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Opinion: I’m an Alaska homeschooling parent. I welcome oversight, but we also need support.

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Opinion: I’m an Alaska homeschooling parent. I welcome oversight, but we also need support.


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I’m writing In response to Principal Eric Waltenbaugh’s opinion essay of March 11, “Funding for homeschool programs lacks accountability, due to absence of state standards.” The essay was a depressing, disturbing and truthful-yet-not-entirely-complete portrait of homeschooling families. While Mr. Waltenbaugh does concede that some homeschooling families are diligently educating their children, he seems to imply in his article that the majority are not, due to his experiences re-educating homeschooled students at his elementary school in Homer.

I would like to humbly provide an example of homeschooling done right and what, I hope, the state can be proud of as a sound investment, and also to offer some solutions to the problems he has raised. With limited funding, we are providing our son Gus a top-notch education that would cost tens of thousands of dollars a year at an elite private school. I should know. With a graduate degree in Elementary Education from one of the top education departments in the country, I know what high-quality elementary schooling should provide. But here’s a little secret: Do you need this fancy degree to homeschool your young children? Absolutely not. Do you need a high school diploma? Absolutely yes. Do you need training to evaluate curricula and how to adapt the appropriate one to your children? Yes, but although it does not require an education degree, it does require guidance from those who are trained to evaluate programs. One issue I have with Alaska’s correspondence programs is that the extreme latitude they permit parents in their choice of curricula means they end up funding some very poorly constructed ones. Parents should have a choice, but they should not have unlimited choices between excellent, good, bad and truly despicable. There are some splendid curricula out there and the state should be paying for only the best.

Principal Waltenbaugh’s issues at his Homer school are truly challenging, but here’s a different sort of problem: due to family circumstances, we are looking at enrolling our child in an elementary school for next year. And as we have actually looked at relocating to Homer, I would like to ask Principal Waltenbaugh: what would you do about Gus? The result of his 1:1 schooling is that he is so far advanced in his coursework that no school I have researched thus far is proving to be academically rigorous enough. Gus is above grade level in every academic subject. Will his future school attempt to “dumb him down” so he’ll fit in, or will they be able to meet him where he’s at? I think we all know the answer. When you have high-quality 1:1 schooling, quality being the key word, students will be far ahead of their contemporaries in 1:28 or 1:36 teacher/student ratio classrooms. Many of our 20% population of homeschoolers should be far ahead, instead of behind, as Principal Waltenbaugh so unfortunately has seen.

The question is: how do we achieve this? Most homeschooling families we know are diligent educators with a keen interest in providing a high-quality education for their children. I have, however, also run into some who have been doing poor jobs and I think a key underlying question is: why are these lax parents not sending their kids to school? If they are not really interested in educating their children, why in the world are they choosing the homeschooling route? They are doing a great disservice to their child, to our state, and to our country, and they should not be allowed to do it. If you choose to homeschool, you should have the same enthusiasm for learning and enthusiasm for educating youth, as do the best public school teachers. I do wholeheartedly admit that homeschooling can have major issues and yes: I do wish there were more oversight, mandatory testing, mandatory qualifications, and delinquency consequences for lax parents. Homeschooling takes work- a lot of work – and if you can’t do it right, you should be fired.

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But are Alaska public schools the panacea? Alaska consistently scores in the lower stratum in national evaluations of student achievement scores. Waltenbaugh writes: “Stop writing a blank check to 20% of our education system that has no measurable educational outcomes.” But should we instead write a blank check to 80% of our education system that has poor to middling outcomes? Unfortunately, some of our public schools are not doing their job either. I think we need more accountability for both. Simple internet research can reveal the percentage of students in particular schools who are achieving at grade level, and often the majority are not. These poor scores cannot be attributed only to the small number of homeschooling students entering the system.

Do not misunderstand: I am adamantly supportive of high-quality public schooling. I am a product of public schools, I was trained to be a public school teacher, and I want to find the best possible public schooling option for Gus for the upcoming years. But I am losing faith in public school systems that increase class sizes to the mid-30 student range and that eliminate gifted programming for the brightest minds who will be solving our problems of the future. I also lose faith in states that do not invest funds wisely in their education systems.

As a homeschooling parent, I welcome oversight! I welcome mandatory testing! Why? Because we will blow your socks off. Our situation, with my training, is admittedly not the norm, but it doesn’t need to be. With the right curricula, the right enthusiasm, and the right guidance, I truly believe any homeschooling family can recreate a top-notch public or private school in their home. But blank checks are a problem: both the homeschooling system and the public schools need more accountability for how they spend their dollars. I hope the state can be proud of Gus as an example of its funds well-spent, as should be the case for all of our public school and homeschooled students. There is a place for both models of education in our great state, and both should be supported financially and have equal evaluations for training and outcomes.

