Support for grant-funded positions and teacher contracts became the main issue during the Juneau School Board’s budget public forum on Thursday.
Most of the 28 parents, elders, teachers, students and community members at the forum testified in support of funding positions in the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy program, as well as reaching a new union contract for teachers.
Jodie Gatti is the parent of a kindergartener at TCLL and said the program has allowed her son to bring the Lingít language home with him.
“I never imagined I would witness a child, let alone my own child, teaching my mother the language that was once denied to her,” she said. “That moment is deeply emotional for our family and shows how powerful this work truly is.”
Three positions at TCLL are funded through a federal grant, and that funding will end in September. The school district’s preliminary budget doesn’t include these three positions. But the school board last month directed administrators to include one of the three grant-funded positions in its budget. That leaves the program’s principal and biliteracy specialist positions without funding.
Jamie Shanley is the director of Sealaska Heritage Institute’s language and education departments. She oversees the grant for the district’s positions and testified in support of the district funding the positions while the nonprofit works on securing long-term funding.
She said the district’s Lingít culture and language program is growing.
“They are teaching their language, they’re writing curriculum, they’re creating resources,” Shanley said. “They’re writing Lingít language proficiency assessment. That’s a standardized assessment tool that people use in their classrooms. And they’re doing it all, really at little cost to the school district.”
Shanley said the program has doubled in size since the grant began in 2023, with 121 students currently enrolled.
In addition to grappling with grant-funded positions, the school board is working through contract negotiations with the district’s teaching and support staff unions. Both unions have not yet reached a new contract.
Deborah Rakos has taught for the district for more than 25 years. She testified before the board last year and testified again last week about contract negotiations. She said what teachers are asking for is not beyond contracts other districts have with teachers.
“Look at the salary schedules in the state – please look at Ketchikan, look at Fairbanks, look at Anchorage,” she said. “I urge you to do that, because we’re not out of our tree in what we’re asking. We’re not.”
The board will also consider an over $5.3 million dollar deficit in next year’s budget. That can either be filled through dipping into the district’s savings or by making cuts to services.
The district plans to release a budgeting tool this week that will allow community members to build their own school budget and provide feedback. There are also several meetings over the next month where the public can testify about the budget. The next opportunity is during Tuesday’s school board meeting. The board expects to approve a final budget by March 12.
