Protecting Our Progress

We are grateful to our legislative and congressional partners for their actions before the start of the 2025–26 school year, which provided short-term relief after a season of deep uncertainty. ASD kept its promise by directing resources into teachers, curriculum, and student supports, and we remain laser focused on funding the classroom experience, including protecting class sizes. But relief is not stability. The pathway to achieving the Anchorage School Board’s goals requires close collaboration and partnership with the Alaska State Legislature. Our Legislative Priorities are the foundation for this partnership and the next step in protecting our progress.

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Protecting progress today builds stability for tomorrow.

Fiscal Plan

• Make education a guaranteed part of Alaska’s fiscal framework.

• Provide predictable funding that avoids harmful cycles of cuts, vetoes, and one-time fixes.

• Ensure commitments that allow districts, including teachers, to plan responsibly and keep services in place for students.

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Purchasing Power

• Restore the value of education dollars eroded by years of flat funding to protect class sizes and classroom supports.

• Update state funding formulas through a new district cost differential study and an updated transportation cost statute or study, so funding reflects the true cost of schools.

• Replace crisis budgets and one-time fixes with predictable, sustainable funding that allows districts to plan responsibly.

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Retirement and Retention

• Support restoring a defined benefit pension and/or Social Security option to make Alaska’s educator benefits competitive.

• Since 2006, Alaska has been the only state without these options, and the shift to a 401(k)- style plan has fueled chronic turnover at much higher rates than before.

• Rising health insurance costs, with premiums increasing by double digits for three consecutive years, are making benefits unsustainable for districts and staff.

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Transportation

• Fully fund student transportation and adjust annually for inflation.

• Prevent rising fuel and contract costs from draining classroom budgets.

• Recognize that Anchorage transports more than 20,000 students every day, requiring stable support.

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