House Education, 5/1/26, 8am

I would like to call the meeting of the House Education Committee to order. It is 8:07 AM on Monday, May— Monday— Friday, May 1st, 2026, in the Betty Davis Room, 106 in the Capitol. Members present are from my right: Rep. Eichide, Rep. Schwanke, Rep. Dibert, Co-Chair Hemmschulte, and myself, Co-Chair Story. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum for conducting business. Please take this time to silence your cell phones for the meeting.

Thank you for doing that. The documents for today's meeting have been distributed to members and are available on the table outside the door and on BASIS. I want to thank Lori Rowland, the House Education Secretary from Records, and June Augustine from the Juneau LIO for staffing our committee meeting today, and our co-chair committee aides Tammy Smith and Ella Lubin. We have a full agenda today. The House Education will hear presentations on an overview of regional education attendance areas and the history of them.

We will hear an update on Mount Edgecomb High School, and we will have public testimony on House Bill 231, a comprehensive education bill by Rep. Freer. I want to acknowledge that regional education attendance areas, known as REAAs, have been in existence for over 50 years in our state. And I honor the 50th anniversary of the creation of Alaska's Regional Education Attendance Areas. Let's begin our— today's presentation on REAs with Lori Weed, School Finance Manager, Department of Education and Early Development.

Please come up, welcome, identify yourself for the record, and begin your presentation.

Good morning, uh, Co-chair Storey, Co-chair Hempschulte, members of the House Education Committee. For the record, my name is Lori Weave, and I serve as the school finance manager for the Department of Education and Early Development. With me online is Heather Heineken, Director of Finance and Support Services, and we've been invited by the committee to speak a little bit about regional educational areas also known as REAAs.

I know you see these two slides quite a lot, so I'll just say thank you for the opportunity to provide information and resources to the committee today, and we appreciate the committee's work on subjects that impact and support the Alaska's Education Challenge strategic priorities.

I always like to start a presentation with some acronyms that you will see or hear, and these take up a lot of slide space in some cases, like Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, or DCCED, or the REAA Fund, which is the Regional Educational Attendance Area and Small Municipal School District School Fund. So we like to abbreviate that one to the REAA Fund.

All right. Today we'll touch on a variety of requested topics, including the history of providing education services in Alaska, the establishment of REAAs, REAA school boards, funding of educational services, facility ownership in REAAs, and capital funding of facilities.

To understand where we are today, I always think it's important to ground ourselves in what came before so we can understand kind of how we got here so we can make knowledgeable changes. When Alaska was a territory, cities were, or at least according to the statutes at the time as identified in the Alaska Compiled Laws Annotated, wholly responsible for raising and providing funds to maintain public schools. And the Territory of Alaska could choose to refund a percentage of those costs. For areas outside of cities, those in the unorganized areas, education was provided from the federal U.S. government via the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Also known as the BIA.

Once we became a state, Alaska and the BIA coordinated planning for Alaska to take over the system, but needing some federal support still. It took a fair amount of time for the processes to happen to transfer more than 150+ school properties and related facilities to the state and to other entities, municipalities or Native corporations. The land and property transfers required surveys and public process. Potential negotiation of the terms. Federal law required that the BAA not fund any schools after June 30th, 1985, although some sites did not get the full title transferred for another couple of years.

Ultimately, there were 87 school sites transferred to the State of Alaska, some to the Department of Natural Resources, some to the school authorities, or to the Department of Education. So that's caused a little bit of fun when we do further transfers.

Thank you so much. The framers of Alaska's Constitution set the responsibility for public education with the legislature. Additionally, the Constitution provides that the legislature sits as the assembly for the unorganized borough. The legislature then, through statute, has divided that area outside of organized cities and boroughs, those home rule or first-class municipalities into regional educational attendance areas, and it delegated certain powers and duties to school districts, typically through the elected school boards, regarding maintaining the educational facilities and educational programs. Those duties specific to our— our Alaska Statute 14.08, which provides for education in the unorganized borough, and were first enacted in 1975.

And those for the municipalities are in Alaska Statute 14.14, which provides for local administration of schools and was established in 1966.

Overall, the large majority of duties are the same or similar, with municipal districts having additional requirements with regard to interactions with its city or borough government.

The Department of Education and Early Development has been tasked with general supervision over public schools. DEED does not differentiate the supervision between municipal or REAA schools. Each school district is held to the same standards and bodies of law.

Sorry, the prior slide did generalize a little when I said that the legislature established REAAs in the unorganized borough. Specifically, the statute 14-08-031 instructed the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development, the Department of Education and Early Development, and local communities to divide the unorganized borough into educational service areas that met certain criteria. This included utilizing the boundaries of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Regional Corporations and to consider areas that had homogeneous socioeconomic, linguistics, cultural areas, as well as consideration for transportation and communication between the communities. Some boundaries also considered potential revenue should those areas choose to become incorporated boroughs. For those that recall the boundary change between Yukon Flats and Yukon-Koyukuk School Districts for the Rampart community, my understanding was that that zigzag and carve-out in the boundary had economic reasons for the original establishment.

Other than this more recent example, the boundaries have been in place since originally set, with an exception of a local vote on forming federal transfer educational— educational attendance areas that occurred in 1985 for the villages of Akiutjak, Akiak, Taluqsuk, and Chefornik within the boundaries of the Lower Kuskokwim REAA District, and Chevak within the Lower Yukon. School REAA district. This led to the formation of the Kashinomake School District in the community of Chevak, and the Yup'it School District was formed from the communities of Akhiachak, Akiak, and Taluqsuk. The Voten Shikofornik kept it as part of the Lower Kuskokwim School District.

You'll recall that the REAA boundaries were to be similar to the boundaries of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act regional corporations with additional considerations for the socioeconomic language and culture similarities. So I wanted to give a visual of the corporation boundaries, and then you can see how those boundaries align with the school districts. That's a fairly close alignment.

There are currently 52 school districts and the state-operated boarding school Mount Edgecomb High School. On the incorporated side, there are 19 boroughs and 14 cities with the powers of providing education, and in the unorganized borough, there are currently 19 REAAs in the Unorganized Borough.

So REAAs are spread out across Alaska, and you can still see encompass the majority of the state. There were two other REAAs, the Rail Belt REAA and the Northwest Arctic, but those incorporated into boroughs. Rail Belt became Denali and Northwest Arctic of the same name.

An elected school board governs and operates each district, with REAs being governed by regional school boards. Specific to REAs, a regional school board may consist of between 5 and 11 members and can be proposed for change via petition. An REA may be, and typically is, divided into sections. With seats assigned per section based on roughly equal numbers of voters. REAA boundaries and section boundaries are approved in consultation with the local communities, the Department of DCCED, and DEED.

Division of Election handles the administrations of the elections.

A school board's primary duty is to provide an educational program for each school-aged child who is enrolled or is a resident of the district. To assist with this, they are empowered to hire a superintendent or a chief school administrator to oversee the day-to-day management, and they may establish advisory school boards in each community, community, to advise on matters and needs specific to the community. The school board sets the policies for district, whether those are educational policies supporting required standards and local initiatives, those those for personnel or procurement, and those relating to facilities care, maintenance, and usage. In support of those policies, the school board adopts and monitors an annual budget, updating throughout the year as needed to reflect actual revenues and expenditures. And this is where municipal districts have an additional step, since those districts must get approval from the local government regarding the contribution amount— the local contribution amount.

So the primary source of funding for operating and capital funds from REAs comes from the state. For operating funds, this is from state aid or the foundation formula, which is the adjusted average daily membership, or ADM, multiplied by the base student allocation, BSA. Federal grant funds like Title Grant or USDA food grants and other grant sources help make up a significant portion of budget. The biggest difference between REA and municipal school districts is the local contribution raised through tax revenues, since there is no taxing of power in the unorganized borough. Required local contributions supplant a portion of basic need.

However, many municipal districts receive additional or voluntary local contributions that supplement state funding. Capital funding is similar. REAs are pretty much 100% reliant on AS 1411 grants for school construction and major maintenance. Although there are some federal or third-party sources available, many municipalities have been able to utilize voter-approved bonds for capital work, whether fully locally funded or with reimbursement from the state's bond debt reimbursement program.

