Career Tech lottery admission contested by students

PALMER — The decision to change the application system for Mat-Su Career and Technical High School by Mat-Su Borough School District Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani was based on a directive from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, which Trani reiterated during his administrative report to the Mat-Su Borough School Board on Wednesday.

Though just a half-dozen people spoke to the school board on the topic, nearly all of the speakers were students who were vehemently opposed to changing the admissions criteria from merit based to a lottery.

“You can’t prove that the application system is the cause of the disparities,” said Ben Kolendo. “Leaving diversity up to chance is never a good idea.”

Students argued the points made during Trani’s presentation in December, and presented survey results conducted about the proposed change to a lottery system as they had at the December meeting.

“District students are fully capable of accessing CTE classes without going through the Career Tech application process. Therefore, the fact that the classes are underfilled is most likely not due to any application system, the low enrollment and CTE classes appears to be the fault of not enough advertising and promotion of said classes,” said Kolendo.

Samuel Fry wrote both petitions that were circulated in favor of keeping the merit-based admissions process at Career Tech that Trani had pointed out in December was not sufficiently fulfilling the mission of the school that passed as a school bond to Valley voters in 2003.

“Career Tech Equity understands that there are problems with the current application process, but the lottery itself is premature, lacks community support and subverts it’s own inventions. With this new petition in place, I posted the petition and we have received almost 1,000 signatures in two days from CTHS students, CTHS alumni, members of the community and students from other schools and their parents. This is undeniable evidence that our five arguments against the lottery are upheld by the community and that if the school board does not recognize these changes, it indicates apathy towards the Mat-Su community,” said Fry.

Fry’s second petition offered five beliefs of the group ‘Career Tech Equity’ formed to combat the changes to the admissions process. Fry said that the five beliefs are that a lottery system would not ensure greater enrollment of underrepresented groups, would not ensure a greater number of CTE concentrators, discouraged hard work from 8th graders, claims to be equitable through inequitable practices and was not adequately advertised. Nearly all of the six speakers on the issue focused on the lack of advertisement to students and parents about the proposed change to a lottery system. However, not all those who spoke to the school board were in opposition to the proposed changes.

“In 2003, I was not alone in my enthusiasm for the establishment of a high quality technical high school. Several friends and neighbors spontaneously mentioned to me their hope that the bond prop would pass. Like many Valley residents, I subsequently assumed that the school district had faithfully carried out the mandate given to it by the voters,” said John Robertson. “CTHS is a career and technical high school in name only. It neither admits students on the basis of interest in the trades nor does it seem to value and respect blue collar work on an equal basis of white collar work.”

Robertson has lived in Sutton for decades and hoped to see greater promotion of blue collar trades rather than a college prep school at CTHS.

Trani summarized the written communication from DEED during his administrative report, explaining the direct action required to continue receiving Federal Perkins grant funding for career and technical education.

“I really appreciate the students coming and sharing their truth and what they see with the board and with me today,” said Trani. “In December we got a letter, a kind letter from DEED but with some language that they expressed to us verbally that was more direct than in the letter.”

Trani noted that the letter had underlined that MSBSD ‘shall’ provide equal access to CTE programs. Noncompliance to do so would jeopardize future or current funding and the grant stipulations must be followed.

“They’ve looked at what our current CTE program offerings are across the district and we aren’t meeting the requirements, so this is a directive from DEED that we need to fix this,” said Trani. “That’s kind of what career tech was bonded for, students who are not going into the academic fields and we clearly aren’t meeting that.”