HEDC-260429-0800

Good morning. I would like to call the meeting of the House Education Committee to order. It is 8:03 AM Thursday, April 20— whoops, Wednesday, April 29th in the Betty Davis Room, 106 in the Capitol. Members present are to my right: Rep. Eichide, Rep. Underwood, Rep. Co-Chair Himschute, Rep. Dibert, Rep. Elam, and myself, Co-Chair Rep. Story. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum for conducting business.

Please take the time to silence your cell phones for the meeting. Thank you for doing that. The documents for today's meeting have been distributed to members and are available on the table outside the door, and they are posted up on BASIS. I want to thank Kayle Brown, the House Education Secretary from Records, and Jude Augustine from the Juneau LIO for staffing our committee today, and our co-chair committee aides Tammy Smith and Ella Lubin. So this morning we have an interesting agenda before us.

We have presentations by teacher education programs by Dr. Bridget Weiss from the Alaska College of Education Consortium, University of Alaska, and the teacher certification process by Kelly Manning, Deputy Director of Innovation and Excellence. And I think we're going to have Commissioner Bishop online this morning with us from, of course, the Department of Education and Early Development. We will begin with Dr. Weiss from the Alaska College.

Education Consortium. If you could please come up, it's so good to see you. Identify yourself for the record and begin your presentation.

Good morning. Uh, thank you very much, Co-Chair Storey and members of the House of Education Committee. Uh, for the record, I'm Dr. Bridget Weiss. I am with the University of Alaska and I'm the liaison to the Alaska College of Education Consortium, which is a bit of a mouthful. But I'm super excited to be here with you today just to share really so many of the activities that we're doing as a university through our three schools of education to support the process of building strong teachers for Alaska and find solutions to our teacher gap.

Mm, let's see, we'll try this. There we go. So we have a lot, we're coming at this, it's not a simple problem, so the solutions are not simple. They're rather, we're looking at it as a multidimensional approach and I will be sharing sharing those with you today. The College of Education Consortium is really an entity that represents all three schools of education, so I'll be sharing a little bit about programs at each of our universities today.

And the power of the consortium has been in the last few years that it has existed is it really is— was built intended to encourage the momentum of synergy and collective collaboration around this project of building more teachers. And it is working. We have 3 deans. So at UAA, we have Dr. Tonya Doucet. At UA Fairbanks, we have Dr. Douglas Cost.

And then at UAS, we have interim dean Angie Lunda, Dr. Angela Lunda right now. And all 3 are working very well together. And then I am an additional team member to them. As well as faculty and staff. So growing our own is one strategy.

I'm gonna hit this a couple different times in our quick time. I'm gonna rapidly go through this so that you can ask questions if you have it. University of Alaska Fairbanks really dove into this grow your own concept a number of years ago under past Dean Dr. Amy Vinlove and is continuing with current Dean Doug Cost. Whoops, we lost our screen. And they have— University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Education really dove deep and said, if we are going to do high-quality grow-your-own programs, what does that look like?

And they did research and they really built this great model. And they identified 4 things that are really necessary for us to have grow-your-own programs that do produce teachers high quality with that stick-to-itiveness that will last a career here. And these are the 4 requirements that they generated through lots of research and study: money, time, encouragement, and quality preparation. And when those things are combined through partnerships between university and school districts, as an example, it, it does result in, in the type of educators that we need in the state and that are more of a long-term solution. I did put the link there on this page if you go peruse that site.

It has a nice collection of information about Growing Your Own programs. Some numbers real quick. These are our initial licensure graduates for the past 5 years, and then a little bit about our current trend. As we look to try to build more teachers, of course, we're looking at pipeline, which I'll talk about. The university does track enrollment very frequently, and these numbers are— they're different today than than they were when I made this slide last week, but they're a gist for you as we look at registration for our schools of education, uh, this time last year for fall 2025 and this time for fall 2026.

So it's an exact time comparison. These are schools of ed, so it just shows the trend. We like the numbers going up. We know that we are not yet producing the same numbers that we were 5, 10 years ago, that the state needs. And that is obviously a mechanism of a variety of things.

The conditions that teachers are teaching in, the public perception of public education, a variety of things. But we know across the nation that we are struggling as a country to bring education back into a vitality state for desired careers. Educators Rises. So when we talk about pipeline, this is so exciting. This is a lever that is going to make a difference, and this slide has quite a bit of information on it.

The, the, the big picture here is that we had from a year ago to this year 73% growth in student participation. That is incredible. There's room for lots more growth. Um, this group is, uh, so fun to watch in action because it's our young people and they are so excited about learning leadership skills. Many of them are excited about being an educator, not all of them, but all of them through this program will definitely be contributing members to our state in some fashion or form, but many of them are excited about entering the teaching field.

It also touches a lot of our rural communities, which is another asset to this program. And I expect that next year this program will again show more growth. And this is one of those pipelines, if we can encourage young people, I am at a lot of events students during the year. And whenever I'm at the AASB statewide conference, we have a student leadership program that happens at the same time. They come by my table.

I always ask, have you ever thought about being a teacher? And some of them just look at me like a deer, right, in headlights, like, uh, no. Well, let's talk about that. Some say, absolutely, I'm part of Ed Rising. So we need to keep those conversations going with our young people and remind them that this is an amazing career.

Not everybody in their world is saying that to them. And when they are often discouraged from becoming an educator, and that's something that we have control over as a state.

There was a question about dual enrollment, so I added this QR code for you. It takes you to the full report. We did a full study a year ago looking at the trends. You can see the key findings that Dana DeFeo lists from that study. We are going— we're looking, hoping to do a follow-up study that may start next year to dive deeper into a few of the questions.

But we also know that dual enrollment is a way to grab our young people in high school and get them engaged in the university setting, uh, get credits, uh, earning so that they have a head start when they start college. And they also begin to believe that they can do college even if they thought maybe they couldn't. So it's another pipeline tool in general for our state workforce, but also in the area of education. Through Ed Rising, we are also working on a dual credit course that has been collaboratively created by all three— by faculty from all three schools of education, and that will be piloted this fall.

Retention. We believe that we are contributing content to retention just through the preparation process for our teachers. When teachers are prepared through a high-quality program they are much more likely to stay longer in the career. We know that a couple years ago the READS Act came into place, and so the university quickly redesigned some of their courses. The university schools of ed have always contributed to high-quality reading instruction programming, but we wanted to be able to have our educators come off the stage certified.

Supports our students, supports districts. That's less teachers showing up on their doorstep that they have to then get certified. So all elementary, uh, teacher candidates come across our stage reads-act certified now. And, and we did that relatively quickly, um, in the pace of higher ed. And so we're really excited about that.

We do also have a statewide mentor project that is again building retention. We work with over 150 teachers in the state Those are, uh, recently retired teachers supporting new teachers or new to the state teachers. Um, and generally we have relationships with specific different districts for 3 to 5 years, and then we shift our, our resources. Um, we also want our, our programming to be, uh, real-time, uh, relevant. So we do train on how to, uh, use student data through assessments.

We know that Not all assessment data is created equal, and some is more powerful than others. So, but we do help our students be ready when they hit the classroom to look at student data, make instructional decisions around that, and support those students instructionally. All of our programs are heavily layered with place-based strategies.

Our— we do a faculty summit, faculty and staff summit of all three schools of education each fall and spring. And the energy in the room around paying attention to indigenizing our courses, preparing students for rural settings is— our faculty is super passionate about that. And that's one of the things that we're gaining steam on,.

Continuing that momentum through that in, in real time, uh, time together.

Couple highlights real quickly. Um, in May, uh, will be a Master of Arts in Teaching Indigenous Languages through UAS. That will be in front of the Board of Regents in May. We're super excited about this. Again, is a response to the workforce.

We know that districts have, uh, teachers teaching language through Type Ms. And that's limiting based on the district. It's not transferable. In some districts, those Type M teachers don't advance on a salary schedule. So this is a way to support teachers getting their initial licensure and continue to work as a Type C, Type A, I can't remember now, Type A in our districts. And so we're really excited about that and being able to launch that program.

Registered apprenticeship programming is new across our country, the university did not miss a beat collaborating with DEED and other agencies in the state to develop and launch registered apprenticeships for educators. Last fall, I was at a national registered apprenticeship program with members of— from DEED, other folks from the university, and people from all over the country in education working on this, and I can tell you that Alaska is is right there. We're either ahead of most presentations we heard or, or participation, or right next to them. So that was super encouraging, and that has been a very, very collaborative project across the state. And some of the numbers are there where we're working on that.

We really are working in the areas of preschool, pre-K to 3, elementary, secondary, and special education. We have programs in all those areas, and we're just about to head into the ed leadership realm with Registered Apprenticeship Program. So again, given a normal pace of work around education, this has been warp speed, and the, and the response has been really, really good. And the power in it, in the Registered Apprentice Program, is that it is place-based. So we are supporting people in their communities becoming educators.

So we're finding people that are already anchored in these communities who then are getting trained and then will be longstanding educators in those communities. So there's some real strength and speed of trust in these WRAP programs. PDAS, you've probably heard of. This is a UAS program. It is an incredible program that has been operating for a number of years now.

