PALMER, Alaska (KTUU) – With only one more week until Christmas, there’s still some time left to get your Christmas tree. But if you’re cutting your own tree this year, there are a few things you’ll need to know.

The Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DOF) gives a few guidelines:

• Find unrestricted state land by using the DOF website. State parks aren’t allowed.
• One tree per household
• Less than 15 feet tall
• Personal use only, do not sell
• Cut the tree close to the ground, leaving little to no stump
• Cut the whole tree
• Respect private property
• Protect seedlings so they can grow into future Christmas trees

“I would recommend bringing the tree into your garage, letting it sit overnight kind of let the branches warm up a little bit nice and slowly. Let them relax a little bit,” Stephen Nickel with DOF said. “And then make a fresh cut before you put it in the in the stand, before you put the water on.”

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Over half of Alaska’s students do not make the proficiency benchmark in English Language Arts and mathematics. That’s based on test results from the Alaska System of Academic Readiness (AK Star) for the 2023-24 school year.

“We’re underperforming because we’re not meeting the standards set out, you know, by the State of Alaska, which was designed for Alaskan educators,” Deena Bishop, with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, said.

During the last school year, around 68,000 students underperformed on the testing for both subjects. Similar numbers were also seen the year prior.

In the Anchorage School District, in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, only 35.5% of its students hit at least proficiency. Those low test scores ranged from 3rd grade to 9th grade.

“The 3rd graders in this report, they were kindergartners who started on Zoom,” Kelly Lessens, on the Anchorage School Board, said during the Nov. 19, school board meeting. “If you talk to a 4th-grade teacher this year, they’ll say, a lot of those kiddos are still missing foundational content.”

COVID-19 is just one indicator people noted had an impact on youth education.

“Test scores have been coming down since COVID,” Corey Aist, the President of the Anchorage Education Association, said. “COVID set a very bad precedent for attendance and expectations. Not only expectations for our students and families but for our community.”

According to Bishop, COVID-19 created bad practices but she claims it shouldn’t be an excuse anymore.

“We need to focus on learning, focus on the children that we have, and move forward,” Bishop said. “We need to engage kids, have them come to school, provide high-quality education, support our teachers in doing so and changes will be made. Student learning will increase.”

Bishop was unable to pinpoint a specific reason why test scores remain low across the state. Moving forward, she said investment in early education is the tactic they’re doing to increase student performance. Bishop noted that her department is not trying to raise test scores but to improve student learning. For that, she said, investment is key.

“You’ve seen investments made into public education coupled with strong policy,” Bishop said. “Let’s find a way to have courses, where kids are engaged…investing in career and technical, investing in reading.”

But for Aist, there is a list of things that he said have an impact on student test scores. Ranging from class sizes, staffing numbers, and an increase in students needing special accommodations.

“You can’t talk about test scores without first talking about the learning environments in which those test scores are taken. We have a staffing crisis,” Aist said. “We should do more research on what is actually happening there, to counter, to talk about, to speak to the test scores in better context.”

Aist says funding is needed to create a competitive atmosphere to keep staffing. It’s all a part of investing in education and the community.

“Education is an investment in our communities, in our state, and in our future population, and without that, we continue to drop down below. And the funding that was proposed in the budget is completely inadequate to compete and retain our educators. They are going to continue to leave…its a spiral downhill. We need to do more,” Aist said.

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Alaska’s three presidential electors cast their votes for Donald Trump Tuesday at a ceremony in Anchorage.

The three electors, selected by the Alaska Republican Party, were Rick Whitbeck, Ron Johnson and Eileen Becker. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, introduced them during the brief gathering at the Dena’ina Center.

“Our three electoral votes are modest, but they symbolize the votes and the aspiration and the voice of all Alaskans, from the biggest communities to the smallest villages and most remote places that we have in Alaska,” she said. “These votes remind us that every state, every individual, has a stake in the direction of our nation.”

Though the electors typically cast their votes in Juneau, they met in Anchorage this year to make travel easier, according to the Division of Elections.

The electors signed certificates that will be shipped to Washington, D.C. where they’ll be counted by the next Congress on Jan. 6. The count will be overseen by Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Similar scenes took place across the country Tuesday as 535 other electors voted for their state’s chosen candidate. Trump defeated Harris with 312 electoral votes after winning all seven swing states in the Nov. 5 election.

Trump returns to office Jan. 20.