By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage School Board finally decided to close only two of the originally seven proposed schools.
If the board had more time, it may have even taken the final two schools off the closure list. Five hours of Tuesday night’s board meeting was just not enough time to remove Lake Hood and Nunaka Valley schools from that closure list.
Remember, the original closure list consisted of seven elementary schools: Lake Hood, Fire Lake, Nunaka Valley, Bear Valley, Baxter, Wonder Park, and Tudor. The list of proposed closures has been whittled down to only two.
The ASD has too many elementary schools for far fewer students. It currently has a “program” capacity of 26,432 students in its elementary schools. But there were only 19,484 elementary students in the 2022-23 school year.
That’s alarming enough. But the future looks even worse. The district projects it will only have 16,826 elementary students in 2027, almost 10,000 fewer students than the district’s school capacity.
Here are the seven proposed schools with their student capacities:
| School | Percent Filled |
| Bear Valley | 69% |
| Lake Hood | 39% |
| Tudor | 69% |
| Fire Lake | 47% |
| Nunaka Valley | 63% |
| Wonder Park | 66% |
| Baxter | 56% |
Before the night was over, there were several amendments offered to remove schools from the closure list.
School Board member Kelly Lessens offered amendment #1 to remove Lake Hood from the closure list so those students transitioning to Turnagain School would not affect the Russian immersion program at Turnagain School.
She brought the international scene into her reasoning. She said, “I wouldn’t want to kneecap the Russian immersion program (at the Turnagain School) given Alaska’s strategic place in world affairs at this time.”
That’s quite a stretch! Who knew that affecting Turnagain Elementary Schools’ Russian immersion program would influence Vladimir Putin?
But that’s not all. Lessens also was concerned with the “green spaces” at Lake Hood and how those students need those spaces.
To close, Lessens said, “Do I close Lake Hood and bring a charter school there…I think the answer is no.”
But don’t those charter school students also need the “green spaces?”
Board member Pat Higgins asked Lessens, “So my question would be, are we looking to continue to remove schools from the list. Are we looking to not close any schools?”
Apparently, member Higgins broke the code!
Lessens’ amendment to remove Lake Hood School from the closure list failed 2-5, with members Margo Bellamy, Dave Donley, Andy Holleman, Carl Jacobs and Dora Wilson voting no.
Then Donley decided to remove Fire Lake School from the closure list due to projected future housing growth in that area. That amendment passed, 4-3; Bellamy, Wilson, and Jacobs voted no.
Higgins got into the act by amending the original memo to remove Baxter School from the list. His reasoning included that it was a Title I school (high number of low-income students) and many special education students. So, Baxter was removed from the closure list on a vote of 4-3 with Bellamy, Donley, and Holleman voting no.
The final vote on the original, much amended memo #73 was to close Lake Hood and Nunaka Valley on a 5-2 vote with Higgins and Lessens voting no.
It looks as if the Eagle Academy Charter School in Eagle River will not be moving into the Fire Lake School. But Rilke Schule Charter School may be moving into the Lake Hood School.
So, the effort to close excess schools and repurpose them into mostly charter schools was stymied. It doesn’t appear that the district will save much expense after all.
To sum this all up, board member Jacobs blamed the Legislature and the governor for not funding the K-12 system adequately. He wants to rely on the Legislature to increase funding to inflation proof the Base Student Allocation, with 2010 as the baseline. The Anchorage schools had at least 5,000 more students in 2010 than they do today.
Relying on the state to increase the BSA will not solve the problem of too many schools for too few students. Increased funding will only perpetuate the problem and lead to more and more inefficiencies.
In the end, the Anchorage School District did what it does best: Make decisions through indecisions and kicking the can down the road. Its only hope is that the Legislature will step in and save it from making the hard decisions.
David Boyle is the education writer at Must Read Alaska.
The sooner the charade ends the better off the children will be.
Agreed. Perhaps the Legislature will step in to save them from themselves? Sounds reminiscent of what happened in Houston (TX) after Bryantt was there and the State had to take over the district because of its complete failure. Bryantt could be showing consistency in his track record here? Leaving a trail of failed school districts in his wake. Thanks ASD School board.
