Alaska saw an unprecedented wave of school closures this year. District officials grappling with severe budget shortfalls have opted to close 12 elementary and middle schools across the state — in Ketchikan, Anchorage, Wasilla and Sutton, and in Seward, Sterling, Soldotna and Kasilof in the Kenai Peninsula.
With those closures, hundreds of students and staff will bus or commute to new schools next year, class sizes will grow as grades are combined and districts across the state are cutting programs, teachers, health aides, custodians, sports, library services and extracurriculars like music.
Officials in four districts say the closures were incredibly complex and difficult decisions but necessary to combat budget shortfalls and years of state funding not meeting districts’ surging costs to operate schools.
“It was an incredibly trying time,” said Randy Trani, superintendent of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District which closed three elementary schools this year to address a $28 million budget shortfall. “We did this to save teaching positions,” he said.
“This is devastating to everyone,” said Kylie Wilcox, a Soldotna mother of five. Her middle and high schoolers attended River City Academy, one of four schools closed on the Kenai Peninsula. “The district does not want to do this, the administration doesn’t want to do this, we just, it’s the reality of what we’re working with.”
This year, the Alaska Legislature approved one-time additional funding of $144 million for K-12 schools, including $29 million to offset rising energy costs, to total $1.4 billion approved for public school operating expenses next year. Lawmakers passed a budget with higher-than-expected state oil revenues driven by the Iran war, which is now before Dunleavy for his consideration.
Matanuska-Susitna Borough Schools Superintendent Randy Trani said the largest driver of his district’s deficit was insufficient state funding. “State funding has not kept up with inflationary pressures,” he said. “Unless there is a long-term fix to how K-12 education is funded, this problem is going to continue.”
Wrangell schools drew about $525,000 from reserves to balance its $5.9 million budget for the 2025-2026 school year, with a similar drawdown expected this year unless the governor signs the state budget with its additional funding which could significantly reduce – but not eliminate – the Wrangell district’s deficit.
Much of the problem, said Education Commissioner Deena Bishop, is that public schools in Alaska have seen declining enrollment for more than 15 years, with districts closing schools due to what she called “excess capacity.”
She said more families are opting for homeschool programs, and districts need to figure out how to provide education services for families that want choices for more flexibility.
Nearly one in six Alaska students were homeschooled last year, totaling an estimated 23,600 students, according to data compiled by the Association of Alaska School Boards.
Alaska students have the option to enroll in homeschool or correspondence programs across the state, not necessarily with the district where they reside. While district officials say they are working to adapt and provide homeschool education services, districts receive less state funding per homeschool student which is contributing to district-wide deficits.
While the Matanuska-Susitna Borough continues to have the fastest growing population in the state, Trani said declining birth rates combined with an ongoing wave of families opting to homeschool is leaving the district with declining enrollment of full-time students and reduced funding for the district. Roughly 3,200 students, or 16% of the district’s students, were enrolled in Mat-Su correspondence programs this year.
Trani said another cost driver had been double digit increases to healthcare insurance costs resulting in roughly $6 million more to the deficit.
Ketchikan closed 2 schools
Ketchikan serves roughly 1,800 students. This year, the district enacted major cuts, including 76 staff positions across the district to address a $3 million budget shortfall, plus $5 million in debt to the borough. It closed two of its four elementary schools.
The district closed Point Higgins and Fawn Mountain elementary schools, leaving one elementary, one middle and one high school in the community.
Niki Suomala, a third generation Ketchikan resident, attended Point Higgins elementary school, located 15 miles north of town. She said it was a special experience for her two children to go there — until the closure.
Her kids will be in the second and sixth grades next year, and they plan to commute into town for school. She said there were some tears at the news, but she said her children are adapting. She said she’s disappointed overall, but feels compassion for the district.
“It’s like, gosh, couldn’t we see this? Couldn’t we have seen this coming and couldn’t we have tried to do something different?” she said.
Sheri Boehlert, the interim superintendent of Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District, also served as the principal of Point Higgins, spoke by phone after a full week of packing up and clearing out the schools. She said the reaction to the closures has been mixed: While there’s some in the community who want to see deeper cuts to balance budgets, there’s also a lot of grief in saying goodbye to neighborhood schools.
Class sizes will be effectively doubling in Ketchikan, Boehlert said, from about 15 students to class numbers in the twenties for elementary school and thirty students or more in the middle and high schools.
She said the district has seen rising costs to operate, including for fuel, utilities and special education services. She said in particular the cost of staff health insurance is up 112% this year. Previous cost overruns for health insurance discovered last year created the over $5 million debt to the borough which the district will pay over the next several years.
“We have a difficult road ahead of us in Ketchikan,” she said.
Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot is a former teacher and vocal proponent of increasing education funding. She co-chairs the bipartisan task force on education funding launched last year.
“Closing a school feels like a death, and it is,” she said.