Again, I put statistics there, but this is a very powerful program supporting Indigenous education in our state.

I wanted to share just a little more about what we're doing to enhance our Grow Your Own programs and put some, some really good details there for you. Again, we know retention is going to be better. We know the higher quality program supports retention, and that is, you know, the university's goal is to find a way over the next years, some years, to minimize the number of flown-in teachers to grown-in teachers. And everyone contributes. It's good to have diversity.

I'm a believer. I was born and raised in Juneau. I went outside for my education, spent 26 years in another state as a professional, and then was able to come back to Alaska and contribute for 10, 15 years. I believe that diversity is also helpful. So it's not that we can only have Alaska-grown teachers.

But we need to have more Alaska-grown teachers than we have right now. We had a part— this is a UAF event where each year they bring in school districts and other partners to take a day and a half to just dig deep into developing the nitty-gritty of grow-your-own programs. Kelly Manning was there this fall with that event and several other partners. Really, really powerful. Next year, we're going to expand this actually and include UAS and UAA representation at the same Grow Your Own event.

So we're really excited about that. Early childhood, another response to our workforce needs in the state. This is through UAA. Our RAP there is stackable so that someone can come get a certification that can then go be more highly qualified for Head Start or other preschool programs in our state. Or they can stack it and become certified as a teacher, Pre-K to 3.

So there's lots of flexibility in this program, and the response has been way higher than we anticipated with this one. I mean, we should have known because it is such a need, uh, but it has been very, very well received and will produce our first K— Pre-K to 3 RAP, uh, teacher this spring. So that's very exciting. In, yeah, so in a short time. Uh, again, we're moving towards, uh, Ed Leadership RAPs.

We're looking to launch those, uh, in this summer and fall. Um, again, finding ways to make it less expensive, more efficient, and, um, embedded, job-embedded training, uh, through the RAP programs. Huge partners. Um, I want to to say just that none of this work can be done without the collective, and you are a big part of that. Our K-12 district partners is huge.

The deans and I attend every fall superintendent conference to build those relationships. They are in constant conversation with districts, both our Superintendent Association, our School Boards Association, the Department of Education. It's just really quite remarkable. The intersections, the conduits between all of our partners. It's very rewarding work and everybody is contributing.

The Alaska Council of School Administrators has a specific role through their Alaska Education Recruitment and Retention Center program, and we partner really directly with them as well. And, and it is very powerful to be able to think through initiatives and strategies. They've held a couple of virtual job fairs, as an example, specific for the university students. That's just one example, but Dr. Lisa Parity is a real key partner in all of this work because everybody benefits, right? It's just one of those really powerful initiatives.

When I say initiatives, all capitals, like we providing high-quality educators for our children in Alaska. Like, there just really isn't a lot more important than that. I'm a little biased, but, but it's the truth. And so it really takes everyone, and I would not say this to you if I didn't feel it. Uh, the coordination and collaboration among all the agencies has been really refreshing in the last year or two.

Uh, very lastly, we have a UA intern scholarship that the, that the university provides. And we are about next week to send award letters to 109 teacher education prep students that are in their third, fourth year, or doing a graduate initial licensure program that will all receive funding. 43 Of those students or so will be completely funded, all tuition, fees, plus a living stipend of $5,000 per semester when they do their student teaching, their internship. So we'll award just over $1 million, and those letters will go out next week. Total, we've done about $4 million.

This is a big commitment of the university, but we know that finances is one major obstacle. So if we can support students in their third and fourth year, and those people who are deciding to go back, like they have their bachelor's and now they want to become a teacher, that just, you know, every obstacle that we can take away, we're really trying hard with at that. Looking at all— at the problem from all different directions.

I don't know if I hit 15 minutes. I'm a little over, sorry. Well, no, thank you very much, Dr. Weiss. That was really a lot of information. It was good information, and your enthusiasm comes through, and we really appreciate that and appreciate your dedication because I know personally we've been through a lot of work together, the Juneau School District, you being superintendent there for a few years, head of the special education program.

And I know you're at Fairbanks for a long time too as an educator. So thank you. We're gonna have a few questions here, which is really good. I'm gonna start with Doc— with Doctor— I'm gonna start with Representative Eischeid, if you could please start us off. Thank you.

Thank you for the compliment. Co-chair. Yes, we like education. Sorry, I also, yeah, I noticed on Sunday evening I was promoted to senator as well at an event we went to Sunday evening. But through the co-chair, Dr. Weiss, thank you for your presentation.

I have two questions. I appreciate your background, your perspective, and my two questions are on recruitment and retention. So slide 5 showed some troubling things about, uh, uh, recruitment. Um, from where you sit, uh, how has the, the public perception of public education as a career changed over the years you've been working in this.

Area professionally, because I've heard repeatedly how, oh, it used to be hundreds of applicants for positions. It was true in 1990 when I applied to be a teacher in Wisconsin. And now we have first day of school vacancies rampant. So what's going on? What, you know, the educator rising, what are the obstacles young people are seeing to pursuing a career in education?

That's my first question. [Speaker:DR. BETH] That's a really good question. Through Chair Storey, Representative Eichide, I think it is multiple facets of the public perception, and you all have heard many things in the last few years. I think when we went through the pandemic, that was sort of a gear shift. It wasn't just that, it was starting before that, but that sort of kicked it into a different gear, this how hard education is.

Education, being an educator is hard. Representative Hemmschult would say, I'm sure agree, and others. But so are a lot of other things, and it's very rewarding. I think that when we did a study, and it's a little old, so we need to redo this, and I think one of the things that I had on a slide, but I don't think I mentioned, is the Alaska, the statewide survey is going to be super important because that should give, what's powerful about that is it is statewide. The disadvantage is it might be harder to get participation because it feels more abstract than if I'm responding to my specific district.

But if we can get a good response to that, that will give us some strategies. We can interpret and guess why people are leaving the profession, leaving the state, but this will give us some data to then say, uh, okay, it's money. I'm not getting paid enough. It's my living conditions. It's the leadership in my district.

It's constantly advocating for funding you know, generally every year, whatever it might turn out to be, we can project. But this will give us some direct lanes to start working in. And so I'm really excited about that. Um, but much of it is, again, we all have influence, and how do we talk about educators in our spheres? Um, and, and that's, you know, again, I attend a lot of events each year to try to promote and get people excited about education.

Um, but every single person has a sphere that they can be encouraging. And what we found was that many Many, many young people were discouraged by family members to becoming an educator, even when some of their family members were educators, which is a little heartbreaking for me. But I think we do have to be strategic in our response around recruitment, and I think that survey will give us some avenue to do that. Thank you. Second question?

Yes, follow-up. Yeah, thank you for that.

The second question, I guess, would be, okay, if— and thank you for all the great recruitment things that you're working on. So, but if we have a recruitment problem, it seems like a partial solution is to retain good teachers. So—. Yep, 100%. Without a survey in front of you, we've actually done these surveys before, so you're familiar with those.

What's the top thing the legislature can do to retain great teachers presently working in the state of Alaska? Well, it's going to sound redundant probably, but adequate and timely funding is really the backbone, right? When superintendents, our school board members, our educators are spending months every year, lots of time advocating here with all of you, lots of time stewing, trying to run budgets where they don't have the, the numbers to run a budget when it's due next week. You know, those— that sounds rhetorical almost at this point, but it is not. That is the base.

It's for any business. We're no different than any other business in your communities, and we are by and large the major employer in many of our districts in Alaska. And so that, that is just— that's bottom line. Because I, when I was in Fairbanks, I had to give some of my freshest, most amazing new teachers that I had hired and was excited about what they were contributing in our school— I had to give them pink slips. And it is the worst.

And here These were folks that did it. They went through the program, they got their bachelor's, they got their certificate, they want to be in North Pole, and then I have to sit across from them at a table like this and say, I don't think I have a job for you next year. And so those things are just so disruptive. And you're 100% right, recruitment and retention go hand in hand because the better we retain, the less recruitment we obviously have to do. And you can't talk about one without the other.

Thank you. Uh, thank you. I have on my list, uh, Rep. Dybert next, and then Rep. Beeland, did I see your hand or not? Yeah, okay. And then I have Rep. Hemshoot.

Thank you. Through the co-chair to Dr. Weiss, thank you for being here and your service to youth in our state. And just a follow-up to Rep. Eichscheidt, I was pink-slipped twice at the start of my career in Fairbanks, but luckily Fairbanks was my community. I already had like roots set there, so I wasn't going to go anywhere. I wasn't going to leave the state.

And just figure out another route to get into a classroom. But if you aren't from a community and you get a pink slip, you are going to leave. So I'm just adding that to the record. My question is on slide 7. I'm really interested in the Ed Rising program.

And one of the challenges is— the teachers who are teaching these courses, Advising in a high school, they're already booked, they're already trying to run their core classes, and also, you know, trying to run— to take over the— you know, to encourage the students who are in Advising to do their work, to do their projects, chasing them around, right? Because they're not all in one class, is what I'm thinking. How will the dual— just can you go a little bit deeper into the dual program? Yes, the dual enrollment course. It is, uh, when it is taught, um, those Ed Rising students are typically in a class.

