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While Alaska school districts are seeing improvements in kindergarten to third grade students’ reading proficiency, which officials credit to the Alaska Reads Act, some districts are struggling to access state managed funds for a federal grant program aimed at supporting literacy programs, teacher development, and student learning.

Lawmakers with the House Education Committee heard from two district superintendents about the successes and challenges of the Comprehensive Literacy State Development grant program — which in 2024 awarded $50 million to Alaska schools over five years.

In 2025, roughly half of Alaska’s districts, or 27 school districts, qualified for these grant funds administered through the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, according to the department.

The program is aimed at advancing literacy for children from birth through 12th grade students, including pre-literacy skills, reading and writing. The program focuses on districts with disadvantaged children, including those living in poverty, English language learners and students with disabilities.

While all Alaska districts are required by state law to implement the Alaska Read’s Act, the policy did not come with additional state funding, said Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sitka, co-chair of the education committee, in an interview on Monday. She said some districts are struggling to fund the kindergarten through third grade reading initiatives. “I would like to see us supporting schools so that everybody gets the support they need to implement the law the way it was written,” she said.

The program isn’t new, but it has more money and it’s funding more districts now. In 2019, nearly one third of Alaska districts were awarded $25 million over five years, according to DEED.

“The literacy grant is a really powerful tool that is going to help the districts that it’s in, a lot,” Himschoot said. “I’ve heard a lot of gratitude from superintendents about having this opportunity for those who have it, but we did hear about some bumps in the rollout of it.”

District officials’ testimony prompted Himschoot to send a list of questions to DEED about how the grant is managed.

Michael Robbins, superintendent of the Bristol Bay Borough School District, which serves approximately 135 students, said the grant has been crucial for implementing the Alaska Reads Act, particularly supporting teachers’ training professional development, which helps retention. “The grant supports training, coaching and leadership development grounded in research-based instruction, including the science of reading,” he said.

“It creates consistency across classrooms in schools, helps prevent problems before they grow, and ensure that limited resources are utilized where that matters most,” Robbins said.

But Robbins said in implementing the grant, districts need more “clear, timely and reasonable guidance around allowable use of grant funds” from DEED.

He said the district would like to use the money for professional services vendors to provide training to teachers, and funding to attend conferences. “The approval process has been particularly cumbersome as some districts have had to resubmit their application multiple times, which takes valuable time from our grant leaders and administrators, as well as delaying the implementation of important activities,” he said.

Officials with DEED did not attend the legislative hearing, but department spokesperson Bryan Zadalis said by email on Monday that the department recognizes the importance of clear guidance, which is communicated through multiple channels including webinars and office hours. “DEED also aligns state-level guidance with federal updates as they are released to ensure accuracy and compliance, which can at times require sequencing information rather than issuing it prematurely,” he said.

In addition, Robbins, who formerly served as the superintendent of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, said that that district did not qualify for grant funding. “The need was there, but the resources are not,” he said. “We need to find ways for all districts and all students to have access to the same level of support and opportunity.”

Robyn Taylor is superintendent of the Petersburg School District which serves approximately 420 students, and was awarded $350,000 per year through the grant program. She testified to lawmakers and echoed the need for equity in supporting reading programs across Alaska’s school districts. She said Petersburg still continues to have challenges with implementing the Alaska Reads Act, which she called “a real tension.”

“In Petersburg alone, between FY 25 and FY 26 we eliminated one of our three elementary reading interventionist positions, positions that were directly supporting Reads Act implementation and student outcomes,” she said. She said the district was told that CLSD funds were for supplementing programs not replacing funding.

“(The) restriction makes it difficult to use this grant to maintain positions or systems that are already working but are no longer financially sustainable under current funding structures,” she said.