The ones to blame for the budget is the school district board and their loser policies. If you have 10,000 less kids, then you don’t need as many administrators, teachers schools, buses janitors. Again people the union is controlling this so they can put more money in their pocket and pay the fat cats wages to sit there and do nothing but bellyache about the taxpayer, not paying enough. Everybody, the testified that they want the schools to remain open need to belly up and pay to keep those schools up and open. If you want them, you pay for them it doesn’t make good common sense to have way more schools than needed. So people that don’t want to get rid of the schools need to belly up and pay more to keep them open.
These are the same people think that the federal government has an endless supply of money coming off the trees. People it’s only a matter time till the federal government goes bankrupt. We are 36 trillion in the hole and they want more tax dollars more money borrowing more spending.
The well is running dry and the day of reckoning is coming, so just keep voting these people in that spend every dime and then want more
Interesting … Makes one wonder if Home Schooling, Charter Schools and Private Religious Schools are suffering similar decline in students or, are these alternative programs growing in demand? Given ASD poor performance I would imagine parents are seeking these alternative programs, giving their children the best education possible without all the negative impacts of ASD System.
Clearly been taking lessons from Governor Dunleavy.
Kick the can, point the finger, as long as your political base blames the other side for your failure to deliver on your promises more than they blame you, you’ve had a “successful” term in office.
Is Anchorage not growing? Where are the children? Do we have fewer children because couples are electing not to raise children or having fewer children? Are families moving out of town or out of state? Alternative/parochial/home schools rather than public? Abortion numbers on the rise? Who determines what is over crowded (a problem people used to talk about in the 80’s & 90’s) or under-utilized? Students with a more relaxed student-teacher ratio used to be desirable. And finally, more likely it is a $ issue. The budget for education seems to go up and up and up. Will it now go down with these school closures?
Anchorage School board members are NOT smarter than a sixth grader.
They only need to open their eyes for a moment to look at the reason the parents are moving children to the valley and another large percentage are paying top dollar to enroll their children in private/christian based/home school programs.
Nobody wants their children exposed to taxpayer funded obscene influential library material that results in gender confusion or influence from other gender confused students who get preferential treatment in the classroom.
There is also mistrust in what information is withheld from parents regarding their children’s mental health issues due to recent policy changes.
If they insist on running a human zoo then they should do so at their own expense and not the public’s money.
It is not rocket science they are teaching so get a clue and see where the students are ending up.
Anchorage is growing and students are leaving ASD.
Nobody in our extended family will ever see the inside of a public school.
Too much bad influence.
This is really easy to see why this is being done. If the budget shortage was small, then the legislature would feel like they would not have to bail out the school district. It is in the interest of the School District to have a really large deficit that can’t be balanced without drastic cuts, so the State is forced to bail them out. If does not make sense to close any schools when the political pressure from “mass layoffs and closures” because of the district not making cuts when they should(ve).
I am by no means saying the teachers’ union is blameless in this, but speaking as a retired ASD staff member, I can honestly say, based on first-hand experience, that ASD is beyond top-heavy in administration. There are “programs” and departments composed of 2-3 people, yet the person in charge of it is a “director”, with a salary of well-over $100k/yr., plus benefits and retirement. This is a position that, in the past, has been a “supervisor” or “coordinator”, and paid $80k-$90k per year max. The departments’ budgets increase almost every fiscal year, yet somehow they don’t have any increase in students served or other positive effects. Teachers are being given larger and larger class sizes, positions are being cut, or at least not filled, in support staff (janitorial, maintenance, etc.) and the administration is increasing the number of administrators to “manage” things. Admin goes after teachers to get them and their union to pump Juneau for more money, then they take that money and increase administrative budgets. They also constantly reallocate funds that were bonded for specific projects to other projects that WERE NOT VOTED FOR. How do you think they pulled off rebuilding Inlet View Elementary? ASD’s administration is the prime mover on their budget woes.
They’re always talking about overcrowding. If there are less children, keep the same teachers, give them less children, and they can get more individualized attention
And if you can’t do that, then designate one of the schools that you want to close for children of special needs like autism and such that way, they can be together, it’s my opinion
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