Hannah Colton, KDLG - Dillingham
AMP test targeted in pre-filed bill
Representative Jim Colver of Palmer has pre-filed a bill that would do away with the one-year-old Alaska Measures of Progress exam. Just months after AMP’s first run in schools last spring, it started to get a bad rap.
Alaska school districts advised to adopt transgender policies
School restrooms and locker rooms have become legal battlegrounds recently as courts in the Lower 48 puzzle over how schools should treat students who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Now, two statewide education organizations are trying to equip Alaska school districts with policies regarding transgender students.
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State pre-K slated for elimination in governor’s budget plan
The governor's proposed budget calls for the elimination of a $2 million pre-kindergarten program, which serves six school districts in Anchorage, Juneau, and Western Alaska.
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Home heating assistance on chopping block with budget cuts
Gov. Bill Walker’s proposed budget, released Dec. 9, would cut just over $9 million dollars in home heating subsidies for low-income Alaskans by eliminating the Alaska Heating Assistance Program.
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New cookbook touts Alaska-grown eats for kids
Alaska cooks now have a new resource: the “Make it Local” cookbook released this month by the Alaska Child Nutrition Program. It’s a compilation of kid-friendly recipes that feature Alaska-grown ingredients.
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Fish economist Gunnar Knapp retiring as head of ISER
Alaska budget expert and fisheries economist Gunnar Knapp is retiring as director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Supreme Court rules against anti-Pebble financier
The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling that a private air service violated campaign finance laws when it offered flights to two Lake and Peninsula Borough assembly candidates in September 2010.
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Alaska gets $2.9M grant from ‘Investing in Innovation’ fund
The Association of Alaska School Boards has been selected to receive a $2.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s “Investing in Innovation” fund.
Millrock calls Alaska Peninsula copper-gold exploration ‘disappointing’
Millrock Resources announced the outcome of their copper and gold exploration at the Dry Creek site north of Chignik Bay last week.
Study: Many Alaska teachers underpaid, but pay isn’t everything
Many Alaska school districts don’t offer high enough salaries to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers. That’s according to a new study that looks at a possible statewide teacher salary schedule. But researchers found that a statewide pay schedule would be too expensive, and wouldn’t do enough to solve Alaska’s teacher retention problem.
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Necropsy elucidates cause of Katmai brown bear death
A lab has identified a possible cause of death for one of the two brown bears that died in front of the high-traffic bear cams in Katmai National Park last month.
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Dillingham youth center to close as funding runs dry
At the end of November, the Myspace youth center at SAFE shelter in Dillingham will likely close its doors, as its grant funding runs out.
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Delays, quality concerns plague AMP test
According to the Alaska Measures of Progress test results, less than half of Alaskan students meet educational standards. But distress over those numbers is just one part of AMP’s troubles.
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Katmai bear-cam viewers witness strange, unexplained death of two brown bears
Last month at Katmai National Park, the final hours of two brown bears played out in front of an online audience of thousands. The two animals laid down and died within days of each other.
Subsistence harvest of emperor geese on hold until 2017
A subsistence harvest of the Emperor goose, which had been proposed for the spring of 2016, is being put off another year.
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ARCS TV stations are going digital
The Alaska Rural Communication Service, which provides free TV programming in much of rural Alaska, is switching its stations from analog to digital in the coming months.
Proposed increase to minimum enrollment threatens funding for dozens of small schools
Raising the school threshold to 20 could save an estimated $7 million, but rural districts and lawmakers say such a change will be a "death knell" for small communities.
Online map plots coastal erosion in eight Western Alaska locations
Each year, coastal communities in Western Alaska watch feet - even yards - of shoreline disappear into the waves. Now, a new online mapping tool will let them look at past erosion and see where coastlines might be in future years.
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Private family medical practice shuts doors in Dillingham
Dillingham’s only private family medicine practice closed at the beginning of October.
Keeping produce on the menu: Church picks up state’s slack
An eleventh-hour donation to the Bristol Bay Borough School is keeping fresh fruits and vegetables on students’ plates this year.
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