Fifty-six bills and three resolutions were released, including proposed measures creating a pilot program for a shortened school week, heightening identification requirements for would-be voters, and establishing a schedule and process for state agency performance audits, as the first set of prefiled legislation for the incoming 28th Alaska State Legislature Monday.
The prefiled legislation constitutes the first new bills and resolutions offered for consideration in the upcoming legislative session, which starts next Tuesday.
Reps. Peggy Wilson, R-Wrangell, and Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, teamed up to co-sponsor House Bill 21, which would formally establish a pilot program under which one school district could enter a pilot program allowing them to have a four-day school week.
Tammie Wilson said the idea for the bill came about after the Southeast Island School District expressed interest in having school from Monday to Thursday only while extending the hours of each school day.
“Particularly for this one, from my understanding, most of their travel is done by plane to get supplies, for athletics, all kinds of things,” Tammie Wilson said Monday. “They tend to have lower attendance on Fridays.”
The four-day school week has worked in some school districts outside Alaska, Tammie Wilson said.
“This may be a new idea for Alaska, but it has been very successful in the Lower 48,” said the North Pole legislator.
The pilot program is limited to one school district, which would have to prove to the State Board of Education and Early Development that it could implement a four-day school week that is “the educational equivalent of a five-day school week” and that its desire for a four-day school week commands majority support from the public in its community, under the proposed legislation.
The district would also have to submit annual reports to legislative committees as a “progress report” comparing district performance to before schools went to a four-day school week.
“There’s going to be quite a bit of information that’s required from the school district,” Tammie Wilson said. She said the goal will be to “start out small and see how one district does, and if they’re successful, leave open the possibility of opening it up to more.”
Both Reps. Wilson are also among 26 representatives — including Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski — co-sponsoring House Bill 30, establishing a schedule of years in which entire agencies, including the Alaska Court System, the University of Alaska and the office of the governor, will be subject to performance reviews. The bill is being introduced again for the 28th Legislature after stalling in the Senate Finance Committee in 2011.
The Alaska Department of Corrections would be the first agency audited under the bill, with the department slated for its review next year under the proposed schedule.
In 2015, the governor’s office, courts and legislative branch agencies would be audited. The Department of Health and Social Services would be audited in 2016, the Department of Education and Early Development in 2017, the university system in 2018, and so on.
The Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor and Workforce Development would be the last agencies audited, in 2023.
In 2024, the Department of Corrections would be due for an audit again, under the 10-year repeating format of the schedule.
The legislative audit division conducting the reviews would hold public hearings in Anchorage, Juneau, Fairbanks and elsewhere “to review agency activities and identify problems or concerns” during the year in which each audit takes place.
Rep. Cathy Muñoz, R-Juneau, one of the bill’s cosponsors, said she signed onto the bill because she thinks it “provides an opportunity to better understand operating budgets.”
“It’s a good analytical tool that can be used to determine and to better understand where the money is going,” said Muñoz. “It provides an opportunity to engage the public and allows the public to better understand where operating dollars are being spent, and it allows legislators to determine whether programs are meeting their constitutional mandate.”
The Legislature set a schedule for reviews of state programs and agencies in 1977. According to Chenault’s written statement as a sponsor of H.B. 30, those dates expired in 1983, but he wants to bring the audits back.
“The information provided by these reviews will include authority, accountability, effectiveness, efficiency and necessity of departments and their programs,” Chenault’s statement read in part. “The report, along with draft legislation to fix issues, will provide the House and Senate finance committees with in-depth information needed to fund state budgets appropriately.”
In the Senate, Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, prefiled Senate Bill 2, which would enact the Interstate Mining Compact into law in Alaska, effective immediately, giving the state a vote on the Interstate Mining Compact Commission.
Alaska is already an associate member in the IMCC, but it has yet to join 19 states that are already full members.
“It’s time for us to step up and actually join,” said Giessel, who sponsored a similar bill last year. “It would give us a very significant voice at the table as we talk about mining development.”
Of her bill last year, Giessel remarked, “It just kind of ran out of time. But this year, I expect that it will be addressed, and I’m very hopeful that it will pass and we’ll get our seat at the table.”
According to the IMCC’s website, “The Commission does not possess regulatory powers, as some Compacts do. The Commission provides a forum for interstate action and communication on issues of concern to the member states.”
