At a candidate forum moderated by the Peninsula Clarion and KDLL 91.9 FM on Monday, three of the four candidates running for the seats on the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District Board of Education met to discuss their philosophies and ideas for the district’s future.

Sarah Douthit and Jeanne Reveal are both running for the District 2 seat representing Kenai. That seat has been held since 2018 by Matt Morse.

Incumbents Kelley Cizek and Tim Daugharty are both running unopposed in the coming election. Daugharty has held the District 8 seat representing Homer since 2021. Cizek represents Sterling and won election last year for a one-year term following the resignation of Jennifer Waller. Cizek was unable to attend Monday’s forum.

Each of the open seats is for a three-year term expiring in October 2027.

Douthit described herself as a Kenai Peninsula resident since 1992 and a mother with four children in KPBSD schools. Running for school board, she said, is an idea she has long mulled. “I think I could be a great vessel for the community and for parents, teachers, all of those people who have a vested interest in our kids.”

Reveal said she and her husband moved to the peninsula in 2020 and decided to make it home. In a blended family, she’s helped to homeschool more than 20 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and that’s experience she would bring to the table, she said.

“Being part of a kid’s education is more than just making sure they get to school and have their lunches,” she said.

Daugharty said he’s spent more than 40 years on the peninsula, and most of that time in the classroom. Having already spent three years on the board, he said there’s unfinished business he wants to keep working on.

“Every day that I go to a school board meeting, I become energized and empowered,” he said. “Anything and everything that I have committed my life to is dedicated to those young people, and that’s why I’m running again.”

Discussions about board policy and the challenges facing the school district during the forum repeatedly came back to the questions surrounding state education funding. Last year, facing a $13.7 million deficit, the district implemented heavy cuts before one-time funding materialized from the state after their budget deadline. District leadership have already said next year’s deficit will be $17 million.

Reveal said that budget cuts should be spread, because losing programs wholesale can be damaging to kids and parents. Daugharty said that the district needs to continue advocating for itself, especially the positive things that it can bring to students’ lives. Douthit said the district needs to work with legislators and all the other voices in the conversation, but ultimately needs to ensure it’s the best district it can be with the resources available.

An element of the funding conversation, especially in connection to the base student allocation — the amount of money the district receives from the state per student — has been the number of students who live on the Kenai Peninsula but are enrolled in school programs outside of the school district. Clarion reporting in 2023 said that in the 2023-2024 school year, KPBSD’s Connections Homeschool had around 1,000 students — and an additional 1,440 homeschooled students were enrolled in programs outside of the local district.

All three candidates agreed that, to bridge that gap, the district should work to survey people who are making other decisions for their student’s education. The district, Daugharty said, needs to learn what those parents’ needs are, and figure out where they perceive the district is falling short. Then the district needs to share the ways Connections can help educate homeschooled children.

Douthit said the district is losing money and losing business to another district. If those students are better off that way, “we need to step up our game.”

“All of us need to come together and talk and figure out what is missing and provide it,” she said. “Fix this problem and if they still want to go elsewhere, at least we as a district did everything we could to provide exactly what they were looking for.”

Reveal said she heard at a meeting at Interior Distance Education of Alaska, or IDEA, that parents in that program feel they’re offered things “more suitable” to their kids. Homeschooling parents, she said, aren’t looking to emulate the brick-and-mortar experience; they are seeking something that meets their wants and needs.

Extensive discussion and public testimony at a recent school board meeting centered on an increase in activity fees this year for students outside of the district, with one Kenai Central High School student saying that her fees to participate on the KCHS swim team had wholly doubled year-over-year because she’s homeschooled outside of the KPBSD.

Douthit said that, considering the reality of the money lost by the district for a student enrolled in another program, some of that increase in fees is justified. But, “as a mom of four kids,” she knows that these fees can add up. The board should find a compromise, she said, to ensure kids don’t miss out on opportunities while still satisfying the needs of financial reality.

Fees don’t cover all the expenses of the district’s sports and extracurriculars, Daugharty said, and that means the district is funding outside students who are coming into district schools. Though he said costs need to be covered, there is space to continue exploring the fees.

The parents from other programs, Reveal said, understand and agree that they may need to pay more. It’s the “expensive jump” that drove concerns. She said she supported the idea of a cap per family, agreeing with Douthit’s sentiment that a path forward should be found without penalizing children.

A temporary committee of the school board earlier this year asked district administration to create a plan for a four-day school week, for further exploration. All three candidates expressed skepticism about the plan, but said they were eager to learn more.

Daugharty said he’s supportive “of any change” that improves learning and working conditions for students, families and staff. The “extra burden” of a day without school could be significant, though, and he said the board will have “some tough decisions to make once we see what is proposed.”

Working parents can face challenges even with half days or in-service days, Douthit said, and there are “a lot of unanswered questions.”

Reveal said she’s looking to see that there’s something productive for students to do on their extra day off. There are other models, like a set of rotating cohorts where students do 45 days of school before 15 off, that she said are worth exploring.

Just adding a third day to the weekend, she said, “is probably a little too rigid.”

During the forum, the group also discussed cellphone policies, teacher recruitment and retention, small schools staffing and deferred maintenance.

A full recording of the forum can be found on the Peninsula Clarion’s Facebook page or listened to as a podcast at kdll.org. Election day is Oct. 1.

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