And here we just wanted to show how, um, statewide unadjusted average district revenues from the foundation formula compare between municipal districts and REAAs. These are for fiscal year 2025 revenues and are based on all of the adjustment factors in the foundation formula, including school size and district cost factors. For the most part, REAs have many more small schools than municipalities, which have a higher school size adjustment factor, being more— and they have a higher district cost factor since they are more remote. Many municipal districts also have correspondence programs, and correspondent funding is less per student, which keeps that down.

Here you can see that same revenue data, just, um, normed with the district cost factor removed but still includes the school size factor. The state-funded portion is a little higher for REAs but still fairly comparable and offset by that additional average local contribution above the required Statute provides that ownership of land and buildings for REAAs resides with the state and that REAAs are then given use permits for the operation and management of the facilities and surrounding premises. It also allows school boards to request title from the state, whether that may be leased from a third party or the actual fee simple title that the state may have. Currently, there are 8 REAAs that have title to all their properties. The remaining districts are a mix of district-owned or leased and state-owned or leased properties.

Those use permits are now set out as of 1998 in regulation. It requires that the primary purpose of the property be used for education, that it be maintained in good repair and operating condition. It does note that capital improvements do remain the responsibility of the state. School districts are required to maintain property insurance and other liability coverage. Districts are to notify the department should there be a hazardous spill or potentially any other lawsuit that may result from use of the property, and it does provide that districts may request termination of the property from the use permit if it's no longer needed for an educational use in the community.

Um, as I mentioned, capital funding for REAs is through competitive grant application, as noted in AS 14.11, for the school construction grant fund, for the major maintenance grant fund, and the REA fund. As stated in the prior slide, financing for capital improvement projects remains the responsibility of the state for REAs. There are other avenues for districts to receive funding There are some state-funded projects through places like the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation for teacher housing, both construction and rehabilitation, and then miscellaneous other projects that may come through departments like Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation for village safe water. There have been a fair number of lagoon and other water and sewer improvements that have been funded in districts out there. And again, federal grants are also a source of capital funding with districts who receive impact aid potentially receiving construction funds through that program.

And that's what I have for you. Thank you so much. And are there any questions? Thank you, Ms. Sweet. That was a lot of information.

I don't know if there's any questions right now, but we do have two invited presenters that are going to talk about REAs. And if you're available to stay, maybe we could hear those presentations and then we might have more questions for you, unless someone has a question question right now. I do not see any, so again, thank you, and I'm glad you'll be able to stay.

So next we will hear from Marcia Lind, former Commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, on the history of regional education attendance areas. We will hold commission— questions for the commissioners until after— we have another commissioner online, former Commissioner Jerry Covey, and we're going to hold questions until after we've heard from both of the commissioners. And thank you and welcome very much, Commissioner Lind, for being with us this morning.

Please make yourself comfortable and introduce yourself for the record. My name is Marshall Lind, and I am happy to be with you this morning. I look at the creation of the REAs as one of the better things we did.

As you may know, I was privileged to serve as Commissioner.

On a number of occasions for 13 years. And just to put it in perspective, I started in 1971. So I had the opportunity to, to work with 3.5 years with Governor Egan, 8 years with Governor Hammond, first 6 months of the Sheffield administration, last 6 months of the Sheffield administration and the first 6 months of the Cooper administration. So I bring that up so you have some idea of who was involved at the time with state government. It was a real privilege to have been able to work with all of those governors.

I enjoyed each one of them. So that's a little bit of the background in terms of the scene in the state government. My wife and I came to the state as Bureau of Indian Affairs teachers. Probably the best move we ever made. We had both been teaching in Wisconsin.

At the time and decided we wanted to move to Alaska. We weren't here more than 6 months and we said, "We're not going back." We loved it. So we had the opportunity to work with the people in the lower Kuskokwim and the lower Yukon.

The opportunity to work with the some of our indigenous groups was great. So when the time came to figure out what to do with the system, the public education system in the early '70s, there were a number of things that needed to be taken into account. The state was operating most of the schools in the rural areas, as well as the military bases. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was providing the services in most of the rural areas.

So it appeared that maybe some things should be changed. The state had a division of the state-operated schools. They were running the schools through the Department of Education with a separate division. And then in 1971, that was changed. They were no longer serviced by the Department of Education.

There was a separate school district set up for those schools operated by the state. And they had the— some of the rural schools as well as the military bases. Well, to make sense out of this whole system, it's, "Well, why are the military bases being served by the state? Why aren't they being served by the adjacent boroughs, particularly in Anchorage and Fairbanks?" So the first move was to have the military schools operated by the adjacent boroughs. ADAC was separate, and they eventually became an REAA.

So that was the first move. Then the second part of the— of changing the rural areas, or the service to the rural schools was to look at a way to create a system that would be as close as possible to the cities and boroughs. First-class cities had school— had schools as well as some of the— as well as the boroughs. So that's where the idea came in to create a system that would be as close as possible to either a borough structure or a city.

And the legislature at the time was very interested in this, and the whole attitude in the early '70s in the state was one of optimism, just a great time. People realized we were coming into money, and there was a desire to support educational activities all over the state. This feeling was strong on the part of the governors that I mentioned earlier. And with the state board, we had— particularly the president of the state board was Katie Hurley at the time. And Katie had been involved with the Constitutional Convention, as well as Governor Egan had been involved with the Constitutional Convention, which clearly states a system open to all students.

They felt very, very strongly about that. So there was a real push and support to create a system that would be open to all. So that was kind of the background, and the legislature was also extremely supportive in making this happen. Now, the regional land claim settlement had just taken place. So there was a lot of, uh, of interest in looking at regional and local governance.

And as these REAs were designed in terms of the boundaries, we looked at the regional corporation boundaries. It made sense. And the idea was that if the communities would choose to later incorporate as a borough, it would be an easy transition because the boundaries are there, the regional elections, so forth, would make the transition easy.

It was not being forced. There was no appetite at the time to come back with another mandatory borough act that we had seen in the '60s.

So the challenge then was to figure out how we gonna put these districts together. And you know, you're talking about over half the area of the state with about 15% of the population and dispersed within some of this rural areas were first-class cities: Nenana, Galena, St. Mary's, Cake, Heidelberg, Craig. And we had to figure out how we're going to create the boroughs and work with some of the challenges of the distance, small population, and regional differences, regional challenges.

So from a department standpoint, in the early '70s— well, it was actually in '75 the legislation was passed. We had 1 year to implement the 21 school districts. And that was a major undertaking. And it was real obvious to me that the only way this restructuring, this organization could be done would be to heavily involve the Alaska Native community, particularly through AFN or other Native organizations. This was not something the state bureaucrats could easily do, I can tell you that.

We weren't going to go down that road. So we were fortunate to be able to get the help of some excellent leaders in the Native community, Byron Mallott being one from Yakutat, Roger Lang from Sitka being another, and they in turn reached out to people like Sidney Huntington in Galena, Susan Murphy in Bethel, others all around the state, and they put together the team that helped to create these districts. And they did it within a year. And this was in '75, and the school districts started in '76. And there were a few people who had doubted, well, are these rural areas really going to be able to deal with the challenges of millions of dollars, with schools and tried to assure them that they'll handle it.

They know how to— they'll figure out how to make this work. And they did. And it was a challenge.

Putting this together to, particularly with some of the regions that are spread out so far with very limited population. But anyway, the legislature was supportive, the governors were also extremely supportive of this, and now we are 50 years later. It's working. It was a great opportunity to do something that I think has shown now over time that the system does work and it was certainly a lot better than what we had with either the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the state trying to run schools. So I'll pause with that and then I have some— and take any questions that you might have.

I'm trying to quickly cover a whole lot of different things. And I could go on all morning because it's exciting, but I have to say that when you're involved in something, it's very rare that you look forward to 50 years and think you're going to have a chance to come back and talk about something 50 years later. Either you won't be around or you won't remember what was going on 50 years ago. So it's a real treat for me to be able to come and share some of this information with you, because it was really exciting, exciting time. It was just one of the very exciting things that I had an opportunity to do during those years.

So I'll take any questions that you might have. Sure. Thank you, Commissioner, for that. And it is really informative for me to hear the history from your standpoint. And yeah, I think we should ask some questions right now.

