PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board has approved a measure to siphon a portion of the district’s homeschool program into a brick-and-mortar school while planning to approve more major changes later this year.
The vote marks the first step in a district plan to boost state funding for homeschool correspondence students.
The school board approved the measure 6-1 during a meeting Wednesday, with member Ted Swanson voting no. The proposal must also receive state approval before it takes effect because it adds a new school to the district.
The change would administratively split Mat-Su Central into two separate programs, a step that district officials said will bring in more funding from the state because of the way per-student payments are calculated.
Mat-Su Central is the largest school in the district, with about 2,800 students, according to district data. About 500 of those enrolled in at least one district class this year.
Under the measure, the school’s current in-person offerings would shift from the umbrella of the correspondence program to a standalone hybrid brick-and-mortar school with new state-required staffing and administrative rules.
Officials said the plan would leave the day-to-day operations of the correspondence portion of Mat-Su Central largely unchanged, with students co-registering for in-person classes at the brick-and-mortar program on an as-needed basis.
A new 45,000-square-foot, $24 million Mat-Su Central school building, funded primarily by the borough, will open this spring and house the revamped in-person classes, district officials said. Current school programming could also have space there, they said.
The update would also likely come with fee increases for in-person classes paired with higher allotment payments passed from the district to students, officials said. It also includes a plan for an alternative high school diploma option with requirements below the district’s current standards.
Central to the shakeup is a two-part district effort to bring in more education funding by changing how the state categorizes homeschooled students who take district-provided classes and by boosting overall enrollment. The change could help Mat-Su chip away at a $22 million funding shortfall anticipated for next year, district administrators said.
Under state school funding rules, Mat-Su receives thousands of dollars less per correspondence student than for those attending a traditional school. Mat-Su officials argue that homeschool students who attend any district classes, including the part-time classes currently offered by Mat-Su Central, should be reimbursed at the higher rate given to traditional students.
Changing that calculation for current hybrid students by administratively shifting them to a newly recognized state school code would bring in an additional $3.3 million in state and local funding in the first year, officials said.
“All we need to do is create this school code. Then we’ll begin getting the resources that we should have always been getting because we’re providing hybrid learning,” District Superintendent Randi Trani told the School Board during the meeting.
Adding an alternative homeschool diploma to the district’s offerings could also help lure back families who have enrolled in outside correspondence programs to take advantage of lower high school graduation credit requirements.
Since funding is based largely on enrollment, keeping students in the district matters, officials said.
Mat-Su currently has the highest graduation requirement in the state at 25.5 credits. Other correspondence programs are closer to the state’s 21-credit minimum.
Many Mat-Su Central families and staff disagree with the new funding strategy, parents and family members said in interviews.
Dozens of Mat-Su Central parents and teachers attended the school board meeting Wednesday, with several testifying that they fear the proposed changes will remove their ability to directly shape their children’s education through the school.
Others said they feel blindsided by the program announcements, which were first publicly discussed at a school board meeting late last month, and resent what they say is the use of their families to generate money.
“It is disrespectful to the families that you’re treating as cash cows to solve the district budgeting deficit and dismissive to your frontline employees and families,” said Jamie Cripps, a Mat-Su Central parent. “I cannot understand how all the budget solutions are placed on the homeschool families.”
The measure approved by the school board Wednesday addresses only the school’s administrative split. Trani said the school board will review other program details later this year, including allotment payments, alternative diploma requirements and teacher staffing.
Trani said he will discuss the proposal with state education officials in Juneau next week. He hopes to have the revamped programs fully in place by next school year.
Republished with permission from the Mat-Su Sentinel, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan online news source. Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com.