Update, April 29, 2024:
Note: The Sitka School Board will meet in special session 6 p.m. this Wednesday, May 1, in Harrigan Centennial Hall, to adopt a budget for next year that reduces staffing in the district by 18 positions.
With schools closing around the state following the governor’s veto of the education bill, the loss of 18 positions in Sitka is a relatively optimistic scenario.
The board met in a work session for over three hours Saturday morning to take the temperature of the public, and to guess how much one-time extra funding – if any – might be coming from the state legislature.
The board settled on $500 per student. Although that number is purely an assumption, incoming superintendent Deidre (dee-uh-dree) Jenson argued that it minimized damage to students compared to the alternative of $340, which is the amount that arrived last year, after the governor vetoed half of the full appropriation of $680.
Among the criticisms leveled against the board during the work session was that it was irresponsible to give a six-percent raise for teachers this year. Incoming president of the Sitka Education Association, Joe Montagna (montanya), defended the raise, saying that at the time of union negotiations this spring, there was momentum in Juneau to increase education funding permanently. House Bill 140 eventually passed by a near-unanimous vote of the Alaska Legislature. Gov. Dunleavy, however, vetoed the bill, sending districts across the state into a financial tailspin.
“If negotiations were this year,” said Montangna, “there’s no way we would have sat here with a straight face and asked for a six-percent raise.”
Montagna offered to forego his extra duty contract to help the district make ends meet.
The district has taken some extraordinary measures to close the budget gap: The school maintenance department has been moved under the city, for a savings of about $600,000; the Blatchley Pool is also going to the city and, although revenue neutral, will free up staff time. There’s $300,000 in funding from the marijuana tax available every year, but voters approved it exclusively to support student activities. No school buildings will close in Sitka this year, but it’s a distinct possibility for next.
The Sitka School Board has made it clear that the only room to make cuts now is in staffing. Assuming the state comes through with an extra $500 per student this month, that still means 18 positions will be cut in the district. Non-tenured teachers will get pink slips on May 3. Tenured teachers who are being let go will get “non-retention” notices on May 13. District administrators have started shuffling the remaining tenured teaching staff to try and cover classes. Blatchley Middle School principal Ben White said, “We are not going to offer the quality of education we’ve been able to offer in the past. There are no two ways around it.”
Some variables are still in play: The district is hoping to save money on health insurance premiums, for example. There are bills in both houses of the legislature that could send enough money to stave off disaster, but whether the governor signs them into law is the biggest unknown of all.
Original Report:
Note: The Sitka School Board will hold a public budget hearing 9 a.m. to noon this Saturday, April 27, in the district office board room. Final adoption of the Fiscal Year 2025 budget is scheduled for the board’s regular meeting 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, in Harrigan Centennial Hall. May 15 is the deadline to notify staff of non-retention.
Ryan Myers is a non-tenured Math teacher, whose job could well disappear next year. He told the board he would rather have the bad news sooner than later.
“I’ve obviously been looking at jobs, and every week the number of available jobs everywhere just goes down, down, down, because everyone’s looking,” said Myers. “I mean, the longer I wait, the fewer jobs I’ve got to choose from, and I’m trying to make choices about whether I’m going to leave my son here to finish school and have to go live somewhere else. And these are choices I would like to get on with.”
The school board is considering two no-win scenarios, even if the legislature and the governor come to an agreement before the end of the legislative session in May. The first assumes that the state will come to the rescue with a one-time increase of $500 to the BSA, which would still mean a loss of 18 staff positions in the Sitka School District. (A third scenario – a $680 increase to the BSA – is considered unlikely because the governor vetoed it last year.) Incoming superintendent Deidre Jenson advocated for the $500 assumption, because the other alternative – a one-time increase of only $340 to the BSA – was both painful to contemplate, and would force the elimination of programs that might never come back. 22 teachers would be fired under this scenario, there would be far fewer classes in the middle and upper grades, and those classes would be larger. Jenson did not mince words.
“The cuts are going to be hard no matter what,” she said. “It’s, it’s going to hurt deep, and our kids are going to pay.”