And I wanted to note that Rep. Elam arrived at 8:22 this morning, and he has a question. Rep. Elam. Thank you. Um, I, I appreciate the, uh, the conversation and, and would love to maybe get a cup of coffee one of these days and kind of hear some more of it, uh, because you've got a lot of, uh, good history there. Um, in the process of going through this, um, and creating the REA districts, do you know what the intent was for who would own the facilities originally?

Uh, because that's been one of the things that have always sort of been caught in limbo where, you know, the state kind of operates now a quasi-grant program, and then this stuff gets kind of caught in limbo, like who owns this building, and, you know, then we, you know, play ping pong back and forth with who's gonna do the maintenance and everything. And so what was the intent originally on some of that?

Commissioner Landry. Chair, Representative Elam, thank you for the question.

It's a good one because it's been one of the more disappointing things. Yes. And it's been disappointing because I don't believe the legislature fully accepted their responsibility as the borough assembly for the unorganized borough. Those facilities, in my opinion, are part of the unorganized borough, and the legislature is responsible for the unorganized borough. That's clear.

That's in the Constitution.

So as a result of kind of back and forth, and I don't like to be critical, But the legislature has fallen down on maintaining their support for those facilities.

And to me, that has been a real problem. And if we don't change that, and I don't know, you know, some of the facilities are now managed totally by the districts. I've not paid that much attention to to that issue other than they've just not been supported. And if we don't turn that around and support these facilities, we're doing the people in rural Alaska a major disservice. And if they are not able to have adequate schools, then what happens to our villages.

And to me, that's a real problem. So the ownership thing is kind of back and forth between some districts seem to own them and the state still maintains a portion of them. I don't have a real good answer for that other than I keep coming back to the borough, their legislature is the assembly for the unorganized borough. I see that as their responsibility. I understand it's expensive and I understand the budget situation, but we've got to do a better job maintaining those facilities.

The people of rural Alaska deserve better. And we could see the impact of what those schools mean to the communities this past fall when we had the typhoon issues. Where was the place of refuge for most of the people? It was in school facilities. And if we don't maintain those, that's the center, that's the core of these communities.

That building, particularly a facility where the entire community can get together, is critical and particularly to have a gym for activities for the entire community.

It all goes back to maintaining these facilities and maintaining these communities as integral part of our state. And I said, I don't like to be critical, but the legislature has clearly dropped the ball on serving as the borough assembly for the unorganized borough. Pure and simple. Thank you for those comments. I did want to point out that Ms. Swede had on page 18, it talks about how 8 REAAs have title to all the properties and remaining 11 REAs are a mix of district-owned or leased and state-owned.

It would be interesting to just have a list of those different buildings. Did you have a comment about that? Would you repeat that, please, sir? Oh, on page 11, it just show— of the deeds presentation, they talk about how 8 REAs have title to all the properties. So I was just kind of looking over you at Director Weed, or Finance Director— Officer Weed.

So, yeah. So no question to you. Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Oh, yes. Yeah, Tammy, can you put that slide up on the docket there?

It's slide 18. And then I see that Rep. Schwanke has a question. Yeah, thank you. Through Co-Chair Storey, thank you, Mr. Lind— Commissioner Lind for being here. Having been born in 1976 in the state of Alaska, I appreciate the time frame between when you stepped into this and then coming back to speak to us.

So I'm very thankful for that. I currently have numerous REAAs in small city school districts within my rural district, and having served on an REAA school board myself, I have a pretty strong interest in this. I'm curious what your perspective is now, fast forward, on the fact that we have some very small city school districts that are surrounded by very large REAAs where arguably we have the same cultural and economic base that exists within the small city district as well as the surrounding REAA district, um, and if you would have done things a little bit differently perhaps, especially when it comes to supporting a school district with a very small municipal base.

Through the chair, Representative Schwanke.

I guess we probably would have hoped or wished that there had been interest in creating boroughs so that some of the smaller cities, the first-class cities, could also be a part of the REAs. To the best of my knowledge, none of the first-class cities that were in existence at the time that the REAs were created ever chose to go into an REA. They preferred to hang on to their first-class city status. And in your case, you have two of them, both Nenana and Galena, first-class, and I don't believe there was ever any interest in becoming a part of the REA or creating a borough. Several of the REAs did become a borough, but I don't believe they ever included any first-class cities.

Northwest Arctic.

Was the first one to become a borough, but they— that was— that came about in the— later in the '70s with the opening of the Red Dog Mine, so there was a tax base so they could become a borough. It would have simplified things a great deal, and in Representative Himschoot's district down here in Southeast Alaska, You had Craig, Kellogg, Heidelberg, all separate first-class cities, but I can tell you there was no interest on the part of them at the time to wrap a borough boundary around these areas. And I don't know that that's changed today. There's— and some of this goes back a long, long time in terms of feelings between various communities. So, ideally, it would have been nice.

It would have been— made things simpler. Now, I don't know all the reasons why some of these smaller communities chose to become first-class cities, but I would guess that a number of them wanted to have that local control of their education. And so the first-class city route was the way to do that. Quick follow-up. A quick follow-up.

Yeah, thank— I really appreciate you mentioning the history because I think oftentimes this body tends to overlook some of the history and why we got to the places that we find ourselves in now. And also appreciate you mentioning Prince of Wales Island because I think that this body does struggle a little bit with the amount of administration for schools on POW. Follow-up question: What is your perspective on how the state manages Mount Edgecomb, and should we consider changing that structure?

Well, Mount Edgecomb's been in operation since 1947. They've been an integral part of Sitka community. And a very important part of the state educational system. Mount Edgecomb has served a very, a very important function over the years.

I was commissioner when Mount Edgecomb closed. Then I was not in office for a couple of years, went to the university, was doing some things, and then Mount Edgecomb reopened.

I have never been a big fan of the state running things, especially education programs.

My personal feeling is Mount Edgecomb should be represented by an elected board, a school district.

I guess just my personal opinion, I would seriously look at an arrangement for the Sitka Borough School District to run the academic part of Mt. Edgecomb, the second high school, and the domestic part to be run by one of the native organizations, which is really the big challenging part. I would also, just my personal opinion, look at kind of, and you may hear more of this later from the superintendent at Mount Edgecomb, Mr. Langford, I would look at, at Mount Edgecumbe as being a career and leadership academy high school. I would make an effort to look at establishing an ROTC unit at Mount Edgecumbe to provide the leadership function. I would also look at the tremendous possibilities in Sitka for dual enrollment with the University of Alaska Southeast, the Sitka campus, which is right next door.

They're already doing some of that. They could do more. There's a tremendous potential for students to get into the field of health-related activities with the opening of the new hospital and the search activities that exist in Sitka. Another component that would be a part of the career and technical thing would be an alliance with the State Troopers Academy, Public Safety Academy in Sitka. How about opportunities for those students that are currently— or that would be in Mount Edgecomb High School to interact with the Public Safety Academy in preparation for village police officers or related activities in public safety working with the Public Safety Academy?

You also have a major activity in tourism through Allen Tours. Another career opportunity. But the potential, I think, is great. But I really feel that a local school board should— and it would be the Sitka School Board— should handle the academic part, have the separate high school. You'd have two high schools just like other communities, two high schools, and have somebody that that is doing this on a regular basis, elected by people in that district to run the academic part.

As I said, it's been a part of the Sitka community since 1947. What more could you ask for in terms of a community to be able to pick that up and run with it? Thank you for the comment. Those are just my thoughts. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for your comments. I do have some members who would like to ask a question. I'm conscious of the time, and we have former Commissioner Jerry Covey on line 2. We need to bring you back for a lunch and learn on the REAs this next session. But so I'm going to ask— there's 3 people who had questions, and then I'm going to move on to Chancellor Covey.

And remember, we are focusing on the REAAs right now. So let's see, I had Rep. Eishide first. Thank you, Co-Chair Storey. Through the Co-Chair, Commissioner Lind, thank you for this 50-year perspective. That is highly unusual and highly valued.

So given that 50-year perspective, if we go back to 1976, When the REAs were being set up, the context is Alaska had a state income tax. I believe we had an education head tax.

TAPS was coming online. You mentioned Optimism. This very valuable resource wealth was coming online.

And then fast forward to today. We don't have an income tax. We don't have a head tax. Less oil is flowing through TAPS, less revenue. You talked about the responsibility of the legislature to be that assembly.

