In an email to parents Monday night, Anchorage School District Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt announced the district would put a proposed schedule change on hold for at least a year.
District administrators had recommended moving from a six-period day for high schoolers to seven or eight periods. The change was presented as necessary to make room for additional career and technical education courses as part of the implementation of the career academies model in Anchorage.
“After careful consideration, the Anchorage School District has decided to pause discussions on changing the high school bell schedule,” Bryantt wrote in his Monday email.
Bryantt and district staff will address the pivot away from the schedule change at the work session and school board meeting tonight.
The district held a kickoff event for the academies last fall and voted to approve the academies master plan in June, with a key opt-out provision included for 10th-12th graders. This school year, all 9th graders are required to take the Freshman Academy Career Exploration class designed to help them determine what career paths they might have interest in pursuing. It’s unclear if those freshmen will be able to enroll in their chosen career academies next fall as originally planned.
The academies model aims to increase graduation rates and student engagement with instruction about trades and professional careers, and the potential to earn certificates while still in high school. The district held a career expo for freshmen at the Dena’ina Center last month and has plans for another expo next semester.
Anchorage School Board President Andy Holleman said board members are concerned about reducing the amount of time students can spend in core classes, but said he thinks the academies are still viable without the schedule change.
“I don’t think this is just going to stop and go away. I do think we’ll take more time and do something different, and I’m hoping it’s something that has even broader support than what this proposal had,” Holleman said.
Even without the schedule change, Holleman has questions about the academies as a whole. He’s unsure how this year’s freshmen will make up a required social studies credit that was replaced by the FACE class, and questions how the district will staff and pay for the program.
“I think there are just a lot of questions about whether or not this really is the right thing for every student and where they’re going to find time and whether or not our lower-achieving students are better or worse off with seven classes over six, or eight classes over six,” Holleman said.
Kelly Lessens was the only board member to vote against the academies master plan in June. She said President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to close the U.S. Department of Education adds uncertainty to the district’s funding for the program, given that the district received a $15 million grant from the department for implementation of the career academies.
“We don’t know what the Trump administration will mean for the current grant funding,” Lessens said. “Only legislative funding can give the district any kind of certainty.”
Even with the grant, district officials say the academies would require additional funding and staffing to implement. Facing a budget shortfall of between $64-$84 million, Holleman said the pause on changing the schedule will simplify the district’s budget process that begins next month.
“What we would’ve spent in building up the academies at the high schools, we don’t have to balance that against losing it out of some other section,” Holleman said. “They’re all strained very thin. We’ve got large class sizes everywhere.”
Jarrett Boling is a parent who runs a Facebook group called “Shortcomings of Academies of Anchorage” that seeks to inform Anchorage parents about the results of implementing the academies model in other communities. He said he was cautiously optimistic after seeing Monday’s email.
“I’m hopeful that whatever the academies kind of turns out to [be] that parents will have an opportunity to at least understand how their child’s day to day education really will change,” Boling said. “That’s one of the biggest gripes I had, was, what does this really mean?”
Boling hopes to get more answers at the school board meeting Tuesday night.
Tim Rockey is the producer of Alaska News Nightly and covers education for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at trockey@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8487. Read more about Tim here.