I can't speak for each district how that works, but typically they do have a class with those students, um, and it is being credited through the university. And that happens now, uh, but what we've done is it was currently— it was tied to the national Ed Rising curriculum And we are now creating— have created a pilot course of our own curriculum. So it's Alaska-based curriculum, which is very exciting. But most of those— and we met with some when we did the Grow Your Own summit up in Fairbanks with about 15 school districts. One of the things we had that day was a panel of Ed Rising students and teacher leaders.

We had 3 teacher— Ed Rising teacher leaders and about 5 students, and we had a panel. Talking about their experience in Ed Rising, what— why they're thinking education, why not, and the teachers sharing their experience. And there was a lot of positive energy in that room, um, both between the teacher leaders and the students. Um, but we do— out of our statewide office, we provide support for each, uh, Ed Rising program. So they're, they're hopefully able to, uh, respond when needs happen inside of a school.

Thank you. Rep. Bielem. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation and for coming out to meet with us here today. I guess my question is really kind of along the, the lines of just modern trends, things that are happening generically across the workforce.

And so we see a lot of recruiting and retention issues in a variety of industries and professions, and I'm wondering how some of that has impacted the the teaching career path? It wasn't that long ago teachers would, you know, get to say, oh yeah, I take summers off, you know. And now we see a lot of opportunities where people don't have a regular office, a regular 9 to 5 that they have to be at. Is that impacting the teaching industry at all? And then also, are we adopting to any of those more changes in industry where people are really looking for a lot of freedom and flexibility?

Through Chair Storey, Representative Elam, I apologize if I said your name wrong. Oh, you got it. And I do think that's a factor. The style of working is so different. And that is another piece that I think COVID shifted a gear, right?

It existed before, but wow, when COVID hit and then we all returned to the workforce, it— the gear had been shifted a bit around that. And so one of the things we've done to respond is we do offer our programming through a lot of different ways. So the old style where, you know, I showed up in Spokane on the Whitworth campus, I did classes every day, I came home and worked at Christmas, I came home and worked at summer, I went back— that is not the necessarily the.

Automatic anymore. So we offer all of our courses virtually. Some are synchronous, some are asynchronous. Students can be on campus, they don't have to be on, you know. So we have redesigned our programming as a university, Schools of Education, to adapt to people's expectations around that.

In terms of the workforce, I do think it does impact that because we're competing with other careers that might have a lot of flexibility. Educators have some flexibility, but there are a lot of other ways now that people can earn a living and not show up at 7:30 every morning, uh, you know. So, um, so I think that is a factor for sure, but we've tried to at least adapt our programming in a way that makes it accessible to a lot of different styles. May I follow up? Follow up.

Thank you. Um, within the teaching profession, um, are there other options that avail themselves to remote work and to some of those flexibilities? And, um, in my mind, I'm kind of thinking— excuse me— a lot of people don't realize that, that nursing, for example, they think bedside nursing, but there are hundreds of different types of nurses ranging from consultant-type nurses to compliance nurses to, you know, a variety of these areas. And it doesn't necessarily require the same rigors as being a night shift med surg nurse in the middle of the evening, or a third grade teacher with a classroom full of boys, right? Are there other opportunities out there that, that teachers may be pursuing that are outside of traditional classroom experiences?

I think there are some. There are certainly specialist positions that look a little bit different. We have reading specialists, we have a variety of positions similar to that that might look a little different than a regular school school day. We also have virtual schools now, you know, where we have— we're delivering homeschool, uh, you know, districts have homeschools, so they have certified teachers that support families that are homeschooling and, and doing some engagement with the district. So there are a variety of ways.

The other neat thing about education is that it is very malleable. A person might— like me, I, when I started teaching, I had zero concept of ever being an administrator. I mean zero, not even in my wheelhouse of thought. But I had lots of opportunities as an educator. I could be a curriculum leader, I could be a coach, I could be, you know, on the math curriculum committee.

And then all of a sudden I'm interested in leadership, so then I could transition to administration. There's just so many different directions that educators can go through a career, which I think should be enticing and somebody should think about when they enter a field. And there really are— there's a lot of different layers.

One final, final question. So then if a— if so, what are we doing then, I guess, at the district level? And this may not be a question you can answer, but at district levels, to keep and recruit and retain teachers that have options What are we doing to be competitive to keep them in their classrooms? Yeah, I wish I could answer that. I really can't speak for districts, but I do think that the districts that I am working with regularly, I know that they are, and our unions, right?

Our unions, our NEA and each individual unions also play a role in that. What are we doing to provide great working conditions for our educators? Because that makes a difference. So I do believe that districts are contributing contributing and working hard to make it a great place to be. It, whatever it is.

Thank you. Thank you. Rep. Himeshute. Thanks. I just want to comment on the conversation that just took place.

I didn't want to go into— through the chair— I didn't want to go into school administration, and that's what my dad saw as advancing in my career. Why aren't you a principal? 'Why aren't you a principal?' And I didn't want that, but I did double down and reinvest in my classroom practice, and there were many avenues for me to pursue staying in the classroom and becoming a more skilled professional.

So it's, it's fairly boundless what you can do in education. But yeah, there's also, you know, micro schools and other things happening outside of the brick-and-mortar setting. So I do have questions though on slide 5. I might have missed it, I had some distraction here, but, um, so we lost accreditation at UAA in 2017, 2019, something around there. So just so that I'm clear, AY, so we've got fiscal year, we got calendar year, we got academic year, academic year.

When you say academic year '23, does that start in '22 and end in '23? Yes. Okay, so when we talk about an academic year, we use the end date of that academic year. Okay, so we have some folks enrolled starting in 2022 in academic year '23 at UAA. Are these folks— are, are we reaccredited?

Do we have accreditation? So through the chair, Representative Himschute, um, and, and again, these are initial licensure numbers, so there's lots of numbers around other programs, but these are just initial licensure. Uh, the answer is, uh, that the University of Alaska Anchorage School of Education lost their accreditation for initial licensure. None of the other programs in the School of Education, and they have been working since towards a '27-'28 reaccreditation through CAPE. They are accredited, as an example, through NAEYC for their early childhood, etc., but this one zone, and what they have is provisional approval through the Department of Education and through the State Board of Education.

Um, they have provisional approval to be operating and producing certified teachers. So they have that until they go back. This— the CAPE accreditation process is a 7-year cycle, so they couldn't get there until '27. And they are working really closely. They're collecting their data, doing all the pieces.

Thank you. And it will— it's very, you know, it's looking really, really good, but it officially will happen in another year. Follow-up? Thank you. I'm encouraged to hear that.

It was a huge blow to the state to lose accreditation. I know that everyone's aware of that. Um, but I still see the numbers decreasing at UAF and UAS from AY21 to AY25. So we have all these great things going on, and yet the number of teachers we're certifying through our university is not going up. Any—.

So through the chair, Representative Schutt. Yes, well, what's encouraging is the yellow box, that our enrollment is going up. The challenge with producing high-quality teachers is It takes time, takes a bachelor's. So we are thinking about pipeline. So I really appreciated Representative Story's question about pipeline because that you have to really look at it as a continuum of time.

Those Ed Rising students, they'll show up on there, but it'll be FY— it'll be academic year 30, right? And so you— it is challenging, um, these students now. If you go back 4 years, it's just post-COVID. If they started and did a 4-year bachelor's, and many take 5 years to do that. So really what you're seeing— these numbers are really still impacted a bit by the experience of COVID uh, so it's going to take a while for those numbers to get closer to what we want.

But the enrollment trend is one of the indicators. If the enrollment trend between this past fall and next fall was decreasing then we go, I'm not too excited about what I'm going to see on that table in a year or two. But we are seeing, and we are really pulling out every strategy that exists— grow your own, registered apprenticeship programs, which again is newly endorsed by the federal Department of Labor as of 2, 3 years ago. Follow-up: so can you confirm on slide 5, is the registered apprenticeship program enrollment reflected here, or those folks are not full-time, right? The, the RAP students are taking a class or two at a time, so they're probably not in this chart.

If they're registered for courses, they would be in that number. So for UAA, those— I would think that those students include the registered apprenticeship program. I'm pretty sure. Okay, and one more follow-up. Follow-up.

Thank you. On slide 7, which is between 6 and 8, it doesn't actually Oh, shoot, I think the QR probably covered it, but, um, I will certainly go and look at the report. I'm excited to hear that there's a report that we can review. What I'd like to know is, is dual enrollment handled the same in every school district? I know what we did in Sitka with the university, UAS Sitka covered a third, and families paid for a third, and the school district paid for a third.

So there's— there are equity questions there for me, but also, is that standard? Is that what every school district does? I can't say every school district does the exact same thing because, as an example, some school districts have grants that support dual enrollment, and so— and other districts don't.

So it does look different across the state. Um, we, uh, do work strongly between the three UAA— another one of my little side gigs is helping support dual enrollment, and we meet monthly, UAA, UAF, UAS, uh, dual enrollment coordinators, myself and a couple others. And we work to try to remove obstacles and increase the use of dual enrollment. And one thing is, as much as we can as a university system, be as consistent as as possible, which is, you know, not always spot on, but we are working towards that. Um, and so, uh, but districts do it, handle it different.