Do you want to make any comment about how things have changed from the revenue side of the question over those last 50 years? Because you say responsibility, sir, and I love responsibility. Sometimes I feel like my hands are tied behind my back when it comes to responsibility. Any comments?

Through the chair, Representative Isett.

Yeah, I have a few comments. First of all, I think it was a mistake, big mistake, to eliminate the state income tax.

That was number one.

Also, it leads to the next thing. What about the PFD? Well, the first PFD check came out in 1982. Things were very different then. And we were able to do that.

We were able to afford it. But I think it's pretty obvious times have changed. And until we come up with a way to— increase our revenue and through some kind of additional taxation. Nobody likes to talk about it, I understand that. I don't run for office, I can say whatever I want to say about that.

But we're going to need the money. We're going to need the money. And it's going to have to come either through some form of taxation or a major change in the PFD. And we're not going to be able to do all of these things that are— that we need to do. And, you know, it's just— I've been out of the education thing for the most part, but for the last number of years.

But when I pick up the paper or the news and I see what's going on district after district, closing schools.

To tell you about that because you hear it all the time. It's a bad situation. So this revenue thing is going to have to, have to be changed. Thank you for those comments. I'm going to go to— I have Rep. Elam and Rep. Himschud, and then I'll— we're going to move on.

Rep. Elam. Yeah, thank you. Uh, again, appreciate the conversation. Um, we have, uh, conversations that come up from time to time about the, the number of REA districts and given that they were originally kind of designed to be small municipalities, small boroughs, in their original creation of boundaries. My district is the Kenai Peninsula Borough.

We would have not incorporated had we not have had to incorporate it. We'd be a bunch of cities. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. And, uh, but it is one large district with one large administration, and so there's a criticism sometimes that comes out that says, you know, the REA districts did not create local municipalities.

Should we consider consolidating them into some larger boroughs or larger districts? You know, should we have some of those conversations where, you know, that's how we have the, the borough the size we do, which is, you we have 43 schools, 42 schools under one hood, and then you have an assembly, you have local representation. It's not always the localist of local representation. It's the size of West Virginia, then you got 9 assemblymen, you know. So it's— it is, you know, I served a couple terms there.

So what are your thoughts on some of the, uh, consolidation with very focused powers? Commissioner Lind. Through the Chair, Representative Elam, I don't think it's inappropriate to look at consolidation issues. I think what we're looking at, the structure that we created 50 years ago, and times are different.

I think you probably will find that it's very difficult to find the right answer. Yeah. The pros and cons, and you can spend a lot of time on it, and you probably would find that there won't be a whole lot of savings. By looking at some restructuring, but there might be. You know, it's kind of like what's going on with the residential programs.

We got involved with creating the small high schools all over the state with the Mālihūtch issue, which made tremendous difference. But at the same time, we can see where a couple of the residential programs that we currently have in Galena, and in Nanana and maybe elsewhere can be beneficial because of the small size of some of these communities. So I think there's a need to constantly look for ways of maybe restructuring, reorganizing.

I think that's always going to go on. You may or may not save some money. I don't know, it always seems— this comes up all the time. Why aren't these two districts combined and we could save a superintendent position or something? Well, when you start breaking it down, it doesn't always quite work out that way.

Thank you for that. And Rep. Hemmichut, and then we're going to go on to former Commissioner Covey. Thank you very much to the co-chair. It's absolutely wonderful to have you here, Commissioner. My question I may know the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

What drove the decision to end the relationship with BIE? So the Bureau of Indian Education still operates schools, usually in reservation-based systems, but why did Alaska say, we're going to go it alone and we're going to empower local communities to run their own schools, versus Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education? What drove that decision?

I think it was driven really by the desire to come back to our Constitution, creating a system open to all, all students in the state. And in order to do that, we had to bring— have a provision so that the state could provide the services to all of them. And the feeling was very strong, was very strong during the early '70s that we needed to do this. In fact, it had been very strong at the time of statehood, but we didn't have the wherewithal, financial wherewithal to make it happen. And then also, you may recall, we had the 1964 earthquake.

And that put the state behind a bit in our financial ability to do some of these things. So it wasn't until the early '70s when we looked at the oil revenue that we felt comfortable that we could really do what the Constitution said, a system open to all students. [Speaker] Okay. Thank you for that. And thank you very much.

And if you would like to continue to sit in the dais in case there's more questions after—. I'd be happy to. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you very much.

So now we are going to hear from Jerry Covey, former Commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, also on regional education attendance areas. Welcome, Commissioner Covey. Please introduce yourself for the record and begin your presentation. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jerry Covey.

I'm A former commissioner. I was commissioner for Governor Hickel from 1991 to early 1996. My background with REAA school districts is that I was hired at the first meeting of Northwest Arctic School District, which at the time was an REAA, in 1976. So I was I kind of grew up with the REAA system at the ground level. I started as a principal in Cayenne for 2 years.

I was principal at Cotspeau High School, and then I taught in a one-room school with my wife in Colbuck for 4 years and returned as an assistant superintendent and superintendent of that district prior to being commissioner. I had an opportunity to be a part of the development of the REAA school system, and as Marshall said, the optimism was extremely high in those years, the mid-'70s through the mid-'80s. We just felt we could do— we could make it work. And it was a time of rapid growth and expansion, building these districts, building new schools, building the system as we know it. But, you know, I really have to go back to the wisdom of the people who framed the Constitution to require local control of school districts and that we have the school system we have.

23 States today still have BIA schools that serve Indigenous students.

That move by the legislature and the subsequent action by Marshall and the legislature and the plaintiffs in the case and many, many people repositioned Alaska, I believe, in a very effective way. And, you know, because of that decision Our AA school districts have graduated thousands of students, most of them Alaska Native students, who have contributed greatly to our state, to our local economies, to their communities, to their families. And that happened because of that original idea that was written into the Constitution. Constitution. So I think that's a major, major factor, and it led to the creation of the REAAs.

And as you've heard from Marshall, it took years to create the REAA system. It took a lawsuit. It took dedicated effort. From the department's level and frankly Marshall was kind of the architect of the REAA system. He was the one who acted on behalf of the state.

He is the one who, as he mentioned, worked with Alaska Natives throughout the state to build support for this program and kind of bring it all together. And not everyone in the legislature was in favor of going.

This direction. As we know, money was coming at that time. Other legislators, some legislators had other ideas for that money. They would have been very happy to continue with the system we had of the BIA and a state-operated system. So, it really comes down to You know, what and how.

And what— the what is the— what's written in the Constitution. The what is the legislation that was ultimately passed. But somebody has to turn the what into the how. And then, as you know, as legislators, in many cases, that doesn't always turn out the way it should. In this case, fortunately, it did, because what we had was Marshall having been in rural Alaska and understood rural schools, rural communities, rural families and their needs, was able to help move forward with the establishment of the REA school districts.

Training local school boards, visiting with local students. I was the principal in Kotzebue, and I remember Marshall coming there and working with our school board, visiting the school, talking with students, with teachers, everyone. It wasn't something he delegated to someone else. It's something he rolled up his sleeves and was directly involved with. And so he knew what it would take and he knew how to have the department support the efforts to build the new school districts.

So I think really in light of all that's happened, we had a great guy at the helm to steer the ship. To get where we are today. So I'm going to end my comments there, and I'll take any questions. Uh, thank you very much, uh, Commissioner Covey. Um, do I have any questions for the commissioner right now?

I see none. Again, I thank you for your time this morning and for listening in, and, uh, very important to have this background and we know how to get a hold of you if we have more questions. So thank you. Thank you.

So I am going to end this conversation on REAs right now and move on to our next item of business. So I don't see anyone raising their hand madly with the burning question, but I think that we've had a really good overview this morning. And so thank you, Ms. Weed, for being here, and thank you Commissioner Lind, very important work and background. So the next item on the agenda is House Bill 231, an act relating to education, education reports relating to funding for internet services for school districts, relating to teacher exit interviews conducted by school districts, establishing grant programs for education housing subsidies and updates relating to the teachers' retirement system, relating to the public employees' retirement system, and providing for an effective date. That is quite a long title, but this bill does many, many things.

