District gets $680,000 for summer school

PALMER — If a motion for reconsideration falls in a crowded assembly chamber, and no one acknowledges it, does it make a sound?

Evidently, it does.

As a result, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District will get its summer school.

"We got a clean bill of health," said a smiling George Troxel as he left the Mat-Su Borough assembly chambers Tuesday night. Troxel is the director of elementary and secondary education for the school district, and was sitting in on Tuesday's meeting in the absence of district superintendent Pat Chesbro.

Two weeks earlier, assembly member Jim Colver filed a motion for reconsideration of a $680,000 appropriation for a summer-school program requested by the school district. Colver's actions drew a flurry of angry criticism, not only from the school district, but from other assembly members as well.

Colver had insisted his intention was to give the school board more flexibility in how to use the funds, but no one on the school board — publicly, at any rate — seemed to want it.

So, as noisily as it came in, Colver's reconsideration on funding for summer school disappeared quietly Tuesday night.

"No one chose to call it up, therefore, the reconsideration died," borough clerk Sandra Dillon explained the following day.

During final comments at the close of the meeting, assembly member Larry DeVilbiss told his fellow assembly members he considered acting on the reconsideration, but chose instead to drop the matter.

Colver addressed the reconsideration, as well, but his approach was a little more subtle. In his closing comments, without actually mentioning the reconsideration by name, Colver recounted the story of Chicken Little, the panic-stricken hen who feared the sky was falling in.

Assembly member Sara Jansen, in her own comments, said that it did seem as if the sky might fall. And then the matter was dropped.

Kim Floyd, school district spokesperson, was jubilant the next day as she told the Frontiersman that the summer school was, indeed, on as planned.

"As a result, many, many children in our school district will benefit from intervention in math," Floyd said.

The school district had been told more than a week ago by borough officials to go ahead with planning for the summer school. Almost immediately, the district hired a person to coordinate the program.

Floyd said principals had begun the process of identifying students they felt would benefit most from the summer-school program, and that the district would begin advertising for teachers, and begin work on coordinating the transportation of students to and from classes.

"Hopefully that will ease some of the burden on parents from having to drive to and from," Floyd said.

The program will be able to accommodate up to 1,620 students from all grades at three locations throughout the district.