Documents obtained through a public records request show that Rep. Mary Peltola, in the capacity of a candidate and not as a U.S. representative, not only used North Pole High School for a campaign stop, but her campaign was trying to put together a fundraiser on campus while she was there, during school hours.
The fundraising portion of her event evidently fizzled, but the school administration actively helped her with the rest of her campaign stop as she was hitting various venues in the Fairbanks area.
It’s a serious offense, according to state law:
“Sec. 14.03.090. Partisan, sectarian, or denominational doctrines prohibited.
Partisan, sectarian, or denominational doctrines may not be advocated in a public school during the hours the school is in session. A teacher or school board violating this section may not receive public money.”
In other words, schools that use their facilities during school hours to advocate for a candidate for partisan political office may not receive funding from the State of Alaska.
The trail of documents obtained by citizen activist Jay McDonald shows public employees in the school district continuously coordinating in advance with Peltola’s campaign staff, and eager to help get pictures and promote her campaign activity on the district’s social media pages. The back and forth emails make it clear the public employees knew they were coordinating with campaign staff.
Peltola came through Fairbanks in January. On Jan. 18, she scheduled a campaign stop at North Pole High School for 11 am to 1 pm, while students were in school. Normally, campaigns could rent school space after hours, but it’s against the law to use public facilities during business hours for campaign events.
Along with her, Peltola had a gaggle of campaign staff, including Chris Whitschy, who was Sen. Bernie Sanders’ senior field film producer on the Bernie 2020 presidential campaign and the Friends of Bernie Sanders political committee, from March 2019-September 2021. Peltola also had with her Anton McPaland, her campaign manager who also serves as her chief of staff.
Even the principal of the high school got involved in helping the campaign event, by writing to campaign coordinator Maggie Calico multiple times to maximize publicity before and after the event.
Must Read Alaska wrote about the illegal activity in January, and immediately Peltola’s campaign staff removed all traces of the event on social media. That’s when Jay McDonald dug deeper to see just how much coordination with the school staff had occurred.
The Democrat member of Congress was accompanied by another Democrat candidate — Fairbanks North Star Borough mayoral candidate Grier Hopkins, who posted a photo to his campaign Facebook page of the two candidates, side by side, unabashedly campaigning during school hours.
Although it was not his campaign event, Hopkins was piggybacking on the representative and may have also been breaking the law, since he used the photo in his social media post.
The event was advertised for the school library, but the two politicians toured the school, popped into classrooms to talk to students and visited the automotive class, where Hopkins took the selfie.
In the narrative of that post on Facebook, Hopkins used the moment to promote more funding for schools from the Legislature and the governor:
“In the CTE Automotive Classroom at North Pole High School with Mary Peltola seeing the fantastic work they do here! Education is so much more than just the 3 R’s (reading, ‘righting, ‘rithmatic)! It’s about creating thinking, curious, caring students who are engaged! As the #akleg debates our Fnsbsd and all of Alaska’s schools’ needs, you can see the impacts right here in the classrooms. #RaisetheAKBSA — at North Pole High School.” he wrote.
Hopkins, who is running for a nonpartisan seat (mayor) has left his photo memorializing his campaign tour of the school with the candidate for Congress, but the school itself and the North Star Borough School District erased all evidence of the event on their Facebook pages.
