The Anchorage School District revised the list of schools slated for closure in an email to parents on Wednesday. Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt announced that Bear Valley, Tudor, and Wonder Park Elementary schools are no longer on the list of potential school closures.
The district also changed the timeline for the four remaining schools on the list, Baxter, Fire Lake, Lake Hood and Nunaka Valley. Instead of a three-year closure schedule, the updated proposal calls for all four schools to close at the end of the spring semester. The Anchorage School Board will make the final decision on Dec. 17.
In a memo to the school board, administrators wrote that feedback from the community caused them to change their mind about how many schools to close.
Adrienne Michel has two children who attend Bear Valley. She said it’s been an emotional time for their family since the closure list was announced.
“A lot of us feel like we've kind of lost the month of November, and that holiday spirit’s kind of been not so much there, because we've just been so preoccupied with all of the things,” Michel said. “To be able to go into this weekend kind of breathing a sigh of relief and having one more thing to be thankful of, and being able to be 100% present with our families, I'm really grateful for that.”
Michel said that Bear Valley parents mobilized within minutes of the initial right-sizing list’s release. Dozens of Bear Valley parents and students spoke to the school board during public testimony at two meetings this month, and parents attended each community conversation hosted by the district.
“At the beginning of this process, it felt very final,” Michel said. “They saw that there was some legitimate pushback for very legitimate reasons, and so the further we got into the community conversations, the more the tone was, ‘hey, we're still fact finding. We're still gathering data like we're looking for the pieces that we left out.’”
Anchorage School Board President Andy Holleman said board members will weigh the decision carefully.
“It’s about making sure we don't do any unintended harm,” Holleman said. “We do need to close some schools. We need to get the numbers up in fewer buildings, but whether or not this will be exactly what the board passes,don't know until it passes.”
Holleman encouraged parents to continue to give feedback to district staff and school board members.
Board Member Kelly Lessens reiterated her call for increased state funding to schools.
“Although the administration is talking about the delivery of services being improved as a result of right sizing, the reality at the end of the day is that services for all students in all schools at all grades is going to be horrendously undermined if we don't have additional funds when we adopt our budget in mid February,” Lessens said.
Bryant announced in Aprilthat the district would need to close additional schools to more efficiently serve a steadily-declining student population. The district proposed closing six schools in 2022, but ultimately decided only to close Abbott Loop Elementary after an outcry from parents. The district also closed two schools on Joint-Base Elmendorf Richardson over the last decade.
“The District’s limited resources are not robust enough to meet the needs of all students, and this strain is especially apparent in very small schools,” the memo to board members states. “Though the District recognizes the advantages to having small schools, the State does not support the resources needed for the District to provide the same academic levels of service to all schools.”
The district posted their initial list of schools slated for closure on Nov. 4 and held five meetings with community members to discuss the plan with families. In the memo, administrators wrote that Bear Valley plans to occupy empty classrooms with child care. Montessori students at Tudor indicated they did not intend to relocate to Denali Montessori as the district intended, and instead planned to attend Lake Otis Elementary. Additional students from Tudor would have put Lake Otis Elementary over capacity. Wonder Park was removed from the right-sizing list in order to absorb Pre-K students from Nunaka Valley, which is still planned for closure.