Um, I just have been in some really exciting conversations with Sitka campus and Mount Edgecomb, and looking at, um, Director Rupp there has some really great ideas that we're sort of mulling around and developing around dual enrollment, sort of a middle, middle college concept around CTE. Possibly education, etc. So that's like bubbling as an idea at this point. But every, every district does handle it somewhat different depending on resources. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. I have a few questions that I would like to ask. And one thing throughout your presentation, I appreciated hearing about working closely with K-12 education.

Because I think our different levels, policy levels and preparation levels, working together is just the way every state SMART. We want to have the different areas of education working together. And so I was very pleased to hear that all the teachers who leave our teacher education program are certified with the reading endorsement. That is just very important. It costs money and it's— great that that is provided for.

And so am I around that— most of our districts are using the MAPS, the Measured Academic Progress, and I am wondering if in your teacher program everyone is placed that they're familiar with the MAPS program so when they get out to their district they'll understand how that works. Yeah, that as well as others. So really, they have an assessment course, but assessment Data is also sort of woven through a variety of courses. Um, we don't have access to student data always, but we do, um, use student data to practice and such, uh, different student data. Uh, and then when students are doing their internship is another place where they're in the workplace, they're in the classroom, and they get another really nice dose of that with their master teacher as they experience those things in real time.

Thank you for that. I'm also— we hear in our roles about many mental health issues that students are experiencing, and I'm wondering how the university prepares their teacher preparation program in that area. That's a really great question.

I think again there are courses where it— I don't think we— I would have to look, Andy, to Representative Story to see specifically if we have courses that address the social and emotional needs of students, uh, specifically, or if it's interwoven. But it is a definite key piece of our preparation program. We also just introduced the school psychology program at UAA this fall, which is super exciting because that's— it's outside of the School of Education, but it is a big workforce need for our school districts. Thank you for that. Um, the ACCUPLACER, um, as that still in place?

Is there a dialogue between when— if our students are coming out of their English programs and math programs not being successful in the ACCUPLACER, are you talking to those K-12 teachers about what we— where we need to strengthen our programs, what is missing? Can you tell me how that is going? Sure. How we measure that is by the number of students enrolled in our developmental classes. On the university end, that's what we see is we see how many have to enroll in developmental classes, which are less than 100 number courses.

And that number is actually decreasing in English over the years, but still pretty steady or increasing in the math area in the last 3 to 5 years. And I can send you specific data if you would like, but that's generally— that's the— I looked at it just yesterday, and that's what we're seeing. I can't speak for how districts, because that's really a district and university relationship. I know in the Juneau School District we did that and we saw huge results. We brought together UAS professors and, and teachers, and because we felt like our developmental course enrollees were too high, and we had conversation, discussed some different things, and it really made a difference regarding our numbers.

Thank you for that information. I would really encourage the university to reach out more to our K-12 system. And when you see students coming from certain districts that are— have not ready to take— start where they should and have to take a developmental course, which again, you're paying money for some level of expertise you should have had leaving high school, that they're aware of that, aware of those numbers, and and offer to have those district meetings with those communities, because that to me is really great leadership and great feedback between the two institutions. And certainly what we would like to see, you know, here as we look to how the schools— the university system and the schools are working together.

I had a few other program questions. I do know we have another important presentation, so do I have any other questions? Uh, Rep. Schwanke.

Thank you. Uh, through co-chair Story, uh, thank you, Dr. Reese, for being here. Um, I had a quick question on the UA intern scholarship slide. I think that was 16. Um, it says that priority points are awarded for certain things.

Including in their STEM and then doing internships actually in districts that have a high number of Alaska Native students. Are you able— I guess maybe I missed it, and my apologies if I did, but where do the funds come from for these, these particular awards, and are you actively working with industry or Alaska Native corporations to try to help support these students? Through the chair, Representative Schwonke, We, the funding comes straight from the university's foundation budget. And so this is a commitment that President Pitney has contributed, given her interest in producing more teachers in the state. We do prioritize, that's the best way, that's what we have found works.

And so we do it on priority basis. We try to fund all applicants whenever we can, or put some money in the pocket of every, every, every applicant depending on how much money we have. Um, we, uh, we also have the found— the University of Alaska Foundation also contributes a little bit of scholarship funding. Um, our partnerships with our tribal, uh, corporations and agencies are very closely woven into our rep— our RAP, our Registered Apprenticeship Programs, and that also reduces costs for students. Um, that's part of the RAP process is that costs are reduced for students and they can maintain receiving some funding or some salary while they are doing their apprenticeship program.

Follow-up. Follow-up. I just want to say thank you for that, because I do think when you engage specifically entities based in Alaska, and obviously you're already working with some tribal entities, but also some of our larger employers like the Alaska Native Corporations, um, as well as some industry folks. I would highly encourage you to reach out and kind of engage with them a little bit further because I feel like that is that, uh, that communication maybe that, that's lacking right now across the state. We do have a lot of, um, focus on trades, CTE, and, and a lot less focus on actual collegiate pathway professions, and teaching is is still a collegiate pathway profession.

And, um, might be a little biased as a UAF graduate, but I, I feel like really engaging those industries, it helps keep it fresh in their mind that we do still absolutely need these pathways. We need young people from Alaska going into teaching. So thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

I have two more questions, and then I'm going to encourage committee members if they have any more questions as you think more about this presentation, please send them to my office and then we can forward them to you and you can respond and we can learn even more. So my question is about the Alaska Performance Scholarship. You know, the idea we offer this wonderful program to students who want to work hard and take a rigorous curriculum and it's based on their GPA.

And are you seeing more— well, I think from our report we are having more kids qualify for APS. So I guess, how are you helping communicate to the districts? We have a certain timeline about when districts should be noticed, and they're working together with the university system to try and let them know in their junior year if they're on track to get the APS.

APS scholarship, and I don't know if that's not in your wheelhouse and what you're dealing with, but I know that when I sat on the school board, we had a number like 34% of our kids were qualifying for APS, and we wanted to bump that up because this is a way kids could go and have a significant amount of their college paid for. So anyway, I'm wondering how that's going. It's a great question. Actually, one of the projects that I'm working on is an APS campaign, so it's very appropriate. We are really looking at ways to communicate all the programming that the University of Alaska offers to APS— to younger students so that they can understand that they have an opportunity for financial support.

So we are running a campaign. So far this spring, we sent a mailer that we designed to all 8th graders in the state. Directly to the student. And then we sent, a few weeks later, we sent a mailer to all 8th grade parents, all parents of 8th graders, their own flyer talking about the Alaska Performance Scholarship, like the time is now, talk to your counselor. And then we sent one to all 9th graders a few weeks ago, again directly to the students saying, this is a cool opportunity, pay attention to the classes you're taking because this can turn out to be big money for you.

It's a big win, you know? And so we're trying our, this again was President Pitney's really strong interest to get to 8th graders and young, you know, that young crew before they hit high school so that they can really start thinking about and understanding because it's, by the time they're a senior, it's too late. So we are starting a young campaign that way. We also are, anytime I'm at an event that I can speak to, we're speaking about that. And school districts, the, The new data record that's required on the Summer OASIS is, as I understand it, is the school districts need to identify how many students, and I think which, are APS-ready at the end of their junior year, eligible to finish their senior year.

And that's another group that we're really interested in being able to communicate about, or communicate with, the opportunities and It's a little challenging with student data, getting things back and forth, but we're working on that. That's a little bit of an obstacle as a university that we're trying to overcome. Thank you for that. And I know I'm straying a little bit from focusing on teachers, but I think it's really important. So my last question is just when we looked at the number of teachers that we need and we know we need more, what is the number that we are aspirational to that we need to be starting?

Well, I think we would look at our vacancy number, right? I think we would just look at that fall vacancy number, uh, and, and our goal is to, um, reduce that gap. And again, it's, it is really, it's slow work, which is hard. We, we need that instant gratification, uh, but it is slow work. And, and I really do feel confident in saying that we are pulling out all the stops.

Like, we are looking at it from all directions. And, um, and we— I do think that there are things that we can continue to do around the communication of the career itself, the vocation. And I think, you know, working with NEA, um, we have some really neat stories, uh, that we're trying to share, uh, but we need to elevate the vocation, and, and, and, and then be patient while these, you know, new initiatives take root. Um, at the same time, while you all do the incredible work you're doing in really stabilizing that, that funding formula, um, and that backbone for K-12, um, education. Thank you for that.

And if I remember right, our first day teacher vacancy was like 373 teachers. And so we're about half, a little over halfway with that. So anyway, so I appreciate those efforts. And I wanted to, I was sitting here thinking about Gary Lainhart, who is a teacher who just was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame. And he was a government teacher and soccer coach.

And they did an article, a long article with him. And he talked about how kind of the teaching profession can be crazy and the financial components. I can't remember what term he used for it, but he said, my reward has been my relationships with my students. And, you know, just he feels so much when he is out in the community, um, seeing different generations of people coming up to him and, um, you know, thanking him and just having that relationship. And not even— I mean, many, he didn't say that they come up and say thank you, but just that genuine And then he talked about it was my opportunity to make a difference.

