Board Adopts Resolution for School Funding

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Category: News

Created on Thursday, 06 February 2025 12:30

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Budgetary discussion dominated the Sitka School Board’s meeting Wednesday, with board members and speakers from the public advocating for increased state funding as the district faces more fiscal shortfalls in the coming year.
    The meeting agenda had only two new items: a resolution urging the Legislature to increase school funding by passing House Bill 69, and an executive session for the annual evaluation of the superintendent.

Sitka High School is pictured this morning. (Sentinel photo by James Poulson)

    “A Base Student Allocation increase of $1,808 is necessary to keep pace with inflation to FY25, and $1,963 is necessary to keep pace with inflation to FY26,” the resolution to the Legislature states. “... Without an increase to the BSA our district is facing a budget deficit of $3,709,816 and, as a result, we will have to cut 17% of the budget.”
    Staff reductions have already had major impacts on the district in recent years as the board has approved budgets with fewer and fewer teachers in an effort to stay in the black.
    “What’s working in Sitka -- music, CTE, low PTRs -- it’s about to get broken, and we want to keep it working well,” board president Phil Burdick said. “... It’s the job of the Legislature; it’s constitutionally mandated to fund education.”
    Burdick urged Sitkans to contact lawmakers to support House Bill 69, introduced last month by Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot.
    The bill calls for an immediate $1,000 per student increase in state funding for schools, and increasing it to $1,808 over three years. The current BSA is $5,960 and has not risen with recent inflation.
    Burdick expressed thanks to the Assembly for its assurance that the city’s contribution to the school district from local taxes will be to the limit allowable under state law.
    Last year’s cuts triggered the loss of more than 20 staff and teacher positions, and forced schools to shuffle personnel to fill gaps.
    “We experienced a lot of reductions last year, 18 certified positions, because there were also people that resigned because they moved, and retirees,” Superintendent Deidre Jenson said. “... It resulted in a lot of movement to fill the certificated positions, so it was like a chess game moving the people, and that impact trickles down when the teachers are having to teach new classes that they hadn’t before that impact trickles down to the students. They feel the stress, and so that’s a real, huge impact, I think, on our students.”
    The Sitka School District website lists the names, with contact information, of key legislators, and tips on writing a letter seeking their support on school issues.
    Last week, Sitka students and adults called in to a House Education Committee hearing to testify on the need for more school funding.
    Himschoot said the proposed $1,808 BSA increase over three years is based on inflation since 2011. One-time increases of $680 and $340 per student have been approved in recent years, but attempts to implement permanent BSA increases have been vetoed by Gov. Dunleavy.
    HB69 would add inflation proofing to the BSA for the next three years and beyond, using a four-year rolling average. That’s in addition to the $1,000 in FY26, $404 in FY27 and $404 in FY28.
    The governor has submitted a budget to the Legislature that has flat funding for k-12 schools, but would allow charter school applications to bypass local school boards and go directly to the state.
    Burdick spoke against the governor’s proposed changes in education policy.
    Dunleavy “introduced his omnibus education bill last week,” Burdick said. “It did not include any funding. It only included policy changes. So due to this, today’s Senate Education Committee meeting was canceled… Negotiating teams from all four caucuses in the Legislature are meeting in the governor’s office at the request of the governor to try to work out an agreement on education funding and policies. Once again, the governor is using his bully pulpit to confuse and conflate the needs of Alaska students, families and schools, instead of the Legislature being able to do their constitutionally mandated job of adequately funding education through debate and consensus.”
    Sarah Todd, a student at Sitka High, testified in favor of their budget resolution.
    “Absolutely, we should pass this resolution, as a student who has been directly affected by all of the budget cuts and all of the changes that have been made in the school year,” Todd said. “I think both passing House Bill 69 is extremely important, as well as this resolution in support. I think it would boost morale for all of the faculty and the students. And I think overall it is extremely crucial for us as a district to stand together.”
    The resolution passed with an amendment initially suggested by Francis Myers, Sitka High’s non-voting representative on the board. Board member Paul Rioux made the motion to amend, adding Myers’ language to the resolution.
    “Whereas an implementation of House Bill 69 statewide would greatly benefit our budget deficit, allowing a school district to retain teachers and opportunities for our students,” the amendment states.
    Speaking with the Sentinel prior to the executive session, the superintendent said federal spending cuts or freezes are unlikely to impact Sitka schools immediately, but loss of grant funding in the future could hit hard.
    “All grants that were given were appropriated and allocated or awarded for this year would stay in play,” Jenson said. “I think for next year, that would be a different conversation. And I think it just remains to be seen. I mean, if grants go away, yes, heavily, heavily impacted.”
    In late January President Trump attempted to block issuance of up to $3 trillion in federal grants and loans, but a federal judge has, for the time being, blocked the measure.
    In a followup discussion with the newspaper, Burdick also noted that if federal grants are impacted, the district could take a hit.
    “I think that where we probably might see some pain is in the grants, because we have shifted some out of general fund teaching positions and used grant funds to cover those, so that we could save teaching positions. Every little bit is going to hurt, even if it doesn’t seem like a lot,” Burdick said.
    Another source of federal money that Sitka has come to expect every year is from the Secure Rural Schools Act. It must be authorized each year, but no Congressional action has been taken on the bill this year because of a missed deadline.
    “It’s still hung up, but there is a bill that is going through, that is being heard to reinstate that, so that (funding) is in the works,” Jenson said.
    Last week President Trump signed an executive order that calls for “ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling… Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies onto our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority,” the order states. Instead, the president ordered that schools focus on “patriotic education,” which would present an “honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles.”
    That order has not had an impact on local schools or curricula, Jenson said Wednesday.
    “Those are such broad, ambiguous terms that it’s really hard to know what the influence is going to be… It remains to be seen what happens with that,” the superintendent said.