Alaska superintendents, principals and school officials delivered sobering testimony to lawmakers at the Alaska State Capitol. They painted a picture of schools struggling to continue to support teachers and students amid budget shortfalls, cuts to programs, teacher shortages, rising costs and increased facility maintenance needs.
Lisa Parady is director of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, the nonprofit advocacy and leadership organization that organized the annual fly-in event.
“There’s no room for division,” she said, noting that there are often divides between the needs of urban and rural districts, or districts that are on the road system versus off the road system. “All those need to fall to the wayside when we’re talking about the best interest for our children in Alaska.”
School officials from across the state addressed a joint session of the House and Senate Education Committees on March 30, presenting lawmakers with a list of legislative priorities and challenges for Alaska’s 53 districts and roughly 130,000 students.
Despite a historic raise last year in the state’s per-student funding formula, officials said state funding still does not meet districts’ needs to hire and retain teachers, provide services and programs to students and keep up with maintaining aging school facilities.
Several bills are currently being debated in the Legislature that would increase education funding again this year.
School leaders’ presentation to lawmakers included research, data and testimony illustrating what the group described as converging crises faced by Alaska schools: teacher shortages, insufficient state funding and budget shortfalls, and a growing number of students with disabilities needing special education services.
David Nogg, principal of Goldenview Middle School in Anchorage, highlighted how teacher shortages impact student achievement there.
“High teacher turnover is directly correlated with poor student achievement, and our children are suffering, unfortunately,” said Nogg, who is also president of the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals.
While teacher turnover has been historically high in rural and remote districts, teacher turnover was 30% in urban districts as well, according to 2024 data from the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research.
Nogg said his list of responsibilities has grown from managing students, staff and facilities to include additional duties like standing in as school nurse, an experience shared by principals across the state. He said many teachers and school leaders are stretched so thin they’re leaving the state.
According to a survey of teachers on their reasons for leaving Alaska, the No. 1 reason cited was the lack of a defined-benefit retirement plan, followed by better job opportunities in other states, high cost of living in Alaska, and uncertainty of education funding.
The number of students in need of special education services is growing, and school districts are struggling to meet the demand, lawmakers heard.
Melissa Matthews, director of student services for the Bering Strait School District and president of Alaska Council of Administrators of Special Education, said districts are hiring contract staff for special education services, at higher costs, which she called a “vacancy tax.”
“We are spending more on work-arounds, travel, contracted itinerant staff and temporary staffing than we would on a stable, permanent workforce across Alaska. Districts are doing everything they can to uphold the civil rights of students with disabilities, but we are stretched thin,” she said.
“We need the tools to move forward from simply surviving to truly educating, because an Alaskan student’s civil rights should never depend on whether a district can find a teacher or budget constraints,” she said.
There are nearly 200 vacant special education positions across the state, Matthews said.
“These are not optional roles. They are federally required,” she said. “Within the state, we are starting to see schools without a resident special education teacher at all, relying on itinerant staff who fly or commute between sites to supervise and train paraprofessionals who will be providing the specialized services to the student. This increases costs and stretches staff to their limits.”
“It is not a model designed for student success. It is a survival strategy,” she added.
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