Representative Freer, if you and your staff, Lucretia Wilson, will come up to the table, identify yourself for the record, and give us a brief recap of House Bill 231. I did want to note that we have individuals online available for questions following public testimony after we hear from Representative Freer, we're going to go to public testimony, but available for questions are legislative drafter Dan Wayne from Legislative Legal, Deputy Director Kelly Manning from the Department of Education and Early Development, Director Jennifer Schmitz, Alaska Education Retention and Recruitment Center. So thank you to those individuals for being online if we have questions. Welcome, Rep. Freer.

Please put your name on the record and begin your presentation. Koyaanukpuk Kootchers' Story and Hymn Shoot. For the record, my name is Robin Nayok Freer. I represent House District 40, the North Slope and Northwest Arctic, including 19 communities.

Thank you again for hearing House Bill 231 today. I'd like to begin with a brief overview of the bill, even though this is a very large bill. I don't know how brief I could really be. House Bill 231 takes a multi-pronged approach to implementing the recommendations outlined in the Teacher Retention and Recruitment Playbook, a plan developed by a diverse group of stakeholders at the request of the governor. At its core, this legislation addresses Alaska's urgent need to attract and retain educators.

Section 1, 2, and 8 mandate third-party exit interviews. Adds turnover metrics to state reporting and tracks housing habitability to shape data-driven retention policies. Sections 3 to 5 funds 1 gigabyte broadband alignment and establishes mentoring and financial training programs through the Department of Early Education and Development. Sections 6 and 7 create educator housing subsidy and upgrade grants. And allows DEED to accept international teacher accreditation.

Sections 9 through 24 and 26 establish legal mechanism definition and transition windows allowing educators to choose between defined benefit and defined contribution if they're in a grow-your-own type program going from being a paraprofessional to then becoming a teacher.

And last, Sections 25 and 27 through 29 authorizes retention bonuses between $5,000 and $15,000 for teachers and paraprofessionals, including the outline for immediate staggered effective dates. So the bill does a whole lot, and we recognize where we are at the end of session with 19 or so days left, and this is, this is a very large carry. We We didn't want to, I suppose, degrade the work that we've done because we think it's really important, especially including the, uh, all of the components that we have in there from the teacher retention and recruitment. But we just wanted to, um, you know, hear from stakeholders, hopefully with public testimony. And then we— I know we do have some folks on the line.

I know that the DEED is working currently on regulations that address the international certification requirements, and we know that folks who are international teachers in the Philippines have the ability to do the Praxis test from out of the country so that they can kind of streamline that. And so we just want to hopefully hear from the department and see what their position is. But I'm just grateful that we've had the opportunity, you know, as a former HR director, to introduce this type of legislation that really focuses on retention and recruitment of teachers. And, um, grateful to be here. So thank you.

Thank you for that overview, Rep. Ferran. I wanted to point out that at our place as we had this mapping the legislation, sexual analysis summary, and this summary has been posted to BASIS. So we have this up here. So I think I would like to go to public testimony, and then we can have questions after that once we've heard from the public. That'd be perfect.

Thank you. Okay, thank you.

So individuals wishing to testify may call into the Legislative Information Office using one of the following numbers: from Juneau, 907-586-5457; 9085. From Anchorage, 907-563-9085. From all other areas of the state, 844-586-9085. I will now open public testimony.

Do I see anyone in the room who would like to testify?

I do not see anyone in the room, but I do have a few people in line who want to testify about House Bill 231. I'm going to first go to Dr. Cindy— is it Mika or Mika? Mika from the superintendent with Kodiak Island Borough School District. Welcome, Dr. Mika. Please introduce yourself for the record and begin your testimony.

Good morning, co-chairs and members of the community. For the record, my name is Cindy Micah, and I serve as superintendent of the Kodiak Island Borough School District. I am here today in strong support of House Bill 231, particularly the provisions that support mentoring for school principals and district leaders. Quite simply, strong schools require strong leaders. Research consistently shows that the principal is second only to the classroom teacher in terms of impact on student learning.

Effective principals create the conditions for high-quality instruction, build strong school cultures, retain great teachers, and ultimately improve student outcomes. That is why the language in this bill to support mentoring programs for school principals is so important. In Kodiak, we have seen firsthand the impact of investing in leadership development.

[Speaker:JULIE] For the past 3 years, PIBSD has partnered with Corrin to provide focused instructional leadership training for our principals, made possible through the Raising the Bar for Rural Alaska Educators grant led by the Alaska Council of School Administrators. In addition, our early career principals participate in the Alaska School Leadership Academy through the Alaska Council of School Administrators. This program is critical for new leaders in a state as geographically vast and professionally isolating as Alaska. This type of structured mentorship is not a nice-to-have, it is truly essential, especially for rural school districts. In rural Alaska, mentorship can be the difference between a principal who survives and one who thrives.

When principals thrive, schools improve. Teacher retention improves. Student outcomes improve. House Bill 231 recognizes that reality and takes an important step toward building a stronger, more sustainable leadership pipeline for Alaska schools. I strongly encourage your support of this bill.

Thank you for your time and taking my public comment this morning and your continued commitment to our Alaska students. Thank you for your testimony, Dr. Micah. I see that we have a question from Rep. Hemeshoot. Thank you. Through the co-chair to Dr. Micah, I just wanted to follow up with you briefly.

One section of this bill— well, more than one section, but a portion of this bill works on streamlining and I guess making a pathway to certification for international educators. Kodiak has recently made the choice, I believe, to try to get green cards for your international educators. Can you briefly speak to that decision and what that looks like for your district? Yes, so with the, um, we have 30 House 1, the H, H-B-1 visa teachers in the district. We made the choice not to use the J-1 anymore because that was a cultural visa and the time was a definite end after 5 years.

And so with the H-1B visa, when we moved that route, it can be a pathway to green card and citizenship. We have, for the first time, 100% retention in our village schools. 75% Of our teachers are international teachers. We knew that we needed to have sustainability. It's really difficult when we're constantly turning and burning through teachers.

There's no consistency. For the first time this year, I'm seeing huge improvements in reading and math scores in my village schools, and I can't wait to see our full results. For that reason, we petitioned our board at the last board meeting to move to green card status and to start the PERM process for 20 of our 30 H-1B visa teachers in order to try and get them more permanent status here in the U.S. so that they do not have to leave at the end of 7 years when the H-1B visa runs out.

Follow-up. Thank you, and I, um, grateful to hear about this, I guess, yet another innovation in staffing our schools. Um, what is the cost for the green card process?

Thank you. Through the chair, great question. Um, we are just starting this process, um, so it will be, uh, for each teacher for the first year, um, Because we're doing it in a batch, meaning that we're getting 20 at one time, the cost is going to be less than if we were doing one at a time at different times throughout the year because we are going to be able to do the PERM process, which is the first year that the district is having to prove that we don't have American applicants for these jobs. And so that's a full-year process of us doing postings all over the U.S. For qualified applicants. And so it's going to cost us the first year for those $25,000 apiece.

And then for the second year is when the process is the U.S. investigating each teacher individually, and that will be another $5,000. So $10,000 per teacher because we're doing it in a batch. So in 2 years Over the cost of 2 years will be about $100,000.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

And I had a question, Dr. Micah. Who helps you provide supports for these international teachers as they transition into your communities? Yes, so the Alaska Council for School Administrators has the AERRC that helps with transitions. They also have arranged for professional learning specific to the needs of our international teachers, you know, especially in the areas of classroom management and American culture and Alaska culture. They're also supporting us through the Alaska history and Alaska culture credits that they need.

And so we are getting a lot of support from Jennifer Schmitz and the through Alaska Council of School Administrators. And then we have in our district, we have them as a cohort on their own, and we meet monthly with them to help them with learning needs specific to them integrating into our school system and our culture here in Kodiak. But with those two prongs, it has been extremely important. We also have We have the mentors for 5 of our Filipino teachers. We wish we had them for all of them, but there's just not enough going around with the teacher mentorship.

But I hope that answers your question. Thank you. It does. And I just have one other question, and that is, how have your students— we've heard testimony from other districts about how students have been working with their teachers, their international teachers. How has that been in your district?

Yeah, it's through the chair. That's a great question as well. It really has been phenomenal. Kodiak's an interesting community. About 38% of our community are Filipinos.

And so we have a large Filipino presence in our town schools as well as in two of our villages. Particularly in our villages, they have integrated into those communities and are part of the community. Community. They're doing after-school activities. They're working with the tribes.