House Bill 13, prefiled by Rep. Max Gruenberg, D-Anchorage, would change Alaska’s system of pitting party nominees selected in closed primary contests against one another in the general election, moving to a open primary system under which the top two vote-getters would advance to the general election irrespective of their party affiliation. Louisiana, Washington and California have already adopted this “nonpartisan blanket primary” model.
“Hopefully, it will increase voter turnout,” said Gruenberg. “Hopefully, it will allow more centrist candidates to be nominated. And I think it will in some senses bring the control of the electoral process back to the people from the political parties.”
Like H.B. 30 and S.B. 2, Gruenberg’s H.B. 13 is a bill the sponsor has unsuccessfully introduced before. He acknowledged the chances of it passing this time are “not great.” He said he hopes the matter can at least be decided by voter initiative.
Gruenberg said he is confident the system would be legal, saying it cleaves to the Washington model upheld in the 2008 United States Supreme Court case of Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party.
“The purpose is not to jockey the system,” Gruenberg said. “The purpose is to retain the right of the people to choose who goes on the ballot.”
Gruenberg, who also prefiled several other bills ahead of the upcoming session, is not the only legislator proposing changes to state elections law.
Reps. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, and Wes Keller, R-Wasilla, are co-sponsors of House Bill 3, legislation that would change the voter ID requirement in Alaska to require would-be voters to show either one piece of ID including a photograph or two pieces of ID without a photograph to establish their identity to an election official before voting.
State law currently requires voters to show only one piece of ID, which may or may not include a photograph, and allows them to cast a questioned ballot even if they cannot produce ID.
The bill would also amend a provision in state law allowing an election official to waive the ID requirement if she is able to personally affirm the voter’s identity. Under the legislation, two officials would have to be able to identify the voter in order for the requirement to be waived.
Neither Lynn nor Keller returned calls to their offices for comment Monday.
• Contact reporter Mark D. Miller at 523-2279 or at mark.d.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (31)
Add commentA 4 day work week...
...should be in this bill so those kids will have parental supervision on Friday.
These Wilson gals must have stock in the daycare industry.
I hope they re-think this.
I hope they re-think this. The possible implications are numerous: 1) more time to get into trouble on the weekends; 2) American kids are already behind other countries in several categories; 3) attention spans are short, thus longer school days will probably not be beneficial; 4) teachers' unions probably won't like this as their members will have to work a longer day; 5) daycare on Fridays will be problematic and if the kids don't need daycare, keeping them busy will be.
Wrong message.
How will kids with a 4 day school week deal with the transition into a 5+ day work week? They already have to deal with not having summers off. On the upside, maybe more will stay in school in hopes of being TEACHERS.
How do these people expect
How do these people expect parents to work? They already have to deal with kids starting school after 8, and then getting out early, then early release friday. I ask my boss if I could start work at 9, get out by 3 and have fridays off. He said sure. Its called unemployment.
Did any of you read the article?
The proposal or the 4 day school week is for one particular school District which thinks it would fit the needs of their students and families. It's not an attempt to make a wholesale change for every school.
It works
I would agree with all of the previous posters - except that I have seen this work. Kids go to school from 8a-5p. They come home with no homework because there is more than enough time for the kids to do the work in the classroom, with the teachers there to offer support.
As far as kids being home alone - I don't think this is intended for younger children as they don't usually travel for sports, but if it is meant for all grades, well that is what RALLY is for. Instead of going every day after school for a few hours, those hours are consolidated into one day. I imagine the cost would be the same to parents who are already footing the bill.
For older students, it is actually a better use of time, although it doesn't immediately seem like it. How many of us have middle or high school students that do their homework right after school before we get home to make them?? I know I'm not that lucky! As a working parent, it is hard to the dinner time, homework time juggle every night. Having them in school, getting all of their work done before they come home, opens up the evenings for a more enjoyable family time.
And finally, I'm not worried about having my teens home an extra day - they like to sleep late on the weekends so their Friday wouldn't start until noon at the earliest. And I know my oldest, who works on the weekend, would appreciate having an extra day to spilt between a few more hours of work and leisure.
I read it.
It's proposed as a pilot program with expansion capability. Can you say, "Foot in the door."? It's a bill for a law, jerkhead. A LAW. It's stupid. It's lazy. It's counterproductive. If parents can afford to have their kids home an extra day, then they must have the time to homeschool. Or, if they have the money for daycare, they can afford private school. As a single parent X4, I didn't have the time or money for either. But I still sent them to private school when and where available. This bill is a sham and gives no thought to the implications. It sets more than one bad precedent.
just because....
only one school is highligted as the "need" for the change, does not mean other schools couldn't use this bill - all of them could change to 4 days if they wanted to.
