Editor’s note: Cliff Murray has dropped out of the race for Anchorage School Board. Murray made the announcement in mid-March, past the deadline to withdraw, so his name will still be on the ballot. Read more.
This Q&A is part of a broader candidate survey by the Anchorage Daily News. View the full survey here.
Cliff Murray | School Board Seat: A | Age: 52 | Occupation: Swim coach and small business owner | murrayforalaska.com
What’s the single most important issue facing the Anchorage School District? How would you address it if elected?
Our budget. We don’t have the funds coming in to pay for all of the programs we have. If we don’t find more funds, or if we don’t learn how to do more with less, we will fail our students and teachers.
Rate how the Anchorage School District has handled the pandemic, and why.
I believe that we blew it. There were private schools throughout Anchorage and the country that remained open for in-person learning throughout the 2020-2021 school year. We allowed union leadership and fear to dictate our course of action, and our children and teachers suffered as a result. We should have stayed open during 2020-2021 and we should have not masked at all for 2021-2022. The level of learning has suffered under the strategies implemented by the ASD administration and school board.
Many students are struggling due to pandemic-related challenges, both academically and behaviorally. What are some strategies the school district should prioritize to help students recover from that period?
Keep the masks off of our kids and keep the schools open. If we do these things, I believe that students and staff will begin to recover from pandemic-related issues.
Is the Anchorage School District doing a good job of retaining quality teachers?
No, we are not doing a good job of retaining teachers…or principals for that matter. Our school board is more concerned about the racial make-up of our teaching staff than they are about listening to and working with their greatest resource….teachers. Teachers and principals are fed up with the current leadership. We are losing at least 10 principals, and maybe as many as 20. The number of teachers we lose will be an order of magnitude greater. Morale is low, and we need people to help raise it.
If I could change one thing in the Anchorage School District, it would be _____. Explain.
Our primary focus needs to change. We seem to be caught in a quagmire of non-academic related issues, and we need to focus on academics. ASD is not a place to push political agendas like critical race theory or sex/gender theory. ASD needs to focus on academics for all students, and job readiness for our graduates.
