JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – As the State of Alaska appeals a ruling that would delay a decision on Alaska’s homeschool correspondence funding until the end of June, public testimony was heard Friday in Juneau on separate House and Senate bills that are viewed as possible, legislative actions to a judge’s ruling.

This is after a Superior Court judge struck down an Alaska law in April that allows parents of homeschooled students to use public dollars for private education purposes, ruling it unconstitutional. Thursday, a judge granted a delay and Friday the State of Alaska appealed Thursday’s delay as the House Education committee asked Alaska correspondence program leaders how their programs work during its invited testimony for for HB 400. Public testimony was also heard on SB 266.

On Thursday Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman issued the short-term stay on his decision, that it is a violation of the state constitution for public funds to be used to reimburse homeschool families expenses at private and religious institutions, putting lawmakers back at work on Friday to explore options for a legislative fix.

With the end of session less than two weeks away, the chairs of House Education and Senate Education said Thursday they want to get legislation passed before the end of session to provide a level of security for Alaska’s correspondence programs. Interior Distance Education of Alaska Homeschool Director Dean O’Dell showed support for HB-400. The bill would adopt regulations for individual learning plans, monitor allotments and perform annual reports for accountability.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill allows for unused reimbursement funds to be rolled over. O’Dell said IDEA checks to make sure families are being reimbursed for expenses that were authorized by the students’ individual learning plans. O’Dell said travel reimbursements are prohibited by the school’s local board until it’s for something specific such as a competition. O’Dell was asked why that should be an allowed expense.

“Literature organizers, in-state travel to competitions and other items are commonly provided in schools,” O’Dell said. “Among those unintended consequences, a prohibition on many of these items, including PE equipment will negatively impact rural students for more than our urban students, creating serious equity issues.”

Brian Rozell, principal of Cyberlynx Homeschool and Correspondence program, was read a memo sent in 2022.

“I’ll just read you the line that’s concerning,” said House Education co-chair Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna. “It says, ‘and be reimbursed for their private school tuition to the amount of their student allotment. I think that might give the indication that someone would be using their allotment or tuition for what they could for their tuition.”

Rozell said the memo was written in the “very early days” of his school’s understanding of what is an allowable expense under the process, telling lawmakers tuition is no longer an allowable reimbursement under his school’s program, but he, like others who testified, doesn’t see anything wrong with a family being reimbursed for a student enrolling in a non-sectarian class at a private school.

Rep. Andi Story, D- Juneau, said she found that confusing.

“I would think as the correspondence program, you would see they’re enrolled in that private school, and you would think, “Oh, that is part of what they’re getting from being enrolled in tuition,’ so I would think it would be something that you would not approve.”

Lawmakers were going through amendments late into Friday as the bill remained in committee.

One of the amendments from Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, N/A Sitka, would prevent allotments to be used for services provided to a student from a family member.

Senate Version

The Senate homeschool funding bill would repeal the current language the judge cited in his initial decision that the funding uses are unconstitutional. The bill would also reinstate components of 2005 and 2008 correspondence study program regulatory packages promoted by the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.

Changing the term “allotment” to “fund account,” the bill still authorizes correspondence programs to provide students with monies to pay for academic instruction and materials and stipulates that funds cannot be used for private and religious school education expenses. The bill also removes the blanket opt-out provisions of statewide assessment and prevents allotments of education funds from being rolled over.

Those in opposition spoke out about the bill removing rules allowing families the ability to opt-out of statewide assessments, the bill preventing any remaining reimbursement money from being rolled over and restrictive language related to allowable expenses and private tutoring.

“My son enrolled in 2015, and I have been saving up his allotment for him to take higher education classes, pilot training, whatever he wants. We have $15,000 saved up,” parent Maria Michalski said, Palmer.

Larry Sloan, Homer, spoke in support of the Senate bill.

“I do support this proposed bill because it does help to clarify a central, political social issue of our time, which is a so-called wall of separation between church and state,” Sloan said

There were more public testifiers who spoke in favor of the House bill versus the Senate bill.

SB-266 is is in the Senate Education committee where members have more amendments to introduce.

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The Arizona Cardinals have had a busy offseason. They re-signed, signed in free agency or traded for a total of 19 players by the end of April. On top of that picked 12 players in the 2024 NFL draft.