They are learning more about the culture and they're integrating it into their lessons. It's a wonderful thing to see. Here on the road system in town, you know, we— they are integrating into the community as well and the students are really receptive of them.

Appreciate having the same teacher year after year in that subject course. It's been a wonderful thing. Some of our international teachers, they're working— they're not working, but they're volunteering in different community organizations. They're in the Lions Club. They are participating in coaching.

They're participating in Little League. They're you know, working as mentors for students. And so in that aspect, it's been a great thing. Having stability in our classrooms, the international visa teachers have brought that to Kodiak. Thank you, Dr. Micah.

We have one more question by Rep. Hemshoot, but I was going to say, what had been your turnover rates amongst your staff before you went to hiring international teachers?

My first year here, the turnover, we had about 60 to 70 new teachers out of 200. Last year we had 23 new teachers.

And that's been with us also cutting positions every year. So last year we closed a school, but we still had to hire.

Teachers, but amongst those Filipino teachers, we've brought in 35 and we've retained 30.

Thank you for that information. Rep. Himchute. Thank you. I just wanted to clarify on a couple of, um, points. One is I need to get that math from you again on what it costs.

Can you tell me, for your green card work what you anticipate per teacher over 2 years? What is your total investment to get to green card status per teacher? Are you able to—. Because we're doing it— yes, because we're doing it in a batch, it's going to cost us $10,000 per teacher over 2 years.

Okay, yep, got it. Okay, and then a quick follow-up. Follow-up. Um, can you tell me— and I might ask the same question later with, um, Kelly Manning— but I'm curious about how the department is supporting international teachers. Um, what kind of I guess, are they able to do the praxis before they get here and someone who's not able to complete the praxis satisfactorily does not come?

Like, what is the department's role?

Dr. Micka. Through the chair, we've been working directly with the department with our international hires. You know, I'm I have two teachers that came recently this year, middle of the year, that have already passed all portions of their Praxis. So we are able to put them on an emergency certification for the first— for when they first get here, and then we are working with them on, as a district, helping them to be able to take that Praxis exam. And so We have some that are more successful on first attempt than others, but we've also been working with the— I'm on a regulation committee with the commissioner's team, and we've been looking at possible changes to regulations that will help school districts be able to get the certifications and for the teachers to be able to— international accredited accreditation be possibly taken into consideration.

And so we've been working hand in hand with the department, but Kelly Manning can speak more to that. One last brief follow-up. Follow-up, Rob Himschiff. Okay, thank you. Through the co-chair, really quick final follow-up.

If you're in a really small district and you can't do a batch of teachers, what would the green card cost be if you're in a district that, say, has 2? One of my REAA districts has a handful, but certainly not 20 international teachers. So if you were doing this without a batch, do you know what the cost would be?

I don't want to speak to that because I don't have the cost in hand, but I can follow up with an email if that is okay. Yes, that would be very good, Dr. Mica. I'm going to move on to the next person we have. I have one more person online. That's Superintendent Madeline Aguilar, and she is superintendent in the Cus Buck School District.

Welcome, Superintendent Aguilar. Could you please unmute yourself, introduce yourself for the record, and begin your public testimony?

Good morning, co-chairs and committee members. For the record, my name is Madeline Aguilar, superintendent of Cus Buck School District. I'm testifying today because I appreciate the focus in HB 231 on teacher retention, recruitment, and working conditions. Professional development is one of the top drivers of retention and recruitment in rural Alaska. We hear directly from our applicants that they choose Kuspuk because of these opportunities.

Our district-wide model, including all staff training focused on culturally responsive trauma-engaged practices, has been recognized at both the state and national level. That investment has helped us recruit and keep strong educators. On internet connectivity, many of our schools operate on a mix of fiber and satellite. I do want to note that when speeds lag or connections drop, instruction is disrupted. Our curriculum, assessments, and telehealth supports all rely on stable internet.

During state testing, we have had sessions interrupted or shut down entirely. That directly affects student performance and staff morale. At the end of the day, giving our educators the tools that they need, including strong professional development and reliable internet, is essential to keeping them in our classrooms and supporting student success. Thank you for your time and your work on this bill.

Thank you very much for that. Thank you for your testimony. I do not see anyone else online for testimony, so I will now close public testimony.

Um, uh, Rep. Phair, did you have any other questions? I mean, any other comments you'd like to make? I, I don't partic— I don't have any particular comments, I suppose. Um, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to present this bill to the committee. I do have a question if Kelly Manning is on the line, uh, to really— I think it's Section 7 and Just to hone in on international teacher accreditation, because I believe the department is currently working on regulations to streamline that process.

And, and I know, I mean, when I was on the— when I was the president of the school board for the North Hillsboro School District and we were working on bringing teachers in from the Philippines, we would initially— we were going the J-1 route. But the, the program we were working through over-promised some of the J-1s that they had available, and so we had to quickly move to the H-1B route. So I appreciate the work that ARC is doing being a facilitator of H-1Bs and helping other districts— excuse me— have that ability to do that as well. But we have heard from from other school districts that are going through the J-1 process that because of the short time in the emergency certification, their J-1 is only being extended to the length of their certification or their contract, and which then doesn't allow for the retention. And then you have to go back out and recruit, then you have to get a new one.

And so I'm just— I've heard of different models, like in New Mexico, where they are doing other, I guess, transformative things with international accreditation and certification. And I'm just curious what the department is doing currently or what regulations they're working on to, to make this easier for those folks. Thank you, Rep. Freer, for that question. I know what's so important about student achievement and outcomes is that relationship that grows each year with the student.

The more we can keep the teacher there, the better off we get student learning. And so Director Manning is online— Deputy Director Manning is online. If you could please unmute yourself. Welcome, Director. Manning, and did you hear the question?

Yes, good morning. Thank you for having me. This is Kelly Manning, Deputy Director for the Division of Innovation and Education Excellence, and appreciate the question. A couple of things I'll note. So first, Superintendent Mika shared that we've been holding regular meetings with our superintendents to talk about barriers and what we can look at to make— in particular, this, this is one of the topics that's come up, international hiring.

And what we know for our international candidates coming into Alaska, their coursework, we have— there's an opportunity through— there's these organizations that are third-party reviewers that can look at the coursework and and let us know if they have comparable education. So, the accreditation piece is not really the barrier because we already have a mechanism by which we can accept their courses. So, the barrier that's been mentioned a couple of times is the Praxis exam, and there's a few things that we're doing there in our regulatory group. We're looking at what the— where we are setting those cut scores, what the evaluation of practice looks like. Additionally, those foreign credit evaluation organizations, we've reached out and started conversations with them to see if there's a way that they could look at assessments that are administered in the home country that may be comparable, and evaluating that as a possible path.

If we can address that piece, that would allow the educators to come in on a full professional certificate, which would not be time-limited like the emergency certificate. Currently, for those candidates, they come in on the emergency certificate, and then once they complete the practice exam, then they are able to move to the professional certificate. If they complete the practice exam prior to coming, then they would be able to come on a professional certificate, which does allow them more time. So those are some of the areas that we're working with our superintendents to identify where there's regulatory barriers, where there's system barriers that we can work through. Additionally, it's been noted that the H-1B visa is the preferred of the two, J-1 and the H-1B.

And so our leadership has been working with our Senate and.

Senate delegation around support for waiving the H-1B visa fee for educators in Alaska. And so there's been a lot of work in that area to support these educators in being able to come. And so those are some of the things that we're doing currently to try to make this accessible and support these educators in coming and working in our schools. Thank you, Deputy Director Manning. I do believe we have a follow-up question from Rep. Elam.

Not for Director Manning. Excuse me, that question is for the bill sponsor. I have a question. Go ahead. Oh, by the way, if you want to stick with Deputy Director Manning.

Is this question for Deputy Director Manning? It is. Okay, then I'm going to continue with— Rep. Hemmschulte has a question for Deputy Director Manning. Rep. Hemmschulte. Thank you, and thank you for being here, Deputy Director Manning.

Thanks for letting me jump the line here. I just thought we'd stick with the same person. I want to make sure I understand correctly. If the Praxis is required, can international hires take the Praxis before coming to the U.S., and is that before or after a school district has committed to hiring them? What does that process look like?

