By RIC SMITH
For nearly five decades, the residents of Eagle River and Chugiak have contributed a significant portion of their tax dollars to the Municipality of Anchorage, only to feel their community has received little in return.
Many of us have long held different views from our neighbors in Anchorage on how a city should be managed. After almost 50 years of growth and maturity, we believe it’s time for Eagle River and Chugiak to stand as their own municipal government. This is the vision of Eaglexit: to detach from Anchorage and incorporate as a home rule borough.
With detachment, the area currently designated as Assembly District 2 (AD2), which includes all of JBER and Eagle River/Chugiak north to the Knik River, would become the Chugach Regional Borough (CRB), a Non-unified Home Rule borough. This transition would allow Eagle River/Chugiak to transform into the city it has long deserved to be: a city of self-governance, small, lean government, and empowered citizens. It would be a place where the will of the people is more closely aligned with their municipal officials.
Within this new borough, we will need to design and implement a new school district. A committee of residents, including myself, have been working diligently on this design, drawing from a wealth of experience and diverse backgrounds. Our committee includes current and retired ASD teachers and staff, private sector business individuals, experienced charter schoolteachers, a former ASD student, and parents/grandparents.
As the chair of the Eaglexit Education Committee, I bring 26 years of teaching experience in the ABC optional program here in Eagle River. I have witnessed firsthand the financial waste a large district can generate and the erosion of quality curricula. I’ve seen staff hired who don’t fit the programs or sound education policy, eroding the culture and expectations of the entire school. I’ve seen teacher morale so low that they leave Alaska altogether in search of better pay, better retirement, and better work environments.
Eaglexit offers a fresh perspective, learning from past mistakes and looking forward to positive changes within our new school district and better outcomes for the future of our community’s children. We’ve reviewed examples from the best schools in the nation.
The Education Committee has completed the charter for this new school district and looks forward to sharing our ideas with the community in greater detail. We will be holding public town halls throughout the winter months to engage with you and discuss our plans.
Our primary goal is to limit the powers of the School Board, the district superintendent, and district administration. Our charter grants the greatest authority to the members of the community of the Chugach Regional Borough, empowering you, the parents, to control the direction of your school district and decide the best educational models and curricula for the students. Our vision is for a district where authority flows from the schools and community to the superintendent and finally to the School Board.
This new district is based on the idea that parents have the right to ensure their children receive the best possible education and future. Each school within the CRB will be a charter school, where the community decides each school’s educational focus. The district will have an open enrollment policy with no boundaries, ensuring every child, regardless of socio-economic status, physical location, or family situation, can attend the school best suited to their needs. Each school’s focus will be to exceed the state standards and expectations, setting a national standard for excellence.
The Chugach Regional Borough will utilize contracted services wherever possible to streamline operations and run the district more efficiently. The School Board will serve solely for the benefit of the students, not its members. The superintendent’s authority will be derived from the community, and will not have the traditional autonomy of a public-school superintendent.
Each charter school within the Chugach Regional Borough will be founded by community stakeholders, including parents, school staff, and community members. Each school will have an Academic Policy Committee made up of staff, parents and community members to ensure the charter of the school is strictly followed. The committee will hire the principal, who will then hire the staff and enforce the charter with their team.
Our intent with the Chugach Regional Borough’s budget is to pay our teachers a competitive wage to attract excellent educators. We believe higher wages will enable teachers to set up a better retirement for themselves since the State no longer offers an attractive retirement plan for quality teachers. With the support of a faculty senate to address grievances, a collaborative teaching environment, higher wages, and better retirement options, we hope to make our district a place teachers want to be part of and raise their families.
Transparency is vital to our model, promoting parent collaboration and inter-school competition. Each school will report information through a district-wide website, including standardized test scores, class sizes, waitlist numbers, and financial disclosures.
Each school in the Chugach Regional Borough will adhere to federal and state laws and regulations regarding the education of special needs and highly gifted students.
Our charter, like the Constitution of the United States, limits the responsibilities and duties of its participants. The regulations and procedures that individual schools choose or that the School Board deems necessary are beyond our purview.
The charter frames a district that reflects the wants and needs of the majority of Chugach Regional Borough families. We, the Chugach Regional Borough Education Committee members, see many issues we could address to curtail today’s social challenges. By framing the charter as we have, we leave it up to the community to decide the social issues they want to address.
