Alaska

Teacher retention: Fact or fake news?

Published

2 years ago

February 15, 2024

By DAVID BOYLE

The Education Industry has overwhelmed the Alaska Legislature with its opinion on the teacher shortage in Alaska. Is this a true shortage or is it just a means to demand more money from the legislature for K12 education?

During the past few weeks, the Education Industry, which includes the many school districts, the teachers’ unions, the Alaska Association of School Boards, the Alaska Association of School Administrators, the Alaska Association of School Principals, and the Alaska Association of School Business Officials, have pushed their opinion that they need more funding to recruit and retain teachers.

Lisa Parady, CEO of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, said, “We can’t recruit teachers, we are struggling in the worst crisis Alaska has seen in terms of turnover. Fundamentally, that’s very important to high-quality instruction.”

Parady and her fellow administrators from various school districts repeatedly stated the only solution for this “crisis” was more funding.

The live presentation to the joint House/Senate Education Committees is here.

But is this really new? There have been teacher recruiting and retention problems in rural Alaska schools for many decades.

Many young teachers are recruited from Outside Alaska to fill jobs in our rural schools. They come north, yearning for the “Alaska experience.”

Once they are on the job for a while, they become disillusioned with the harsh climate, isolation, lack of entertainment, inadequate housing, and cultural differences.

This rural teacher problem has been very well documented in “It’s more than just dollars: Problematizing salary as the sole mechanism for recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alaska” by the Center for Alaska Education Policy and Research. This 2016 study was contracted by the Alaska State Department of Administration.

The study’s conclusion is that “salaries alone will not ensure a stable and qualified teacher workforce.” Most importantly, are working conditions.

In urban Alaska teacher recruiting and retention is not such a great problem. The Anchorage School District is representative of the urban school districts.

The ASD student population comprises a very large part of the entire State’s student population. The ASD has 42,431 K-12 students this school year; the entire state has 127,931 K12 students. Thus, the ASD has about 33% of the state’s entire student population.

Let’s look at the Anchorage School District’s teacher manning to determine the scope of the problem.

Parady told the House Education Committee, “We can’t recruit teachers.”

Yet, that does not seem to be a problem in Anchorage.

Here are the data for the number of certificated teachers in both elementary and secondary schools and the number of vacancies:

Category	Budgeted	Filled	Vacant
Elementary Teachers	1108	1096	12
Secondary Teachers	621	612	9
Special Service Teachers	758	670	88

As one can see, there are only 21 vacant elementary and secondary teacher positions in Anchorage — a 1.2% vacancy rate.

Apparently, the district is not having any problems with teacher retention and recruitment.

Maybe that’s because the district just gave the teachers’ union members a 3% pay raise, which Superintendent Jarrett Bryantt described as, “putting forward the largest single-year wage and health benefits increase provided to educators in more than a decade”.

And that raise just may be the reason that the Anchorage School District needs to increase the Base Student Allocation. It needs the extra funding to pay for these raises, for which it doesn’t have the money, and to offset the one-time federal Covid money it used to pay for recurring costs such as salaries.

The Special Service Teachers category above includes the special education teachers. There has historically been a shortage of these qualified teachers nationwide. Alaska isn’t the only place with this shortage.

The teacher retention situation in Anchorage may be mirrored in the other four large urban school districts in Alaska.

To solve the teacher retention/hiring “problem,” the Education Industry wants to put another $1,413 into the base student allocation, increasing state funding of K-12 by a whopping $287.76 million.

This BSA funding, however, would not require any accountability for spending the increased funding in the actual classroom.

The extra funding could be used to pay administrators’ salaries. It could be used to pay the teachers’ union more money for health insurance. It could be used to hire more Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion personnel.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, on the other hand, wants to target the spending to the classroom so it would have an impact on student outcomes. His House Bill 106 would target teacher retention and hiring by paying teacher bonuses.

These bonuses would consist of 3 tiers: $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000. The total cost would be approximately $60 million.

Should legislators support the more than $287 million given to the school districts to do whatever they want with it?

That $287 million represents 218,750 Permanent Fund dividends (using the 2023 PFD of $1,312).

Or should legislators support the $60 million targeted at teachers actually doing the hard work of educating our students?

This is about accountability for results in the classroom.

Will $287 million increase student reading scores from a mediocre 29.46% reading for all grades statewide?

Will $287 million increase student math scores from a dismal 22.8% for math for all grades statewide?

You have a voice and legislators want to hear from you. You can provide your input on Senate Bill 140 to [email protected].

David Boyle is the Must Read Alaska education writer.

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Alaska

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

Published

12 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Sand Point teen found 3 days after going missing in lake

SAND POINT, Alaska (KTUU) – A teenage boy who was last seen Monday when the canoe he was in tipped over has been found by a dive team in a lake near Sand Point, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Alaska’s News Source confirmed with the person, who is close to the search efforts, that the dive team found 15-year-old Kaipo Kaminanga deceased Thursday in Red Cove Lake, located a short drive from the town of Sand Point on the Aleutian Island chain.

Kaminanga was last seen canoeing with three other friends on Monday when the boat tipped over.

A search and rescue operation ensued shortly after.

Alaska Dive Search Rescue and Recovery Team posted on Facebook Thursday night that they were able to “locate and recover” Kaminanga at around 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We are glad we could bring closure to his family, friends and community,” the post said.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated when more details become available.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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Alaska

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

Published

24 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Opinion: Homework for Alaska: Sales tax or income tax?

iStock / Getty Images

This is a tax tutorial for gubernatorial candidates, for legislators who will report to work next year and for the Alaska public.

