special needs requirements and any curriculum and materials. So, I asked a colleague of mine who has experience in this, Because I wanted to know more what happened in terms of special education and special needs.

So any student that does have an IEP continues to carry that IEP into the correspondence program, and so they have to be treated appropriately within the correspondence program and meet the requirements of the IEP. That doesn't go away just because you get an individual learning plan. The individual learning plan and the IEP would exist together.

Next, please. So, in terms of funding, as I understand it, because we also have the opportunity for dual enrollment, so if a student is dual enrolled, in other words, if they're enrolled in a portion of the curriculum at a brick-and-mortar school, the funding is calculated based on the number of classes that they are taking there, and that's a percentage of an ADM for a student, and then after that, depending on how many classes they are taking, the rest of the funding comes through as correspondence funding.

Next, please.

So one thing I wanted to talk about here is why correspondence programs have grown so rapidly, and some thoughts I have are that one, it's really about parental control, parental choice, and customization. This is probably most likely the primary driver. Modern correspondence programs offer families something that traditional systems generally have not. Parents have control over curriculum, pacing, and instructional approach. They have the ability to tailor the education to the student's interests to cultural context, to their learning needs, and the individual learning plan creates the framework for that personalized level that may not be feasible in more traditional schools.

And so again, this is probably the single most important driver in terms of children migrating to the correspondence program. Next, please.

It also provides some financial flexibility through allotments. Which were permitted in the legislation that occurred in 2014. And it provides families with public funds to purchase those educational services and materials. It enables access to tutoring, to specialized instruction, and other enrichment opportunities. And that effectively really transformed correspondence programs into a hybrid of public funding and parent-directed model that significantly, I think, has increased their appeal.

Next, please.

And then third, it is a perceived better fit for many students. And so depending on the situation that that particular family or that student faces, those families often choose correspondence programs because one, they may not thrive in a traditional classroom, they need more flexibility in their schedule, they're further advanced than most of their students, and maybe the, the brick-and-mortar school now does not offer those options, or they're seeking an alternative social or instructional setting so that it becomes a better fit for the student. Next, please.

And then fourth, It also provides an expansion beyond just the rural necessity. And what we've seen is it now serves urban and road-connected communities. And I would guess, and I'd venture to guess, that the greatest increase in correspondence school attendance is now probably within those communities. And we're talking, you know, Anchorage, Matsu, Kenai. So the greatest growth where we have the largest number of students, of course, are in those larger districts and larger communities.

And because of how the correspondence program has evolved, I think this is one reason why we've seen such an increase in their usage. Next, please.

So again, one of the things that comes up time and again is how do, how do correspondence students fare and how do they participate in accountability measures? So prior to 2014, the data that I could find suggests that participation rates in assessments, particularly with the Alyeska Central School because it was required, you saw participation rates between 60 and 90%. So it was comparable to most statewide data at the time. And the system really did enforce that accountability because it was managed by the state. In 2014, 2018, that inflection point occurred, and we begin to see a departure from that.

There was a rapid decline in participation in accountability measures and testing, and so that shifted to— that shift to a parent-directed model I think had great impact on that. And then from 2019 to the present, we really see a fairly low participation rate in standardized testing. That can vary anywhere from 10 to 20%, and it really means that we have very limited ability to compare how correspondence school students are doing in comparison to students attending their regular brick-and-mortar schools.

Next, please. In terms of graduation rates, there's some similarities there. Correspondence school Students have traditionally had lower graduation rates than brick-and-mortar students. Early on, some programs showed as low as 50% graduation rates and others maybe even far below that. The trend over time has been that pre-2014, they were lower but more stable.

Again, it was a pretty rigorous curriculum and accountability measure. And it was highly managed. But when we get into the era after 2014, we begin to again see a greater variability and wider gaps, primarily because parents have more choice and say in the matter. So why this is difficult to interpret is, one, there's great student mobility, so keeping track of where students are going, no traditional pathways that we used to monitor frequently. Limited longitudinal tracking for those students as they move through the system.

And then the traditional 4-year graduation metric may not fit correspondence school students appropriately. So it's hard to determine exactly when we go to compare the two systems. I think it's— I think we have to bear that in mind. There are a number of considerations. Next, please.

So some final thoughts as I wrap up this presentation. Just some things that came to mind as I did the research for this presentation and thinking about this, thinking about the situation that we're in today as we think about the importance of correspondence education to the parents in the state of Alaska and the impact of that on education in Alaska. I think Alaska has only seen— and looking at the data, uh, this amazed me— that since the early 2000s, we've only seen a decline of about 6% of our total student population. But the largest shift really has been a shift of students moving away from brick-and-mortar neighborhood schools and to the correspondence program. And in 2025, that accounted for nearly 23,000 students.

So that's, you know, roughly about 18% of our student population has moved in that direction. So that shift creates the largest impact on districts for funding schools. The 2014 legislation cemented the move to a parent-directed system that has evolved, that has been created, and I think we need to accept the fact that it's going to be here and it's going to be something that we need to figure out how to work with because it's important to many folks in the state of Alaska and it's part of our public option. Testing rates have declined, and so the accountability portion, I know a number of us have questions about that, and I think that's— those are some policy issues that we need to struggle with. And then graduation rates have also declined.

Final slide, please.

So final thoughts I have for you. I don't think I'm answering any questions, but maybe bringing them up is, I don't think there's any returning to a centralized correspondence program like we had with the ALESCA program. Parental choice and directed education is here to stay. I think we really need to tackle the question, does accountability, matter. And if we're going to judge, judge other public schools on their accountability measures, what accountability measures are going to be applied to correspondence programs as the state expends money on those?

I think it's a fair question to talk about. What is the measure for assessing the state's obligation to the Constitution regarding education, and how do we do that with regard to correspondence? Or is it just the opportunity to enter into public education? So with that, I'll conclude my presentation. Thank you for that, Mr. Garrison.

Let's take about 10 minutes for questions. We'll start with Senator Tobin. Thank you, thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And, and Mr. Garrison, I don't know if this is a question as much as I just want to make sure that we put it into the, the dialogue and discussion for recommendations from the committee. Many of the issues that you raise here in your presentation are ones that we have heard in our different education policy committees.

