Senate bill on correspondence study altered, and more changes may be coming

State legislators in Juneau are a month away from adjourning their 2026 session and the pace of work on bills is increasing. Included are issues of interest to Mat-Su residents like local impact aid to deal with effects of construction of a large gas pipeline through the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and new requirements for home-study students taking correspondence courses, among other matters.

The correspondence course changes are a hot-button issue for the many Mat-Su parents who do homeschooling. In Juneau, the Senate Education Committee has backed away from a bill that would make changes in how state funds supporting correspondence students are allocated after fierce opposition developed from homeschool parents and operators of correspondence programs.

A modified version of Senate Bill 277 is now pending before the committee. While the new bill has dropped controversial sections from the original bill it now strengthens reporting requirements on $4,500-per-student annual state stipends provided for homeschooling and on school districts that operate correspondence programs.

On the stipend, known as allotments, legislators are concerned with abuses of the funds that have been reported over the years, for example families using the state allotments for vacations. The original SB 277 also included added funds for correspondence studies but required some of the money to be shared with the local school district to offset administrative costs. That has been deleted from the new version.

The new reporting requirements, however, are extensive and add to existing requirements. School districts operating correspondence programs, such as Galena, which enrolls many Mat-Su students, must file reports with the state on Nov. 1 that detail administrative expenses, the number of students enrolled and the home communities of students and in particular an accounting of expenses charged against the student’s allotment. This would include extracurricular activities and any travel or cultural activity. The reports are to be made public.

The reports will go to legislative committees, too, which are likely to scrutinize them, particularly administrative costs of operators of the correspondence programs and how the state allotment, or stipends, are used.

The legislation is still a work in progress and a requirement may be added that correspondence students receiving the state stipend must participate in annual performance tests required of students in traditional “brick and mortar” neighborhood schools. Currently, students in correspondence studies can “opt-out” of the annual tests. Most do opt-out of the tests because state data shows only a small fraction of correspondence students take the tests while almost all students in traditional schools are tested.

Legislators are concerned because it means state and local education officials now have no way of knowing how much students in correspondence studies are really learning without the tests.

Other changes pending in the new SB 277 would eliminate a proposed increase in state funding to support correspondence studies. The original version of the bill funded correspondence students at the same level as students in traditional schools. The new version appears to strip that, so that correspondence students are funded at 90% of the funding for traditional students, which is the status quo.

Other parts of the original SB 277 are retained, however, including more state money for school bus transportation, which is important in Mat-Su, and more funding for reading proficiency grants to school districts.

On another matter of keen interest in Mat-Su, a bill sponsored by Gov. Mike Dunleavy adopting an alternative to local property taxes on the proposed Alaska LNG Project is likely to undergo substantial changes in legislative committees. Of particular concern to Mat-Su Borough Mayor Edna DeVries is that the current bill has no provision to help municipalities pay for the impacts on local roads and services of construction activity.

A substantial number of miles of a planned 800-mile 42-inch pipeline would be built through Mat-Su and there will be effects of construction, such as on the Parks Highway and borough roads used to transport heavy pipe and equipment. New versions of the governor’s bill will include mechanisms to help municipalities pay for impacts so local taxpayers don’t bear the burden, legislative leaders are saying.