Taking on a new school: Who would pay for it?

As the Juneau School District approaches a deadline to apply to take on a statewide correspondence school with hundreds of students, Juneau Assembly members have raised concerns about the financial impacts.

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At a meeting of the School Board and the Assembly on Thursday, Assembly member Randy Wanamaker said several residents have asked him how the district can afford to take on a new program.

"They see it as an added burden to the community," Wanamaker said. "They see it as an added expense. If we're already short of funds, how can the school district afford to do this?"

Teachers still don't have a contract for this school year, and the district has said it is looking at a shortfall of $2.9 million next school year.

The School Board is set to say Tuesday whether the district should respond to a state request for proposals to run Alyeska Central School, the statewide correspondence school based in Juneau.

Alyeska employs 26 teachers and support staff here, and has the equivalent of about 525 full-time students from kindergartners to high school seniors, staff said. It also enrolls about 250 students who pay tuition for one or two courses. About a fifth of its students overall live in Juneau.

The state plans to turn over Alyeska to a school district in July.

The deadline to submit proposals is Nov. 14. A decision by the Department of Education is expected on Dec. 1. Several districts have told the Empire they will submit a proposal.

One reason for Juneau to take on Alyeska is to keep its jobs here, district officials have said.

Before the Murkowski administration began talking about closing Alyeska this year, it had about 650 students and a staff of nearly 40. It also ran a state-supported summer school that provided part-time jobs for teachers.

"The only guarantee of keeping the jobs in Juneau is staying with the Juneau School District," said Cecilia Miller, an Alyeska teacher.

But district officials also cited the benefit of offering Juneau students more choices, yet keeping their state funding in the district.

Alyeska's classes also could help Juneau schools meet federal requirements to offer supplemental services to struggling students, said Assistant Superintendent Bernie Sorenson.

The Assembly won't endorse or not endorse the School Board's decision, Mayor Bruce Botelho said Thursday.

But the financial questions Assembly members asked probably reflect residents' concerns.

District officials are scheduled to provide some answers at an Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting, which starts at 5:15 p.m. Monday.

The short answer, district officials say, is Alyeska would be run as a charter school with its own budget - all of which, or nearly all of which, would be derived from state money. The School Board sets the budget.

"The bottom line is (Alyeska) will live within the budget they are provided," Juneau schools Superintendent Peggy Cowan said in an interview Friday.

The state funds students in charter schools, and in correspondence schools, at 80 percent of the rate of regular students. The state requires school districts to fund charter schools at least at that level.

Juneau provides a little more than the required minimum to its current charter school, a 60-student grade school downtown.

The district would charge Alyeska a fee for administrative services such as payroll, district officials said. And if the district provided office space, it would charge Alyeska for that, too.

Charter schools are part of school districts but have some autonomy. Usually run by a committee of parents and staff, they hire their staff but follow districts' negotiated labor agreements. Parents and staff determine the curriculum and materials. The students have to take all of the usual state-required tests.

The Delta/Greely School District intends to submit a proposal to run Alyeska as a charter school, said Superintendent Dan Beck.

"We feel that offers insulation and protection for the other schools in our district - and Alyeska," Beck said.

But Beck acknowledged that a district wouldn't be completely safe from financial risk if it took on Alyeska. Teacher contracts are signed at the end of the previous school year, months before a district knows for sure how much state money it will get in the following school year. The result is a district could hire more teachers than it needs.

"You roll that dice with any public school, so you have to be pretty close on your projections year by year," Beck said.

If the Juneau district took on Alyeska, it wouldn't necessarily cost the city more, although the city provides about 45 percent of the district's operating funds.

That's because the city's required minimum school funding is set by the Juneau's property values, not by student numbers.

But cities are allowed to spend more than the minimum, up to a maximum called the cap, and Juneau usually does. That extra funding is related to enrollments, so the addition of hundreds of Alyeska students would increase Juneau's cap. It would be up to the Assembly, as always, to decide how much more money to give than what's minimally required.

The school district won't be able to answer all of the Assembly's questions in full because there are still unknowns.

School districts must bid to take on Alyeska before they can put a charter in final form or negotiate with unions. That uncertainty troubled Assembly members.

Alyeska's unions would have to merge with the district's unions. It's not clear where Alyeska staff would be placed on the district's salary schedules. Also to be settled are questions of tenure, seniority and transfer rights.

An added salary complication is that Alyeska runs year-round and its teachers work about 40 more days a year than do teachers in the Juneau schools.

The Juneau Education Association, the local teachers union, hasn't discussed the charter application and so doesn't have a position on it, said JEA President Ben Kriegmont.

If the winning bidder wanted to run Alyeska as a charter school and couldn't successfully negotiate a charter with parents and staff, the state wouldn't hold the district to its bid, said Mark Lewis, procurement officer for the state Department of Education.

The agency plans to rank the bidders, and would move to the next highest-ranking bidder if the first fell through, he said.

Parents and staff at Alyeska have said they want a charter so they can preserve the school's character, which is marked by teacher-created lessons and a greater involvement of teachers than at other distance-education programs.

The Galena City School District, which runs a popular statewide home-school service called Interior Distance Education of Alaska, will bid for Alyeska, said Superintendent Jim Smith.

Alyeska would become part of IDEA and whatever staff is needed would be placed at IDEA's regional centers, Smith said. About 320 Juneau children attend IDEA, he said.

IDEA uses 38 teachers and 28 support staff to serve its 3,700 students, a much larger student-teacher ratio than at Alyeska.

IDEA emphasizes parental control and provides computers and a stipend for materials, although it recently added a more traditional correspondence option, Smith said.

For Alyeska parents, it "won't be exactly the same picture they're looking at now, and for some of them that's difficult," Smith said.