The decision to close an Anchorage school to help close the school district’s massive budget gap has parents and community members upset over what they say was a hasty timeline.
The Anchorage School Board voted in February to close three elementary schools as part of its goal of addressing a $90 million budget shortfall. Two of the schools — Fire Lake and Lake Otis — had weeks of community conversations ahead of those votes. The other, Campbell STEM, had roughly 11 days.
It was the Friday before Presidents Day, a Monday, that the Anchorage School District sent Campbell parents an email saying it was recommending the school for closure. Public testimony on the closure went before the school board that Tuesday. Parents say that didn’t give them enough time to react before the board voted to close the school the following Tuesday. Now they want the Anchorage Assembly to reverse that decision.
Campbell was the first STEM-certified elementary school in the state, meaning the first certified with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math.
Many families moved to the neighborhood close to the school for that reason, said Chanti Ward, whose daughter Clara is a 4th grader at Campbell STEM.
“My daughter's always walked into that building and felt safe,” Ward said. “I know that when I'm struggling in the morning and she's struggling in the morning and she's clinging or whatever, that I can just look at a staff member and say, ‘Hey,’ or they'll walk in and say, ‘Hey, I'll walk Clara to class today.’ And they just know that.”
The recommendation to close the school came as a shock, said Sarah Anderson, president of the local Taku-Campbell community council.
“You can't tell parents on a Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, that your only chance to come and publicly testify in person is Tuesday, after Monday, everything's closed. And then the next week we're voting,” Anderson said.
Ward, a member of the school’s PTA, said parents raced to figure out how they could fight the closure. Many attended the school board’s meeting the following Tuesday.
“The only opportunity to say, ‘Please don't close our school,’ was to sit in a boardroom with, you know, 500 other people also hoping not to cut nursing or middle school sports or any of the other really important things that shouldn't be cut,” Ward said.
But the district said it has to make cuts to address the budget deficit. Its initial budget proposal would’ve eliminated hundreds of teachers, some nurse positions, all middle school sports and many high school sports.
The community pushed back hard, said Jim Anderson, the district’s chief operating officer.
“That was the impetus for the board to come back, give us a directive and say, ‘You've got a few days. Give us one more opportunity to find some funding to be able to relieve this,’” Anderson said.
Specifically, the board asked the district to revisit the idea of closing schools.
District officials had already floated closing Fire Lake and Lake Otis elementary schools last year. Following weeks of public engagement, including several town hall meetings, the board voted down the closures. The district proposed closing those two schools again when the board again asked them to look at closures, and also added Campbell STEM to the list.
Campbell had something that met the board's criteria that the other schools didn't have, Anderson said.
“And that was flexible dollars for state bond debt reimbursement money that we had received several years ago that we could apply that toward staff,” he said.
Ward said she wished the community had more time to learn about the closure and speak out against it, like the process for closing the other two schools.
“If they could show this is why this is the only school that it makes sense to be this way, then, yes, that's fair,” Ward said. “Would I still be sad and angry? Absolutely.”
Anderson said he agrees with parents that the decision was sudden. But city code requires the district to have a budget by the end of February, and when the board gave them three days to look at closing schools, it didn’t leave a lot of options.
With the district projecting multi-million dollar deficits the next two years, Anderson said he hopes the process for future school closures doesn’t happen like this again.
“I think the district had been pretty consistent about providing ample time for community feedback and discussion, and I would hope that we would go back to that model,” Anderson said.
Closing a school is emotional and never easy, Anderson said. But declining enrollment, combined with years of flat funding from the state, forced the district to make hard choices, he said.
“If the state had chosen to keep education funded at just inflationary increases over the last 10 years -- not more, just inflationary increases -- we wouldn't be here today,” Anderson said.
The board ultimately did vote to close the three schools. Between some bond debt reimbursement money and capital funding from a bond Anchorage voters approved a couple years ago, the district would save about $11 million by closing Campbell STEM. Combined with closing the other two schools, the board was able to reverse cuts to most sports programs and keep several nurse and teaching positions.
For some Campbell parents, like Rhondel Venner, the idea of reappropriating bond funding felt disheartening.
“I'm voting for these things to happen, and you can have a small group of elected people say, ‘No, we're going to use it over here, because we've decided to not do that anymore,’” Venner said. “I don't think that instills public trust.”
Anderson said he understands that perception, but city code gives the district flexibility with those funds under certain situations.
“If something occurs, such as an unexpected closure of a building, or an earthquake or something that causes a building to no longer be usable, that does allow the school board to redirect those funds toward another priority,” Anderson said.
Even though the board voted to close Campbell STEM, parents aren’t giving up yet.
Venner said she and others have been canvassing the community to inform them of the closure and even circulated a petition that garnered hundreds of signatures of people opposing the closure.
“I'm glad to know that there's more people informed about what's happening, because it's very important that we come together and stay connected,” Venner said.
As part of a last-ditch effort to save the school, the local community council unanimously passed a resolution asking the board to reconsider closing Campbell. They’re also asking the Anchorage Assembly to vote down the school district’s budget.
There’s been no public indication from the school board or Assembly that either body would vote to prevent the closure.
The Anchorage School Board’s next meeting is Tuesday. The Anchorage Assembly is set to vote on the school district’s budget March 24.