I am also highly skeptical of this - kids need to be going to school for 2 more months a year, not cutting hours.
And daffy - if the extra 2 hours of the 4 days is just being used for homework, then kids have lost 5+ hours of instructional time per week by not being there on Friday.
And of course we have some knuckleheads who jump on the "solution with no problem" bandwagon to demand more ID from voters. Last I checked, there weren't a lot of people in Alaska lining up to 'cheat' at the voting booth. This kind of thing is just designed to disenfranchise people who are too poor to have a license or ID.
Friday reality
It is not uncommon for a large portion of a smaller HS to have 1/3 or more of the students to be on athletic travel on a Friday. When the football team, cheerleaders, and the cross country team are all traveling that makes up around 50 to 60 students. That number affects every student who is left attending classes as teachers have to deal with the issues of how those traveling students have missed that class. Over the school year the same students can miss numerous Fridays to play sports. Add to the issue that most of the time it is teachers who are also gone with the teams as the coaches or chaperones.
Meanwhile keep blaming those teacher for the amount of time students are off task and away from class. Then blame those same teachers for the lower test scores as a result of missed classes to play sports. And of course fault the teachers for anything that might resemble expecting parents to supervise their child during non-school hours.
@ Swimmergirl
I still remember being in school. Maybe you were fortunate enough that everyone in your classes came prepared with all of the assigned reading done and the homework complete, but that was not the case for me - a fine graduate of Harborview, Floyd Dryden, and JDHS. More than half of the class time was taken up "reviewing" the homework, which really meant the teacher did problems on the board for students who didn't bother to finish the assignment the night before.
I took a couple of days off last year to sit in the classroom with my kiddos and you know what? I saw a lot of that happening still. Students aren't getting the instruction that they need because the homework isn't getting done. The homework isn't getting done because kids have two hours to themselves everyday and don't always make the best use of that time. This type of school day actually allows for more instruction.
It is easy to be skeptical - I sure was when I first heard of the idea. If I hadn't seen it work with my own eyes, I would think it was a bad plan.
OK Islander, I like your
OK Islander, I like your idea. Get rid of extracurricular athletics. Students go to school to learn. Quit pulling them out to go to football games so they can damage their brains and bodies, and end up fat and damaged.
My school was 8-430 five days
My school was 8-430 five days a week. If you were a senior and you didnt need that many credits to graduate, too bad. You had to be there anyway. We actually learned!
Reforming Education
In Empirical Magazine's January 2013 issue, contributor Emmanuel Williams expresses the need of a paradigm shift in order to save our struggling school systems. In the article, Williams states ".. most teachers I talk to are less motivated than they used to be. Their freedom to choose what they teach according to their abilities and interests of their students has been drastically curtailed, and their effectiveness as teachers is measured largely by test results, a totally inadequate criterion." To read an excerpt of "Paradigm Lost", follow our link: http://empiricalmag.blogspot.com/2013/01/january-excerpt-paradigm-lost-b...
Why is a law needed to accommodate some students
who just don't show up on fridays? What next? A law to start later because some kids just get up late? How does this prepare anyone for a functional working productive life?
Sadly it does the opposite. It confirms the idea for kids that if they just don't want to do something; the world will change around them for their convenience.
DAYS IN SCHOOL
Instead of a 4 day school day, schools need to be year around with short breaks. With summers of, teachers spend the first 2 months reviewing last years work. Students either care, or forget what they learned the year before.
Schools get paid from the state
based on student days. ie; how many students are in class per day not per hour. So the schools income suffers by 20%
Teachers who only work 9 months now want 4 days a week. Not a longer school year but a longer day for the already tired students. That long a day concentration suffers as well as motivation.
As the article states the teachers are less motivated, and as usual change benefits teachers etc not students.
Students are seen as a necessary evil for the short work year, etc I've know some great teachers but not so much anymore. Its a career chosen for other reasons than teaching,
Lets have year round schools then as mentioned above instead of spending 1/2 the classtime reviewing yesterdays work they wont be spending May getting ready for summer and Sept through Nov. rehashing last year.
