Education

The union that represents support staff for the Juneau School District is suing the district over its afterschool child care program. 

Juneau Education Support Staff, or JESS, filed a lawsuit Monday alleging the district didn’t follow the necessary steps in the union contract when it shut down the program last month. The union represents paraeducators, custodians and employees for the Relationships and Leadership Learning for Youth program, known as RALLY.

Auke Lake Preschool was the only private provider that stepped in to fill the gap. The Juneau-based provider is leasing space at three elementary schools rent-free to run an afterschool child care program called Auke Lake RALLY. That’s been run by Auke Lake Preschool since Sept. 2.

The district’s agreement with the union requires the district to go through an investigation to see if it would be cheaper to contract out work that’s normally done by JESS employees. That’s followed by a report to the union. Superintendent Frank Hauser said in an email the district followed the terms of the contract and reassigned former RALLY staff to other district positions

Jeff Kasper is a business manager for the Alaska Public Employees Association, the parent union for JESS. He said the district didn’t view the lease as contracted work.

“We’ve tried to work with them on this and ask them, ‘Where’s the analysis?’” Kasper said. “And then they’re [sic] just fold their arms and say ‘This isn’t contracting out.’ So we feel this is an intentional and blatant violation of the contract.”

The union asked the court to void the district’s lease with Auke Lake Preschool and to require the district to continue running RALLY until it completes the formal investigation process. JESS is also pursuing damages from lost wages and work. That would be determined in a trial, and the union claims that could cost more than $100,000.

The union also requested a temporary restraining order. It asks the court to prevent the district from passing the RALLY program to Auke Lake Preschool. Instead, the union is requesting RALLY employees remain at their negotiated positions until the lawsuit is resolved. But Auke Lake already started running the program early this month. Superintendent Hauser said RALLY employees have been reassigned to different positions in the district.

Kasper said he could not speak to what would happen to the afterschool program if the request is approved. The district issued an update on its website Wednesday that says Auke Lake Preschool will update families directly if there are any changes.

Juneau School District Chief of Staff Kristin Bartlett said in an email the district is working with its legal counsel to determine next steps.

“If the restraining order is granted, there will not be afterschool child care,” she said on Wednesday afternoon. 

The attorney representing the district declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

Alaska students’ test scores improved modestly last school year, according to results released Friday by the Department of Education and Early Development. But the gains were small — only about a third of students across the state are testing at grade level in English, math and science.

The test scores come as policymakers debate ways to improve the state’s struggling schools.

“We did have a few grade levels that showed some promising movement, especially in the area of reading in elementary school and then again in eighth grade, in reading and math,” state Education Commissioner Deena Bishop said in an interview. “But overall, if we took all grade levels, generally, we were pretty flat.”

Bishop said hopes to see improvement in reading scores in the next several years, since early data shows that the Alaska Reads Act is boosting literacy among young students. But the lackluster progress is a sign that public debates about the state’s school system need to move beyond funding, she said.

“Much of our discussions have been on everything other than student learning, and for me, when you do put priority on student learning and what they’re supposed to learn and make sure our classrooms and teachers are able to do that, student learning improves,” she said.

Earlier this year, lawmakers boosted formula funding for public schools across Alaska by $700 per student. It took overriding vetoes from Gov. Mike Dunleavy to do so. Boosting funding had been the top issue for the largely Democratic bipartisan majorities controlling the state House and Senate.

But it’s not one or the other when it comes to funding and student achievement, said Anchorage Democratic Sen. Löki Tobin, the chair of the state Senate Education Committee.

“She’s saying we need to to now focus on student outcomes — as though that wasn’t the whole entire focus of that dialog and discussion,” Tobin said in an interview.

Despite a funding crunch, she’s glad to see test scores stay roughly flat rather than fall.

And Tobin said she’s optimistic about the future. She said she’s hearing from educators about the ways that the bill lawmakers approved this spring is improving classrooms across the state. A Southeast Alaska principal recently emailed her excited about the school year, she said.

“She’s now been able to purchase reading curricula rooted in the science of reading for all grades, and she is excited about deploying it to all grades in her school,” Tobin said. “She’s hired back teachers. She’s been able to reduce class sizes. They have been working with parents on their cellphone policy.”

But Tobin said it’s clear there’s more work to be done. She co-chairs a task force looking at a wide variety of possible education policy changes created by the same bill that boosted funding.

