Katie Anastas

Student advisors to the state Board of Education spoke out against what Gov. Mike Dunleavy calls his “parental rights” bill at a joint meeting of the House and Senate Education Committees on Wednesday.

“It was scary,” Sitka High School junior Felix Myers said in an interview Thursday. “But I felt it needed to be done.”

Discussing Dunleavy’s bill – which would require written permission from parents before students could change their names, use different pronouns at school or join programs or clubs related to gender and sexuality – wasn’t on the agenda. After board members presented on topics like teacher retention and state test scores, House committee co-chair Rep. Jamie Allard invited the students to speak.

“I have friends who don’t come out to their parents because they don’t feel safe,” Maggie Cothron, a sophomore at Polaris K-12 School in Anchorage, told the committee. “It’s going to have a lot of negative consequences that you may not realize.”

Myers said those negative consequences could include a higher risk of suicide.

“The people that are not accepted by their parents are the ones that are the most affected by this bill,” he said.

According to a 2022 survey by the Trevor Project, 45% of LGBTQ youth in Alaska seriously considered suicide in the past year. The survey found 64% of LGBTQ youth in Alaska wanted to access mental health care but didn’t, and one of the top reasons was because they didn’t want to ask their parents for permission.

Dunleavy’s proposed bill would require school districts to address “the physical safety and privacy of students in locker rooms and restrooms” by separating student locker room and bathroom facilities by gender assigned at birth or providing access to single stall restrooms.

But Myers said his transgender and non-binary classmates have appreciated their access to gender-neutral bathrooms. 

“That support for them has been immense,” he said. “The ability to feel respected in their classrooms when their pronouns are used correctly is something that they’ve greatly appreciated.”

Cothron said other youth leaders support policies that affirm queer and trans students’ identities. She told the committee about the Alaska Association for Student Governments’ resolution to create gender-neutral bathrooms at Wasilla High School.

The State Board of Education is appointed by Dunleavy. Cothron and Myers emphasized that their views are their own, and that they weren’t speaking on behalf of the state board. But they’re glad they shared their views with legislators.

“We’re students right now, but we have to think about the students in the future,” Cothron said. “Our world is changing, and the idea of expression and becoming who we are is new. People are finally being more open and being able to express themselves. And it’s going to continue, I hope, to grow.”

The Juneau School Board adopted a $96 million budget Tuesday night based on an assumed increase in state and city funding.

Board members chose to build the budget around a $430 increase to the base student allocation, the amount of money per student school districts get from the state. A $430 increase would give the district $3.3 million more than it got this year. 

State legislators are considering bills that would raise the BSA by $1,000 or more, but school board members cited Gov. Dunleavy’s past vetoes to education funding when they settled on a more conservative estimate of $430 last month.

“The budget that you approve this evening is based on assumptions,” Superintendent Bridget Weiss told the board at the start of Tuesday’s meeting. “There are estimates built in here, and one of those is the increase to the BSA.”

The base student allocation is only guaranteed to go up by $30 next year. If lawmakers don’t further increase it, the school board and administrators will have to make budget cuts. Weiss said that would likely involve increasing the pupil-to-teacher ratio, essentially increasing class sizes.

“That’s a lever you likely would have to use if that worst case scenario happened,” she told the board.

Stacy Diouf, principal of Sayéik: Gastineau Community School, said she was worried about the board’s assumption that the BSA would increase more than $30.

“I feel like we’re going to have one idea of what next year is going to look like, and then once that [state] budget passes, it could be drastically different,” she told the board. “The optimist in me really hopes that it happens, but the realist in me is very concerned.”

Other school districts in the state, including the Anchorage School District, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District and the Kodiak Island Borough School District have built their budgets around the $30 increase. The Anchorage School District closed its budget gap by shuttering two elementary schools and increasing its pupil-to-teacher ratio. The Sitka School Board is considering cutting 15 teaching positions.

The Juneau School District will use $1.6 million in remaining COVID relief money to pay for some teachers and online classroom materials. That funding allows the district to maintain current pupil-to-teacher ratios for kindergarten through third grade and middle school, and to slightly lower the ratio for fourth and fifth grade. 

The only staff cuts in the budget are to six elementary school library assistant positions.

The Juneau School District is also assuming they’ll get the maximum amount of money the city is allowed to contribute, along with $2.5 million in outside-the-cap funding. That’s $300,000 more than it requested last year. 

Earlier this month, the district asked the city for an additional $2.5 million for this year, in part to resolve a growing transportation funding deficit. Cassee Olin, the district’s administrative services director, said in an interview that administrators are considering reducing school bus routes next year in order to save money. Without cuts to bus service, the district expects to have a $483,000 transportation fund deficit at the end of the next fiscal year.

The school district must submit its budget to the city for final approval by April 5.

Correction: A previous version of this story said the board approved funding for a new world language teaching position. The board voted against funding the position.

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska now owns another acre of property in downtown Juneau.

