Jamie Diep

The Juneau School District Board of Education appointed Steve Whitney to the board on Saturday. Whitney will fill a seat held by Will Muldoon until his sudden resignation from the board last month.

Whitney is a former school board member and works for the National Marine Fisheries Service. He served a three-year term from 2016 to 2019 and decided not to run for reelection in order to care for a family member.

In his interview, Whitney said he plans to focus on maintaining the public process at board meetings.

“My mindset going forward would be to focus much more on healing community and collaboration while we deal with difficult decisions, because I believe that is what this time calls for, and that is also what would best serve our children,” he said.

Whitney said he wants to balance ensuring teachers in the district get fair contracts with the district’s budget constraints.

Whitney will serve until the board elections in October, when a new member will be elected to serve the two remaining years of the term.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development failed a test that allows it to include millions of federal dollars toward its contribution to education funding. 

Alaska receives millions of dollars in education funding each year called federal impact aid. That money makes up lost revenue for regions with land that can’t be taxed like federal and Alaska Native owned land. The state can put that money toward its own obligation to school districts in those regions – as long as there isn’t too big of a gap, or disparity, in funding between the most and least funded school districts.

In a Friday letter to state Education Commissioner Deena Bishop, the U.S. Department of Education said the state failed the disparity test. That means what’s usually tens of millions of dollars in federal aid won’t count toward the state’s education contribution for the next fiscal year. 

The state failed the test because the gap between the most and least funded school districts it compared was too wide.

The state failed the test before in 2021, but successfully appealed the decision. It received an exemption to leave out state funding for student transportation — a change that allowed it to pass the disparity test.

The letter also says the state can request a hearing with the federal department if it will be negatively impacted by the test result.

Bishop said in a Friday email to KTOO the state is considering its options moving forward.

This comes as the state’s education department is pursuing a regulation change intended to keep it from failing the disparity test. The regulation would further limit how much funding local governments can contribute to school districts. But it’s unclear if local contributions were a factor in the education department’s most recent failure.

The state has 60 days to request a hearing.

Five candidates have applied to fill an empty seat on the Juneau School District Board of Education after board member Will Muldoon resigned last month.

The candidates include a former school board member and two candidates who ran last year but were not elected.

Jenny Thomas ran for the school board last year and fell short of being elected. Thomas led the recall campaign for two members after the board closed and consolidated several schools last year. She wants to evaluate the effects of that plan if elected. Thomas currently owns Icy Strait Plumbing & Heating.

Brenda Taylor was a longtime teacher at Juneau Community Charter School and currently works with Sealaska Heritage Institute as a research coordinator. Taylor said she would focus on supporting teachers through contract negotiations and filling vacancies.

Dom Pannone is the director of program management and administration at the state Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. In his application, Pannone wrote that he went to school in Juneau and wants to “contribute meaningfully to the district.”

Melissa Cullum is a freelance writer and homeschool parent. She wrote that her top priority if appointed would be fair teacher contracts.

Steve Whitney was elected to the school board in 2016 and served one term. He didn’t run for reelection, saying at the time that was taking care of a family member instead. In his application, he said he would prioritize union contracts.

The board will conduct interviews Saturday at 10 a.m. at Thunder Mountain Middle School and afterward select a new member to serve until the next school board election in October.

More information on candidates can be found on the district’s website.

The money local governments spend on their school districts falls in an interesting spot in the maelstrom of Alaska education funding. Under state law, municipalities are limited in how much money they can give school districts annually. It’s called a local contribution.

In Juneau, the local contribution makes up close to half of the school district’s operating budget. Municipalities can also fund specific, non-instructional services outside of the operating budget – and that doesn’t count towards the limit, or “cap.”

“We’re talking about things like extracurricular sports and activities, community schools programs, after school programs, student nutrition, student transportation and pre-K and early education programs,” Juneau School District Superintendent Frank Hauser said at a recent House Education Committee meeting.

He said districts like his stand to lose millions of dollars in local funding if a proposed regulation change from the Department of Education and Early Development, or DEED, goes through. It would further limit the money local governments can give to school districts. 

Last month, Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, introduced House Bill 212. It would allow local funding for those non-instructional services to continue as it has – outside of the local contribution limit.

A letter from DEED says the state needs to crack down on local spending because it doesn’t want to lose access to millions of federal dollars called federal impact aid.

The state gets to put that money towards its obligation to schools. The money counts toward its contribution as long as the state can prove that it’s funding education equitably between districts. State officials are worried that the federal government may start looking more closely at the local money that goes beyond the limit when it’s deciding if things are equitable. 

The federal government hasn’t done that yet, but the state’s gone after the Juneau School District over local contributions in the past.

DEED Commissioner Deena Bishop said her agency is trying to make the change before anything happens.

“The initiative to pursue regulatory clarification is solely on DEED driven by our obligation to ensure compliance with federal law and Alaska law, which includes impact aid as a critical component of the state’s school funding framework,” Bishop said.

Using federal money to reduce state spending

Alaska receives the federal aid to make up for money lost from land that can’t be taxed, like Alaska Native-owned land or military land. That’s the money the state can use toward funding districts if it’s fair by federal standards. 

There’s more than $80.8 million at stake this year.

That money is what the state contributes to districts that qualify for the aid, but that’s only if it passes the disparity test. 