Deputy Director Manning. Through Co-Chair Story. Through Co-Chair Story to Co-Chair Hinshute, this is Kelly Manning for the record. Absolutely, they can take the exam prior to coming, and that would be an avenue to make it easier for them to achieve their certification currently under our current processes. I do think that for some districts, based off of just the timing from when they hire to when they come, some candidates just haven't been able to complete that prior to submitting their certification application.

So that's where they come in on the emergency certificate. Some have and are able to achieve the initial professional certificate when they come. That limitation barrier is really because the emergency certificate is a 1 year, then that, as I believe Rep. Freer mentioned, that then limits the amount of time that their visa can— they can get get renewed, but then they have to go through that process again. So it, it does make it a challenge if they have to come in on the emergency certificate because of the time limitation.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Uh, Rep. Elam, last question please. Thank you. Um, appreciate you coming out and presenting your, your bill there.

Um, I was just curious with the specifically around the incentives, uh, section there, has there been any kind of consideration for maybe trying to, to target it for high demand or high-need positions, whether that's like CTE instructors or special needs teachers or those kinds of folks where, where maybe we could try to target some of those individuals for recruiting and retention. Are you referring—. Within your board—. Through the chair, excuse me, to Representative Elam? This is Representative Freer for the record.

Are you referring specifically to the retention bonuses? Yeah. So the retention bonus language that was included in this bill, it comes directly from House Bill 106, which was a governor's bill. I think— I don't know if it was the 33rd or 32nd legislature, and it was expanded for teachers and paraprofessionals. But there is an interest in expanding it further to all employees that have— are student-facing.

So maybe it's the school secretary, maybe it's a homeschool facilitator, or it's cafeteria workers, school bus drivers. We—. I haven't put any thought into difficult-to-fill type positions like CTE or special education counselors, but I do know that there are districts excuse me, who are currently approving for sign-on bonuses for those really hard-to-fill positions. And I think they're doing that individually with the, you know, input from their individual school boards.

Um, that portion of the bill carries a very heavy fiscal note. And when I was talking and having conversations with the co-chair that was a section that was definitely concerning. We did have conversations about maybe going through the fiscal note, finding the areas that have large— that, that contribute to the very large fiscal note, and trying to push through some of the legislation that is very important, but we still have work to do. And we just recognize that this type of legislation is really important, especially because it incorporates 11 out of the 18 recommendations from the TRR handbook. And I didn't want to go through and piecemeal it.

And I don't— and I, I hope maybe some of those get incorporated in some education omnibus bill, but I don't anticipate that portion will. Okay. And Yeah. So we're just kind of standing by. I don't think we're going to have another hearing request.

We just wanted to get the bill on record, hear from— hear public testimony. And but we recognize that we're about 19 days away from the end of session. And this is incredibly important. I look forward to bringing this type of legislation back in the future. And yeah, appreciate the conversation.

Yeah, thank you. And there's lots of interest in this. I have had Rep. Schwanke say she has a quick question, and Rep. Himshuta said she's had a quick question. And then I do want to— we have had Superintendent Langford from Mount Edgecomb online, and I want to make sure we have some time for him. And so I'm getting a little nervous.

So, Rep. Schwanke. Thank you, Co-Chair Story. I'll be really quick. Um, Robin, I just wanted—. Sorry, Rep. Freer—.

I just wanted to say thank you for bringing this bill. I know you guys did a tremendous amount of work on it, and there are a lot of really, really good components in it. And, and I, I do just want to say publicly, I, I hope that, um, you You know, if we can't pass this this year, that your office will work very closely with us. We'll bring our numerous rural school districts to the table to try to really hone in on those things that are really working well, because we know we have a lot of really great things. And I just want to say I'm pretty excited about the statewide exit survey.

I think so bringing legislation like this can really be impactful in a lot of different ways, and I think bringing it has encouraged the department to actually implement some of this already. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for those comments, Rep. Schwanke. Uh, Rep. Himschuh, thank you. Very quickly, I wanted to go to Jennifer Schmitz with a couple of questions, if we can do that.

Yeah, she's online. Uh, Jennifer Schmitz, um, go ahead, Rep. Himschuh, with your comments. Thank you. Through the chair, um, I have two quick questions. One is, um, we heard the department is working with the federal delegation on trying to get waivers to those fees for H-1B visas.

I want to know if you guys are doing anything through ACSA since this is really important to the school districts that, um, yeah, that your superintendents lead. So is there anything on your side with the congressional delegation?

Thank you for that question. Through the chair, yes, we are working closely with Senator Murkowski and Senator Sullivan In fact, just this week I met with Senator Sullivan's office and his legal counsel, and they are really active on this issue right now and working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to push through. And we've sent them a lot of documentation in the last 3 days. They really feel the urgency. So, yes, we are working with them.

Okay. Good. Follow-up? Yes, and that was Jennifer Schmitz for the record. Rep. Hemchute.

Oh, sorry. No worries. We're just working quickly because we still have one more conversation to have this morning. So this is my second and final question as far as I know. Through the co-chair, can you speak to my earlier question?

If you're a smaller district and you don't have a batch, you can't put 20 people through a green card process. Do you know what it would cost for a district that's trying to get a green card for 1, 2, or 3 educators?

Yes, thank you. For the record, this is Jennifer Schmitz through the chair. It's approximately the same if— it's between $8,000 and $10,000 per teacher even if it's not a batch. The green card process is a little different than the H-1B process in that there are some fees that the districts are required to pay, but there are also some fees that the teachers themselves are required to pay. So it still comes out between $8,000 to $9,000 per teacher, which is very similar to an H-1B.

Actually, it's more expensive than that, however, but the teachers are also expected to pay part of that as they're becoming a citizen to be able to teach here. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Rep. Freer, for bringing this bill forward.

I'm going to hold House Bill 231 over today. And again, thank you for your efforts, and I thank everyone who was online today. Thank you. Thank you. Kuchersori.

So we have one final item of business on the— before the committee today. We are going to hear a brief update from Superintendent David Langford, superintendent from Mount Edgecomb High School. Please unmute yourself, identify yourself for the.

Record and begin your presentation. I believe you're going to give us an update on how things are going at Mount Edgecomb. Yes, thank you, uh, co-chair Himschoot and co-chair Storey. I appreciate the opportunity. For the record, my name is David Langford.

I'm superintendent of Mount Edgecomb High School and also superintendent of Chatham School District. So Mount Edgecomb High School is finishing the academic year very strong. Since I began superintendent July 1st, we've made meaningful progress across multiple areas of the school. I also bring longstanding connection to MEHS, which has helped guide both improvements and long-term planning. I was especially interested this morning listening to Commissioner Lind and Commissioner Kuppie because I was actually in the state when they were both commissioners and worked with them both and loved hearing that background and history.

We had a very challenging beginning to the school year with many Facility challenges mostly, but we're finishing the school year very strong and already planning, looking ahead to next year. As far as residential life for students, we have strengthened the dorm leadership and systems, and while it took time to align expectations with the new dorm contractor and food contractors, we're now seeing increased student engagement and a more structured, supportive residential life program. Uh, as far as staffing, we have stabilized staffing and expanded academic offerings. Students now have access to a range of courses, including career and technical education pathways, and this year students earn college credits supporting both college readiness and career exploration. Uh, we currently have 18 total teaching staff.

Um, as far as staffing, 2 teachers are retiring with decades of experience at, at MDHS, and, and we thank them for their service. Uh, we have one, uh, tenured teacher moving out of state. Uh, we have 3 non-tenured teachers that have resigned, and because of enrollment being down for the next year, we cannot guarantee them a contract for next year. If positions come available, they'll be eligible to reapply. Uh, currently we're in the process of hiring a new academic principal and a new residential principal.

And we have an excellent pool of candidates and, uh, DEED employees have been very instrumental in helping work through all those applications and interview— interviews. We're currently hiring a dormitory security person and a dormitory attendant position. We have a licensed counselor that's returning to the dormitory and therapist returning for next year, so that's great. UAS is busy adding a mariculture facility and dual enrollment opportunities for MEHS students, and so that's very exciting. And they're bringing in a whole new floating dock right in front of our campus.

UAS is also working with MEHS, and we're exploring the concept of creating a middle college in Sitka, and that's, that's going very well.

