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A bill aimed at attracting and keeping quality teachers in Alaska classrooms became law on Monday without Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s signature. The law’s changes to current education policy are threefold: It eliminates a state limit on experience-based compensation for teachers, allows retired teachers to serve as long-term substitutes and provides financial incentives for current teachers to seek certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka and a former teacher, sponsored the bill, whi... Full story
At the height of the food stamp backlog last November, pro bono attorneys and other volunteers at Alaska Legal Services got more than 600 requests in one month from Alaskans seeking a fair hearing to get their overdue food benefits. So the 97 requests that came in this July didn’t feel like anything the group couldn’t handle, said Leigh Dickey, the nonprofit’s advocacy director. But the number is still alarming, she said, and it’s double last month’s requests. Dickey said the state’s Division of Public Assistance is still dogged by the same pr... Full story
Forty-three people spent the night in Juneau's emergency shelter at Floyd Dryden Middle School on Monday night as a record-high flood from the Mendenhall Glacier inundated homes. Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the total number of people who evacuated their homes is likely several times that; shelters are usually a last resort for people who cannot stay with family, friends or in a hotel. "You can imagine how hard it would be to wake up with water in your house, not expecting there to be... Full story
Alaska’s Supreme Court justices on Friday reversed a Superior Court ruling that struck down key components of the state’s correspondence school program. Nearly 23,000 homeschool students may continue to use their allotments of state education money to pay for private school tuition until the Anchorage Superior Court reconsiders the case. The Supreme Court made its decision a day after oral arguments in an appeal of the ruling in State of Alaska, Department of Education and Early Development v. Alexander, in which plaintiffs argued that it is...
On a life-flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Sierra Ott’s newborn son Liam would not stop bleeding from a routine needle prick. Doctors in the Anchorage neonatal intensive care unit diagnosed him with a blood clotting disorder. Without medication, he is at risk of extreme joint pain and even bleeding out from what would not normally be serious injuries. Ott said that without health insurance from her husband’s military service, the pills would cost the family about $8,000 a month. At the urging of her case worker, Ott applied for Medicaid for... Full story
The 33rd Alaska State Legislature came to a shuddering but active end early Thursday morning as lawmakers passed the state’s annual budget and a series of high-profile bills addressing crime, climate change, the looming Cook Inlet energy crunch, and problems with the state’s correspondence education programs. “I think it was a great session,” said Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla. “We’ve taken care of energy … we were able to take care of the correspondence folks. And we had a great crime bill that we passed. So I think it was... Full story
An Anchorage Superior Court judge on Friday struck down an Alaska law that allows the state to distribute cash payments to the parents of homeschooled students on the grounds that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on private education. “This court finds that there is no workable way to construe the statutes to allow only constitutional spending,” wrote Judge Adolf Zeman, concluding that the relevant laws “must be struck down in their entirety.” The decisio... Full story
The state government risks losing millions of dollars in federal funding because it did not comply with requirements for pandemic relief funds, according to a letter from the United States Department of Education. The state’s education department disputes the claim. The result is a federal “high risk” designation that could cost the state grant funding. Members of the Senate Majority caucus said the state could lose more than $400 million. “Without a plan and quick action, our local schools could be out additional federal resources, and the... Full story
With three months until the deadline, only 16% of Alaska high school seniors have applied for federal student aid. The funding mechanism, called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or FAFSA, is an indicator of college-bound students. Alaska has the lowest rate of applicants in the nation, which has been true for at least the last decade, said Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education Executive Director Sana Efrid. “The No. 1 reason we hear from students and families that they do not enroll in post-secondary programs is the c... Full story
When Carol Mooers came to Alaska to teach, she was not compensated for all of her previous teaching experience in Maine and Texas. That is because state law allows only six to eight years of out-of-state teaching experience to be counted when calculating salaries. She is still a school counselor in the Bering Strait region, but said Alaska would be more attractive to teachers like her younger self if that limit did not exist. Mooers testified in support of a new proposal that would allow... Full story
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued an ultimatum to state legislators on Tuesday, saying he will veto a multipart education funding bill unless lawmakers pass separate legislation that contains his education priorities. Speaking from his office in Anchorage, the governor said lawmakers have two weeks to reconsider teacher bonuses and changes to the way charter schools are approved, two items that were voted down during the debates over Senate Bill 140, the education bill. If they don’t act, Dunleavy said he will veto SB 140, killing a permanent f... Full story
An Alaska House member has proposed a bill that seeks to establish definitions of “life” and “person” in criminal law, prompting dozens of Alaskans to testify against it, saying it would unconstitutionally limit abortions in the state. Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, said his bill is “simply my attempt to define life for the statute” and “ensure fair treatment and protection for all individuals including those yet to be born.” He said the bill would define a fetus as a person. Alaska is one of more than a dozen states considering wha... Full story
While Alaska’s mariculture industry is small by global standards, production of farmed shellfish and seaweed in the state has increased substantially in recent years, according to a new status report released Friday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Applications for Alaska mariculture permits averaged about six a year from 2014 to 2018 but increased to about 14 a year from 2019 to 2023, said the State of Alaska Aquaculture report, issued by the NOAA Fisheries. Oysters have been a pillar of Alaska mariculture for many y... Full story
