Anchorage School District Superintendent Dr. Jharrett Bryantt issued a second high-drama letter to families and staff on Friday, continuing to sound alarm bells over budget cuts but offering little accountability for his own role in spreading initial misinformation about the scope of the financial crisis.
In the new letter, Bryantt accuses others of “false claims” and “deliberate disinformation,” while failing to acknowledge that his first letter earlier this week contained inflated figures and exaggerated impacts. That first communication painted a bleak picture that suggested the district was facing a $98 million deficit, an inflated number that included federal funds that were never intended for recurring expenses, as well as one-time vetoes that are still under legislative review.
Nowhere in his latest missive does Bryantt disclose how many layoffs the district was actually able to avoid after reassessing its finances. Instead, he vaguely credits the use of “vacant positions and limited alternative funds” to reduce layoffs, while insisting that the cuts will still lead to “real and lasting impact” on programs ranging from after-school activities to literacy support.
This selective release of information is a calculated communications strategy. “This is damage control, plain and simple,” said a teacher. “They sent out the first letter to create maximum panic, then walked it back slightly without being transparent about the actual numbers.”
Bryantt fails to update the public on how many teachers and support staff have been laid off, how many were reabsorbed into vacancies, or whether the supposed “devastation” announced earlier in the week has been meaningfully mitigated.
In the Friday letter, Bryantt briefly references a positive development: Partial restoration of some federal funds, including those earmarked for the 21st Century Program, following advocacy from a bipartisan group of US senators; he names Sen. Lisa Murkowski in his political missive. But he doesn’t say how much and continues to characterize the district’s situation as an unfolding “crisis,” blaming both state vetoes and federal grant delays.
His letter concludes with a rallying cry against “confusion, false claims, and even deliberate disinformation,” encouraging parents and staff to use the district’s FAQ page to “defend the truth” and “protect the integrity” of ASD.
Read the news article about Bryantt’s first letter here:
This Bryantt POS is an invasive species to Alaska. Go home, little boy.
A cruel comment, yet totally true and accurate. Little more need be said. The child needs to sent home.
Superintendent Dr. J.B.: here’s a suggestion: shut down your huge administrative palace on Boniface and Northern Lights, and farm the staff out to individual schools. Then, those workers might help the actual teachers cope with your supposed ‘crisis.’ After all, isn’t educating kids your first concern?
Maybe someone should ask him why the district spent 50 million on an old
School to remodel for less than 200 students while closing several. One where kids from that school could have been easily busses.
Let’s see would that be the school in the most liberal district in the city? I have met some bad and incompetent superintendents before, but this man is on the top tier!
This POS reject from Houston’s school system FUBAR’s Anchorage’s school system, trashing generations of kids whose folks trusted him to do what, remind again?
.
No right or wrong answer, Ms. Judy, how do we flush this sh… stuff out of our school system?
How??? … Cut out the cancer with one Pb injection at a time!
This is not leadership and what I would expect from an immature kid placed in a position above his head!
And his LGBTQ values and bonafides don’t fit well in Alaska. Why was he even hired? He’s just really pissing off the Anchorage parents and the majority of voters who don’t align with his radicalism.
So, we have 10,000 fewer students in the Anchorage School District now but now one is being layed off and no schools are being closed. There must be a dispensary right close to the School District Offices. Get real folks!!!! I have no desire to support the State per pupal educational increase with these games being played.
‘ while failing to acknowledge that his first letter earlier this week contained inflated figures and exaggerated impacts’ …
Maybe because the only exaggerations were those of the folk endorsing Dunleavy’s libelous antics? You certainly don’t offer any proof here of ang of your exagerrated claims 🤣
How much would be saved and how many teaching dates
Would be preserved if he &6’d his pet dei projects?
I saw him on the news tonight, he offered little or nothing in the way of problem solving. The way he made faces, gesticulated, spoke, and generally carried himself was immature and not the way a serious person should ever behave, frankly I was embarrassed for him and for the Anchorage School District.
Just saw this guy on the tube. His voice is an octive or two above normal men. His hand gestures are pure feminine. His eye makeup is for sissies. Why would the School Board seek out this kind of person for Anchorage school superintendent? Would a parent want Pee Wee Herman setting an agenda for their kids? Public schools are in danger. Our kids are in peril.
He’s sad because someone pointed out to him that he was referenced twice by Governor Dunleavy in his July 14th letter to Alaska regarding our failing public school system.
It sounds like he might need a safe space and a backpack full of sensory toys to help him process his trauma. Such violent rhetoric has no place in our happy clappy world of rainbows and sunshine.
How many teacher vacancy positions are there in the Anchorage School District? I bet no so many now since the teachers were given a choice to be either laid off or moved into the vacant position and keep job/seniority.
They can still claim job losses (the original PCN) but save the teacher by transferring to the funded but vacant teacher position. When they run out of vacancies, then they cut programs that are sacred cows to rally the parents.
The house of cards is beginning to collapse in on these frauds. If the schools are at 50% capacity, exactly why are they fighting so hard to keep them open? They are not laying anyone off, they are just shuffling the people who were supposed to be let go into unfilled jobs. When will enough be enough for the Anchorage voters?
Remind me how many elementary schools have been shut down?? No one wants their kids in public schools anymore.
Just remember…TEXAS/Houston schools do/did not put up with “TRASHY” superintendents.
Be interesting to see the ratio of administrators to staff/students.
Things would be different if we had Frank Hauser, former principal of the year 2019, former Service high principal Superintendent at Juneau, Having worked for ASD. MY MESSAGE IS OUTSIDE HIRES ARE SELDOM BETTER AND THIS ONE IS THE WORST
Anyone from the School Board or City Admin that watched KTUU interview had to be embarrassed! Absolutely showing how unfit this kid is. Cringy enough to end employment ~ hope so!
Perhaps Alaska lost out on federal funding because the woke Anchorage School Board does not pressure the woke Superintendent to remove DEI from the curriculum and school.
‘https://www.asdk12.org/Page/13664
I have never known it to benefit a debater to exaggerate on facts that can be checked. Unforced errors by people that are expected to know better. This is particularly negative when it involves a letter written by the authority.
For me the merits of a position are tainted as soon as the lies begin.