School funding and teacher retention dominated conversation with local members of the Alaska Legislature at a work session held last week by the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education.

The board was joined on Dec. 2 by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski; Reps. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, and Sarah Vance, R-Homer; and Rep.-elect Bill Elam, R-Soldotna.

Ruffridge and Elam participated in the assembly chambers in Soldotna, while Bjorkman and Vance joined via Zoom. Sen. Gary Stevens and Rep. Louise Stutes, both R-Kodiak who represent the eastern Kenai Peninsula, were invited but did not participate.

At the top of the conversation, Board President Zen Kelly pointed to the district’s legislative priorities — which were a draft document during the work session but approved and finalized that night during a board meeting.

Those priorities, though modified slightly in recent months, are largely unchanged from the district’s stated priorities in other recent years.

The first calls for “fair, predictable and proactive funding.” That means, per the document, increasing the base student allocation, or how much money the state spends per K-12 student; reinstituting a competitive retirement program that includes “both defined benefits and defined contributions”; and funding deferred maintenance and capital improvement, among other things.

The district also calls for support and funding for programs and standards that “ensure preparation for success in life.” The district describes career and technical education programming, funding for the Alaska Reads Act and other development of “student citizenship” as important.

Finally, the district describes a need for safe schools and positive climates conducive to students’ “social, emotional, and wellness development” through providing extracurriculars, protecting student health and enhancing building security.

Ruffridge said that he was familiar with the district’s priorities, having worked with the district on many of them as co-chair of the House Education Committee last session. “Unfortunately,” he said, “the big three” are still on the list. That’s stable funding, workforce development and teacher retention.

Bjorkman said he, too, supports the asks of the district. That means more funding and “real retirement reform.”

“Until we are willing to provide students with the resources they need — in classrooms and in schools or in a homeschool setting — to succeed and get better results, we shouldn’t expect it,” he said.

Vance said her priority is tackling rising costs for health care. She said an effort to create consolidated group health care insurance for school districts and state employees could save money for the district. Vance did not describe the same support for school funding and teacher retention.

“We have the reality of a very, very tight budget this year,” she said. “All of the hopes and dreams that the school districts were hoping to achieve this year is going to come at a cost … that’s a very, very difficult conversation.”

Ruffridge said that increasing resource production and driving down the cost of energy should be the Legislature’s biggest priority this session — that that might reduce budgetary pressure.

Elam said he favored resource development and “finding ways to be more efficient” as the answers to navigating “relatively polarizing conversations” like school funding.

Board member Kelley Cizek said that, while the district’s ask is the same as previous years, she and the board are hoping for a different result.

This year, facing a $13.7 million deficit, the school board passed a budget with a broad swath of cuts to programs, staff, equipment and programming before one-time funding was later secured by the Legislature. Kelly said in July that he expects next year’s deficit to be $17 million.

The BSA formula is no longer working for every school district, Vance said, but that there’s “a lot of fear” in the capital about changes to it.

“Every party involved is going to have to meet at the table to find a solution,” she said. “We recognize that schools are facing budgetary struggles.”

She said that her objective is to represent homeschools and charter schools in that discussion.

An increase of the BSA, inside the formula, to a level that works for the KPBSD is “my number one education priority,” Bjorkman said.

“There are consequences to continuing to underfund education and continuing to provide a lack of resources and opportunities to our young people,” he said. “It’s hurting our economy. It’s hurting our ability to grow as a state.”

Conversation during the work session also centered on absenteeism. KPBSD Assistant Superintendent Kari Dendurent asked about changes to state requirements for absentee reporting — pointing to schools like Tebughna School in Tyonek where every visit to the doctor or dentist means missing a full day of school. Those absences and others are counting against district students who are being described as “chronically absent.”

“We’re really trying to figure out, does the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District have an absenteeism problem?” she said. “Here on the Kenai or also in the State of Alaska, a lot of times we say ‘well, we’re different.’ I do think, providing this data and looking at some of this data — we are different.”

Bjorkman said that, as a teacher himself, he’s seen students be regularly or chronically absent and receive full credit for their classes.

“What does it matter to the district if someone is going to label an absence, for one reason or another, differently?” he asked. “If they’re still out of the classroom. If they’re still unable to learn with their peers and get direct instruction from their teacher.”

KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland said that creating a more robust understanding of absenteeism and its causes can drive more nuanced intervention with students who are chronically absent. He said there is room to address situations where students are missing from classrooms or don’t think they need to attend their classes. As the state Legislature and others call for improved outcomes in schools — “not having kids there is a huge factor.”

Student Representative Emerson Kapp called for improved reward for attendance rather than increased punishment for absence.

A full recording of the work session will be available at the KPBSD BoardDocs website.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.