Tobin said she’s especially interested in an upcoming presentation on chronic absenteeism.

That’s a focus for Bishop, too. More than 40% of the state’s students missed at least 10% of school last year, she said, with the highest rates of absenteeism among kindergarteners and first-graders. Chronic absenteeism surged during the pandemic, and Alaska has one of the highest rates of absenteeism in the U.S., according to data from the federal Education Department.

Fundamentally, Bishop said, that’s a problem that local leaders are best equipped to solve.

“Really looking at attendance and the research behind it demonstrates that it has to be looked at at the local level,” Bishop said. “You have to really see, what is it that’s keeping your students from school? Is it the school climate? Is it transportation? Is it the school time?”

But Bishop said there is a role for the state to play — possibly by providing financial incentives encouraging all kinds of improvements.

Lawmakers approved an incentive program in this year’s education bill that rewards districts based on students’ reading performance. But it’s unclear whether Dunleavy will sign a bill taxing out-of-state companies that would provide funding for the incentive program. He has until Oct. 1 to decide.

The University of Alaska Board of Regents introduced changes to the University’s antidiscrimination policy around hiring and recruitment on Friday. The proposed changes include removing mentions of affirmative action from the board’s personnel policy. Affirmative action includes programs and policies that aim to support populations that have historically been underserved.

UA General Counsel Wayne Mowery said the change is due to a January executive order from the Trump administration ending affirmative action. He said guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor stated federal contractors should also end their affirmative action programs.

“We’ve done that, and now we’re adjusting policy to account for those changes,” Mowery said. “So the changes largely consist of making it clear that our hiring practices are based on equal opportunity and equal access, and removing the specific legal term affirmative action.”

The change also removes mention of specific groups of people that have been historically underrepresented. Mowery said those groups are included in the university’s nondiscrimination statement. The university changed the wording of the nondiscrimination statement in February to delete mentions of affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Regent Ralph Seekins brought up the idea of a simpler nondiscrimination statement instead, but Mowery said he didn’t include changes to the nondiscrimination statement in the proposal.

“We also wanted to recognize the history that was involved here,” Mowery said. “And so we tried not to change where we didn’t need to change to comply with what Department of Labor was indicating their enforcement strategies would be.”

The proposal comes as the Trump administration has put more than $63 million of the university system’s federal grants into limbo or canceled them, according to a report from the university’s federal relations team.

UA President Pat Pitney said the university has time to look ahead to other opportunities if it loses more federal funding in the long run.

“We’re eyeing the risks, we’re preparing, we’re putting mitigation strategies in place, but we want the bulk of our effort in taking advantage of the opportunities we have,” she said.

Two people spoke directly to this proposal during an hourlong public testimony period held days before the meeting. University of Alaska Anchorage Mary Dallas Allen chairs the masters of social work program and voiced her concerns the changes would not protect people from discrimination.

UAA professor and UA Faculty Alliance Chair Jackie Cason testified and asked the board to consider the alliance’s perspective. She added the lack of testimony might be because of how the board made past decisions. The board was previously criticized for lack of transparency when it approved a motion to scrub mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion without taking in public input.

“Maybe some of the reason why the public testimony is silent today is that people have lost some faith and hope that their input really matters in the decisions that the board makes and that the leadership at the campus makes,” she said.

The board is expected to vote on the changes at its next meeting on Nov. 6-7.

Twenty-nine Kake City School students and five chaperones were stuck overnight in Juneau over the weekend following mechanical issues with the Alaska ferry MV LeConte.

Kake City School District Superintendent Anji Gallanos said the school’s cross-country team was on its way back from a meet in Hoonah on Saturday when the LeConte was unexpectedly towed to Juneau. Alaska Marine Highway System officials said the ferry had mechanical issues.

Students stayed on the ferry while it was towed to Juneau overnight before ferry staff sent them home on a catamaran Sunday morning.

Gallanos estimates the catamaran trip home and lodging could have cost the district upwards of $20,000 if the ferry system didn’t step in. That’s roughly a quarter of the district’s travel budget for the whole school year. She said the additional cost might have meant the district would need to limit future sports travel.

“We would have had to do some pretty extensive fundraising,” she said. “We might have had to make some decisions as to whether or not we could bring more players to games throughout the region, or even be able to participate.”