Jennifer R. Rodina of Paxson is the long-time co-owner of Denali Highway Cabins and a homeschooling parent.

• • •

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The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.





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Alaska

Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10

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Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 ASAA State Championship Brackets – March 10


The 2026 Alaska high school girls basketball state championships begin this week, and High School On SI has brackets for all four classifications.

The brackets will be updated with scores and matchups throughout the week.

All four classifications will play their state championship games at Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage.

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The 1A and 2A championships run March 11-14. Classes 3A and 4A play the following week, March 18-21.

Alaska High School Girls Basketball 2026 State Championship Brackets, Matchups, Schedule – March 10

3/11 – Shaktoolik (1) vs. Arlicaq (16)

3/11 – Kake (8) vs. Tri-Valley (9)

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3/11 – Fort Yukon (4) vs. Andreafski (13)

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3/11 – Sand Point (5) vs. Napaaqutgmiut (12)

3/11 – Scammon Bay (2) vs. Nunamiut (15)

3/11 – Akiuk Memorial (7) vs. Newhalen (10)

3/11 – Davis-Romoth (3) vs. Cook Inlet Academy (14)

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3/11 – Hoonah (6) vs. Shishmaref (11)


3/12 – Seward (1) vs. Chevak (8)

3/12 – Metlakatla (4) vs. Cordova (5)

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3/12 – Craig (2) vs. Susitna Valley (7)

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3/12 – Glennallen (3) vs. Degnan (6)


3/18 – Barrow (1) vs. Kotzebue (8)

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3/18 – Grace Christian (4) vs. Galena (5)

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3/18 – Monroe Catholic (2) vs. Delta (7)

3/18 – Mt. Edgecumbe (3) vs. Kenai Central (6)

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3/18 – Mountain City Christian Academy (1) vs. North Pole (8)

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3/18 – Colony (4) vs. West (5)

3/18 – Bartlett (2) vs. Juneau-Douglas (7)

3/18 – Wasilla (3) vs. Service (6)


More Coverage from High School On SI



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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

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Made In The USA: The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company


This is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

The Alaska Wall Tent comes in an array of sizes and versions, allowing you to choose the one that best suits your individual use-case. They’re all individually made in Alaska, and perhaps even more importantly, they’re all tested extensively to be able to handle local conditions.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 5

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 2

Image DescriptionThis is the Alaska Wall Tent by the Alaska Gear Company, each one is made in the United States from Sunforger 13oz DLX, a double-filled, pre-shrunk, marine-grade canvas ideal for longterm outdoor use.

History Speedrun: The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Gear Company was formerly known as Airframes Alaska, it’s an aviation and outdoor equipment supplier and manufacturer headquartered in Palmer, Alaska. The company is led by majority owner Sean McLaughlin, who bought the original bush airplane parts business when it had just two employees and $100,000 in annual revenue. McLaughlin has since grown it to approximately 100 employees and $20 million in annual sales.

The company can trace its early roots to a licensed maker of Piper PA-18 Super Cub fuselages at Birchwood Airport. Through a series of acquisitions, including Reeve Air Motive (an aircraft parts retailer operating out of Anchorage’s Merrill Field since 1950, Alaska Tent & Tarp, and Northern Sled Works, the company grew well beyond aviation into outdoor recreation and cold-weather gear.

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That diversification ultimately drove the rebrand from Airframes Alaska to Alaska Gear Company in late 2023, as the old name no longer conveyed the full scope of what the company produces and sells.

The Alaska Gear Company now operates out of three locations – a 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Palmer, a production facility in Fairbanks, and a retail store with an in-house sewing workshop at Merrill Field in Anchorage.

Its product lines span two major categories. On the aviation side, the company is best known for its hand-built Alaskan Bushwheel tundra tires, FAA-approved titanium landing gear, Super Cub fuselage modifications, and a wide range of bush plane parts. On the outdoor side, it manufactures Arctic Oven hot tents, canvas wall tents, custom freight and pulk sleds, and a modernized version of the iconic military bunny boot designed for extreme cold weather conditions.

More recently in 2024, the Alaska Gear Company was named “Made in Alaska Manufacturer of the Year” by the Alaska Department of Commerce.

The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company

The Alaska Canvas Wall Tent is a handmade-in-Alaska canvas tent made from 13oz Sunforger DLX double-filled, preshrunk, marine-grade cotton canvas that’s treated to resist fire, water, and mildew while still remaining breathable.