Jenson argued that it would be preferable to plan a reasonable schedule next year, and cut back only if forced to. Elementary school music teacher Susan Brant-Ferguson, however, believed it was time to inform the public about what was on the line, under either the $500 or $340 BSA scenario.
“The lack of funding will compromise the quality of our programs,” Brant-Ferguson said emphatically. “Because as much as we would like to be superheroes, we’re not. And there’s a point at which, when you take on more students, when you take on more classes, when you take on more this or that – it does compromise the quality of our programs. So I know it’s not you doing that, but there’s only so much we can do.”
The board itself was split on which BSA scenario to build next year’s budget on, with Steve Morse leaning toward $500, and Todd Gebler and Tristan Guevin more comfortable with $340. The board hasn’t made a decision yet, because they haven’t had to, and some variables – such as next year’s health insurance premiums – remain unsettled. But time is running out for the board to choose a number, and for over a dozen Sitka teachers – even under the most optimistic scenario – to pack up their classrooms.
From the board’s April 16 hearing: The community “needs a chance to react” to the dramatic cuts likely next year
The legislature’s failure – by one vote – to override Gov. Dunleavy’s veto of the education bill has left the Sitka School District financially high and dry. In past years, an eleventh-hour push in the capitol has rescued schools, but that’s not likely this time. The help that’s expected to pass in Juneau – $340 per student – is about as good as no help at all, and schools are going to have to slash positions, as many as 24 in Sitka.
Bottom line is we have been operating off of a low pupil:teacher ratio for a long time,” said incoming superintendent Deidre Jenson. “And it’s going to have to increase. So that’s that.”
Jenson and interim superintendent Steve Bradshaw, who’s already returned to his home in Montana, are jointly running the district administration. Neither has shown their hand about how they’ll close a $2.6 million budget gap next year. As a result, the April 16 work session with the Sitka School Board was a combination of hand-wringing and spitballing about pupil:teacher ratios and the food service contract, and gathering ideas from a small audience comprised mostly of educators.
Board member Phil Burdick felt the room was sidestepping the issue.
“At some point we’re going to have to say, we can’t be everything to everyone,” said Burdick. “So what Lane are we going to choose? And this is where I would like to see some community input. What do you want in your school? Where do you want to see us go because we only have one lane anymore. We’ve been driving down the super freeway for a while, and it is narrowing.”
At the top of board members Todd Gebler’s and Tom Williams’s minds was continued frustration over the precipice that schools had been brought to by political gamesmanship in Juneau. Board member Steve Morse wanted to explore early retirement incentives for the district. Burdick pressed for more involvement from the public in what could be a radical change in local education next year.
“You know, we’ve talked a lot about community input and no shine on people who are here, but you’re all intimately involved in education,” Burdick said. “Is there a way that we’re going to get public input? That is, parents, families, students? I know it’s capacity and time, but is there a way for buildings to ask your people what it is that they’re really concerned about?”
Board president Tristan Guevin suggested surveying the public, but expressed reservations about the very short timeline before the board’s budget had to be completed. (Well-versed in the politics of the situation in Juneau, Guevin said that “any budget the board submitted could be considered an interim budget,” until final action in the legislature.)
Sarah Ferrency, interim education director for the Sitka Tribe, suggested that diverse communities had already been consulted through strategic planning. She thought a survey would return a narrow response from anyone with the interest, aptitude, and technology to take it.
“Nobody wants to make these changes,” she said, “like, nobody does. We walked in this room, and I thought I was coming to a funeral.”
Nevertheless, the district’s strategic plan wasn’t written with the seismic changes possible next year in Sitka’s schools. Mike Vieira is the president of the Sitka Education Association, the union representing teachers. He said most residents were expecting cuts of 10-12 teaching positions, and not the 20-24 now on the table.
“I think you just need to give the community a chance to react to that change in reality, and not get bogged down in the semantics of what the survey is going to be,” Vieira said. “Just give us a chance to have some feedback on the change of those numbers. Because they haven’t those numbers yet. It’s a remaking of the entire district.”
Board president Guevin recommended an additional work session in May, prior to the board’s next meeting. Incoming superintendent Jenson said that she and the building principals were developing plans to specifically address cuts next year, and that a community-wide hearing could help inform the board about what programs and positions should go.
