School Board discusses projected funding

PALMER — Mat-Su Borough School District Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani attended his first MSBSD meeting in person after officially taking over as Superintendent on August 3.

Trani alerted the school board to current enrollment numbers of the district’s projected 19,200 students this year. Approximately 70 percent of students have registered with 68 percent of those choosing in-person instruction. Another 13 percent chose an at home learning model and another 19 percent chose correspondence learning. Mat-Su Central School has reached a cap on it’s enrollment as families move to find the right method of education delivery for their students. Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Luke Fulp updated the school board on Resolution 21-001 that supported the estimated student count data. Due to the student counts performed last November dramatically changing due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, state funding is in jeopardy for MSBSD.

“What happened in the months succeeding that estimate is we built our budget around a revenue amount from the state of Alaska that now has become very uncertain. If we have 15 percent of students participating in correspondence study, we lose about $1.1 million as a district,” said Fulp. “If we go up to 25 percent of our students enrolling in correspondence study we lose 4.4 $ million in revenue so this is why we need to create a little bit more predictability about revenue streams for the Mat-Su Borough.”

Fulp noted that the projections for student counts have always come extremely close to the actual counts conducted in the fall and that the state has already allocated funds based on last November’s estimate. Board Member Ryan Ponder asked what the monetary change would be between the projected 12 percent of students who were interested in correspondence study and the 19 percent currently enrolled in correspondence.

“If that holds of the percentage of families opting into correspondence then we would stand to lose just around 2.2 $million of state funding and that is because in our enrollment projection we had projected that those students would attend their neighborhood schools,” said Fulp. “We’re asking them to create stability with this resolution to support funding at our projected enrollment count the foundation formula was not designed for a pandemic.”

Resolution 21-001 passed unanimously. The preschool program housed at Larson Elementary was moved to Teeland Middle School in another unanimous board vote. The measure carries no fiscal note.

During persons to be heard on non-agenda items, seven individuals spoke out, all of them opposed to the mask mandate in schools.

“No one individual has the right to take away my right to breathe. God gave me my right not man and so I am going to be bringing my kids to school and they will not be wearing a mask. I will not wear a mask in the school. I think we should have choices,” said Chris Tyree.

Following additional guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control two weeks ago, MSBSD administration announced that masks would be worn by students and teachers in classrooms for grades 3-12 when the school year starts on August 19.

“There is no single metric that will determine whether a school or the district stays open or what level of openness we are. A single case at a school won’t necessarily shut it down for a lengthy period of time in fact that’s not the plan at all. It could maybe shut it down for a short period of time every single bit of data we have has to get looked at through many lenses,” said Trani.

Board Member Kelsey Trimmer noted during his comments that many school districts are handling the mask issue differently.

“Some other districts have gone to the board to decide whether or not to be open,” said Trimmer. “I’m wondering if maybe that needs to go to the board to decide whether or not we open based on the mask mandate and the problems with the mask mandate and the teachers that are worried about their health and they’re not going to have a choice in the mask issues. Whether they are going to be around people that are masked or not are not their choice. A lot of things we still have to consider and a lot of hard decisions to be made but I think it deserves some thought on whether we need to pursue this as a vote on whether or not to even open.”

Following the meeting, Trani and the School Board entered into executive session to discuss teacher contract negotiations. The next meeting will be held August 19.