And he really felt it was purposeful work. And it really, it really is. And we need to tell that story. My son is 34. I just left Spokane.

I spent a week with him watching him. He's a teacher, he's a coach, and he exhibits what you just described. And when I watch him from a distance, sort of as a mom and an educator, it really reminds me every time, um, the— you can't quantify the amount of contribution that educators give our whole community, our state, their communities, their— our state, our country. Um, the time— you can't count the hours. He leaves the house at 5:00 AM every morning to run a weight room for free, no pay, for his track and football kids.

Then he teaches all day, and then he coaches all afternoon, and he's home about 5:00 on a good day. If it's track meet day, you know, he won't get home till 9:00 or 10:00. He does this through football season, through track season, and he loves up on these kids. They adore him. He is, he has the heart of an educator, and we need more of those.

And it is a rewarding profession, and you can't do it by the numbers. It doesn't, you know, he can't afford a house. He's single. He can't buy a house in Spokane. But he is a very fulfilled individual, and we need to keep telling those stories.

Gary Lainhart is a great example of that. Well, thank you. On behalf of the Education Committee, thank you for your work in trying to grow the teacher profession and making it be supportive to aspiring teachers. So thank you for your— thank you for being here. So next up we are going to have Kelly Manning, Deputy Director of Innovation and Education Excellence.

And do we have Dr. Bishop online? Oh, here it is.

My machine is frozen in time, but that's fine. We've got Dr. Manning here. If you could please come up. Identify yourself for the record and begin your presentation.

We are glad that you are here.

And I was just passed a note in real time. Dr. Aishai— Dr. Aishai— Representative Aishai. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I'm giving you a hint, Ted.

Dr.— Representative Eichide said that we have 324 teacher vacancies right now. So thank you for that. And again, welcome, Director Manning. Pleased to have you here today. Please begin your presentation.

Good morning. For the record, Kelly Manning, Deputy Director for Innovation and Education Excellence at the Department of Education. And I have updates on teacher certification, the process, uh, and information on how educators can learn what certifications they need to apply for, um, learn about the process, uh, and current data on, um, certifications. Um, I'll move through these relatively quickly, but our purpose, as you're aware, DEED exists to provide information, resources, and leadership to support an excellent education for every student every day, and our certification team very much falls within that by being a resource to support educators in achieving their certification.

And our, um, in our Alaska Education Challenge, uh, the priority of preparing, attracting, and retaining effective education professionals, our certification, having, um, clear, efficient certification process is an important part of supporting that priority.

So the role and purpose of our certification team is to support school districts and universities in, in supporting educators to achieve their certification requirements. Part of the role of our certification team is to support universities in achieving their accreditation and getting the approval through the State Board of Education for our university programs in the state. I note here most of our certified teacher applications fall under the AS 1420.020, under that statute, and then we have a number of regulations that then provide the guidance for each different type of certification.

The, the requirements for each certificate type do vary, but some of the standard requirements are completion of an approved education preparation program for the type of.

Certificate: passing scores on the required basic competency exam, passing scores on required content area exams, the completion of the 4 mandatory trainings, which we do provide those through our e-learning platform, the completion of Multicultural Studies in Alaska history course. Those need to be completed within 2 years for most certificates, so some have a provisional that then if they complete those courses in 2 years, they get the full professional, and then successfully passing a background check, which we work with the Department of Public Safety to process. Director Manning, I know we're holding questions till the end, but can you remind me what the 4 mandatory trainings are? Oh, off the top of my head, um, I will have to get back to you on exactly what those are. I know that there's a Suicide prevention training.

Gosh, I'll have to get those for you. Thank you. And then I did want to note that we are pleased to have Dr. Dena Bishop online, the Commissioner, so I'm sure we'll hear from her at some point. So please continue. Yes.

So on the, on the teacher certification website, this is a screenshot of what candidates see when they go to our website. And so this really breaks out, and you can see there's many different types of certification, and each one details the requirements for a candidate. It provides information of what they are required to have, what the different certificate type allows them to instruct in. And so this is, this is what the first thing that a candidate will see when they go to the teacher certification website. When you go in, and this is just an example, this is the Professional Teacher Certificate, clicking on any one of those links will take then that candidate to the page that details the requirements for that certificate, any required exams that they have, additional coursework that's required, and then you can click through each of the, the blue sections is a hyperlink that provides them further information of what they need to have in place for that.

This is the information that they need before they go in to complete their application and helps them with navigating what do I have to have in place to submit my application. Additionally, our— we do have limited phone hours just because we have a small team for certification, but there are some times when candidates can call in to ask additional questions if they need to know what processes to complete for their certification.

Once they're ready to apply, they'll go through the Educator Application and Certification Hub Alaska, the TEACHAK system. This is our new online certification system. We piloted with a small number of, uh, applications in 2023, fully launching and stopping paper applications in June of 2024. Um, at that time, because we had a backlog of paper applications that we needed to get into the new system, because there was, you know, as there are with new online systems, some glitches and things. Our processing times got pretty long, and I know you heard about that, but we now have gotten down to the standard processing time of about 4 to 6 weeks.

And one of the things that we added is the district portal. That, that system, and I'm going to talk about that in a couple of slides here, but it gives the districts access to be able to see the application and where it's where it's at in the process, and I'm going to talk more about that here in a moment.

Before I talk about the district portal, just current data. So we pulled up from February 25th through February 26th, 4,267 teacher certificates were issued, and you can see here the numbers by the different types. So 1,688 professional teacher, 414 professional out of state. This— I'm not going to go through all of them, but in, in addition, 782 special education endorsements, 780 Alaska Reads Act endorsements. So you can see there's a lot of volume of applications that go through the certification team and that we've been able to support a high number of educators in achieving and renewing their certificates.

So this includes those renewals for teachers who are expiring.

So in the application process, in order to process the application, those that checklist of items need to be complete, and it is required that that all be submitted prior— they'll go back and back to the date that everything has been submitted. That's the date that the certificate will be dated. What we find is that there's some common things that people miss, sometimes submitting an unofficial transcript, not having complete information, especially on continuing education units where maybe their name is missing, the date, and we just highlight these things because, as I had shared, we have this District Communication Hub. So it takes about 4 weeks, 5 weeks to— for our staff to get to reviewing that application, but the district has access to that application as soon as the educator submits it, as long as they have included their district in their application. If they've said, "I'm in the Juneau School District," the Juneau School District can go in and see that candidate's application, and they can look for these common mistakes and errors and make sure that when the DEED team gets to reviewing it, that everything is already there and complete.

Because that's a newer function, not all of our districts are using it yet, but we're working on making sure that they know how to access it, that the right people in their district have access to it, and that they understand how it can be used to help support and streamline the process. And that way too, when they wanna check and see if one of their candidates has submitted, that they've gotten everything in timely, they can check that. And if there is any delay, get with that educator and, and remind them that their certification needs to be submitted or if there's missing information. So, it's a really helpful piece that allows our districts to help their educators and their— that are going through the process to make sure that they're meeting the requirements and then check for some of these real common errors that delay processing.

So, streamlining certification has been one of the goals for— that came from a number of different avenues. So, one is the teacher retention. Retention Recruitment Playbook has recommendations around streamlining certification. Since 2017, the State Board of Education has approved 31 regulation changes to certification. So some of that has included expanded alternative certification routes, establishing some new certificate and endorsement types, aligning teacher assessments and reciprocity, and streamlining certification processes to strengthen just our workforce, but making it easier for educators to access and then providing more opportunities for districts to bring on different types of educators.

Additionally, with the Administrative Order 360, we're looking at some certification regulations to see where we can continue that process of streamlining, making things as effective and efficient as possible. So we continue to look at this and see how can we ensure that our certification process isn't a barrier How can we ensure that it's functioning well for districts and educators in Alaska?

Our certification team— this is the, the positions, but we have an administrator that leads the team, and that position really helps to support districts in understanding processes. That is the position that helps our universities with their accreditation processes, understanding how that works. And facilitating with the State Board of Ed for those pieces. That's also the position that helps to support getting our regulation changes through that process. We also have an education specialist for that team that is really focused on supporting the teacher— the TeachAK system— ensuring that that's functioning as smoothly as possible, helping districts with the district portal, you know, the access and how to use those things.

So it's very much a support position That position also helps during— we have sort of surge times where we have a lot of applications, so that position helps with making sure that we're processing timely during those busier times. We have our Apprenticeship Coordinator, the Program Coordinator 1, and that position is helping support our— currently we have 82 apprentice candidates under DEED sponsorship, and that position is supporting those candidates with the process as well as helping the mentors to access the training and resources to support them. And then the next 4 that you see, that's actually our certification team. So that's the team that works day in, day out processing applications, that 4,000-some, you know, that we've processed in the past year, and then helping answer questions, supporting candidates through the process. Then we also have an education program assistant that supports a couple of teams, but they also help support our— the phone lines for the certification team and help with just some basic questions.