The West Willoughby Ave. property includes the Driftwood Lodge, the Sandpiper Cafe building and the parking lot. In a statement, Tlingit and Haida president Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson said it’s part of an ongoing effort to return ownership of traditional lands in the Aak’w Village District to the Tribe.

The Tribe plans to continue running the Driftwood Lodge as a hotel, and staff members are now employees of the Tribe. The hotel has 62 rooms.

The property had an assessed value of $3.7 million.

“This was a solid investment with sustainable profit projections and an important land acquisition as the Tribe continues to develop its campus in the downtown area,” Chief Development Officer Will Ware said in a statement.

The acquisition comes two months after President Peterson signed a deed to put a nearby parcel of land into federal trust. The State of Alaska has challenged the federal government’s decision to put the land into trust, saying it violates the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

A new ferry terminal at the end of Juneau’s road is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Standing aboard the Tazlina at the Auke Bay ferry terminal on Thursday, state transportation officials signed a memorandum of understanding with Goldbelt Inc., Juneau’s urban Native corporation, to collaborate on construction of a ferry terminal at Cascade Point.

Leaving from Cascade Point instead of Auke Bay could shave 30 miles off the trip from Juneau to Haines and Skagway, reducing travel time on the ferry by an hour and a half or more.

That could be enough time to fit two trips into one day, said Department of Transportation spokesperson Sam Dapcevich.

“This is one of our highest-volume routes,” he said. “The more service we can add between here and there, the better.”

Goldbelt operates Juneau’s tram. Todd Antioquia, chair of Goldbelt’s board of directors, said the partnership between the state and Goldbelt could be a model for other Alaska Native corporations and tribes.

“I think this partnership is illustrative of a really profound future for us, as we look at all the ports throughout the region,” he said. “Every one of our communities has Native institutions that have wisdom, passion, vision [and] infrastructure.”

Now that the memorandum has been signed, the design process can begin. Steven Sahlender, Goldbelt’s vice president of operations for Alaska, said the terminal will meet the needs of both Goldbelt and the state Department of Transportation.

“The memorandum of understanding allows us to negotiate and work with a pre-engineering group to design Cascade Point to the uses of DOT as well as mixed-used space for future opportunities — maybe barges or our vessels to go to the Kensington Mine,” he said.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy said it’s part of a broader effort to improve Southeast Alaskans’ access to the road system.

“This has been a long time coming,” he said. “This is a major step. This is a commitment to see this through.”

Captain Patrick Phillips said the ferry trip from Juneau to Haines usually takes four and a half hours. He thinks the shorter travel time and potential for multiple trips per day would increase demand. He said that was the case when the fast ferry ran between Juneau and Haines.

“We had a lot of traffic on the fast ferry because people didn’t have to take their kid out of school for three days to go to Haines,” he said. “We may end up getting more people off the couch and on the ferry with this new terminal. That’s my hope.”

Supporters of the project say there are environmental benefits, too. Duff Mitchell, managing director of Juneau Hydropower and a member of the Juneau Commission on Sustainability, estimates that ferries burn about 250 gallons of fuel every hour. Reducing travel time and distance would reduce emissions.

“When you add that up, the amount of savings is phenomenal over a year,” he said.

Shorter routes could make it possible to use a low emission or electric ferry for the routes, since they have a limited range. 

“When we shorten up the distance, we start making it more feasible,” Alaska DOT commissioner Ryan Anderson said.

Dapcevich said Goldbelt and the state hope to finish the preliminary design process by the end of the year.

After 50 years of operation, Juneau’s Augustus Brown Pool is set for major renovations. One of those will combine artwork from local children of the past and present.

In 1999, second and third graders painted scenes from Juneau on tiles that now line the locker room showers. Those tiles will be replaced with new ones during the renovations.

“Unfortunately, as was common back then, the paint was a lead-based paint,” said Terra Patterson, the city’s aquatics manager. “So we can’t save those tiles.”

To showcase the original tile art in the new lobby, Patterson said high-resolution photos of the 1999 tiles will sit alongside new ones. Children age 12 and under can submit artwork for the new display through March 31.

“We’re asking for drawings of children’s favorite memories or experiences here at the Augustus Brown Swimming Pool,” Patterson said.

A template for submissions is available online or at the pool. Not all submissions will be featured in the new lobby, but all kids who submit art will receive a one-time admission pass to the pool. They’ll also be entered in a drawing for a one-month youth swim pass, which will be announced at the pool’s 50th anniversary open swim on April 1.

Patterson said the new display will celebrate the pool’s past and future.

“We have a lot of people who are still coming to the pool that can tell us about when the pool opened,” she said. “I feel like Augustus Brown Pool has a very significant place in Juneau history.”

The pool will close on April 3 through at least the end of the year. Renovations will include new ventilation systems and lights, new plaster and tile in the leisure pool, and upgrades to the locker rooms and sauna.

 

In this newscast:

• A former Sitka doctor accused of sexual assault four years ago is now behind bars.
• Assessed values of Wrangell houses and businesses could be quite different this year.
• Alaska legislators are urging Walgreens leadership to reconsider the decision not to sell the abortion drug mifepristone.