We often butt up against the inability to collect some accurate information and some very detailed analysis about student outcomes and about students' ability to achieve proficiency in state standards. I think we also know that this active court case could really have some lasting impacts if we are unable to provide some better assistance or support for our districts before a determination or decision is made. So I just want to say to my fellow task force members that I think directing the department or potentially commissioning an ICER analysis so that we have better information about is this parental-directed model better for public education? Is it actually producing the outcomes that we have outlined in statute that we want for our students? And for me, one of the things that I just can't stop thinking about is a comment that Commissioner Bishop made that her time as superintendent for both the Anchorage School District and also for the Matsu Borough School District, she shared that they would direct students to correspondence programs when the, the public education system was failing them, when they weren't able to get quality interventions or supports, and it would often move students off their, their rolls so that they wouldn't have to share if they didn't complete their education or if they had worse state assessment scores.

And that is deeply concerning to me because that is not a student-led system. That's not one that supports students, that is simply shifting students around and failing to meet our state obligation. So I think it's really important for us as a task force to tackle these difficult and hairy topics and also to get the information that is required to make good decisions for all of our young kiddos across the state. So, not hearing a question in there, Mr. Garrison, did you want to respond to that?

No, I think Senator Tobin stated it pretty well, that, you know, part of the crux of the issue, again, is understanding the accountability piece. I think the piece that I want to put forward in my particular position and working with school boards across the state is that we have school boards and school districts that do both things, and they are important options for parents across the state now. And there's really no turning back. I think the piece that we have to figure out is how do we ensure that there is some sort of accountability, that we have some way of understanding, are we fulfilling the constitutional mandate of providing, you know, public education system that's worth something? And that's, that's not going to be easy.

So, okay, I think next we have Senator Cronk. Thank you. Um, oh yeah, let's talk a little bit about accountability because we're, we're talking about correspondence homeschool. So many of these programs, um, intentionally serve students in alternative pathways. They operate credit recovery systems with students that are significantly behind with credits.

Obviously, that takes those— those students are no longer in a brick-and-mortar school. So I just— if we look at accountability, we always talk about a graduation rate. So if you look at the big— the biggest correspondents— Anchorage, Kenai, Galena-Matsu, Denali, Fairbanks, Yukon-Koyukuk— their 4-year graduation rate is 71%, or almost 72%, and the rest of the state is 71%. So if you just look at them straight as that, that's— there's some outcomes right there. If you take IDEA's 4-year graduation rate, which has iGrad included in the past 5 years, it's 74%, which is better than 21 of the other school districts.

Now if you take IDEA's 4-year graduation rate, remove your credit recovery, it goes to 84%, better than 33%— better than 33 of other school districts. So I, I believe the accountability is right there. It's looking at us. We're digging for more things that really aren't there. Our overall accountability is who's graduating.

You know, and if— how does this make it look better? We're taking, you know, IDEA— let's say just IDEA takes the credit recovery kids. That makes all those other big school districts look better because those kids are no longer in their district and their graduation rates should go up. So I think when we're using data, we need to be really truly honest about the data that we're using and admit that's what's going on there. So I think the big question here is— you highlighted it— 23,000+ students are in correspondent.

Why are they going to correspondence program? And we, we, we are looking at 4% of the overall money spent in education right now. Right now, this is what we're focused on— homeschool. Um, you know, if you look at your, your best bang for your buck, some of our school districts are paying $100,000 a year to graduate a kid, and correspondence, it costs them $6,000. So if you look at your rate of return on money, um, and I'm not saying one's better than the other, I'm just saying we have to look at real facts when we talk about this.

Some of our programs are doing really good work and, and they have a real, uh, place in education because there are kids that don't— that, that do struggle. I, you know, I was a teacher. They do struggle in traditional schools, and I've seen those same kids blossom in a correspondence homeschool program. So I think we should be very positive about all the programs that we're doing instead of nitpicking, um, at things. And, you know, and the reason why that you have more testing in public schools is because those kids are a captive audience.

If they weren't a captive audience, your testing rate in public schools, in brick-and-mortar schools, wouldn't be the same. So I just wanted to throw that out there, um, and just the correction, there are actually 52 school districts because Tanana is no longer a district and Mount Edgecomb is not a district. Just a little fact. Thank you. Okay.

And I think Representative Story is next.

Ah, yes. Thank you, Chair Hemschute. Yeah, I was looking at the history a little bit about the charter schools, and I was just— I wanted to be reminded in 2014, actually probably in 2013, there was an indirect rate, I believe, of 10%, if I'm right. And then—. And that must have been in that year where it was moved for the districts to be 4%.

And the concern about that at the time was making sure that charter schools was clarified in rental that they had some more income for rent, I believe, because a lot of them weren't inside school districts, even though some school districts tried to open up their schools to rent inside. And I believe the Juneau School District right now, they pay rent to the Juneau School District as they're inside the building. But— and I don't know, to Mr. Garrison, if he knows how that has been going, the concern from going to 10 to 4% was that at the time districts were still responsible for doing the human resources part of teacher contracts. They were responsible for any legal issues that came up on special ed or other, other issues, and I was just wondering if we have had any feedback feedback on that that you were aware of? Mr. Garrison, so I think the question is the adequacy when we move from the 10% to the 4%, has that been sufficient, I think is the question.

Do you have— has anyone— have you gotten any data on that or any information on that?

Yeah, through the Chair to Representative Story, I don't have any specific data. An organization like ALASBO or Superintendents Association may have more specific data on that in particular. I can say that anecdotally I have heard in conversation with districts across the state that 4% is a struggle to meet all of the administrative costs that are associated with charter schools. So, at this point, you know, what I have heard from administrators is that tends to be not quite enough to make that happen. But I would— I couldn't tell you how much.

Thank you. Okay. So 10% maybe too much, 4% maybe not enough. So there's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, maybe. Senator Kiel?