Taylor and Himschoot both emphasized that districts who did not qualify for funding need support with the administrative work to apply. They said some schools should have easily qualified for the funding, but didn’t in part because they lack proper documentation of their students’ need for free or reduced school meals, which is one of the federal poverty guidelines. “It’s not that they don’t have kids in need,” Himschoot said. “It’s that they haven’t been identified through the paperwork, because they don’t have the capacity in their district to go chase that down.”

Zadalis said the grant process is a competitive one. He said the primary source of education funding is through the state’s funding formula, but districts may also access state or federal funding through other grants focused on literacy efforts.

Taylor said Petersburg students are making gains in reading proficiency, and the district is committed to continuing improvements beyond the grant cycle. “What we are asking for is greater flexibility, clearer and earlier guidance,” she said. “And increased trust in districts to make decisions that reflect local context and student needs.”

School districts awarded CLSD grants in 2025

• Alaska Gateway School District
• Aleutians East Borough School District
• Anchorage School District
• Bering Strait School District
• Bristol Bay Borough School District / Chugach School District
• Copper River School District
• Cordova City School District
• Dillingham City School District
• Galena City School District
• Iditarod Area School District
• Kake City School District
• Kashunamiut School District
• Kenai Peninsula Borough School District
• Kodiak Island Borough School District
• Kuspuk School District
• Lake and Peninsula Borough School District
• Lower Yukon School District
• Mount Edgecumbe High School
• North Slope Borough School District
• Northwest Arctic Borough School District
• Petersburg Borough School District
• Pribilof School District
• Southeast Island School District
• Yakutat School District
• Yukon Flats School District
• Yukon–Koyukuk School District

Juneau’s recycling center is closed again in order to repair damaged critical equipment. 

It could be quite a while before the center opens back up again, according to Denise Koch, the city’s director of Engineering and Public Works.

“Recycling is a really important service, and we recognize that the people of Juneau really value this service,” she said. “What we are doing right now, we hope that we’re talking about a timeframe of weeks.”

The city contracts with Waste Management — the private company that runs the landfill — to operate its recycling program in Lemon Creek. The center has been closed on and off since late December, after Juneau was hit with back-to-back record-breaking snowstorms. That inundated the open-air warehouse with a backlog of materials to process. 

The closures have left many residents and businesses without a place to recycle. That’s a problem, Koch said, because the alternative to holding onto the recyclables is to throw them in the landfill, which is estimated to run out of space in the next decade. She said having the city’s recycling program up and running again is crucial to extending the landfill’s life. 

The closure is due to multiple issues with the recycling baler, Koch says. The baler is the machine that compresses the recyclables into blocks, which are then shipped by barge to recycling facilities in Seattle that repurpose the materials. Koch said it’s the most critical piece of equipment for the center to operate. 

“We’ve identified three different problems with the baler. So we’re trying to solve three problems, and that’s part of why we are working as quickly as we can to try and solve those problems,” she said. “But, it’s challenging to identify a date certain when all three problems will be solved.”

In the meantime, Koch recommends people hold onto their recycling as long as they’re able before they opt to throw it in the garbage. She said the city will provide updates about the status of the center as it becomes available.

After years of delays, the build contract to replace the Alaska Marine Highway System’s ferry Tustumena is out to bid. The state’s project notice calls for the new mainliner ferry to be completed by the beginning of 2029 with an estimated price tag of more than $300 million.

The new ferry will be a more efficient, diesel-electric vessel with capacity for 250 passengers and 58 cars at a time.

“It is really delightful, even just to talk about. You can probably hear the smile on my face,” Louise Stutes said.

State Representative Stutes, a Republican from Kodiak, is a longtime advocate of the Alaska ferry system. Especially the more than 60-year-old Tustumena, which regularly sails from Homer to Kodiak Island communities.

She commended Craig Tornga, the head of the state ferry system, for getting the Tustumena replacement project to this point.

“And there are several shipyards that are interested in it as opposed to the first time it went out where no shipyards were interested,” she said.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy first announced the project in 2021. The initial build contract went out to bid in 2022 – and no bids came in.