They're not as in the weeds and more just help to direct people for where they can get the assistance they need. But I wanted to note the team just because, as I shared, you know, they've been through a lot of transition in the last couple of years. They have really, you know, worked hard to get us to a place where we've got.

Certification processing working as smoothly as possible. So I like to call them out when I can because they really work hard to support our educators.

All right, that's the information I have, but I'm available to answer questions. Uh, thank you for that, Director Manning, and I agree very much with you how important this team is and, and the work here, because when people are wanting to become a teacher here, it's so important that we have a smooth as possible procedure for them so they're not discouraged and they look to another district. And so thank you that you're continuing to make sure that this works well. So I will look for questions. I see one right away from Rep. Schwanke.

Thank you, Co-Chair Storey. Thank you, Director Manning. This thought came up during the last presentation, but I, I'll ask it now. It has to do with Type M certifications. So sometimes we end up having Type M certified teachers in some of our districts.

Just as an example, like someone who might be a really highly qualified language instructor, what is the process for them if they move to a different community and would like to still do the same type of education? Do they have to go through the entire certification process, or is it easier the second time? Through Co-Chair Story to Representative Schwonke, the— when they already have it, because it is a district-sponsored, it does need to go through that. We know we do need that district sponsorship of it, but it is easier once they've done the process to, you know, resubmit if they already have an existing and it's still in good standing. Then I can look and see exactly what they have to do, but it is easier to transition it to another district.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Rep. Elam. Thank you. I appreciate the conversation and, and the work you guys are putting into it.

Um, if I'm completely honest, it's— I come from private sector, and so there are no laws out there defining how I became an IT professional. And so whenever I look at teaching profession and the, the laws and stuff that are, that are literally there on the books, or like, you're not a teacher if you don't meet state statute. It—. How does, how does the state of Alaska stand up to the other 50 states when it comes to, um, restrictiveness of, of being able to say— to meet the qualifications needed? And I mean, I'm not trying to suggest we dilute the, the areas there, but I mean, it's literally laws on the books defining a lot of this stuff.

And so How do we stack up compared to other states? Um, through Co-Chair Story to Representative Elam, um, I would say really there's— it's pretty, pretty standardized. There are differences in different states, um, and certainly some have, um, uh, more, um, allowances for, you know, who can become a teacher. Most states still require for a full professional certificate a bachelor's degree. Um, most require some type of competency exam, although those those are things that are being looked at.

There are some— thank you— there are some states that— there are some— sorry, there is a compact that some states participate in around kind of getting some reciprocity around standardization, but for the most part they're relatively similar. I do know that Dr. Bishop is on the line, so I don't know if she wants to speak to that as well.

Commissioner Bishop, would you like to address that question and welcome?

Sure, thank you. For the record, this is Dena Bishop, Commissioner of Education, and just to clarify, the question was really in regard to how does Alaska compare to other states in regard to certification? Yes.

Yes, okay, so we are continuing to do this. We belong as Deputy Director shared, to a national organization that really coordinates this. And there are some things in our law that make it more difficult to acquire or to have some reciprocity with certifications, and some things that are actually— that make it easier. And it would really depend on some of those different types that you were looking for. So there isn't a blanket answer.

But I can tell you that we do have a working group with superintendents that are identifying things in regulation that we really could adjust and update. And there's about 6 superintendents working with us, and we've identified things in the finalization, the Praxis, the different tests, the availability of kind of a secondary look with the Praxis with portfolios. As well as just tightening up some language in regard to do you need a minor, do you need a major, things like that that make the reciprocity difficult from other states. So we're trying to adjust those. But as Deputy Manning suggested, we're about in the middle.

We're easier than some and more difficult than others. Follow-up, please. Follow-up. Thank you. I guess the reason I am even really kind of thinking about this is like the more we have in law and in regulation, like how does it affect our ability to be able to be nimble to market trends?

Um, you know, kind of, we were talking earlier about, you know, where, where cultures and society is all going with how and what the workplace looks like. Um, do we find any of our laws or regulations getting in the way of being able to adopt to that or adapt to that?

Commissioner? Through— yes, through a care story to Representative Elam, I would say yes, we do have some bureaucratic processes. Hence, we have a superintendent group working on that. I can just share a story. Just, I attended the Purple Star School in Representative Dibert's district, and two military teachers that were— are only here for 3 years, independently at 2 different schools that I visited, interestingly enough, came up to me to share their feedback on the initial certification and what needs to be done there.

They just shared that they rotate on a 3-year basis. The state work that they needed to do was on a 2-year basis, and the cost of it plus being able to transition out, they just asked for timing of some of those things. So I can just share Literally within a week, I had some feedback from people who want to work in Alaska that found— and they were working, but they found it pretty difficult. I shared with the committee years ago when we made some updates to the law, then I was a superintendent at the time, that when we speak about the traditional method through university, and now university is adopting, as you just heard from Dr. Weiss, some apprenticeship models that, of course, Deputy Manning is our lead on that from the state side of offering those, and the university is the school side of it. You know, but, you know, that is a new path that we're trying to access, but it also is— has a lot of things to do with it.

There's also other alternative paths that are difficult for transfer in, and we've heard that from some of our superintendents that they have people who have taught in other places, but if they, they didn't have so many years of student teaching before they've come in, it's difficult, especially on those alternative certifications. And there is research out that demonstrates that they couldn't tell the quality of teachers or outcomes on kids, success of teachers, I guess, by university traditional programs to non-traditional programs, cuz there was just as much variance of success within university programs across the country than there were in non-traditional. So, um, to your question, we continue to work on that, uh, use the best research, uh, and work with our, our partners to, to figure that out. We are trying to get ahead of the curve cuz we know that finding talent is difficult. Thank you.

Rep. Eichide. Thank you, Co-Chair Storey. Through the Co-Chair, Deputy Manning, thank you for being here today. I have a couple questions again. The first one is you had mentioned that you do have some limited call time opportunities for applicants to reach out if they have questions.

Could you tell me when— because being a former teacher, sometimes we are busy during the day. So could you tell me when those call times are? Like what days of the week? What time periods of the day? And then relate it— if someone tries to reach that number during a moment when they have free time, can't get through, is there a way that they can leave a message?

And does the department have any policy about whether you respond to those left messages? Yeah, through Co-Chair Story to Representative Eichide. First, I'll acknowledge that with transition, there was a lot of challenge in keeping up with some of those calls. So we did sort of infuse with extra support from other team members across the department to.

Help take the phone calls, take note of what was needed, gave other people in the department some training on just some basic support. So when we've had challenges, we've, we've tried to find some ways to help add support there because we know sometimes you just need to ask a question. So a couple of things. First, we do have the call line open from 10 to noon and 2 to 4 each day. If somebody calls outside of that time and they leave a message, then the team does check those messages daily and return the calls within a couple of days.

And so we actually have part of the schedule is building in time for returning calls. Additionally, and it might be on this next page, well, the number is here but not the email, but we do have an email for teacher certification that's available on our teacher certification webpage and the TeachAK page. Where an individual can send an email. And again, then our team will take note and they get those in order and, and respond as they can. I will say, I do know that in the last, you know, couple of, you know, as we've been going through the transition, because there's been more challenges for some individuals, the volume was very high and there was difficulty in getting back, and some people's calls or emails slipped through the cracks.

We're working on getting that now that we are more stable, working on a more timely response on that. Many of the questions tend to be, where's my application in the process? You know, oftentimes really just kind of checking in, and that's where we really are encouraging that district portal support, because if that volume of those goes down, then the team doesn't have to shuffle through those to find those that really need assistance with the process. And so we are really encouraging our districts to help make sure people know that they can come and check in, like, hey, can you see where my application is in the process? With their district, uh, HR or staff before reaching out on those types of questions so that we can really focus on the questions that will help them with the process.

Okay, thank you. Follow-up? Follow-up. Yeah, I appreciate that. I, you know, just so you know that I've had communications with folks that have worked with the certification process in more of an administrative capacity, and, and they report not getting return calls and return messages.

But you alluded to that, so hopefully you have enough people and your vacancy rate's not too low. But the, the follow-up question is, you know, anytime you're— you have a new process, the users oftentimes have good suggestions on how to improve it. Do you have any formalized feedback mechanisms on the current application process that allows applicants to essentially give feedback on not only their experience but also suggestions they might have that removes some of the barriers to completing the application? Any formal feedback mechanisms? Through Co-Chair Story to Representative Eishide, not for individual candidates, but we are working closely with the— oh gosh, I'm going to get the— I have the acronym, the ALASBO, the Alaska School Business officials organization, and they have provided us feedback on process challenges that, that there get reported.

When people contact us and they're having issues, we certainly make note of what are things that come up that are sort of consistent issues, and we have biweekly meetings currently with the vendor for the, for the system to work through system issues. So we are continuing to iterate on where are the, the pain points for applicants, for districts with the portal, those kinds of things, and working through identifying problems that can be streamlined and assessed. There's not right now like a place where somebody can send like a— I mean, they could send an email, but when we identify those sort of frequent issues, then we're bringing those back to the vendor to say, hey, this keeps coming up for our candidates. How can we address this and streamline processes? So we do continue to work on trying to make it more efficient and effective.