Thanks, Madam Chair. I just wanted to sort of follow up on the earlier conversation about data and some of the correspondence programs. Graduation rate, I think, is one of the important factors that we really should look at. And I got two kids. One's a brick-and-mortar grad.

One's a correspondence program grad, statewide correspondence program. So they're both sharp and out in the world. But we do have some questions, I think, about having enough data to make broad assessments. And, and I think part of that is in how many kids take our assessments. When you look through our, our AKSTAR data, it, it varies really widely.

So you see some of the in-district correspondence programs that don't have captive audience kids, right? They're not coming into bricks and mortar school every day.

In Juneau, 47% of them take AKSTAR, and Haines, half of them. But, um, we've got other districts in district at 10%. Most of our statewide programs are in the 13, 14, 15% range. So, Mr. Garrison, can you lend any insights on, on what are the tools that correspondence programs use more successfully to get their kids to take these assessments so that they're correspondence coordinator, right, the, the teacher back at the mothership can work with their parents and make sure that they're getting their needs met and make sure that whatever, you know, if somebody's falling behind, there's a tool available to the parents, right, so that everybody has those tools to do as well by these kids as they can. And Mr. Garrison, we're gonna have to wrap up, so if you could truncate your answer the best you can would be great.

Through the Chair, Senator Keel, I don't think I'm the right person to ask that question to. So to me, I would think that really it would be maybe something within the program, the people that are operating the program, the relationships that they have with those students. And, you know, Ultimately, I think it comes back to the parents and how comfortable they feel in moving forward with assessments. Do they want their children to do that? So those are the kinds of things that I would think would affect that participation rate, but certainly I think that's a question for the folks that are operating the correspondence programs and to, to be able to answer and give you some information back on how that actually works.

So I'm sorry I couldn't provide a better answer. Okay. Any other questions from the committee? Or I guess from the task force? Oh, Representative Ruffridge.

And we are tight on time. Sorry to put you at the end and then squeeze you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Garrison, for being here. Mike, I wonder if we could go to the slide that showed back in time, kind of all the way through and the change in— population or groups of students and where they are attending.

And I am wondering, Mr. Garrison, so it seems to me, I mean, we are sort of tasked with asking the funding question, right? And from my perspective, the conversation here was two things. One, it seems like maybe HB 278 was successful in its mission. It brought something to light that potentially parents and students wanted to, to use. But, but part of that was maybe our formula as a result, which was built at the beginning of this chart, right, in 2000-ish, maybe is not adequately prepared to deal with the shift of students in such a large capacity from the brick-and-mortar type public school to the more correspondence public school.

And I'm wondering if you could talk about the— I think you mentioned this word a couple of times in your presentation, and it's hybrid, right? And it's something that parents are in many ways, I think, gravitating towards. Is our foundation formula built to handle a hybrid education program, or is that something that this task force should be looking at? Mr. Garrison. Yeah, through the chair, Representative Ruffridge, that's kind of, kind of where I was headed as I looked at this information.

And what I come away from, the, the big piece that I come away with is that it's not that we've lost that many students overall in our education system, that it's been this shift to the correspondence program that has, has meant that it's pulled them out of our traditional foundation formula. And so, and just as Senator Cronk said, hey, we're educating this group of students at 0.9 ADM and the rest we're going through this foundation formula, which means that we've got a pretty drastic reduction in kind of our brick and mortar schools. And now we're seeing the effect between that and the inability to keep up with inflation that we're losing programs, uh, we are having higher class sizes. Those kinds of things occur. So I do think that there needs to be, in my opinion, uh, the conversation about how does the foundation formula work or not work, or what do we need to do to consider how these two important programs can coincide with each other and not necessarily, um, compete and draw resources away from each other.

And, and that's kind of what I came to. I think that's part of the conversation that needs to happen. Thank you. Madam Chair, I'm wondering, and I didn't look ahead this time to our presentation, Mr. Garrison mentions a lot in this presentation as well the individualized learning plan, but there's not a lot of detail about what that includes or what that's about. Is someone lined up here today to talk about what those look like?

I think that adds a key component potentially to the accountability metric. Uh, no, we don't have that planned for today. We're going to look at charter schools, we're going to look at residential schools. We're kind of looking globally at all the different choices families can make here. Okay.

Are we bringing up correspondence again at some point? Not planned at this time. Okay. Maybe Mr. Garrison, through the chair, if that's okay, could we have some additional information, or maybe you're— I don't know if you're the right person to ask that question to, but on the individualized learning plans and how that applies to the accountability component. Maybe we need somebody from like a correspondence program.

—Suggestion. Okay, I don't know, Mr. Garrison, maybe that would be my suggestion. Okay, all right. I think our focus today was, again, ask— we're the funding task force, right? But it all weaves together, so understanding accountability in relation to how we fund, I can see the two things being related, but we were not looking for that.

That wasn't our scope today. So, okay, um, maybe we could bring that up at a Another meeting. And do you know, Rep. Ruffridge— and we do, we really need to move on— but the ILP is, it's in statute, it exists in statute, but each district, each program has their own ILP, right? So there's not a standard thing. It could be difficult to compare, but that might be a really good accountability.

Yeah, maybe we could get one or two to look at and talk through. Okay, thank you. We can see about doing that offline as well. Okay. Great.

I'm sorry, guys, we really have to move on. So we went from a 15-minute presentation to 50. So just for clarification, I said 1-5, 15, not 5-0, 50. But that's okay. This is an excellent, excellent starting point for us.

Mr. Garrison, thank you for launching us today. We're going to move on next to Mr. Heineman, who's going to give us kind of a look back at charter schools in the state. And I just want to also put on record, if anybody wants to communicate with the with the task force. Emails will be distributed to everyone, and the email for the task force is [email protected]. So it's [email protected].

And we're going to move now to Mr. Heineman, who just has personal history with charter schools in the state, but no slides for us today. Is just, I think, going to be a discussion. So, Mr. Hyndman, if you could unmute yourself, we're ready to, ready to hear from you. Yes, good afternoon. My name is Todd Hyndman, and I'm a retired public educator of 33 years.