The Education Committee members look forward to our public town hall meetings, where we can present our ideas in more detail. We enthusiastically look forward to your questions and input as we build a school district where future generations will thrive.
Ric Smith is a former teacher in the Anchorage School District. He is an Eagle River resident and chair of the Eaglexit Education Committee.
I’m for self-governance and I certainly understand your perspective. However, each article I read does not mention a timeline or even if the citizens in the community are in favor. Reading article after article on this without any deadline in sight doesn’t help me understand if ER/Chugiak are making any progress.
Sounds like a right-wing utopia, interesting that they want JBER included, must be all the federal dollars that will flow with it to the new borough.
It couldn’t be that they’d prefer including a population that’s within a compact boundary,of corse. That doesn’t fit your pro-governmwnt- micromanagement worldview, does it,AFF?
JBER is included because they are in Assembly District 2 along with Eagle River, Chugiak, Peters Creek, Eklutna.
Seems to me, when I graduated Chugiak, we had quite a few kids whose folks worked at the bases attending our schools. Considering at the time that quite a few of early residents to move to the area were related to military service people, their presence was valued especially for its diversity, and unique perspective to residing in area even if only for a short ‘tour’. We had a robust ROTC program, as well.
WE NEED EAGLEXIT!!!
I have seen our schools in Eagle River and the surrounding area deteriorate. They don’t remotely resemble what we had 20 years ago.
Ha, ha, hilarious. First of all, C/ER has some of the best public schools in the state. ERHS is the #1 ASD high school, according to DEED; it is #3 in the state according to US News and World Report. Feeder schools are similarly highly ranked. EagleExit likes to make out that our schools are failing, when in fact they are doing relatively well. They would be doing even better were they adequately funded. Flat state funding is a net loss in budgetary power: class sizes grown, course options shrink, and support services shrivel. We C/ER educators are holding our own, no thanks to most our legislators and the governor.
Redundant comment below exists because first one, above, didn’t show as saved….
You should look to the flat funding from the state for the reason for that. Flat funding = actual reduction with inflation. Fewer $/student = larger classes, fewer options, shuttered support systems, etc. It is very difficult to hire new staff or even keep them once here.
By the way, Chugiak/Eagle River schools are actually doing pretty well despite the budgetary attempt to starve them into failure. ERHS is # 1 in the ASD according to AK DEED, #3 in the state according to US News and World Report. We have several nationally recognized programs, do exceptionally well with attendance, graduation, and student conduct, etc.
I hope Eagle River & Chugiak manage to pull themselves out from under the choking yoke of Anchorage and its deleterious administration. The Anchorage Assembly has gotten too big for its britches and those living in Anchorage don’t care enough to vote to make the necessary changes. The less people Anchorage drags down to the dregs, the better.
Your best bet is to petition for admittance to the MSB. MOA is never going to let self-governance happen.
The MOA has no say in it, the people of this new district will vote on it and with it being a more conservative one chances are very good that it will be approved. The MOA doesn’t deserve our hard earned tax dollars, we get very little from them for it and it’s time we broke away from that joke of municipality.
Stop talking and get on with it.
If each charter school in the district chooses its own educational focus, what will the Christian faith-based school look like?
Alaskan’s for freedom, it would make sense that Eagle River would include the military base for Eaglexit .The kids that live on base go to Eagle River schools!
“Each school’s focus will be to exceed the state standards and expectations, setting a national standard for excellence.” This sounds like weak sauce. Schools should prepare students not just for exams but for life. A life where they can thrive both personally and professionally.
Eagle River/Chugiak has always produced some strong leaders as I know many who graduated from the local schools and went on to become successful entrepreneurs, successful business/professional people and great parents with good families. I am praying that this effort to secede from MOA is realized-needs to happen now!
Maybe Eagle River/Chugiak could form their own group to work with the Native association to take over the Eklutna Dam and power distribution. Anchorage City could go it alone and not be considered. If they don’t want the power, maybe it time to consider just using the resources on a different sector.
Or just annex Eklutna entirely
What is the general timeline of EagleExit? What is planned? And where are you in the process?