We have students that have earned top honors in career technical organizations. We have students that have passed the private pilot's license and commercial drone pilot license. 5 Students are waiting to take the certified flight instructor exam.

We have had a very successful sports year. Had 42 students completed the entire season in volleyball, and 83 students were involved in volleyball in some part of the season going forward. So we had 31 students in cross country, 45 students in both boys and girls wrestling, and it's a very strong program. Uh, 32 students in girls basketball, 29 in boys basketball, and we also have C teams for A total of around 90 students, uh, in the basketball program, 13 students in cheer, 55 in music. Our DDF program is very strong, 15.

A super strong NYO team, uh, 39, and they finished second in the state, which is, uh, very exciting. Uh, we have a very strong student council, uh, that meets every Thursday with regular attendance of 25 students and one advisor. Commissioner Lynn was talking about the leadership capacity for Mt. Edgecomb, and the student council is a very strong part of that and have their own budget and are able to govern school. So we recognize that many of our students may end up on school boards, Native organization boards, etc., even one year out of high school.

So they really do need that leadership background. Uh, we have 71 students that were in that digital photography class. Um, 60 students, grades 10 through 12, on the superintendent honor roll with 3.75 GPA or higher. And so just recently we treated them to a steak luncheon with Superintendent, other administrators. Um, our current enrollment is 289 students, so impressively this accounts for 20% of our entire student body with a GPA of 3.75 or better.

So We had cheerleaders that traveled, 10 cheerleaders traveled to the state meet and competed and paid for most of their own trip through fundraising. I don't know if you've heard or not, but our boys basketball team won the Alaska State Championship in a triple overtime victory. It was very exciting. As first championship in history.

Both boys and girls basketball teams won Region 5 in Southeast. We had 15 students in DDF and placed very well within the state.

MEHS also has a very strong Ed Rising program, which is training future teachers, and they won the state competition and will now go to the national competition in June. And so that's very promising for future teachers all over Alaska. We had 13 students in Battle of the Books. Our student body president just received a full-ride scholarship to Columbia University. And his name is Don Olson, and he also has a very prominent senator father.

And when I first met Don last fall, I said, "What do you want to do in the future?" And he said, "I want to become a senator." So he's probably destined to be there someday. Uh, we currently have 77 seniors graduating next week. This compares to 85 students graduating last year. We have 29 students in National Honor Society, and impressively, they logged over 400 volunteer hours in Sitka doing all kinds of projects for the Sitka community. And local churches and charities, et cetera.

So very impressive group. Our music program is very vital to what's going on. We have 55 students in music, in the choir, sorry, excuse me, 35 students in the very popular guitar program, 13 in beginning band, 25 in concert band. We have a jazz band that's extracurricular with 12 students and a pep band with 31 students. Um, we sent 2 students to Region V Honor Band and 5 to Region V Choir, 1 All-State and 1 All-State Ensemble.

Um, these accomplishments really reflect student dedication but also amazing teachers and staff support that really have our students rising to a very high level. Statewide. Student voice is very important at MEHS. We have student teams now on interview teams interviewing the new prospective principals, and that's been very, very successful. They have amazing insights and great questions.

We did have approximately 30 students that had a protest and they were protesting a recent decision, and we listened to them and agreed that we should involve them more in the changes and reverse the change. So that's a great example of students taking responsibility.

So the student experience— why do students choose to come to Mount Edgecomb High School? Uh, we got very consistent responses. Uh, number 1 was heritage of MEHS. Uh, most students have relatives and friends who have attended Mount Edgecomb, and so therefore they also want to graduate. They cite very strong academic reputation, ability to take classes not offered in their home schools, the breadth of activities offered in sports and other school activities.

Uh, the competition level in sports, academic support. Uh, when asked why they continue to stay, many of the same reasons are cited, but students also say repeatedly that Mount Edgecomb is a family atmosphere and everyone supports students. Uh, opportunities are not available at home, so that's why they stay. Uh, they love the Sitka area and the support of this, uh, the city of Sitka.

They love the academic rigor, lifelong friendships, mentoring, pride in being a Brave, and building a brighter future for themselves was often listed. For campus life, students spend approximately 3/4 of their time on campus in a residential boarding school environment. So that's a really big part of their experience here. Students value time with peers during residential free time and have opportunities to engage in enrichment activities such as cultural arts, kayaking, hiking, swimming, et cetera. I'll move on to student retention and attrition.

There's been a significant attention on student departures this year. It's important to recognize that all schools experience some annual attrition. This year's rate appears to be approximately 25% higher than in recent years. Forsery searches required for this increase in change, and we have an ad hoc committee that's going to be addressing that as well. Uh, the average number of students withdrawn per year in May since 2018 is 78 students in May at this time.

Currently we're at 122. So that's a 36% increase over the 8-year average and represents an 8% increase over the previous high of 94 students. So it's not— while it is the highest number we've had in the last 8 years, it's only an 8% increase over the previous high. Reasons for leaving Mt. Edgecomb include number one, 27% family hardships, 18% homesickness, 14% dormitory issues, 7% were dismissed for disciplinary actions, 11% distance struggle, 1% were moved to higher level of care, 1% was a student decision, 1% academic decision.

Other miscellaneous areas for students leaving, wanting to graduate from home, some of them were unknown. Negative media about MEHS was also a big factor in why students left Mt. Edgecomb this year. Some kids cited that wanting to be with their boyfriends and girlfriends at home or wanting to play on sports.

The ad hoc committee plans to conduct a deeper review of contributing factors and trends, and the goal will be to identify support strategies that can reduce avoidable student departures in the future. As far as enrollment is going, we had a very slow start to the enrollment period, but it's now starting to pick up significantly. So for the applications as of 4/30/26, 83 incomplete application portfolios and 104 completed application portfolios. And we've already accepted a lot of those students. So if all current applicants were accepted, 187 new students combined with 213 re-enrollment students would give us a student body, a student body of approximately 400 next year.

So we know from past history that not all of those students that apply end up coming to Mt. Edgecomb. But at least that gives us a target area to begin with. This time we have notified 68 students that they've accepted to— that they're accepted to MEHS, and we've received 48 of those acceptance emails from, uh, for students.

Uh, current applications are actually down 37% from previous years, year over year. And I think that's largely due to a lot of the negative narrative that's been put out this year, but we're working hard to overcome that and getting PSAs out to districts and news agencies that we're accepting students now. Thank you for that update, Superintendent Langford. I'm just doing a time check here, and I also want to recognize that, uh, Dr. Dr. Dena Bishop, the commissioner, has been online, um, and I'm going to go to Rep. Himschoot for a question, and then we're going to wrap it up. And if you have any other questions, please send them in to me, and we will get them to Superintendent Langford and get them out to the committee.

Rep. Himschoot. Thank you, co-chair Story. What I'm hearing is a student who chooses to go to Mount Edgecomb next year is going to see some refreshed facilities. They're going to have a new dorm and a new academic principal. They're going to have a full schedule of classes and they're going to have a wide range of activities.

Some AmeriCorps have been hired back and more of the staff are prepared to lead activities. So the question that I have is the middle college concept. Can you speak briefly to what you're looking at there? Is there a program you're bringing in or is this a homegrown effort? Yes, uh, to the Chair.

This is a very exciting development that's happening working with the director for UAS that they're on our campus, and this was brought forth and we had meetings with Sitka Superintendent, other agencies within the Sitka community, and it's gaining a lot of steam very quickly as a very prominent thing for Matanuska students. And what it would entail is that basically students could, after 2 years of taking dual enrollment credits through the university, could end up with a 2-year degree and a Madagaskar High School diploma. So they would actually be halfway through their college training at that time. So I think it's a very promising program, and as We're gonna have a lot of red tape to work through, but with the commitment of everybody involved, I think it's moving very quickly. Thank you.

Thank you for that, and thank you for being online today, Superintendent Langford. So, um, in wrap-up today, um, I wanted to remind people that on Monday the House Education Committee will consider Joy Cogburn-Smith, the governor's appointee for the Board of Education and Early Development, and we will take public testimony on the appointee. We will again take up House Bill 387, Alaska Native Languages Academic Task Force, with public testimony. And we will go back to Senate Bill 187, School Nutrition Meal Prohibit Food Dyes, and bills previously heard. This concludes the committee hearing today.

The time is 10:02, and the House of Education Committee meeting is adjourned.