The Anchorage School Board Tuesday night approved adding more than $3 million to its budget to hire more teachers ahead of the start of the school year.
The move came days after the Alaska Legislature overrode a veto from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, restoring the $700 increase to the Base Student Allocation, the per-student funding school districts receive from the state. Dunleavy had previously vetoed that amount to $500.
Anchorage School District officials built their budget around a BSA increase of $560, meaning the city’s schools will now receive about $10 million more than they planned for. The school board voted unanimously to immediately allocate $3.67 million of that to hire 20 more teachers.
School board member Margo Bellamy said the expediency is necessary, with school starting next week.
“For me, it's an emergency,” Bellamy said. “I don't know that we can wait, and I think the superintendent needs to have the authority to get our schools ready for our kids.”
ASD Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said the district is moving as fast as it can to fill those positions.
“I think one of the best things that we can do for our students, in this moment, is to make sure they have access to a great educator,” Bryantt said. “So what we're going to do, effective tonight, I guess technically tomorrow morning, we're going to try to recruit as many great teachers as we can, because every day counts.”
Additionally, $550,000 of the funding will go toward things like curriculum, professional development, tutoring and after-school programs at elementary, middle and high schools. Another $560,000 will go to the district’s charter schools.
The district will work on how to allocate the rest of the $10 million over the next two weeks and bring its recommendations to the school board’s next meeting.