Alaska is the only remaining state in the country that uses the disparity test. It looks at how much school districts spend per student and takes out the top and bottom 5% of districts, and then sees how big a difference in spending there is between districts. The state passes if there is less than a 25% difference in spending between the remaining districts.

Federal regulation says the disparity test uses current expenditures in the calculations. That’s money that goes toward providing free public education.

This includes “administration, instruction, attendance and health services, pupil transportation services, operation and maintenance of plant, fixed charges, and net expenditures to cover deficits for food services and student body activities.”

Right now, the limited local contributions are counted in the calculations, but not the additional non-instructional spending. Still, Hauser said during his testimony that analysis from the Alaska Council of School Administrators showed that the regulation wouldn’t make a significant difference — including those non-instructional funds is unlikely to influence the results of the disparity test.

Alaska doesn’t need to include state transportation funding in the disparity test after initially failing and then receiving an exemption in fiscal year 2022.

Creating “clear definitions” with House Bill 212

The bill that Story proposed would make it state law that local funding for non-instructional services doesn’t count when the state calculates local contributions to school districts.

Time is running out for the bill to become law this year, but lawmakers could take it up again next year. In addition to passing out of two committees and the House, it still needs to make its way through the Alaska Senate.

But Story said districts have a lot to lose if DEED approves the regulation change between sessions.

“My hope with this bill is again drawing awareness to the issues, trying to make sure we have clear definitions, obviously, hoping it moves along the process,” she said. “And I think it will be a – very much a loss to services and educational opportunities to children across the state if the regulation goes into effect.”

Hauser said in an April interview with KTOO that school districts will have difficult decisions to make if DEED’s regulation change goes through.

“Are we going to provide extracurricular activities, or are we going to have another two or three teachers in the classroom to reduce the class sizes?” Hauser said. “So those are the decisions that boards have to make. How to make up for those funds that really are for non-instructional purposes.”

An administrative order from Gov. Mike Dunleavy froze any new state regulations coming forward. But Bishop said during a Senate Education Committee meeting Wednesday the department will request an exemption with an aim to put the regulation up for public comment at the July state Board of Education meeting.

If approved, it would go into effect for fiscal year 2027 beginning next July.

Lawmakers are setting aside until next year a bill that would kick off a pilot program for tribally-run public schools. 

Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat, is a co-chair of the House Education committee. She said there isn’t enough time to move the House Bill 59 through the legislature this year. But she’s supportive of what tribally compacted schools can accomplish.

“Our education system was responsible for removing the language and culture, and so I think we have a responsibility to bring it back and have education opportunities through this tribal compacting,” Story said. “I think the details are just really important.”

The bill would fund and open five tribally-run schools through a state and tribal education compact, or STEC. 

Superintendents in affected areas testified in support of the bill at the most recent hearing for the bill. However, Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess said she wants to see case studies that show how opening a compacted school affects local school districts. 

“We are happy to support the development of a STEC school if that does move forward,” Burgess said. “However, I believe that there are still a great deal of questions for some schools. How it impacts each community is going to be unique.”

Story said stakeholders and tribal representatives will spend the time in the interim before next legislative session to get more feedback on the bill.

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is one of the tribes that is involved in the program. Tribal representatives told KTOO earlier this month they plan to continue developing a new education campus if the bill doesn’t pass this year.

The current session ends May 21 and will reconvene next January.

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska can now receive reimbursements for providing child welfare services directly from the federal government. Both governments finalized the agreement last month.

That means the tribe’s reimbursements no longer need to go through the State of Alaska. Tribal officials say the agreement gives them more flexibility in handling cases where child abuse and neglect may be happening. 

Mary Johnson is the senior director for family services at Tlingit and Haida. She said the tribe will continue working with the state on child welfare services, but it can now look into ways to expand its services.

“What do we need to get into place to license our own foster homes? What do we need to get into place if we do want to initiate a child welfare case within our own tribal court? And how do we go about putting that into action?” Johnson said. “Now we have the resources to make that happen with a lot of work.”

Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services has agreements with tribes across the state to serve Alaska Native children placed in the system. Tribes assist in Indian Child Welfare Act cases. The law sets standards for children’s services agencies to place Alaska Native and Native American children with family members or to keep them in their home communities if they are removed from their family.

That means Tlingit and Haida works with the state to find a suitable place for children to live after they’ve been removed. In the past, federal reimbursements were distributed to tribes from the state. With the new agreement, Johnson said the tribe can now receive reimbursements directly from the federal government.

Johnson said the tribe’s family services generally have a better understanding of a referred family’s cultural background.

“If you are working with a caseworker at Tlingit and Haida, the chances of them being Alaska Native or even a tribal citizen are pretty high,” she said. “So you’re going to be connecting with someone that just tends to know your way of living a bit more than someone who doesn’t. So that makes a huge difference when working with our families.”

Data from OCS shows that more than two thirds of the children removed from their home last year in the state were Alaska Native.

Tlingit and Haida worked on more than 233 cases in 15 states last year. The tribe serves all of its tribal citizens, including those that live outside of Alaska.

Johnson said the tribe hopes to expand its abuse and neglect prevention services through the agreement as well.

“We have communities that are really strong in one area, and that could be a great area to build off of to do a prevention activity so it can be individualized to a community based on their strengths and their needs,” she said.

The tribe will now go into an implementation phase, where officials will continue developing its child welfare and monitoring program to be approved for reimbursements. Johnson said in an email she anticipates the tribe will need six to 12 months to go through the approval process.