The Anchorage School District announced Friday that it will lay off 56 teachers. That’s about two percent of the nearly 3000 teachers employed by the district. Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said a lack of state and local funding makes the cuts necessary.
“Today is an incredibly difficult day for the Anchorage School District community, one of the more difficult we have faced in many years,” he said.
A one-time tax levy meant to fund teacher positions at the district recently failed by an extremely slim margin. If it had passed, he said, the district would have been able to hold on to some of the teachers losing their jobs.
The district will also displace 203 teachers, shuffling them to new schools to make up for those who were laid off, or have left the district.
Students will see larger class sizes in all grade levels and high school students will likely have fewer electives to choose from, Bryantt said.
In past years ASD was able to rehire teachers after an increase in state education funding, Bryantt said, but it’s too early to know whether a boost in state funds would make rehires possible this year.
Bryantt said he hopes the district can regain the community’s support.
“Is this where we want to be? Absolutely not,” he said. “We need to earn more trust from the community so that we can have successful ballot propositions in the future.”
One way he wants to do that, he said, is by creating a system for community engagement once the new school board is in place in May.
The district is eliminating roughly 500 positions total this year, through teacher layoffs, attrition, and by cutting support staff. The district will face another large budget deficit next year.
