By: Grace Dumas, News of the North
District leaders and student advocates from across Alaska testified this morning at a joint Education Committee hearing with both the House and the Senate.
One thing all districts had in common, despite the unique challenges facing schools from Fairbanks to Yakutat, was a call for reliable school funding.
Public schools are funded through Average Daily Membership or ADM, this is the count of enrolled students each year, it can take months to fully process, with an accurate count generally unavailable during budget making.
Testifiers say school funding is a “guessing game.” With districts often creating their budgets with no concrete data.
Some schools have classes that span multiple age groups, bloated class sizes that spread teachers thin, and testifiers say it’s, “costing the state excellence.”
Another commonality between all districts was concern for teacher turnover.
Testifiers said teachers are not compensated fairly to adjust for the rising cost of living in the state, and they are not provided an adequate retirement package which creates an incentive to stay in Alaska.
“I don’t know where the state is going to save all kinds of money by not giving our children the education they need.” said testifier Strong from Chatham school district.
15-year old Maddie Bass from Juneau described growing up in what she called an “underfunded district” where teachers routinely sent home lists of supplies so students could fully participate in class.
“I have never had the opportunity to learn in a classroom that was funded enough to have materials for everyone.” she said, “even with recent consolidations in my district, which caused the firing of multiple teachers, the cutting of programs and more, there is not enough.”
Bass, whose father taught in Alaska schools, said she has watched educators in her district work multiple jobs, struggle to secure adequate health care and has watched her father go to school sick because there were not enough substitute teachers.
She added that, as a teenager, she should not be missing class to “testify in front of legislators” to ask for funding so her teachers can afford to live and students can receive a full education.
“So I’m asking you, please do as much as you can for me, for my teachers, and so my little sister will not have to stand up here and testify when she goes to high school in four years,” she said.
Testifiers thanked legislators for the increase in the Base Student Allocation, but that recognition came with a plea for more stability moving forward.