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration introduced legislation on Wednesday that would criminalize unpermitted street protests and other activities that block passage through public places. Certain types of protest could be counted among the state’s most serious crimes. Dunleavy said the proposal is aimed at increasing public safety. Civil rights advocates say the potential infringement of Alaskans’ First Amendment rights is concerning. House Bill 386 would impose penalties for obstructing highways, navigable waterways, airport runways and other pu... Full story
Alaska’s courts have had a backlog of cases since courts shut down for months during the COVID-19 pandemic. The backlog has persisted, in part because of attorney shortages. The court typically carries many pending cases, but the number of pending cases is currently 27% higher for felonies and about 13% higher for misdemeanors than it was in 2019. “The overall numbers are going down, which is what we want to see,” said Stacey Marz, the Alaska State Court System’s administrative director. “We want to see fewer cases that are pending.” In the yea... Full story
In January of last year, 10 Alaskans sued the state because they said the Department of Health failed to provide food stamps within the time frames required by federal law. The state has been able to push pause on litigation since last year, but now it has to begin the process. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in a court order that further delays would be “inefficient” and noted that the state has now had a year to try and resolve its backlog. The court granted the state a series of stays, or pauses in the process, to allow it to work on... Full story
An unused U.S. Forest Service building near Kake may soon be a healing center for the community to move forward from generations of trauma after a boarding school harmed members of the Alaska Native population. When Joel Jackson, president of the Organized Village of Kake, saw the building on an access road between Kake and Petersburg, he said he was surprised. "A cultural healing center has been on my mind for decades," he said. "I said to myself, 'Hey, there's our cultural healing center.'"... Full story
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said education is among his top priorities in the coming fiscal year. He proposed spending millions on education, but did not include an increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation, in his proposed budget. His proposed budget puts $1,267,522,300 to the education department, a 9% decrease from last year, due to shrinking enrollment. “I want the public to understand that, as a former educator, I understand that schools cost money, education costs money, there’s no doubt about it,” Dunleavy said. “The... Full story
Nikita Chase doesn’t have a Christmas tree yet this year. She said she is more worried about staving off an electricity shutoff notice than getting into the holiday spirit. Her food stamps, known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, were nearly two months late. “I am pretty much tapped out going into Christmas. That’s not a great place to be,” she said. She ran up debt on her credit card to pay for heat and electricity after she spent all her cash to feed her family. She paid significantly higher prices for piecemeal groceri... Full story
Jobs are available in Alaska, but the workforce to fill them isn’t there. A report from the Association of Alaska School Boards linked it to underfunding public schools — especially guidance counselors and guidance programs. The report noted that one in five young adults in Alaska isn’t connected to school or work. Emily Ferry, a coordinator for the Association of Alaska Schools Boards, said schools and Tribes need support for these programs. “It’s not surprising when you invest less, your return on investment is not there, it’s not the sam... Full story
The state’s governor-appointed board of education voted to limit transgender girls’ participation in school sports at a special meeting on Thursday. The regulation requires the Alaska School Activities Association Inc. to authorize a division limited to students assigned female at birth. Lorri Van Diest introduced the first non-binding resolution related to the issue in March of this year, and said that it is impossible to balance inclusion with fairness because of the differences in physiology between sexes. “I will be voting for the regul...
Alaska public school teachers short of supplies this year have a new source to turn to for funding, and it’s not the local school budget. Each teacher could receive $650 to $750 from the state in federal pandemic relief money. Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development will devote $2 million in federal pandemic relief money to fund teacher requests. “By helping teachers directly with their classroom needs, DEED is supporting our teachers in our shared mission to provide an excellent education for every student everyday,” said de... Full story
The state government is taking aim at eliminating one of the most common barriers for people who want to open child care centers in remote communities: The state requirement for a special internet connection called a “static IP address.” Every device connected to has its own Internet Protocol, or IP, address. While most device addresses can change, static IP addresses don’t. They can be costly and hard to get in remote parts of Alaska where internet access is a known challenge. Would-be child care providers in remote parts of Alaska have said...
In Alaska, only a third of children meet the state’s goals to be ready for kindergarten. But the state’s share of funding for Head Start, a mostly federally funded child care and health program that promotes school readiness specifically for low-income families, is lower than it was a decade ago. This year, the Legislature earmarked $5 million for an increase so the state’s Head Start programs could match federal contributions, but Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed most of it, slashing the increase to $1.5 million. It’s left program directors like Ma... Full story
Alaskans are having a harder time accessing child care now than they were five years ago, an expert told a new task force charged by Gov. Mike Dunleavy with developing a plan to make child care in the state more available and affordable. The task force, which Dunleavy formed in April, had its first public meeting on June 28 via Zoom with about 60 people, including the dozen task force members, in attendance. The group has until the end of December to deliver an initial plan to address the state’s child care challenges. At stake is the w... Full story