12 months with appropriate breaks during the year, 5 days a week. and schedule non-teaching time in the afternoon after school rather than interupting the teaching time for in-service etc.
A strange concept is that the student is the reason your there not the excuse just to justify the paycheck.
Things have changed since I was in a 1 teacher classroom that met 5 days a week from 8 - 3;30 with an extra hour or two before or after for extra-curricular stuff. back in the days when educating the student came first and we ranked at or near the top worldwide.
A school system that was there for the student not on an power trip trying to take over the home and city as well. And trying to poisen the young minds with personal politics which does not belong in the classroom. Teaching the accurate history etc. instead of altering history to "cave" to special interests, etc. History is history even the unpleasant parts. Keep your personal politics at home and poison your family it does not nelong in the classroom damaging others.
To give you an idea...
of what an incredibly BAD idea this is, I must agree with skirkz & swimmergirl... Skirkz & I rarely agree, but this issue is proof that progressives and conservatives can arrive at the same conclusion and opinion. Remarkable in this current political climate! Well met! - Oh , and skirkz, you really shouldn't call someone jerkhead... oh wait... that's his handle...Nevermind! ;-)
@slegnawons You are either so
@slegnawons
You are either so old you actually have no idea what schools are like and base your very skewed and wrong view on comments from people that equally have no idea what they are talking about. Or your a lot younger then that and you just never succeeded in school and blame it for your failings. Either way you obviously haven't step foot in a school in a very long time and if you have you sure as hell haven't spent any amount of time actually observing what these teachers put up with.
If children are failing its everyone's fault and problem. Putting all the blame on teachers just shows how you obviously expect teachers to raise your children how you want them to be raised.
A good friend and his wife were looking at where to live in town when they bought a house and the school zone was the number one concern, until they realized they will be good responsible parents and don't need their children to go to the best school in order to become contributing productive members of society.
You can blame everyone else in the world for things that go wrong but with children it comes down to they're upbringing is your responsibility. If they end up 'failing' its on you. Even if a school of anything else contributed, parents are responsible first and foremost. I've had bad teachers, are they responsible for my failings? Not in the slightest. Time to start teaching your children personal responsibility, by being an example, stop teaching your children how to pass the blame. Rant over :)
daffy and nick....
Daffy - I also graduated JDHS - I went to Capital School - so that dates me. Everyone in my classes did their homework. You know why? Because our parents were on the ball.
Parenting skills are spiraling down. Why? Because parents are the one group no one bothers to hold accountable. Because parents can't manage to check in with their kids after work and issue a "no tv/computer until homework is done" rule at home - - we should lower the bar for everyone and give up instructional time at school so teachers can also parent kids to do homework? Come on. We already feed kids breakfast because parents can't be bothered, give them school supplies, and act as disciplinarians.
I think if kids are not showing up to school with homework done, then those kids stay after regular school hours (mandatory) in detention until they or their parents figure it out. Everyone else gets to go home, or to an after school job, if they can manage to be responsible about the workload.
As for sports - I do get the small school/sports thing. But kids in sports should be expected to do MORE - sports is a privilege, not a substitution for school. If the school chooses to be closed Fridays so kids can play sports, then the school should perhaps be in session for a longer year outside of normal sport seasons.
Nick - I don't buy the bs that teachers can't make things interesting because of standardized tests. Check out the SBA tests on the department of education's website. The tests are for BASIC things - like 4x4=? that a child should know, for example, at the end of 4th grade. This is stuff the teacher should ALREADY be teaching, not EXTRA stuff. Any teacher worth his/her salt should be able to find any number of fun and interesting ways to teach multiplication to kids, or punctuation, or whatever the basic skill is.
4-day school week
As a single Dad that despises the RALLY pig-pen atmosphere, the 4-day school week = epic fail.
BAD IDEA
BAD IDEA
@ Swimmer
I have always enjoyed reading your comments because I find them to be insightful and well thought out. Your remarks above are no exception. I agree with you 100% that too many parents are failing their children, and that responsibility is unfairly falling on the schools. I also believe that the schools are trying to meet their responsibility to the student as a whole the best that they can and are struggling. It is too big of a burden for them to meet on their own.
Respectfully, regardless of how it SHOULD be, none of that changes the fact that too many parents ARE failing their children AND that the end result is more and more class/school time being spent trying to help the kids whose parents can't manage all of their obligations successfully.