I'm here today to provide you with some of my experiences and knowledge of working in charter schools in Alaska. All but 2 years of my career were in schools of choice. I started my career teaching in a magnet program in Dallas, Texas that provided 200 students with a unique program focused on environmental science. From Dallas, I went on to teach in Sandpoint for 2 years before I moved to Nome where I taught and was lead teacher for 17 years at Anvil City Science Academy. I moved on to Fireweed Academy in Homer where I was the as a principal for 6 years before I retired.

My experiences at each of these schools have shaped my philosophy of what makes a school successful for its students and families. One of the greatest strengths in our charter school system is the wide variety of education programs there are. In our state, there are charter schools focused on delivering specific instructional models, while others may focus on particular subjects like science, technology, and language. This variety in our schools helps meet the needs of students that may not be successful in traditional public schools, which benefits school districts through enrollment in our public schools. Our charter schools also tend to have smaller enrollments, which help foster stronger relationships between staff, students, and families.

These relationships help to increase engagement in school, which can lead to higher academic achievement. Thankfully, our charter school system has been able to evolve over the last 30 years to help students and families we serve. Charter schools in Alaska were established in 1995 when the Alaska Legislature passed the Charter School Act, which was signed into law by Governor Knowles. The Charter School Act was passed to provide parents, teachers, and community members the ability to start unique educational programs within their community under the umbrella of the local public school board. This connection with the school boards differentiates Alaska's charter schools from most charter schools in the lower 48.

Another key difference is that charter schools in Alaska cannot be for-profit. For-profit schools, making them part of the public school system, which holds them accountable to state and federal requirements regarding special education services and testing. Within a few years of the passage of the act, over 20 charter schools were operating in both rural and urban areas. In 2001, the legislature amended the law to increase the number of permitted charter schools from 30 to 60 and extended the possible length of the charter contracts to 10 years. In 2008 and 2009, many of the charter schools worked together to seek a change in how charter schools were funded.

At that time, adequate funding— adequate finances were a major challenge. Initially, the funding formula that was used for all charter charter schools was the same as the funding formula used for the largest schools in the district. This situation substantially lowered the funding level for charter schools, which typically had small enrollments. The successful change in how charter schools are funded enabled charter schools to upgrade their academic programs and facilities. In 2010, the cap for limiting the for a number of charter schools was eliminated.

In 2014, another bill was passed to allow an appeal process for charter applications that were denied by local school boards. All of these changes to the original Charter School Act have been beneficial, but some of Alaska's charter schools still face challenges to development. For example, adequate facilities is one example for which I have personally experience. In Nome, Anvil City Science Academy was housed in dorms that were built for the regional high school in the '60s. While we made it work, the need to increase space for increased enrollments— the facilities were and still are rooms that were not designed for classrooms.

In Homer, there is a lack of available facilities to house its charter school under one roof. Roof. Fireweed Academy operates two separate buildings located a couple of miles from one another. Its K-2 students are located in a rented facility that was once a furniture store, while the third and sixth through sixth grade, uh, students are located in four rooms in West Homer Elementary. This may be problematic in the future as the key Unite Peninsula Borough School District is considering consolidating two schools into one building.

This would result in Fireweed having to find a new home for its older students. There are undoubtedly other communities in Alaska that share these types of facility challenges for the establishment of a charter school, as well as other hurdles that are specific to their location and needs. Thank you for the invitation to share my views on charter schools, and let me know if you have anything that needs to be clarified or any questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Hyman. What a, what a long history you have here in Alaska with our charter schools.

And I also taught in Sandpoint. So are there questions from the task force? Senator Tobin. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.

Todd, it's good to hear your voice. I will tell everyone in Nome you say hello. For those who don't know, Todd also is an excellent soup maker and often would make soups for our Empty Bowl fundraisers for the community of Nome. Mr. Imon, I'm curious, as we've talked previously about some of the support from the department for those who are interested in charter school applications or potentially considering trying to submit an application to start a charter school. And I'm curious, from your perspective, what is some of the support that the Department of Education and Early Development can provide communities as they look or seek to consider this model for their education in their, in their areas?

Mr. Hyman.

[Speaker:DR. BETHANY BRADSHAW] Well, at this time, I'm not aware of what the supports are at the state level at this time. So I don't know that I'd be able to answer your question clearly. But I would say there needs to be a go-to person for the state so that people that are interested in looking into starting a charter school have a direct contact with one person that can give them the information that they need.

Follow-up. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And it would be interesting for us to find what supports the department does provide communities. What— I know that Mr. Garrison had also advocated in previous, uh, in previous legislation for legal support for families and for communities so they can understand the full breadth and ramifications And I would be curious to know what does DEED do to provide that technical support to communities. Okay.

So no other questions from the task force? Great. Mr. Hyndman, thank you for your time. Great to get all of this background on some of the options we have here in Alaska. Our final presentation today is a combination of our four presenters, Stephen Culkin, Jim Mariner, Doug Walrath, and Conrad Woodhead.

I'm not sure if I'm saying those names correctly, so would love to be corrected if I've got those wrong. And it looks like with the slide presentation we start with Conrad Woodhead. So if you could please introduce yourself on the record and begin your presentation. Thank you for being here. Thank you.

Thank you, chairs— chair, co-chairs, and committee members. Members, for the record, my name is Conrad Woodhead. I serve as the CTE and residential director of Kuzelbach Career Academy for the Lower Yukon School District. I've been part of the Alaska Residential Schools Coalition since 2024, and we have been advocating for the importance of the work our residential programs do across the state. Uh, thank you for allowing us to be here today and to speak to the importance of SB 257.

While Alaska's residential programs are not all the same, they reflect regions who are tailoring program models to meet the distinct needs of their students. The Alaska Residential Schools Coalition identifies these stipend-funded programs as Northwestern Alaska Career and Technical Center, Kuzelbach Career Academy, the NANA Student Living Center, Galena Interior Learning Academy, Voyage to Excellence, Star of the Northwest Magnet School, and Kuskokwim Learning Academy. These programs are serving anywhere from 6 to 163 students in FY26 and generally fall into a few model types. Some operate as short intensives or variable term residential models where students come in for focused programming centered on career exploration, technical training, leadership development, and hands-on learning. Kuzubak Career Academy, for example, serves up to 70 students at a time and operates on a week-long, quarterly, or semesterly model, and students have the option of attending throughout the year.