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It comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

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The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 4

Image DescriptionIt comes in four sizes, including 8×10, 10×12, 12×14, and 14×16 feet, all with 5-foot wall heights, and it’s available either unframed (starting at $1,295) or with a frame (starting at $2,300). The unframed version can be constructed in the field using lengths of wood sourced from the area, reducing the initial pack weight – this is crucial for trips into the wilderness by bush plane where every pound of weight is critical.

All tents include a 4.5 inch oval stove jack for use with wood or propane stoves, as well as a 56 inch triangular rear window with insect screening, an 18oz vinyl sod cloth around the base to block drafts and moisture, ridgepole openings at both ends, rope-reinforced eaves, brass grommets, overlapping door flaps with ties, a heavy-duty zippered door, and 100 feet of sisal rope for tie-downs.

The tents are now available to buy direct from the Alaska Gear Company here, and at the time of writing they have stock ready to ship out immediately.

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The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 9
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 8
The Alaska Wall Tent By The Alaska Gear Company 3

Images courtesy of the Alaska Gear Company



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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

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Lakes are growing in Alaska. That’s not entirely a bad thing

The St. Elias Mountains in southeast Alaska are dotted with over 100 lakes where glaciers crumble into milky, turquoise water. Those lakes are expanding at an ever-quickening pace.

The lakes will quadruple in size over the next century or two, scientists report March 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This growth will transform landscapes, create new salmon habitat and may even change the course of a major river.

“We are seeing the great age of ice retreat” in Alaska, says Daniel McGrath, a glaciologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. “These glaciers are just peeling back from the landscape,” revealing deep grooves they carved in the Earth, where lakes are now forming.

Glacial hydrologist Eran Hood of the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, who was not part of the study, adds that “understanding where these lakes are going to emerge is important” because it “changes the whole nature of the downstream ecosystem.”

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Hugging the coastline along the Alaska-Canada border, the tiny mountainous region that includes the St. Elias Mountains is losing 60 cubic kilometers of ice per year. Because lakes absorb solar heat, the glaciers that shed ice into lakes are shrinking faster than those that terminate on dry land. Across southeast Alaska, these lakes attached to glaciers have expanded by 60 percent since 1986, reaching a combined area of 1,300 square kilometers.

McGrath and his colleagues wondered how far this runaway expansion might go. So, they combined satellite images with estimates of ice thickness — mapping deeply eroded grooves that are still hidden under glaciers.

The results were “eye-opening,” McGrath says. The team identified 4,200 square kilometers of glacier-covered grooves adjacent to existing lakes.

He and his colleagues predict that the lakes will continue to expand — causing rapid ice retreat — until they fill those grooves, reaching a combined size of around 5,500 square kilometers, an area the size of Delaware.

“By the end of this century, all of these lakes will probably be more or less fully developed,” says study coauthor Louis Sass III, a glaciologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center in Anchorage. But those growing lakes are already reshaping entire landscapes in a way that is often overlooked in public discourse around glacier retreat.

Many of Alaska’s glaciers terminate on dry land, and their meltwater often creates barren, rocky floodplains downstream, where the streams alternate between trickles and floods — constantly branching and shifting course as they lay down sediment released by the glacier.

“Those habitats are fairly inhospitable for a lot of fish,” including some salmon, says Jonathan Moore, an aquatic ecologist with Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. The water is too cold, and fish eggs “get swept out or buried by the floods every year.”

But as glaciers retreat into lakes and those lakes expand, their meltwater has time to drop its sediment and warm a few degrees in the lake before spilling into a river. Rivers that carry less sediment are less prone to shifting channels.

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A 2025 study by Moore and remote sensing scientist Diane Whited of the University of Montana found that as glacial lakes expanded over 38 years in southeast Alaska, the downstream river channels stabilized, allowing willows and bushes to spread across floodplains.

“It creates salmon habitat,” Hood says. A 2021 study by Moore and Hood predicted that by 2100, glacial retreat in southeast Alaska will transform 6,000 kilometers of river channels into decent habitat for some local species of salmon. The lakes themselves will create spawning grounds for sockeye salmon — an important commercial species.

But these changes will come with upheaval.

For instance, one major river, the Alsek, will probably shift its course as retreating glaciers cause two lakes to merge, providing an easier path to the ocean.

People in Juneau are feeling another dramatic effect of expanding lakes. At least once per year, a lake dammed by the nearby Mendenhall Glacier spills out in a flash flood that gushes through town, forcing some residents to build protective levees around their homes.

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These ecosystems “are going to be transformed,” Moore says. “But that transformation is going to be pretty violent and pretty dangerous.”



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