Two school districts have filed a lawsuit challenging the state of Alaska for failing to fulfill its constitutional duty to adequately fund public education.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District and the Kuspuk School District filed the lawsuit in Anchorage Superior Court on Jan. 20, naming the Alaska Department of Education, its commissioner and Gov. Mike Dunleavy as defendants.
Plaintiffs say the state’s funding is “woefully insufficient,” resulting in a loss of teachers, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating schools and loss of learning and opportunities for students. They’re asking the court for a declaration that the state is violating its obligations under the Alaska Constitution, and to remedy the violation by funding education.
A spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law said education funding decisions should be determined by the Legislature, rather than the courts.
“The state has to be accountable for ensuring that they have established, and they have maintained a system of education within the state,” said Madeline Aguillard, superintendent of the Kuspuk School District. “Because by all evidence from Kuspuk, I believe it’s not being maintained.”
Aguillard spoke by phone on Jan. 21, as she was managing the evacuation of around 50 students from the Aniak Jr. Sr. High School due to a roof failure earlier this week.
It’s one of many severe school facilities issues facing the Kuspuk School District, and other districts around the state. The Kuspuk district serves 320 students in nine schools in rural Southwest Alaska.
The estimated cost of deferred maintenance is over $400 million in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, the other plaintiff in the case, said Frank Meinert, its superintendent. That is all while grappling with budget shortfalls, difficulty maintaining teachers and growing class sizes, he said.
“Fairbanks has experienced seven school closures within the last five years,” Meinert said. “With declining revenue from the state and drops in enrollment here locally, that was one of the levers that our Board of Education was forced to pull to balance our budgets in past years.”
“Those school closures have created a tremendous amount of instability within the community and within our families,” he said.
Spokespeople for the governor’s office and Alaska Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Education funding has been an embattled political issue for years, and lawmakers approved an increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation, or BSA, last year — which was vetoed twice by the governor, and then restored in a historic override vote by legislators in August.
But plaintiffs in last week’s lawsuit say state funding is at a level that fails to provide students with “a sound basic education and meaningful opportunity for proficiency,” and lags far behind operating costs.
“Every year, it’s based on, ‘Well, this is what we can afford,’ versus ‘We absolutely have to find the funds to deal with this,’” said Caroline Storm, executive director of the nonprofit education advocacy group, Coalition for Education Equity, which is helping organize the lawsuit.
In addition to the court order, plaintiffs are asking the court to require the state to conduct an adequacy study. The lawsuit alleges the state has never conducted a study of funding levels, calling it a “dereliction of constitutional obligation” because it hasn’t scientifically evaluated if the current funding levels are adequate.
The study they’re asking for would assess the actual cost of delivering education — including teachers, special education, transportation and maintaining school facilities — to compare to current funding levels and identify the gaps.
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