After being flooded with letters, emails and public testimony urging them to defend and protect what many see as a key component to make homeschooling a viable option for thousands of Alaskan families, state lawmakers in the House Education Committee advanced a substitute bill on May 3, which would allow Alaska to continue reimbursing homeschool families for educational expenses incurred from tutors, classes, courses and workshops from various private vendors.
Those allotments are currently prohibited thanks to a sweeping opinion by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman who ruled last month that the allotment program was unlawful because it allowed parents to use funds to help pay for instructional offerings at private and religious organizations and institutions. Zeman believes this violates the Alaska Constitution, which forbids the expenditure of public funds to “directly benefit” private or religious institutions.
While Zeman has issued a temporary stay on his ruling to let the Alaska Supreme Court weigh in, it has cast a dark shadow over the state’s rapidly growing publicly-funded homeschool community, which now stands at roughly 23,000 children, or roughly 18% of Alaska’s public-school enrollment.
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In attempting to remedy the problem, and create an allotment program that doesn’t run afoul of Judge Zeman’s interpretation of the state constitution, Alaska lawmakers initially introduced House Bill 400.
This legislation proved highly controversial, however, and was ultimately rejected by the House Education Committee, because it would have vastly restricted how allotment funds are used by specifically limiting expenditures to tutoring that is not provided by a “private or religious educational institution,” and textbooks and curriculum that are not deemed to be “religious, partisan, sectarian, or denominational.”
The most current homeschool allotment bill is worded in such a way that it will allow the State of Alaska to appeal Judge Zeman’s decision to the Alaska Supreme Court without preemptively codifying new restrictions.
Additionally, the original HB 400 would have barred parents from spending allotments on any services or materials provided by a private or religious educational institution, even if it were to study subjects like math, foreign languages, vocational skills, and various other academic disciplines. Likewise, families would not have been able to pay for passes or family memberships to sports or recreation facilities for physical education or training. Nor could they have bought equipment such as basketballs, jump ropes or dumbbells. It would have also banned the purchase of animals, desks, chairs, parking fees or anything deemed “entertainment,” and prohibited payment for testing, other than assessments required by the school district. That might include any number of tests to show aptitude in various subjects.
Finally, the original bill would have prohibited expenditures on taxes on any otherwise approved item, while blocking the ability to buy “permanent items that adhere to or enhance the value of a non-school facility,” which could include chalkboards, bookshelves, greenhouses and any number of items that standard public-school students have access to at brick-and-mortar schools.
In rejecting this version of the bill, the House Education Committee advanced a much shorter and streamlined substitute bill that simply preserves the homeschool allotment program while granting the State Board of Education authority to iron out the details of how those funds can be used.
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Moments before the committee voted to advance the bill, Alaska Education Commissioner Deena Bishop briefed committee members about what would happen if the new substitute bill passed out of the Legislature and was signed by the governor.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
She said the Department of Education would issue emergency regulations this summer, which would then go to the Department of Law for review. The proposed regulations would then go before the State Board of Education and then out for public comment. After a final review by the Department of Law, the regulations would undergo another vote by the Board of Education before being implemented for the coming school year. Bishop said the process would likely be finish by August or September.
When asked by Juneau Rep. Andi Story whether any new regulations would specifically prohibit homeschool families from using allotment funds for services provided by religious or private educational institutions, Bishop said the state needed to sort out the difference between an “educational institution” and a “private organization.” She indicated that services and materials would likely be allowable if they came from “private organizations.” It is unclear whether that would allow families to pay for non-religious courses and materials from private “organizations” such as BYU or other entities that may have a religious underpinning.
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Bishop added that the most current homeschool allotment bill is worded in such a way that it will allow the State of Alaska to appeal Judge Zeman’s decision to the Alaska Supreme Court without preemptively codifying new restrictions on allotment expenditures before the appeals process has gone through all its steps.
If the State Supreme Court were to uphold Zeman’s decision, Gov. Dunleavy has indicated that his administration is prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.
The bill advanced without objection and is now headed to the House Finance Committee. If it passes the House, it will then head to the Senate before going to the governor.
TAKING ACTION
— Click here to read the new substitute homeschool allotment bill.
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— Click here to contact members of the House Finance Committee, where the bill is currently set for consideration. To email all members at once, use this address: House.Finance@akleg.gov.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, walks toward the altar at the Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
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A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
The Immaculate Conception Church in Bethel.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
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Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
Fr. Sean Carroll, provincial of the Jesuits West Province, speaks at an event recognizing nearly 140 years of Jesuit service in Alaska.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
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Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner, one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska, attends a ceremony in Bethel.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
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“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Jesuit priests form a row along the altar of Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church as members of the congregation lift their arms and pray.
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
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“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Steven Maekawa, stands in the middle of a crowd waiting to take a photo at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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