Through these defined residential sessions, students access specialized instruction, career pathways, and supports that are not available in their home communities due to limitations of facilities, local industry expertise, or the costs associated with providing these resources in the most remote regions in our state. By bringing students to Anchorage, Lower Yukon School District is able to provide these opportunities through key strategic partnerships at the local and federal level. Like other residential programs, our model was designed for our region by our region. It reflects local decision-making and control at the highest level and allows programs to truly serve the needs of the populations they are built for. Other residential models operate year-round, pairing boarding, uh, with ongoing academic programming, career and technical education, and student support throughout the full school year.

But no matter the model, these programs are tailored to meet students where they are and they are among the best K-12 workforce development models our state has to showcase. At Kuzuvac Career Academy, we, uh, we see firsthand what this model can achieve. For the past 2 years, Lower Yukon School District students who attended one or more KCA sessions have had a 0% dropout rate. During the same time, KCA participant, uh, participation among LYSD graduates increased from 43% to 52%, and for the past 3 years, students who have attended KCA have accounted for 70% or more of the district's valedictorians or salutatorians. Residential programs are especially important for students from rural communities who would not otherwise have access to these kinds of opportunities.

The coalition flyer makes clear that residential schools help connect students to career and technical education, advanced placement, and dual credit pathways that prepare them for the workforce, the military, post-secondary education, uh, anything post-secondary, um, is what we're helping students achieve more readily. OISD's partnerships with Anchorage School District, as an example, exposes our students to 17 different career courses and has fundamentally helped close the equity gap that exists for geographically isolated communities and programming access for rural students. So if Alaska is serious about developing the state's workforce in-state, then we believe that Alaska must also be serious about residential education programs that expose students to the careers and trades that are vital to our state's workforce needs. These programs are one of the clearest ways we create real access for students especially those from remote regions, and helps build a stronger future for the state. SB 257 is a great step in accomplishing this, and I thank you for your time and consideration of SB 257.

So thank you. Thank you. And I think our next presenter is Dr. Doug Walrath. If you could put your name on record and share your presentation.

Correct, yes. Hopefully it's advancing to the next slide there. For the record, my name is Doug Walrath. I am the director of the Northwestern Alaska Career and Technical Center here in Nome, and I have served in that capacity for the past 17 years of the 23 years of existence of our organization. So I'm here to share a little bit about the services that are provided by our residential boarding schools.

So here, here in Nome at NACTEC, we use the term priority industries. Our focus is on career and technical education. So aviation would be one of those pathways, healthcare, construction, hospitality and tourism, natural resource development, education, maritime, information technology. While not a pathway, Driver education is one of the most requested programs, so we serve as a DMV-approved non-commercial driving school, providing a service that otherwise isn't available in the Villages. And I know that that occurs elsewhere in the state too.

So as I think about services and I think through my own lens, we often think about the, the CTE courses, the current technical education courses and, and those pathways we have, and some really well-developed pathways that work, as Conrad mentioned, with business and industry partnerships. We all work based on different partnerships. So to give you an example, here in Nome, Norton Sound Health Corporation is the largest employer in our region, and they also help us provide a sequence of courses in the healthcare pathway. So it begins with Health 105, Intro to Health, Intro to Behavioral Health. There's a wilderness first aid course, emergency trauma training, ETT training, and PCA, personal care attendant training.

So all of that training comes to us at no cost through that partnership with our industry partner. Another example of that would be in the aviation sector. Bering Air, a local region Air Carrier, uh, works closely with us, uh, in our aviation maintenance courses, uh, sending over, uh, folks from their aviation maintenance department, uh, to work with our students. Uh, so the services received and the business and industry partnerships bring about an element of training that frankly couldn't occur, um, across a bunch of, uh, separate villages where our economies of scale on a national scale are very small. So joining me today over my right shoulder is Kaimani Topcock.

He's a freshman from Teller. He came in here last month for an aviation course and then back to us for construction training right now. And during that aviation course while he was here, there were 8 to 10 students, and some of those students came to us formally. One was in Galena and another one was at Mount Edgecumbe. And both of those students where we have advanced aviation training devices, I was thoroughly impressed, were able to get in and literally like fly an airplane.

So I'm finding out that a student coming to Galena has already soloed before. So that element of how we trade students and continue those services helps bring them along. Ernest Nyland, who's over my left shoulder, is a junior. From Elam, and so he's one of 10 juniors in Elam, 40 high school students. All of those students would be interested in a given career technical education course.

Ernest came in here in October for a culinary arts course. We had a retired professor from AVTEC lead that course. It gives exposure to that. Came back in January for a welding course where we had an instructor from UAF Bristol Bay come up to lead that course. So he learned welding and then also that partnership to learn about UAF and now here again with us for construction training.

So I'll close by saying that while we focus on those things, our business and industry partners often come through and say the most valuable services that are provided by boarding schools as the sort that are represented here is some of the soft skills and the life skill training. Students get to come in, they learn independent living skills, they learn to overcome homesickness, they learn to live without their cell phones. These guys over my shoulders have not had their cell phones since last night, and they'll be looking forward to getting those after they eat coming up shortly and chores. So with that, I could say more, but time is short, so I will pass it along to the next presenter. Thank you very much.

Dr. Walrath. And we'll go now to Stephen Culkin, who is the assistant and incoming superintendent at Ninana City School District. And thanks also to the students for being there. Um, Mr. Culkin, if you could start your presentation, unmute yourself and put yourself on record. Yes, ma'am.

I'm Stephen Culkin, current principal of Ninana City School, incoming superintendent of the district. Thank you guys so much for being here this evening and listening to us and being advocates and champions for our students and children in the state of Alaska. I'm talking to you guys this evening about the challenges of current funding structure of our residential school, specifically our residential school stipends. The current funding structure of our residential school stipends hasn't really been— my understanding is it hasn't been meaningfully addressed since about 2015. This means the funding has stayed flat except for one-time 25% increases during fiscal years '23, '24, and '25, which have been at the discretion of the legislature and Governor.