Head coach Jonathan Gannon prepares for his second season leading the team. The Cardinals finished the 2023 season 4-13 under him, so there is plenty of room to improve. The team should have the benefit quarterback Kyler Murray to start the 2024 season. He missed the first nine games of last season while recovering from a torn ACL, which required surgery at the end of the 2022 season.

Now, their attention turns toward offseason key dates, camps, the schedule release and more. Here’s what you need to know about the Cardinals’ offseason and what’s next.

When is the Cardinals’ schedule release for 2024?

The NFL will release the 2024 schedule in May, and perhaps as early as the second week of the month. We know the Cardinals’ opponents already, just not the dates. Here is who Arizona will face this season: San Francisco twice, Seattle twice, Los Angeles Rams twice, Chicago, Detroit, Minnesota, Green Bay, Washington, Carolina, Los Angeles Chargers, Buffalo, Miami, New England, New York Jets.

Cardinals’ opponents in 2024 NFL schedule

Home opponents: Rams, Seahawks 49ers, Bears, Lions, Patriots, Jets, Commanders, Chargers

Away opponents: Rams, Seahawks, 49ers, Vikings, Packers, Bills, Dolphins, Panthers,

When is Cardinals rookie camp and what is their offseason mini-camp schedule?

The Cardinals will first host their draft picks and undrafted free agents on May 10 for a mini-camp. There will be voluntary organized team activities for veterans and rookies over six days in May and four in June. A mandatory minicamp for veterans and rookies is set for June 11.

Mini-camps are short windows of time to start building chemistry with on-the-field football work. Most, if not all veterans, attend the voluntary sessions although they are technically not required to.

When do the Cardinals start training camp?

The Cardinals typically start camp at State Farm Stadium in the final week of July. Dates should be known by mid-May.

When will Cardinals make 53-man roster cuts?

Those typically happen over the final two weeks in August as teams pare down from 90 to 53 players, after training camp practices and preseason games.

A deadly outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) has occurred inside a California hotel housing homeless people, leading to the death of one person and forcing city health officials to declare a public health emergency.

The alarming outbreak at the unnamed hotel infected 14 people, resulting in nine people being hospitalized, the Department of Health and Human Services for Long Beach announced Thursday. The identity of the deceased individual has not been released. 

“The outbreak is currently isolated to a distinct population and the risk to the general public is low,” city officials announced.

VACCINATING MIGRANTS LIKE US CHILDREN WOULD HAVE PREVENTED DISEASE OUTBREAKS AT CHICAGO SHELTERS: EXPERTS

“The population at risk in this outbreak has significant barriers to care including homelessness and housing insecurity, mental illness, substance use and serious medical comorbidities.”

Officials say the health emergency was announced to strengthen the city’s preparedness and ability to respond to the outbreak. 

Around 170 people have likely been exposed to TB and the Health Department is in the process of screening contacts for TB via symptom review, blood or skin tests and chest X-rays.

The Health Department says it expects the number of cases and contacts to increase and those found to have active TB disease or latent TB infection will be provided treatment. 

TUBERCULOSIS BREAKS OUT AT CHICAGO MIGRANT SHELTERS FOLLOWING MEASLES CASES

This 2006 electron microscope image provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which causes the disease tuberculosis.  (Janice Carr/CDC/AP)

Health officials say the name of the hotel is not being released in order to protect patient privacy and comply with The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations. The facility is a private hotel not operated by or contracted with the City of Long Beach.

Tuberculosis is transmitted in airborne particles and typically affects the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body such as the kidney, spine, and brain. It is not as contagious as COVID.

“You can catch tuberculosis if someone is coughing or sneezing or in close contact, the bacteria from those particles gets into the air and anybody nearby will breathe that in and that’s how they pick it up and that’s how they catch it,” Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a New York City-based double board-certified doctor, told Fox News Digital recently.

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Tuberculosis under a microscope and a Chicago migrant shelter. Chicago health officials last month announced that a “small number” of tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported at some migrant facilities in the city. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images, right, NIH/NAID/IMAGE.FR/BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images, top left, BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images, bottom left.)

The TB outbreak comes after the number of U.S. tuberculosis cases in 2023 were the highest in a decade, according to the CDC.

Cases increased from 8,320 in 2022 to 9,615 in 2023, an increase of 1,295 cases with numbers going up among all age groups. Data from the agency shows nearly 10,000 infections in 2013.

Chicago health officials last month announced that a “small number” of tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported at some migrant facilities in the city.

Fox News’ Greg Norman contributed to this report.