“So, they kind of had to reassess it, redesign a few things and we’re good to go,” Stutes said.

Tornga went back to the drawing board on the ferry’s design and overhauled the contract over the last several years. Tornga has previously said that one of the hurdles that delayed the project so long was a requirement that 70% of the money spent on the Tustumena replacement has to go to American companies.

Bidding closes May 28 according to the state’s public notice for the project.

In this newscast:

• Scientists have confirmed that destructive landslides are happening more frequently across Alaska — especially in Southeast — using news articles dating back more than a century. It’s because climate change is making atmospheric rivers more extreme,
• John Bressette is the city’s avalanche advisor, tracking weather and avalanche risk in Juneau’s urban paths. He joined CBJ just before record snowfall — followed by rain and flooding — pushed the city to declare a disaster and issue evacuation advisories downtown. He spoke with KTOO’s Mike Lane about the job,
• Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced a series of bills on Friday and Monday that he says would stabilize the state’s finances

The state of Alaska’s case against a Haines man charged with animal cruelty is stuck in a holding pattern, seven months after officials first removed dozens of animals from his wildlife facility.

In September, the Office of Special Prosecutions filed three felony and two misdemeanor charges against Chilkat Valley resident Steve Kroschel, the longtime owner of the Kroschel Films Wildlife Center.

After a years-long back and forth over conditions at the center, the office alleged that Kroschel had failed to provide adequate care for his animals, in some cases causing prolonged pain, suffering and death.

The state issued a warrant for Kroschel’s arrest in late December. But there’s a catch — Kroschel says he has been in Russia since last summer, around the time when the state seized his animals. And during a recent phone interview, Kroschel said he’s staying put for now as he works to obtain Russian citizenship.

“I’m not going anywhere now for a year,” he told KHNS.

Kroschel has virtually attended a number of hearings in recent months. But there will be no trial as long as he remains overseas, Juneau Superior Court Judge Amy Mead said during last week’s hearing.

“Obviously, I would not hold a trial,” Mead said. “If you were to enter into an agreement that included a felony conviction, you would need to be here in person because that involves fingerprinting.”

Kroschel said he understood.

The hearing, which focused on how Kroschel’s defense would be handled rather than on the case itself, was scheduled in response to Kroschel’s request that he be allowed to represent himself due to his dissatisfaction with his public defender.

“I know enough about this case, right and wrong, and the protocols to do this on my own. My life is on the line here, my family, everything,” Kroschel said. “I know what I’m doing. I wish to proceed representing myself.”

Mead, the judge, walked Kroschel through the potential risks and warned him that most people who defend themselves are not successful. Then she asked if he still wished to proceed.

Kroschel replied: “Yes, your honor.”

Mead granted the request.

John Bressette is Juneau’s new avalanche advisor, tracking weather and avalanche risk in the capital’s urban paths. He joined the city just before record snowfall, followed by rain and flooding, pushed the community to declare a disaster and issue evacuation advisories downtown.

KTOO’s Mike Lake spoke with Bressette about navigating that moment and what first drew him to avalanche forecasting.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: You’re not new to forecasting avalanches. How did you get your start in this field?

John Bressette: Well, I grew up here in Juneau, and I started going heli-skiing with my friends when I was about 18 years old, and decided I better start learning about avalanches to make sure I knew what I was doing. So I took my first avalanche class here through Bill Glude, who is a longtime avalanche specialist in Juneau and worked on some of this urban stuff a long time ago. Took some classes with him, helped him out with some research projects, and started working for him under Alaska Avalanche Specialists. And in the beginning, he had a contract with AEL&P to do forecasting for them. We also worked out at Kensington Mine and kind of helped develop the program they have going out there now and then I worked for AEL&P directly for a long time under Mike Janes as an avalanche tech assistant forecaster. 

Mike Lane: Where did you work before CBJ?