This model has led to volatility year to year, requiring either reduction in services provided to students, districts running residential schools at a deficit, or relying on unreliable grant funding. The current funding structure is outside of the base student allocation, meaning that residential Residential school stipends do not increase or decrease when the legislative and executive branches agree on the need to increase Alaska's public school funding, which is something that we saw this past fiscal year. This does not reflect the real costs associated with residential schools, as the same inflationary pressures experienced by districts operating the K-12 schools are also felt by the residential components of the schools, including increased personnel expenses like healthcare, fuel and food cost increases, facilities upkeep, maintenance, so on and so forth. I'm sure you guys are plenty aware of that, having been on the ground here at Neenahna, which we very much appreciate. 2015 Levels of funding, even adjusted for inflation, aren't enough to provide the adequate levels of wraparound services for residential students.

Effective investment in these students requires things like mental health services, access to medical care, meaningful recreational opportunities, acceptable and functional facilities, and competent networking to post-secondary opportunities beyond those CTE courses that you've heard about this evening. Those services help prepare students with those soft skills who are hundreds of miles away from home, who don't have those networking components from home, for successful and productive lives in Alaska after graduation. Thank you. Thank you very much, and I want you to know I wear my Lynx shirt to play pickleball here here in Juneau. So, okay, and we'll go next to Jim Mariner, who is the Director of Administrative Projects with the Galena City School District, to close us out.

Good afternoon/evening, coming up here. For the record, my name is Jim Mariner. I'm currently Director of Administrative Projects for the Galena City School District. For those of you who might not know, I wore the superintendent hat in Galena from 2018 to 2022. I mentioned this to preface the following anecdote: annually increasing residential school expenses combined with flat residential school stipend funding since fiscal year 2015 compelled me towards the end of my superintendency to recommend to the GCSD School Board, much to my eternal chagrin, to shut down the decades-old and much much-loved pilot training program in Galena.

Current GCSD Superintendent Jason Johnson has managed to keep the aviation program aloft because he is much better than I at securing grants. I share this story to highlight how desperately needed a structural funding change for residential stipends is. No one wants to see educational opportunities taken away from our children. So speaking of an actionable structural funding recommendation, And this is where the fifth slide should pop up. The Alaska Residential Schools Coalition is recommending, as seen in this slide, to amend Alaska Statute 14-16-200(b) such that the fixed stipend dollar amounts for the five regions are replaced with language that links each region's stipend dollar amount to a percentage multiplier of the base student allocation that will result in a much-needed doubling of each region's current stipend dollar amount.

If the statute is amended as such, in the future when Alaska's legislative process results in a collective decision to increase state funding for Alaska's public schools, residential school funding will not be left behind and will commonsensically increase commensurately. Try to say that 5 times. School districts with residential schools would be able to redirect the resources that would have been spent advocating to the legislature to increase stipend amounts into directly impacting student learning, and the legislature would no longer have to spend resources dealing with coalition members repeatedly knocking on their doors. Now, this slide will look extremely familiar to a particular member of this task force because I basically played derived from Senator Cronk's bill, SB 257. The next slide gives credit where credit is due.

The coalition thanks Senator Cronk for introducing this bill that right-sizes the current underfunded situation, changes the structural funding mechanism by linking residential school stipends to future BSA movement, and provides funding retroactive to the beginning of this school year since residential schools were the only public schools in Alaska that experienced a reduction in funding from last year to this year. I would also be remiss in not thanking Representative Himschoot, Representative Storey, and the House Education Committee for recently introducing House Bill 380, which works to address the current underfunded situation for residential school stipends. Thank you all very much for that. In closing, on behalf of the Alaska Residential Schools Coalition, thank you all for inviting us to present today. And while we are advocating for SB 257 to pass this session, the coalition remains open to other actionable structural funding recommendations that would address the current underfunded situation and would link residential school stipends to future BSA movement.

Does anyone have any questions for any of us? Thank you for that, Mr. Mariner, and we will go to questions. We have about 10 minutes for for questions. I have a few myself, but we'll start with Representative Story. Thank you, Chair Himeshoot, and thank you, Mr. Mariner, for all you do for our students and have done for quite some time.

I have a question on the variable term student who comes versus the ones who stay for the whole time. You would take the total number of students that you serve, um, and then that amount— could you just walk me through how this formula would work? That would probably be the best question. And that was for Mr. Mariner? Yes, please.

Mr. Mariner, can you let me know if you need that question again?

Through the co-chairs, uh, Representative Story, I am going to I'm going to try to pass the baton to Conrad because he's probably more versed in the variables. In Galena, we have the year-round ones. So Conrad, do you need the question? Through the chair, co-chair Story, yeah, I can shed some light on that. We have a residential count day, so for the variable dorm programs that aren't year-round, that's any programs that's You know, NACTEC up in Nome, that usually does week-long intensives.

Voyage to Excellence, that does week-long intensives. You have our program that does anywhere from week-long intensives to quarterly and semestrelly intensives. We have a residential count night, which is the Friday of the end of quarter 1, so typically around October 20th. And so, we, when we report our residential numbers and our our residential capacity at KCA is 70, we are reporting the students that we have in our facility for that one night. So that raises a good point.

We, when we're traveling long distances in, while we have a residential capacity of 70, there have been years where we have only counted 64. I think one year we counted down in the 40s. Because we were a couple charters and a storm away from not having our full residential amount. So that's a consideration that we all make as residential programs is to max out our funding. We're really looking at how many students are in our facilities one night.

Follow-up? A follow-up. So thank you for that, and I'll just take that number 70, and you're saying that that is that 70 number, it would be multiplied times the base student allocation multiplied by 37%? Or please clarify that because that doesn't seem like it would be enough to run a residential school. Yeah, and I think the question, Director Woodhead, is in House Bill— or sorry, Senate Bill 257, how you arrived at the multipliers, the 37% and a third.