People cry out for education reform, but then are resistant to trying something truly new and revolutionary because they have come to rely on school as "free daycare" (see comments above) and don't want to figure out a new routine, or can't seem to let go of the "it was good enough for me in my day" mentality.
Remember the backlash when the school board thought about doing away with spring break?
Or negative comments for the teacher who proposed the idea of having three months off in the winter instead of the summer as a cost savings idea?
My friend's kid went from being a student who figured out how to do just enough work to get by to being a student who excelled - not just on his report card, but who showed huge jumps in his standardized testing as well, once he transfered to a school based on a 4-day a week model. When his kid moved back to a 5-day a week school, his performance reverted.
I understand my sample size is pitifully small. But I have seen it work, and I have seen the current model fail. I don't think a pilot program is out of line. Trying out the model for schools that are interested and seeing if it has benefits beyond sports travel could be valuable to everyone.
Swimmergirl, and Alaskastu
Swimmergirl, Your 100% right on.
Alaskastu, you insinuate your smarter and better edumacated than I am. Well your wrong on all accounts both in your rant as well as your ideology.
Social structure
Unfortunately, our workplace and educational structures are not keeping pace with our social structures. I am all for developing new school frameworks and schedules; I think they are needed. But our society still assumes a two-parent household where one parent works and the other is always home to provide a stable day-time structure for children, which is decidedly NOT the case. I've been a single parent for 13 years, and I would very much like a work environment that meshes with the school schedule of my offspring. I don't want my kids to be latchkey kids simply because school schedules are evolving and most workplaces are stuck in the 1950s.
If nothing else
it would provide plenty of time for teachers to have a second, partime job, thereby reducing the jobs available for others. Probably not the best idea floated lately. I do see some positives, however, I believe the negatives far outweigh any positive effects.
swimmergrrl, you are correct.
swimmergrrl, you are correct. We have some close friends who are VERY well to do. However, they believe that their kids' education should come from the teacher, who is paid to do it. They don't feel any personal responsibility for their kids' education because they PAY people to do it as they do their housekeeper, gardeners, and whoever else they employ.
While I do depend on teachers for my kids' primary education, I also monitor, enhance and suppliment my kids' education.
I for one would not mind
a 4 day school week. It would help to have more time for my kids to clean the house, mow the grass, etc. They could also work at our business more. jk.
However, this is a test. The article mentioned it was successful down south. Maybe we should see what happens and then make some "I told you so" comments?
On the surface it does not sound bad. I worked a 4 day work week until I changed jobs and was required to be here the entire work week. I loved having a 3 day weekend every week.
daffy - you have
some valid ideas, to be sure. In actuality, this bill may be extraneous, as state statute requires a certain number of hours per year - so presumably a school could organize those hours however they like, given the blessing of parents/local school board.
My concern is simply that kids who aren't getting their work done are dragging down the rest of the class. I've seen plenty of rural sites where parents are much more interested in their child playing basketball or marching with a cap an gown on (even when the child has failed school) than academics.
Maybe it would work for some kids - but I think it would need to be carefully evaluated for the whole school, and automatically reversed at some point if the overall academics of the school declined.
an idea...
...lets just have teachers work 8-5, M-F 12 mos a year like the rest of us. Give us schedules and we pick the one that works for our kids and family that equal the hours the kids need. More classes for those who want. Minimal for those who for whatever reason want that.
I am tired of forcing schedules on us that no one but the school seems to really want. I would prefer my sleepy teen just buck up go to bed earlier, get up at 7, be to school by 8. (we have little ones so the noise forces the teens up anyhow in our house, but what about all the houses where parents just leave for work, or don't care) When they graduate and join the work force no boss is going to say "it's ok your tired just come in late".
I liked when my kids went early, had time for sports and a job. Everything is just pushed later now and they have lost an opportunity to work while doing sports. It is just one or the other.
I don't see school as a free daycare but as a tool to teach our kids how to be adults and I just don't see how the late mornings, vacations, and now the idea of a 3day weekend does that. I would be more likely to support any of these in the younger grades and get more daycare. But our high school kids need to be pushed and prepared for life outside of school & parents. Lets teach them to be strong & active instead of lazy & entitled.
Here is a link to the
Here is a link to the prefiled bills -
the legislature has run amok
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/prefiles.asp?ReleaseSel=9&session=28&...
T.Wilson wants to take away limits to big game hunts on state land - shame on you Tammy Wilson