The district budgeted $80,000 this year for student travel for a limited number of sports, including basketball, wrestling, volleyball, cross country, and art and music festivals. In an email to KTOO, Gallanos said the district has gone over its budget for travel in the past.

Gallanos said ferry service to Kake is limited in general. This year’s winter ferry schedule has the LeConte scheduled with service to Kake two to three times a month. She said the district uses the ferry system for more than just sports travel.

“We really rely on those ferries,” Gallanos said. “And the more ferries, the more opportunities we have to reduce our budget in our school district so we don’t have to rely on costly things like airfare, flying in things for parts and goods and services.”

Kake’s student athletes have about a month before they travel to Palmer for the state cross country meet. Gallanos said they will likely fly for its next meet because of limited ferry service. The LeConte remains out of service as of Tuesday afternoon.

The Juneau School District Board of Education is fast tracking a move to restore universal free breakfast for K-12 students. 

This comes after lawmakers overrode an education funding veto and restored more than $1.5 million to the district. The Alaska State Legislature overrode the governor’s veto of more than $50 million in state education funding earlier this month.

The board typically considers action items over two meetings before approval. Board members officially took up the breakfast program during a special meeting Wednesday so that they can approve the program at the next regular meeting on Sept. 9.

The board didn’t include universal free breakfast in this school year’s budget. It added staff positions and paid off deficits instead of restoring the program during its last budget revision in July as well. The district estimates the program will cost $230,000 this school year.

Member Emil Mackey supports the program, but he said the district needs to find a way to get more families to apply for free and reduced lunch so the district can be reimbursed for some of the costs.

“I realize some of that might philosophically fall against the idea of universal free breakfast, but what I don’t want to happen is for us to fall into an unsustainability trap in the future and have to make this hard choice again,” he said.

Free and reduced lunch is part of the National School Lunch Program. It reimburses school districts to cover the cost of school meals for students who qualify.

Member Steve Whitney said when the district began the program, making breakfast free for everyone helped to encourage more students who already qualified for free and reduced meals to participate without judgement.

“To try to get around these – the amount of staff and effort and try to make it secret so kids weren’t embarrassed – it turned out to be cheaper just to make it universal, free breakfast,” he said.

The board may also discuss how to spend the district’s remaining extra funds under looming funding uncertainties from a proposed state regulation and contract negotiations with two of the district’s unions at its next meeting.

In the meantime, students will continue to pay full price for breakfast unless they qualify for free and reduced meals.

The Juneau School District Board of Education unanimously accepted nearly $120,000 in grant funding for one of its alternative schools Wednesday. The money will help fund several positions at Montessori Borealis, including a paraeducator and positions to support elementary literacy and middle school programs.

SouthEast Alaska Friends of Montessori, or SEAFOM, is a Juneau nonprofit that regularly funds additional staffing and training needs for Montessori Borealis, the district’s public Montessori school.

Montessori schools have a different structure than traditional schools and are usually private schools. Cecil McNutt is the president of the nonprofit. He says it takes more work to make sure the program can still run under the school district’s requirements for public schools.

“That’s why we’re working with the school district so hard to make sure that we got good staffing, and they hired qualified teachers and … and the community gets the proper teachings for Montessori experience,” he said.

The grant normally funds a few support positions and training, but it’s been significantly higher since last year to fill staffing gaps.

SEAFOM granted the district more than $130,000 last year, which included a full-time teacher. This year, McNutt said the school still needed to spend more than usual to meet its staffing needs.

“The school district and the principal came to us and said, ‘We would like you to fund a full-time para position that could help out the part-time teacher,” he said.

The district allows organizations like SEAFOM and parent teacher associations to make this type of donation for any of the district’s schools.

But at the Juneau Board of Education meeting last week, the grant raised questions about equity.

Board member Amber Frommherz raised the concern, saying she appreciates the efforts to fund the school’s program but worries that not everyone has the same resources available.

“That does not mean that all schools could have site councils capable of doing something like this,” she said.

Funding for the additional position at Montessori Borealis comes as the district faces more than 90 open positions at the beginning of the school year. Montesorri Borealis Principal John Paul said in an email the school has one open paraeducator position for its preschool program. The school is in the process of interviewing a candidate for that position.

Amber Frommherz serves on KTOO’s Board of Directors.