Follow-up. Follow-up. Yeah, I just— the person I've been in communication with has indicated they have several suggestions because they've processed or assisted with several of these. Um, can I advise that person to contact you directly? Because they've talked about sending emails to whatever your, your general email is and not getting a response.

But if without objection, I'd love to share your contact information with them and and allow that dialogue. Yeah, absolutely. Myself and our teacher certification administrator Simone Sanders would be, you know, either one of us would be good contact for that. Great, thank you. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Ah yes, Rep. Himschoot has a question, but before I go there, um, how often do you meet with the LASBO to get their feedback? Um, to quote Chair Storey, we, um, we, we've go to their, um, we've gone to their conference. We have some staff that are in Anchorage that are able to attend in person. Um, recently they invited me to one of their meetings to talk through some of our processes and share challenges that they've been having. So it's been kind of ad hoc for the most part, but we do have good working relationships with the LASBO leadership.

And so they've been letting us know when they're meeting and inviting us occasionally to come and, and hear from them, share updates, that kind of thing. Thank you for that. I think it's important to work with the vendor, but I also think it's extremely important to touch base with the people who are processing and helping their staff process. Seeing them in real time, and that's very informative. Rep. Himschute.

Thank you, Coach Herstory. I have a number of questions, and they're just kind of like ping pong balls in my head. They're in all different directions, so I'm going to apologize for being a little bit scattered. I'm on slide 8, and it sounds like the portal's been up and running now for a solid almost 2 years. So yeah, it does seem like this could be a good time just to have some kind of a roundtable meeting to say, how's it working?

You know, like, what, what are people seeing and hearing?

I, you know, I had a smooth process for reinstating my certificate, but I have a distinctive name, and I would like to think that that didn't have anything to do with it, whether it's him shoot or ham shoot. But anyway, I would like to think that I had the same treatment that other teachers are getting. But when I went on the website just now, you know, you guys are saying it's taking 4 to 5 weeks, but I clicked on the processing dates thing and you're processing for March 22nd and question status March 14th, so that's, you know, a little beyond the 5 weeks. So it seems like this would be a good opportunity, a good point in time to gather people together and say what are the issues you're having. How can we work through this?

Because again, my process was smooth. I did have a problem with mine. I was able to resolve that. I was not in a classroom not collecting TERs or not collecting my pay, right? So is it possible to backdate?

So if you are in a position of— and I want to be really clear, an educator can apply within a year of expiration. So if you know that on the— on your birthdate of this year, your certificate will expire, you could have applied anytime from your previous year's birthday. So there is a responsibility on the part of the educators, but we all, you know, get behind on things, or the class that we're taking doesn't end until a certain date to be able to provide that transcript. So if you do somehow end up in a gap where you've applied to be reinstated or applied for your renewal and you don't have it yet, when you get that renewed certificate, can it be backdated to when it was received at the department so that there's no gap in TRS and no gap if you're still in TRS, no gap in your pay? Yeah, that's a great question.

Through Co-Chair Story to Co-Chair Himschute, first, I will— with the new TJK system, all candidates who have completed an application get an email at a year and 6 months that their renewal is pending. So that's one thing that we've instituted to help with, you know, you lose track of when your renewal is due, especially if you've got a 5-year and it's, you know, it feels like it's out there. And so that's one thing that we've instituted to help with that. Additionally, we do backdate to the date that the full application is received. However, as you noted, you know, there was some things missing maybe in your initial application.

It'll be to the date that everything is submitted. Because that's really when we have confirmation that they're eligible for the certification. If they're missing things and they didn't submit a complete application, then until we have that confirmation, we can't backdate it. But what we do is backdate to the date that they have submitted a complete application. But we really do recommend that people reach out early so that, you know, if it takes a month for us to get to review it and there's something missing, then, you know, it takes a couple of days to get that turned in, then you don't want that to, you know, shift your date, right?

So we recommend people make sure that they get their applications in, you know, a couple of, at least a couple of months before it's due so that there's time for that process to go through and identify anything that might be missing from the application. But again, those are where we're really trying to work with that district portal, supporting districts and how they can ensure that their educators you know, are getting everything in, that they can check to see. So if you've submitted, you can have your, you know, district HR go in and check and see, is there anything missing? Can we make sure so that when it gets reviewed by.

Deed that we can— it'll be backdated with a complete application, um, and then those processes that we've implemented to get those reminders out to folks. And then the other piece is just identifying those common errors so that we can get that information out to folks, like, here's the common things people are missing, make sure you double-check, do you have a, a official transcript, do you have all the information that, um, is required here so that, uh, so that when you— when your application gets to processing, that there's— that it will be backdated to the date of submission. Follow-up? Thank you. And just— I wanted to also put on record the 4 mandatory trainings.

I'm playing around on the website right now, but they are sexual— sex abuse, alcohol and drug-related, disabilities, dating violence and awareness, and suicide prevention and awareness. So those are the 4 mandatory trainings. And then I— because I was sure bloodborne pathogens was in there. It's like, I can't tell you how much we celebrate the bloodborne pathogens annual requirement in districts across the state. So another thing that I've heard about is for people who have— unfortunately, we have too many emergency certifications, but we do have them.

And I say unfortunately, it's good for our schools because we, we have those people in there, and I'm sure they're great. But if you get your background check for the emergency cert, do you have to then get another background check? For your permanent? [Speaker:DR. LINDSAY WEIRICH] I—. That's a good question.

I'd have to confirm. Typically, when you're renewing a certificate, if you are under contract, then that would serve as your, you know, in lieu of a background check if you have that employment. Because they're a 1-year certificate, I'll have to double-check and confirm, but I believe if they are working within a district that they've been in when they go to do a new emergency certificate, that their employment in the district would serve in lieu of. But I, but I will confirm and check just because the emergency certificate does function just a little differently than some of the others. Follow-up.

Follow-up. Thank you. And through the co-chair, the emergency cert, how many years can you teach with that? It's— you have to redo it annually, and is it a 1 year, or can you— how many years can you, uh, be considered certified on an emergency cert? Through Co-Chair Story to Co-Chair Hemmschulte, there isn't really anything in statute or regulation that limits that.

However, there is specific language that the— that the— in order to get another emergency certificate, the end— there has to be a demonstration that they're making progress towards full professional certification. So it depends on how, you know, they're moving through their program. Some districts have limitations, so they limit an emergency cert certified teacher and say, you know, if you haven't made, you know, progress, then we're not going to continue to sponsor this certificate. But the language really allows them the opportunity to— the district to say, we want to continue working with this teacher, getting them the mentor support and the training to continue working towards their professional certificate. Okay, thank you.

Follow-up. Follow-up. Thank you. I just I just have, like I said, all these questions in so many different directions. I'm looking at the emergency teacher certificate part of the website and it says state-approved program verification form for teachers.

Is that where you would put in— it's a document that you have to download, so I didn't download it, but— Yes. That's, that's where you show I am working towards. Okay. Otherwise you're a substitute, not a— okay, great. And then Through the co-chair also, I'm hearing that it's taking so long sometimes you're— so if you're in a rural district and you know that you need to— let's see, if you're renewing, you don't need a background check, right?

Because you're— okay. So if you're in a rural place, you're getting your initial, you need the fingerprint card. So you get that fingerprint card, and then by the time you've applied, I'm hearing that sometimes that background check fingerprint card has expired before the person can get through the process, and you're in a rural place, and so you— now you have another plane ticket and time to go get another fingerprint card. Can you speak to that? Yeah, through co-chair story to co-chair him shoot.

So, um, The Department of Public Safety can speak to their— what they're going through, but they're going through a similar thing that Deed did. So they just changed their system to a more automated system, and there were some delays, and I know some folks got caught in that. We also had a transition on our side where we had our— we had a— one of the roles of our certification administrator is to work with Public Safety. So there was a couple of, like, not a couple, there was a couple of dozen individuals that kind of got caught in that transition. And so we've worked with Public Safety because they now are through their transition.

They're getting back to more typical timelines to really identify where are these folks that got lost in this transition, identify background checks that needed to be moved through, but it was a function of their, change in the public safety system. Typically the processing time when it goes to public safety, um, from what they've shared with us is about, um, 36 hours for, uh, to 72 hours. So it's usually relatively quick. Um, and it was just they changed that over this winter. Um, so there were some things that got caught in that delay where we've been working with them and our new administrator is, uh, has a good contact now with them set up so that they can track anything that goes beyond their sort of typical processing to say, hey, what's going on?

How come this one's getting lost in the shuffle to ensure that that doesn't happen again. But we, we do know that that did happen with some folks that got lost in that transition. Okay, maybe one more follow-up. Sure, and then I have some questions too. Thank you.

Rep. Michoud, this is really helpful, so thank you very much. I'm on slide 12, and again, I'm just a little distracted this morning, so The people who actually process initial certifications are those bottom 4, your Education Associate 2 positions and your program assistants. So the Education Associate 3, the 2 Education Associates 2, and the Education Program Assistant, those 4 positions are daily processing. And then the Education Specialist 2, the second one from the top, that position during the surge times, and really just because of transition— we have several new— we had a retirement in August of a very long-term staff. So with transitions and staffing, that he's been really continuing to help.