Is that correct, Representative Story? Is that what you were wondering? Uh, thank you, Chair Himschute. That's a good question, but I was just kind of wondering how the whole formula worked here, just in general. Okay, so more broadly, I guess.

Director Woodhead? Yes, so before— I'm going to send this back to Mr. Mariner, but before I do, um, yes, we, uh To answer your question clearly, we have different— different programs have different— can you repeat the question just one more time? I want to make sure that I'm tracking. Sure, thank you. I was just wondering how the funding model worked.

So you have 70 students, so how does that more broadly funding work? Yeah, so the amount of money, the amount of funding student is based on where, what region your program is in. So for us, we have a specific amount for being located in Southcentral Alaska. For Mr., for Dr. Walroth up in Nome, his amount is different. For us, it's, I believe it's $10,800 per student for the residential funding, but that's a variable amount depending on where your region is.

In terms of the multiplier, I'm going to pitch it to Mr. Mariner to talk more specifically about that. Mr. Mariner?

Yes, so Co-Chair Hempschulte, were you the one wanting to ask that question? Can you repeat that specific question? I think I know it, but if you wouldn't mind. I think it was Representative Story wanting to understand broadly how you arrived at the calculations in Senate Bill 257. Okay, yes, so the multipliers for each of the regions, that's based on trying to take the current BSA amount, and off top of my head I'm forgetting what that is, $6,900.

Am I wrong on that? Right on that? Anybody know? $6,690? $6,660.

Oh, right, $6,660. Yes, thank you. So if you take that amount and you multiply it by whatever— I can't even see this thing on the screen right now. Try— tell me, what does it say on Region 1 on the slide behind you there? The amount of the base— yeah, the amount of the base student allocation multiplied by 37%.

12. 37%. Okay, so you— yeah, so you take 6660 and you multiply it by 0.37— 0.37— and you should come up with a figure that is double, approximately double the 1,230 that you see in Region A, which is the current fixed stipend amount. And if you do that with each of those 5 regions and you multiply the 6660 by that percentage that's in that the proposed bill or the actual bill, SB 257, you'll come up with a doubling for each of those regions of the current fixed stipend amount. And why a doubling?

The story behind that is this coalition has been advocating for the fact that we are underfunded and have been for years. I think we started our work back in 2021, '22. And then we saw the bumps in FY23, FY24, FY25 by the legislature and the governor of about a quarter one-time funding in those years. Appreciate that, super appreciative for those. But in FY— so back up a year, fall of 2024, we had former Commissioner of Department of Education Jerry Covey as an independent consultant who got with all 7 of our school districts and independently got financials from them in terms of their boarding school residential room and board type expenses, compared apples to apples, and in the end came back to the resolution— the Coalition and said, hey, currently on average, and again, this is Averaging those 5 regions, the stipend amount, you, you're looking at on average per student state funding FY15 statutory amount of $12,900 per kid on average.

But on average FY24 audited expenses by your 7 districts, you guys are spending on average $25,700 per kid. So it was basically double what we were spending 2 full school years ago. And so we've even had more inflation since then. So by asking for doubling, it's actually not what we probably need. So anyway, that's the reason for the rationale for why we're asking for doubling of the stipend, current stipend amounts.

So that gives me the question, Mr. Mariner, if this is in statute, then are we going to double it?

Like going forward, that 37% in Region 1 is going to be— is it every time the BSA goes up, we multiply by 37% for Region 1? Yes. That's exactly right. Okay, Senator Keel.

So thanks, Madam Chair. My math is a little different just having done the EED budget. I think I don't have it broken out regionally, but I think last year we averaged $14,600 per— in this grant per boarding home kid— boarding school, sorry, residential school student.

Going to 28, um, can you just talk to us about, uh, what costs $28,000 per kid per year?

Um, let's go to the Ninana Living Center because the task force actually visited there. So, Mr. Culkin, can you address that through the chair? Sorry, do you mind if I Go ahead, Mr. Mariner. Sorry, yeah, do you mind if I— so I apologize if I misspoke, Senator Keel, but I tried to say $25,700, not $28,000 per student with our FY '24 audited expenses. And then at that time, when the consultant came back with the numbers, he was telling us that that same year we received $12,900 per student, but we were spending $25,700, which was basically the doubling.

So approximately. So that— I apologize if I misspoke. And now I can pass it back to Stephen Culkin. I was using a statewide average, so we're in the ballpark. Yeah, the question though is what— on what?

What—. Yeah, what is— what does that money go to? Mr. Culkin. Through the chair, thank you so much, uh, Senator Keel. Uh, I feel like Groundhog Day because we had this discussion a bit in class in December, so appreciate you asking the question again.

I've had some time to really dig into our numbers for Nienana City School District. We need to staff the residential facility adequately to make sure that we're attending to students, both safety, security, as well as providing some recreational opportunities. We also need to make sure that we're bringing students to and from medical appointments. Typically those are in Fairbanks for us, and so there's some drive time that we need to be mindful of, as well as vehicle use. That facilities maintenance and upkeep is a big part of that, as well as food services.

That's a part of that, and that's kind of the bare minimum of what we do with the funds that we currently receive. Personally, I'd like to see us expand some more opportunities for students, so so we can provide some more of those wraparound services without being necessarily dependent upon grant funding, specific mental health services for students to navigate life outside of home. When you have a 15-year-old coming to us from 300 miles away and it's the first time they've stepped on a plane, it can be really difficult to focus on your welding career, and if you don't have those, what we call anchors, supportive adults. And so having more of those and more training and more professional development opportunities would likely lead to greater student success and retention.

And—.

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. It's good to know, and there's a couple other comparison points, but, but, you know, when a student from a village without a high school chooses to stay in a homestay, not a residential school, but a homestay, that stipend is $8,000. So it's a big delta. And so it's good to have some sense of what kind of things we're paying for with that added amount. Food for thought.

Thank you. Senator Tobin. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I know we're running out of time here. I'm just curious, and I'm a I'm going to make an assumption here that the school districts in which you serve do not have taxing authority.