John Bressette: Well, I was doing backcountry forecasting for the Coastal Alaska Avalanche Center. And still am trying to balance both of those for now. It depends on the time of year; I’m a commercial fisherman in the summer, heli-ski guide in the spring and avalanche forecaster in the winter.

Mike Lane: So this isn’t a full-time position with CBJ. This is more of a seasonal?

John Bressette: Yeah, seasonal for now, and we’ll see how it plays out moving forward.

Mike Lane: Immediately, when you started working at CBJ, you were immediately right in the midst of of a disaster, so what was it like to experience that kind of timing?

John Bressette: Yeah, it was intense right off the get go there. So there wasn’t a whole lot of learning on the job. It was right into it. But I feel like everybody at CBJ was really good to work with, and we kind of seamlessly moved into a pretty good workflow, and were able to kind of make decisions on the fly and keep the public informed of what was going on, and I hope that went well from their perspective.

Mike Lane: What are some misconceptions people have about avalanche danger?

John Bressette: Oh, some of the big myths in the avalanche world are that loud noises can set off an avalanche, which is untrue. I think maybe one of the others is that we can predict how big or how far an avalanche will run. And that’s one of the real tricky points to avalanche forecasting, is not knowing how big or how far an avalanche will run during a given avalanche cycle. So it’s — the science behind it is coming a long ways, but it will always be an unprecise science as far as predicting the size of avalanches.

Mike Lane: Do you have any advice that you could give to those folks who are heading into avalanche terrain in the backcountry?

John Bressette: Yeah, so that’s, I want to make it clear that you know forecasting for the urban danger is much different than forecasting for the backcountry, which I do both. So I’m happy to speak on both, but it’s a completely different thing when you’re talking about people traveling into avalanche terrain, you’re looking more at human-triggered avalanches, whereas in the urban, especially in a place like Behrends, where we can’t do control work, you’re looking at more natural avalanches. So yeah, the advice for people, if they’re heading into avalanche terrain is to take an avalanche class, get some education, find the right mentors and group of people that also practice safe habits and just get yourself educated and find the right people to travel with. 

Mike Lane: And what about equipment? 

John Bressette: Yeah, with equipment. I mean, the bare minimum you want to have is a beacon, probe, shovel, partner — and know how to use those things, too. You know, it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t know how to use the equipment. So getting comfortable with those specific tools are kind of the bare minimum that you need to travel safely in the backcountry.

Mike Lane: Okay. And as far as avalanches go, what do you think we could improve on, CBJ specifically? Are there any lessons to be had that we should know about?

John Bressette: Yeah, I think that having more monitoring tools and using technology that’s come a long way for avalanche and weather monitoring is something we’re pushing really hard to get done. Right now, we’re working with AEL&P and DOT to put together a weather station on Mount Juneau, or, I should say, rebuild. There was one there previously, but we’re kind of revamping it and getting it live again, as well as, thanks to the state and the governor’s office, through this disaster declaration, we were able to buy what’s basically an avalanche radar. So it points at Mount Juneau, and we can now detect when avalanches happen at night or during foul weather. So that’s a really useful tool for us to kind of know when activity starts if we can’t visually see it or hear it. So I think those two things are going to have huge, huge benefits down the road when we enter this kind of avalanche cycle again.

Mike Lane: Are there any hot spots right now that you look at today? You step outside and you look up and you go, Hmm, that’s something we want to keep an eye on, more so than these other areas?

John Bressette: Yeah. I mean, I would say that the Behrends and the White Subdivision pass, the Bartlett pass. Those are our three big ones. Debris came a lot closer to people’s homes and the roads than than we previously thought. So you know, there was debris within 10 feet of a couple homes and on Thane it came down under the power lines and was within 100 feet of Thane road and stuff like that. So, yeah, I would say, when we get a big snow cycle like that, there’s, you know, places that we don’t typically think of the hazard being high that actually came pretty close. So those are the reasons we got people out of their homes. And yeah … I hope that comes through, that people’s safety was of the utmost importance.