Think of it as homework, with more than eight months to complete the assignment that is not due until the November election. The homework is intended to inform, not settle the debate over a state sales tax or state income tax — or neither, which is the preferred option for many Alaskans.

But for those Alaskans willing to consider a tax as a personal responsibility to help fund schools, roads, public safety, child care, state troopers, prisons, foster care and everything else necessary for healthy and productive lives, someday they will need to decide on a state income tax or a state sales tax after they accept the checkbook reality that oil and Permanent Fund earnings are not enough.

This homework assignment is intended to get people thinking with facts, not emotions. Electing the right candidates will be the first test.

Alaskans have until the next election because nothing will change this year. It will take a new political alignment led by a reality-based governor to organize support in the Legislature and among the public.

But next year, maybe, with the right elected leadership, Alaskans can debate a state sales tax or personal income tax. Plus, of course, corporate taxes and oil production taxes, but those are for another school day.

One of the biggest arguments in favor of a state sales tax is that visitors would pay it. Yes, they would, but not as much as many Alaskans think.

Air travel is exempt from sales taxes. So are cruise ship tickets. That’s federal law, which means much of what tourists spend on their Alaska vacation is beyond the reach of a state sales tax.

Cutting further into potential revenues, state and federal law exempts flightseeing tours from sales tax, which is a particularly costly exemption when you think about how much visitors spend on airplane and helicopter tours.

That leaves sales tax supporters collecting from tourists on T-shirts, gifts for grandchildren, artwork, postcards, hotels, Airbnb, car rentals and restaurant meals. Still a substantial take for taxes, but far short of total tourism spending.

An argument against a state sales tax is that more than 100 cities and boroughs already depend on local sales taxes to pay for schools and other public services. Try to imagine what a state tax piled on top of a local tax would do to kill shopping in Homer, already at 7.85%, or Kodiak, Wrangell and Cordova, all at 7%, and all the other municipalities.

Supporters of an income tax say it would share the responsibility burden with nonresidents who earn income in Alaska and then return home to spend their money.

Almost one in four workers in Alaska in 2024 were nonresidents, as reported by the state Department of Labor in January. That doesn’t include federal employees, active-duty military or self-employed people.

Nonresidents earned roughly $3.8 billion, or about 17% of every dollar covered in the report.

However, many of those nonresident workers are lower-wage and seasonal, employed in the seafood processing and tourism industries, unlikely to pay much in income taxes. But a tax could be structured so that they pay something, which is fair.

Meanwhile, higher-wage workers in oil and gas, mining, construction and airlines (freight and passenger service) would pay taxes on their income earned in Alaska, which also is fair.

It comes down to what would direct more of the tax burden to nonresidents: a tax on income or on visitor spending. Wages or wasabi-crusted salmon dinners.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.

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Alaska

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Nome brothers summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, carry Alaska flag to third major peak

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Two brothers from Nome recently stood at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, planting an Alaska flag at 19,000 feet above the African plains.

The Hoogendorns completed the seven-day climb — five and a half days up and a day and a half down — trekking through rainforest, desert, and alpine terrain before reaching snow near the summit. The climb marks their third of the world’s seven summits.

Night hike to the top

The brothers began their final summit push at midnight, hiking through the night to reach the top by dawn.

“It was almost like a dream,” Oliver said. “Because we hiked through the night. We started the summit hike at midnight when you’re supposed to be sleeping. So, it was kind of like, not mind boggling, but disorienting. Because you’re hiking all night, but then you get to the top and you can finally see. It’s totally different from what you’d expect.”

At the summit, temperatures hovered around 10 degrees — a familiar range for the Nome brothers. Their guides repeatedly urged them to put on jackets, but the brothers declined.

“We got to the crater, and it was dark out and then it started getting brighter out,” Wilson said. “And then you could slowly see the crater like illuminating and it’s huge. It’s like 3 miles across or something. Like you could fly a plane down on the crater and be circles if you want to. Really dramatic view.”

A team of 17 for two climbers

Unlike their previous expeditions, the brothers were supported by a crew of 17 — including porters, a cook, guides, a summit assistant, and a tent setup crew.

The experience deviated from their earlier climbs, where they carried their own food, melted snow for water, and navigated routes independently.

“I felt spoiled,” Wilson said. “I was like, man, the next mountain’s gonna be kind of hard after being spoiled.”

Alaska flag on every summit

Oliver carried the same full-size Alaska flag on all three of his major summits, including in South America and Denali in North America, despite the added weight in his pack.

“I take it everywhere these days,” Oliver said. “It’s always cool to bring it out. And then people ask, you know, ‘where’s that flag from?’ Say Alaska.”

When asked about his motivation for the expeditions, Wilson said “I guess to like inspire other people. Because it seems like a lot of people think they can’t do something, but if you just try it, you probably won’t do good the first time, but second time you’ll do better. Because you just got to try it out. Believe in yourself.”

Background and next goals

The Hoogendorns won the reality competition series “Race to Survive: Alaska” in 2023. In 2019, they were the first to climb Mount McKinley and ski down that season. Oliver also started a biking trip from the tip of South America to Prudhoe Bay with hopes of still completing it.

Kilimanjaro is their third summit. The brothers said they hope to eventually complete all seven summits, with Mount Vinson in Antarctica among the peaks they are considering next… all while taking Alaska with them every step of the way.

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