Mat-Su School Board approves non-fiscal changes

Several non-budget related items were approved during last week’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board (MSBSD) school board meeting. Here is a round-up.

First up was the approval of the one-year addendum of the FY 2024 agreement with the City of Wasilla Police Department for the School Resource Officer Program (SRO).

Three officers will continue to be assigned to the following school communities: Wasilla High School, Wasilla Middle School, Iditarod Elementary, Mat-Su Central School, Burchell High School; Redington Jr/Sr High School, Dena'ina Elementary School, Knik Elementary School, Goose Bay Elementary School; and Houston High School, Houston Middle School, and Big Lake Elementary School.

MSBSD will maintain responsibility for the full cost of the SROs salary and benefits. The measure was unanimously approved by the school board.

Next up, the board approved the reemployment of non-tenured special education staff and related service providers in good standing, authorizing contracts for up to 55 FTE teachers and 12 FTE service providers (contracts 27-0928—27-0939) as part of the annual budget.

Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani said that despite external budget uncertainty at the borough or state level, the district has prioritized internal funding to ensure stability for these critical positions. “These are some of our hardest to fill positions in the entire district. We believe that we have plenty of room without regard to what happens at the borough or state level. We want to make sure that these folks understand that they’re going to have a job here next year.”

Finally, the board approved a resolution officially opposing Senate Bill 277, an education omnibus bill that proposes a $100 million increase in annual spending, adjusting the annual budget for inflation, and a modest increase to the Base Student Allocation from $6,660 to $6,785. It also includes changes for required accreditation for out-of-state teacher degrees, allows regional resource centers to reemploy retired teachers, and establishes $450+ grants for K-6 students meeting reading benchmarks or showing improvements.

It also seeks to change funding for correspondence/homeschool programs, increase charter school administrative cost caps that local school boards can retain from charter school budgets from 4% to 8%. If passed, it would also implement stricter regulations on how correspondence funding is used and allocated.

“The Mat-Su Borough already has policies that work. While SB 277 claims to count correspondent students as a whole child…my primary concern is the redirection of 8% to 16% of student allotments toward administrative costs,” noted Elizabeth Kiddle, whose family moved to Palmer about two years ago and enrolled her children in Mat-Su Central School. “It just clicked,” she said, adding that it provided the balance for her children to pursue their interests while maintaining the proven curriculum that works best for her family.

School board president Kathy McCollum noted that the current allotment is $2,600 per student, and for a middle school student taking six classes, the works out to be $433 per class, per year, but with some vendor-led math or reading courses costing upwards of $1,000, she and her family have to choose carefully. “Decreasing the amount of funding to bureaucracy only takes opportunities away from my kids.”

Member Kendall Kruse, who put forward the resolution, said while there were great ideas in SB 277, they were overshadowed by items she believes the board is not able to support.

Supporting the resolution, McCollum stated it reflects the board's shared values with the community and reinforces their commitment to parental choice in decision-making for their children.

While acknowledging certain merits in the bill, McCollum expressed a suspicion that the cons were deliberate. “They put some good with the bad to maybe entice people to support a bill, and I really don’t like that. I wish they would be single subjects instead of a bunch of ideas that people feel like they have to support or not support.”

Several school board members also pushed to review HB 248, which would level the playing field by enforcing stricter accountability on correspondence schools by requiring them to meet the same testing participation rates as traditional schools. The bill proposes potential funding penalties for non-compliant homeschool programs.

“You’re penalizing our brick and mortar kids, and charter kids can opt out with no penalty. It seems like homeschools (are) a parental choice and a parental right and to be punished that way seems pretty arbitrary and capricious,” said school board member Ole Larson. “So those kind of resolutions are worth our while to make sure that parental choice…stands.”

Another piece of legislation the school board discussed reviewing is SB 238, which protects library employees from criminal or civil charges related to indecent material if they act in good faith and follow policy. It also prohibits removing materials based on political, religious, or social viewpoints.

“I do think that calling out some of those other resolutions that go against our values is important,” said school board member Andrew Shane.

“It’s a good idea for us to be consistent in our support for parental rights and correspondence schools in general, and charter schools, and every choice that we like to support in this district, so it’s a good idea to put some resolutions forward like that,” said McCollum.

Currently, Alaska is considered a "low-regulation" state, with no mandatory standardized tests for independent homeschooling and very few requirements, though correspondence programs (publicly funded) typically require annual testing.