The Kuspuk and Fairbanks-North Star Borough school districts, along with the Coalition for Education Equity of Alaska, have filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska, Governor Mike Dunleavy, and the Department of Education, alleging chronic underfunding that violates the Alaska Constitution's education clause. The lawsuit highlights a lack of resources, facilities, and educational opportunities for students.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Kuspuk and Fairbanks-North Star Borough school districts filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska Tuesday. According to a copy of the complaint obtained by Alaska ’s News Source, the State of Alaska , the Department of Education and Early Development and its commissioner Deena Bishop, as well as Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy are all named as defendants in the suit.
The Coalition for Education Equity of Alaska, a nonprofit that describes itself as a “statewide, member-based nonprofit organization that champions quality, equitable and adequate public education for every Alaska child,” is helping to fund the lawsuit. “The lawsuit, filed in the Anchorage Superior Court, asserts that chronic underfunding has left districts unable to provide students with the resources, facilities, staffing, and educational opportunities required under the Alaska Constitution,” coalition director, Caroline Storm, said in a press release. Specifically, the complaint zeroes in on Article VII Section 1 of the Alaska Constitution, also known as the “Education Clause”, which reads: he legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State The districts allege the state is not delivering on the “maintain” part of that section and describe a “refusal to dedicate constitutionally adequate resources to public education.” The suit was announced just one day after the Aniak Junior Senior High School building, which is located within the Kuspuk School District, Freelance journalist Emily Schwing, who broke the story for Anchorage Daily News and has personally seen many of the buildings in question, said the Aniak case is not unique. “I can tell you firsthand from personal experience that in traveling to those schools, I have found everything from toxic chemical leaks from heating systems to failing plumbing,” Schwing said. “In one school, I found two inches of standing raw sewage in the basement. In another school, I have seen failing structural beams that actually hold the walls up.” Schwing said of the nine school buildings located in the Kuspuk district, three of them - Aniak, Crooked Creek and Sleetmute - have been deemed structurally unsound within the last few years through architectural inspections. The Fairbanks-North Star Borough School District, meanwhile, alleges that the state “does not provide enough funding to recruit, hire, and retain a sufficient number of qualified teachers and staff to maintain appropriate class sizes and provide its students with a constitutionally adequate education,” which it says has led to lowering test scores and growing class sizes. Kuspuk and Fairbanks-North Star Borough make for a somewhat odd pair of plaintiffs, considering the former consists of just over 300 students while the latter is over 12,000. The Kuspuk School District, which encompasses a remote area along the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska, is one of 19 Rural Education Attendance Areas, or REAAs, in Alaska, which rely exclusively on state funding in order to operate. FNSBSD, like the other borough school districts in the state, has access to taxpayer funds in addition to those state funds.“The State has arbitrarily and capriciously funded public education at levels that are woefully inadequate and have no reasonable or logical connection to the actual cost of providing a constitutionally compliant education,” the complaint charges. Alaska’s News Source has reached out to representatives from both school districts and the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, but did not hear back from any by publication.No injuries reported after plane lands short of Anchorage runway, NTSB says ‘Any details will help’: Friends of man visiting from Texas missing for days near Healy struggle to understand his disappearanceTrump marks one year as ICE protestors rally in AnchorageFamily of Homer teen hurt in head-on collision seeking community’s support
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