And so you rely solely on the base allocation going through the foundation formula to fund your schools. And we have seen the last 10 years of not having an adjusted base allocation with inflation and what pressures that has put not only on our traditional brick-and-mortar schools, but also apparent also on our residential school programs to provide the education component of some of these, of these residential schools. And so I'm curious about the choice to tie this to the base student allocation, especially if there is pressure in the future to not increase the base student allocation. You know, there's legislation currently being considered here in the body about increasing or artificially holding back the amount that we allow districts who have taxing authority to have their local contribution increase, which will put downward pressure on the base student allocation. So I'm curious if you can speak to that choice, uh, here in the legislation.

And that would go to Mr. Mariner, perhaps. Okay, Mr. Mariner. Yes, uh, co-chair, um, uh, I'm so sorry.

Tobin, yes, I'm so sorry. So that's a great question. I've thought about the fact that the statute actually— I think it's little b up on the statute— actually gives reimbursement to districts for the airfare for students to and from the boarding school. And so as airfare is and is increasing as inflation increases, expenses, we get reimbursed. So, if we could figure out a way that stipend, room and board type expenses could be reimbursed in the same way, that would be sweet.

However, we've just been racking our brains trying to figure out how can we do things differently, structurally differently, such that boarding schools— and there are only 7 of us, right? Edgecumbe is its own entity. How do we manage to have an increase that makes sense on a regular basis? There have been a number of BSA increases since FY '15, and we've just, you know, not seen anything except those 3 years, and we had to advocate, knock on doors, and we've been doing that, and happily to do it for students. But if we're all in this together and the BSA is what The state is, you know, it is floating all boats, so to speak.

It needs to float all boats. That's just, that's what the coalition has been kind of wrestling with. But if you can come up with a better idea than tying it to the BSA, we're definitely willing to listen, absolutely. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and finish out for the day. I have questions, but I can follow up offline.

I'm just— so that folks know the direction I want to go. I want to understand how do we know who is offering what in CTE in the state? We had some bills offered this year that were excellent bills, but we have got bridge programs and we have got variable term programs and who is going where, and we have got Perkins programs. So that is a question that I am probably going to reach out to you folks with at the variable term programs. Who are with us today.

But one question that I don't want to let go of is whether any of the programs— would probably be for Mr. Woodhead and Dr. Walrath— are, um, do you include cultural arts in your CTE programs? So I do see a kayak on the wall back there, but we talk about these pathways all the time, and I can't let it go. I know some people may not agree with me, but I think if you can carve a canoe in Southeast, you can make a living. So are those included in your programs? Let's just very quickly, because we are over time, go to Dr. Walrath.

Yes, I'll take a crack at that. So we— one of the other strands we have includes Native arts business and marketing. Tribal governance is included in there, and I wish that my two students could have held on just a little bit longer. It was time for them to eat. Kaimani, who was just sitting over my shoulder, he's in the construction course.

And this afternoon he was working on making a drum over at the Lutheran Church. On Sunday they went over for Eskimo drumming and dancing. So it doesn't have to be a course in itself. It's elements that are embedded into the 24/7 nature of our residential program that we do to keep students connected to their culture even when they're away from home. You did notice that over me is an 8-foot frame of a traditional Greenland-style kayak.

So we have worked with different Native artists to come in making kayaks, carving, ivory carving, scrimshaw, skin sewing, a whole series of things which obviously here in Nome, in our region, we have a lot of experts that we can draw on from that. So I'll certainly defer to Conrad if he would like to add to that. And before we go to Conrad, I'm sorry, Mr. Woodhead, I want to add to my question, and then we are going to gavel out in about 1 minute. I want to know what was offered in rural Alaska before the variable term programs, because I know we had a woodshop in Cake, Alaska I know there was great stuff happening in Engoon, and it's not there now. What changed?

Sure. Well, I— in 2 minutes. Yeah, through the chair, I would just add that we also embed culture in just about everything we do across partners. We're also going into partnerships telling folks how to best work with our students. I would, I would say that looking looking at— I lost my train of thought.

Just hit the last point of your question real quick. Well, before we make every kid travel to get CTE, there was a time in this state when you were able in your home district to have a CTE program. So what changed? Yeah, I think what changed was a couple things: costs associated with those programs, facilities, and then for us finding industry experts to be able to teach those. I can put in a grant 10 CTE teachers for our 10 sites, but I'm not going to find 10 CTE teachers.

So I have to find different ways to provide that service for our students. We had Robert Redfox from Mimonic present to our board a few months ago, and he was talking about his welding booth and his program at King Tech High School. And when he got done, he was just beaming, he was showing off the welds that he had done. And I asked him, I said, Robert, can you tell for our board, how does the welding booth at King Tech High School compare to the welding booth at Emonick? And he got this weird kind of smile on his face and he wasn't sure how he exactly he was supposed to answer.

And then he whispered, we don't have a welding shop in Emonick. So for that reason, we're providing access to 17 different career courses through the partnership that we have at Acres School District and then the myriad of different nonprofit industry partners that we have providing these services to our students. And if I would add, the difference between residential schools, homeschool programs, brick-and-mortar schools is that we have the school, we have the student, the whole student 24/7. We're responsible for the whole student 24/7. That is, we don't talk about the SEL components that we provide to our students.

We don't talk about the cultural components. We don't talk about the late nights or the ER runs. We talk about what kids are doing for workforce. And so I would just add that we have the whole— so we don't have the luxury of sending students home at 3:30, and we have all the things that I think about my two yahoos that I have at my house that I have to provide all the things and spend all the money for and all those things. We do the same thing as 24/7 residential programs based here in Anchorage to provide exposure and, and all the wraparound services that allow our students to be successful.

So, okay, and I have no doubt your program is going great. I just want kids to be able to stay home. So also, right, that has to also have value and be viable. So thank you. We are going to adjourn.

Apologies. Announcements: that concludes our meeting for today. Our next meeting is Wednesday, April 29th at 3:30 PM, a meeting that we had to move because of a long floor session. It'll be in this room, Davis 106. The meeting will focus on required local contribution.

Seeing no further business before the task force, the meeting is adjourned. Adjourned at 5:08 PM.