But as we surge in the summer, he'll push in more, and then when we get, you know, staffing stable because there's a couple of new people, then that position can ease off and do more district support. But so those— the Education Specialist 2 and then the Ed Associate 3 to the Ed Program Assistant there in the, um, towards the bottom. The Ed Program Assistant at the, at the very bottom, that last one, that really is more just, um, like administrative kind of function support, and they support a number of teams, so they just do answering phones and things for the department. Through the co-chair, I would be very curious, the length of employment of the people in these positions. Again, if you have a lot of turnover, then it takes some time to get up to speed and to really be efficient with the processing.

I'm hearing about getting, you know, your application is complete message online and an actual human being doesn't look at the material, right? So the stuff is submitted, but the person doesn't actually look at the materials for some time, so that gap can be problematic for people who've pushed up to you know, too close to their expiration. So, but knowing the, I guess, term of employment, how long these folks have been in their positions, would be really helpful. I don't know if you know that off the top of your head. I—.

Through Co-Chair Story to Co-Chair Himshoot. So, so I do for the most part. So that the Ed Specialist 2 is a newer position. That position started in August of '25, so he's been working on getting up to speed really quickly. Still, you know, learning processes, but he's been catching up quickly.

The Ed Associate 3, that is the position that we had had the retirement in, um, August, and the person that had been in that position was with the department for 18 years. So we now have a new person in that position, and with that you do have, you know, the, the new Ed Associate 3 is getting up to speed as quickly as she can. She started in January. It did take a little bit of time to recruit that position, so we also had that leg, but that person is working to get up to speed. The The next Ed Associate II, that person is actually retiring tomorrow, so we're losing another long-term person, um, and she's been with the department for over 15 years as well.

So we're going to be recruiting for that position. The other two, the Ed Associate II and Ed Program Assistant, the Ed Associate II has been with the department for 6 years and the Ed Program Assistant has been with the department for 3 years, I want to say 3 or 4 years. So we do have a relatively new team and they are working to get up to speed as quickly as possible. It was retirements with So it's not necessarily turnover from, you know, it's really people that served a very long time with the department and we really appreciate that they helped get us through this big transition before.

Choosing to step back from their role. So, so we did, we did have a couple of folks that were with the department for a long time that have, have chosen to retire and move, move on. But we do have a really strong team, and they're working really hard to get up to speed as quickly as possible. And, and we do recognize that with that there will be some, you know, just some learning curve. So that, that's just part of that process.

Yeah. Okay, thank you. I'll just to follow up on Rob Himshaw's question. If the person's retiring tomorrow, we don't have a person ready to go that we've hired, um, since we knew that position person was going to be retiring? Uh, to co-chair Story, so we are working through the process to get that posted as quickly as possible, but it's, um, but both of those retirements we were notified relatively short notice, so we're working to get them out.

You know, some people sort of give a lot of advance notice and some folks choose to wait. Thank you for that. So my questions have to do with the backdating. I'm trying to understand that more because if I am coming under an emergency certification or if I come with my teaching degree, new teacher here, and I don't have my paperwork in for whatever reason, lots of times as we're recruiting at the last second, So my understanding is we start the district as a substitute and we get substitute pay. Then when everything is completed, do we go back and we backdate them from the day that they started?

Because they are a teacher, we hired them for a teacher, so I would think they would be getting their teacher pay and it would be backdated because I would think it affects their retirement, which is just huge. And if we want to keep people here and have them come here I would— so anyway, I'm trying to understand that backdating. Uh, yeah, to co-chair Story, um, different districts handle that differently, like how they actually bring them on. Under, um, statute and regulation, they're allowed to bring them on as a teacher as they go through the process. Um, as far as for their retirement and benefits, it does go back to, um, you know, if there's, if there's a delay, it can sometimes affect their benefits if they, if if it goes back to a date, but they were paying into retirement for a month, but then their certificate doesn't go through until, you know, is backdated to a month after that.

So it depends on how the district handles that. So many of them do hire them on in their full teacher position, and again, that's where, you know, we really recommend that the districts work closely with those individuals that are coming on without a lot of advance notice to make sure that they've got everything, and most of our districts do that. They are helping, especially when they're hiring somebody, um, you know, after the, uh, contract start date. They'll, they'll, they do work with them and help to make sure, like, here, here's all the pieces that you need to have in place. I would say, um, you know, the, the issues and challenges often come more in that, um, in their renewals when they're not submitting key pieces that they need to have.

But the districts do assist quite a bit and can help, and with the district portal can go in and see, because sometimes the candidate will say, oh, I did everything, but they actually haven't submitted their application. So they're, you know, just misunderstanding some processes. So that district portal really can help districts to come alongside and support those candidates. Thank you for that. I'm glad that we do have this district portal.

I am, you know, really concerned about the back pay and the retirement, and so I hope there is a way to I don't know if that— is that something that you're looking at to change that process? Because again, we want the best situation for these teachers, and so that they will be assured that their retirement goes back to when they started teaching with the district.

With the application process, you know, we have— we are, you know, as Commissioner Bishop shared, you know, really looking at where do we have challenges and issues and reviewing anything that is identified as a barrier and looking at what we can or can't do based off of regulation and statute. Thank you, Deputy Director. I appreciate that. Commissioner, do you have any comments about that?

Yes. Thank you. Those are excellent questions. And as Deputy Manning suggested, that provision in regard to back pay and what they do is really part of their collective bargaining agreement. That is not in statute or regulation.

And just having, you know, bargained and sat on some of those teams, both as a teacher, if you will, and as an administrator, that's looked at on the district side. So as was suggested, depending on the district, the language that is brought in, whether you have to have a certificate or uncertificate, whether you could be paid as a sub or not is language that the union and the district have bargained. And so we can certainly bring this up with superintendents. I'm sure that in districts where they, you know, don't want to hinder their employees, if paperwork isn't done, they probably have lighter provisions. And probably other districts, they, they, especially if they have more access to teachers, they may have a stronger stance on that about working for so many days, you know, before you're on sub-pay and whatnot.

So we can certainly bring that up with our Superintendent group, but that provision that you're particularly specifying in regard as backdating, that would certainly be something we did. But whether we backdated or not, to lose pay and things like that is a part of the collective bargaining agreement. Thank you for clarifying that, and yes, and how it works with retirement is a really important thing to figure out, so I appreciate that, your recommendations there. And then I had another question having to do with the Reeds Act certification that you get. I had heard that it was a $50 fee that you pay for your Reeds Act certification, but I'd heard that online you can only pay $100.

And then you get reimbursed for $50. And I had heard that, and that just didn't make sense. And so I wanted to clarify that. To Coach Your Story, I don't believe that's true, but I'll double-check. I do know that there was a period of time where there had been a— the legislature had set aside funds for covering the cost of that fee.

So some people during that window of time paid the fee But then when the funding came through, there was— people were getting reimbursed. So it may have been confusion around that, but I'll double-check and make sure that it's not set as a $100 fee that they're getting, that they're having to pay and then get reimbursed for part of it. I'll double-check that. Thank you. It just didn't seem right when I heard that, and so I just wanted to clarify that process.

And I don't see any further questions from the committee. I did want to thank the commissioner for being online today, Director Deputy Director Manning for being here, and I see Deb Brittle is in the house with us today too, and I appreciate you listening. And what I really appreciated hearing is like when Dr. Bridget Weiss talked about— she talked about how well she was working with the different entities that affect education and the department was being responsive and the superintendents association, the Alaska Council of school business officials and administrators. So thank you for those efforts to be making sure our system is working as smoothly as possible to retain our teachers and make them feel that we have— that Alaska is a good place to work. And I appreciate your efforts to make it as smooth as possible, and to that— because that helps with our recruitment and retention and getting everyone into place to serve our students.

So thank you, all three of you, for being here and online today.

And with that, I wanted to— yeah, thank you. With that, I wanted to just say that this Friday the House Education Committee will have a presentation, an overview of regional education attendance areas by Lori Weed, school finance manager with the Department of Education and Early Development. We are fortunate we're going to hear a history of regional education attendance areas by Marcia Lind, who is a former commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, and also hear from Jerry Covey, who is also a former commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, and he will be talking about regional education attendance areas too. Under bills previously heard and scheduled, we will hear a recap on House Bill 231. Which is relating to many topics: education, education reports, funding for internet services, teacher exit interviews, teacher retirement, public employees retirement system.

So that is a big bill, and we're going to do a little bit more work on that, and we are going to open up public testimony on that bill. So a reminder to the committee and the listening public that today there is another meeting involving education, and the Education Task Force meeting will start at 3:30 here in the Betty Davis Room 106. And this is a rescheduled meeting from April 10th. We will be hearing presentations today about local contributions, impact aid, and state obligations, and federal grants.

Oh, and also I wanted to mention that we will be hearing a presentation from Mount Edgecomb High School. It's a.

Update by David Langford, the superintendent. Not at the task force meeting, but at our education meeting on Friday. Anyway, thank you, committee, for your attention today. This concludes our hearing. The time is 9:54, and the House of Education Committee meeting is adjourned.