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The Alaska Legislature passed a bill requiring the state to develop guidelines for mental health instruction in Alaska school districts. The aim is to place mental health education for K-12 students on par with physical education. 

House lawmakers passed Senate Bill 41 by a 27 to 13 vote late Thursday night, and the bill now heads to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s desk for consideration. 

The bill instructs the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development to develop guidelines for schools to offer developmentally appropriate mental health curriculum in partnership with the Alaska Departments of Health and Family and Community Services, along with regional tribal health organizations and representatives of state and national mental health organizations.

Sen. Elvi-Gray Jackson, D-Anchorage, sponsored the bill and said the initiative helps to address mental health needs of students. “This bill recognizes the importance of mental health education as an essential component of a comprehensive K-12 curriculum,” she said in a statement introducing the bill. “And (it) aims to create a balanced approach to health instruction by placing mental health education on par with physical health education.” 

The bill also would require school districts to give parents and guardians at least two weeks’ notice of upcoming mental health classes, and allow families to opt students out. 

Alaska students and school officials testified to lawmakers in February about the need for lawmakers to address what they said is a growing crisis of student mental health challenges and a lack of counselors, resources and support services.

Several testifiers spoke about the devastating impact of student suicides on schools and communities. Alaska has the highest rates of suicide of any state in the nation — a pervasive trend for decades — with the highest rates among youth ages 15 to 24. 

Kay Andrews, a school board member from the Southwest Region School District, which includes eight schools spanning across the Bristol Bay region, described the impact to lawmakers in February.

“Our region recently experienced another suicide, which deeply affected our students and our only regional counselor,” Andrews said. “Schools are more than our classrooms. They are community centers. They are safe places for our children, yet, schools are being asked to do more with less.”

House legislators debated the bill and the proposed mental health education in schools over several days on the floor this week. Proponents said the new guidelines and curriculums would provide support not only for students, but also much-needed support and training for teachers and staff already engaging with students struggling with mental health. Opponents said a new curriculum would further burden schools, and mental health support and conversations should take place with parents and in family settings. 

Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, spoke on the House floor Thursday night and said he was unsure about the effectiveness of a new curriculum, but acknowledged that two students of Soldotna High School had died by suicide this year. 

“I’m torn. I agree with many of the members that say I’m not certain that this bill is going to do enough. I don’t think this bill is going to change much,” he said. 

“But we’re losing too many of our kids, and for a whole host of reasons, our communities are struggling. We’re losing access to things that used to bring people together in a healthy way. We got to start addressing some of those things. I hope the curriculum addresses that.”

Rep. Nellie Jimmie, D-Toksook Bay, acknowledged the students from her district who traveled to the Capitol in March to advocate for legislation to fund the 988 crisis line and behavioral health services.

“In my district, there are no therapists down the road, no crisis counselors in every school. When something breaks in a child in rural Alaska, it usually breaks quietly, and we always see how that ends up — we always find out too late. We are losing kids,” she said. “This bill puts mental health alongside physical health in every K-12 classroom in this state, developed with tribal health organizations at the table, so rural Alaska is not written as a footnote. The kids already did their part, they showed up, they spoke up. Now we do our part.”

If approved by the governor, it would take some time before mental health curriculums are implemented and students participate in new mental health classes. The bill would allow two years for the state Department of Education to develop the guidelines and submit a report to the Legislature on the process used to develop them. 

Lawmakers also debated and approved an amendment that says the mental health curriculum guidelines may not include “any political, ideological, or advocacy-oriented content that is unrelated to student mental health.” 

But several members of the all-Republican Minority caucus opposed the bill, including Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, who said mental health should be addressed by parents. 

“Parents just don’t want this in the classroom, they want the classroom to focus on academics and leave all of this that has to do with the well-being of their child to them, and not exempt the other parents from that same responsibility,” she said. 

Ketchikan Republican Jeremy Bynum urged support for the bill, amid widespread efforts to combat stigmas around mental health nationwide — particularly among veterans — and address ongoing needs of students.

“Imagine being a kid, not knowing who to go talk to, not knowing what to do. This provides teachers an opportunity — with parental approval — to think about these things,” he said. “If this helps one kid in my school district, if this would have helped one kid in my school district…  it’s worth doing.”

The bill is now before Dunleavy to approve, veto or allow it to become law without his signature.

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A small but crowded coastal Alaska town has gotten the state legislature’s blessing to spread its wings a little.

The state Senate on Friday gave final approval to a measure, House Bill 216, that allows the Prince William Sound port town of Whittier to buy land from the state-owned Alaska Railroad.

The bill will return to the House for a final procedural vote before going to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for enactment or veto. 

The city and railroad have struck a deal for the sale of three parcels, all located in the central part of town, and they are close to agreeing on a sale for two more parcels, both located closer to a new cruise ship terminal that had its first full operating season last year.

But under state law, any sale of railroad land must be approved by the legislature.

That is where HB 216 comes in. It gives explicit permission for the railroad to sell the land, including the two parcels for which deals have not yet been completed. The city may offer cash or other land to the railroad in exchange.

The parcels amount to about 85 acres in total, said Rep. Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, the bill’s prime sponsor. They do not cover much space, but the spots are strategic, he said.

The land is currently being used for things like parking or boat storage. Ownership by the railroad precludes any kind of building on that land, but city ownership would open up options for new business or housing or other opportunities yet to be explored, said Holland, whose South Anchorage district extends to Whittier.

The bill does not specify any particular use for the land once it is sold. “What they do with the land is not my deal,” he said.

Whittier, home to about 275 people, has long been famous for its tight living quarters. Nearly all the residents reside under a single roof, in the high-rise Begich Towers that also houses several businesses and public offices.

Originally built in World War II as a military site, Whittier is now a transportation hub, served by the railroad, numerous cargo shippers, the Alaska Marine Highway system and the single-lane Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, which is North America’s longest combined rail-auto tunnel. It is a recreation, fishing and tourism hub as well, with much of that activity crammed into a tight space between the mountains and the shore.

The town gets about 700,000 visitors a year, City Manager Jackie Wilde said at a Feb. 10 legislative hearing.

“While Whittier is very small, it is very mighty,” she told the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee.

To accommodate all those people, the city and the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities have been working on a transportation master plan called “Whittier Moves.” The city is also working on a long-term waterfront and economic development plan.

Whittier is likely to get busier in the future, Holland said.

Coming to town this fall will be a celebratory commissioning of the USS Ted Stevens, a U.S. Navy warship named for Alaska’s late U.S. senator.

Reporter James Brooks contributed to this article.