Liability for Destruction of Property by
Minors
The Anchorage School Board supports increased liability for
destruction of property by minors. The Anchorage School Board urges the Alaska
Legislature to allow a school district to recover the full amount of damages to
school property from either parent, both parents, or the legal guardian of an
unemancipated minor who, as a result of a knowing or intentional act, destroys
real or personal property belonging to the school district. Current law, AS
34.50.020, limits such recovery to $10,000.
Rationale: Vandalism damages a school district’s
physical plant, has a negative impact on student learning, and demoralizes
hard-working staff and students. Every dollar spent on repairing vandalism is a
taxpayer dollar a school district cannot invest in textbooks, teachers or
technology.
Currently, school districts can recover a maximum of $10,000 from
either parent, both parents, or the legal guardian of an unemancipated minor
who, as the result of a knowing intentional act, destroys real or personal
property belonging to a school district. The current law forces taxpayers to
bear the cost of vandalism even when a parent’s liability insurance is
otherwise available to pay the full cost.
Revise
Parental Permission Requirements for Questionnaires and Surveys Administered in
Public Schools
The Anchorage School Board urges the Alaska Legislature to modify
the requirements for parental or legal guardian permission for a student to
participate in a questionnaire or survey administered in a public school by
enabling local school districts in the State of Alaska to administer anonymous
questionnaires and surveys to students with passive parental consent.
Rationale: As a result of the passage of HB 70 in
1999, current statute requires active written parental consent from the parent
or legal guardian for a student to participate in a survey. A student whose
parents have no objection to a survey but fail to return the consent form may
not respond to the survey. This has resulted in insufficient data collection,
due to the logistics and time required to collect parental consent forms.
For state and federal grants, school districts need
school-by-school data to accurately assess the need and success of current
efforts. When passive parental consent was used prior to the passage of HB 70,
the state was able to collect sufficient data from the Youth Risk Behavior
Survey (YRBS) in both 1995 and 1999. In January of 2001, the last YRBS cycle,
the low response rate of the YRBS high school sample made this type of detailed
data impossible to collect. In Anchorage, for example, the Anchorage School
District Safe and Drug Free Schools program alone had seven grants asking for
such data.
During the fall 1999 site review, federal auditors put the ASD Safe
and Drug Free Schools program on notice that it was bordering on non-compliance
due to lack of current data. The program lost three grants totaling $296,915.
Other grants have not been applied for because the criteria indicated that
without contemporary data, the applications would not be competitive. Other
youth-serving agencies and programs in Anchorage and throughout the state face
similar grant rejection prospects.
Compulsory Attendance Law
Current state law requires compulsory school attendance
from age seven to 16. The Anchorage School Board urges the Alaska Legislature
to change the mandatory age for school attendance to age six to 17.
Rationale: State and local performance standards set high
expectations in mathematics, reading and writing for children ages five through
seven. Furthermore, research indicates that earlier education is beneficial. In
fact, most children in Alaska are enrolled by the age of six.
Most seven-year-olds are in first or second grade. With
the renewed emphasis on reading, writing and mathematics skills in the first
few years—skills on which the child must, by law, be assessed—children starting
school late are at a big disadvantage. With the enactment of the federal No
Child Left Behind legislation and state designators, the Legislature will be
accountable for paying the cost of remediation to overcome that disadvantage.
Furthermore, lowering the compulsory school age to six
does not eliminate active home schooling as a viable alternative for parents.
The Anchorage School Board supports home schooling as a parent’s choice for his
or her child’s education.
Many children who could pass the High School Graduation
Qualifying Exam (HSGQE) if they "hang in there" may drop out based on struggles
with the benchmark tests. Increasing the mandatory age to 17 will help ensure
that students who have not yet graduated from high school stay in school and
have more opportunities to meet performance standards and pass the HSGQE.
Regular school attendance is critical for student achievement.
Early Entry Students
The Anchorage School Board urges the Alaska Legislature to amend
Alaska Statute 14.03.080 to afford the governing body of a school district the
discretion to delegate to the superintendent or his/her designee the authority
to approve early entry of a student on an individual basis. Approval for early
entry will be based on minimum standards prescribed by the Board for
identifying whether the child has the mental, physical, and emotional capacity
to perform satisfactorily in the educational program being offered.
Rationale: Under AS 14.03.080(c), a child under
school age may be admitted to the public school in the school district of which
the child is a resident at the discretion of the governing body of the school
district if the child meets minimum standards prescribed by the board
evidencing that the child has the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to
perform satisfactorily for the educational program being offered.
Regulations established by DEED and effective July 1, 2002, have
interpreted this statute to mean, "the governing body [school board] of the
school district must approve early entry of a student on an individual basis."
The Anchorage School Board believes that once it has adopted
appropriate policy standards, it should have the discretion to delegate this
responsibility for implementation to the district administration.