I am ready to “throw in the towel” and leave Anchorage for the Valley. The property tax revenue is very poorly managed and spent carelessly, I have no representation on the assembly (even the two members in the district where I live won’t return my calls), and municipal code counters unreasonably the fair and commonsense use of my property. If Chugiak and Eagle River were able to make serious progress towards leaving the municipality in the next year, I’d work hard for this and look seriously at buying a house in that area.
I think Ric and I graduated same year at Chugiak, and I think also, that he would agree we had some of the best high school teachers to help prepare us for our current state of the world. That being said, I do NOT think that charter schools are an answer, even though Mr Smith’s career in teaching gives him reason to conclude this. The area was far more community-minded and caring when we were kids before Anchorage incorporated our towns AGAINST our will, but charter schooling sets up what is seen in other parts of the country as entrenched, or almost ‘gerry-mandered’ apartheid, as Mr Kirk (invoking the name of one of our social studies instructors) might suggest –I think (I may be wrong about what Mr Kirk might say, as he’s not here to deny or affirm my opinion). Charter schools eliminates the tools for voicing against discriminatory practices against a whole swath of people between the ages of 5-17 whose educational needs vary considerably. And, I speak as mom whose children attended out-of-state public schools comparable to Chugiak in the amount of motivated and dedicated teachers, well-educated and involved parents, and adequate funding –nothing too fancy, but adequate variety and high quality.
For those asking about a timeline.. the Board is very close to submitting a charter, a petition, and a transition plan to the LBC, the Local Boundary Commission, which is the State agency which oversees any boundary changes within the state. Once the LBC has the documents, they have 45 days to review and decide if Eaglexit can then proceed to use the petition to garner the needed signatures to get the proposal on the ballet. Once Eaglexit is ok’ed to proceed with gathering signatures we have 1 year to gather signatures. We think we can do it a lot quicker! After we turn in the signatures the LBC then has between a year and two years to hold public meetings on the topic of educating the public on detachment. At the end of that time ti goes to a vote by the people of only Assembly District 2, which is JBER, Eagle River out to the Knik River. This is not a random drawing of boundaries by Eaglexit, it was done by whomever draws out our voting districts. And yes, only voters within area AD2 will get to vote. The MOA has no say in this matter at that time!
As for the state of the Eagle River schools, yes, we have some of the best schools in the district out here, but when you look at the standing of the ASD, according to U.S. News, 43% % of elementary students tested at or above the proficient level for reading, and 39% tested at or above the level for math. Also, 43% of Middle School students tested at or above the proficient level in reading, and 38% tested at or above the level for math. At the high school level only 39% tested at or above the level for reading, while 26% tested at or above in math. In the area of College readiness, again according to U.S. News.. ASD sits at a whooping 22.1.. that is out of 100 on their scale!! So when I hear people telling me how great our schools are, I have to remind them that yes, our schools out here are doing well with in a district that is consistently near the bottom of the national ranking, and I’m left to wonder why are we so proud of that level of educational readiness! We are usually in the top ranking across the nation in spending however, so there’s that…!
As for educating students for their future, that’s exactly what we’re proposing. Along with the idea of charter schools with high expectations for the basic tenents of education, reading, math, history, spelling etc., we would hope to see VoTech program reintroduced to the system to help prepare those who choose not to go to higher education to find incredible paying jobs in the Trades.
As far as funding for this new district. We are agreed that teachers are not happy with the way things are run in the schools, or across the district, there will always be those saying that throwing more money to an already hugely oversized headship administration will solve the problems in the classroom. I taught long enough to know that very little of all that money ever sees it’s way into the classroom! Count up all of the headshed positions that are over $100,000 a year, and don’t forget to include the Superintendent’s salary at $280,000 with an $8,000 transportation budget, and you’ll start to see why we want to restructure this new district to see that money is spent where it counts the most.. in the classroom, in the school support staff and teacher’s salaries!
Regarding what a christian based school would look like, that would be up to the parents and teachers who put the charter together, not this committee. Each charter school would be set up by parents and teachers who want to build a program that they are interested in seeing succeed. Join the cause, get involved and help build this thing!
I hope this answers some of the questions/comments here and more of you will start coming to the monthly public meetings. Become involved in forming what we believe will be a chance to really make an impact in the education, as well as the formation of a borough where our values, and beliefs are more aligned with our limited government.