Anchorage School District proposes budget with 500 staff cuts, larger class sizes

Anchorage School District officials are proposing to erase more than 500 staff positions, increase class sizes, eliminate many sports and make other cutbacks to close a massive budget gap next school year.

“We’re laying off dozens of employees in departments across the district,” Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt said in an interview Monday. “We’ll be the leanest that we’ve been in over 15 years, and probably even leaner than that, and we still were forced to increase class sizes by four.”

Bryantt said the district must make major cuts to close a projected $90 million budget deficit for the 2026-27 school year, which he attributed to years of flat state funding. He said that deficit takes into account the $700 increase to the state’s per-student funding formula, called the Base Student Allocation, that the Alaska Legislature approved last year.

“When the BSA is flat for 10 years, the impact for ASD was that we had lost purchasing power by about $1,800 per student prior to the BSA increase,” Bryantt said. “Post the BSA increase, we’re still behind about $1,400 per student than where we were back in 2011.”

Still, Bryantt said the district has improved student outcomes, including the highest graduation rates since the pandemic, a 5% increase in math scores and an increase in the number of students taking Advanced Placement courses. However, he said it doesn’t look like the district will be receiving much more in state funding in the near future.

“It looks like the Legislature is signaling that they have their own revenue issues at the state level, and for that reason, school districts are being very cautious, and we’re planning our budget around the new BSA,” Bryantt said.

The district’s proposed budget comes to about $601 million, and includes cuts to more than 300 teaching positions, laying off 25 nurses as the district moves to a “regional model,” eliminating the IGNITE gifted program for elementary schoolers and cutting almost 70 special service positions. Those include special education teachers as well as English language learner instructors and teachers for students who are deaf or blind.

Bryantt said the district has also made cuts to administrative personnel, which make up less than 5 percent of the total budget.

The proposed budget eliminates all middle school sports and many high school sports, including hockey, tennis, gymnastics, volleyball, esports, swimming and diving, skiing, wrestling, soccer and riflery. Bryantt said many of those sports programs have received support from community members, and he’s hopeful the district will be able to outsource more of that.

“I would love to speak more with community organizations to figure out a way that we can come together and potentially outsource more sports,” he said.

The budget comes less than a week after Anchorage Assembly members approved putting an $11.8 million one-time education tax levy on the April ballot for voters to decide on. Bryantt has committed to using all of that money for teaching positions. He said the funding would pay for more than 80 teachers, and would help to blunt the forecasted class size increases.

“Right now, this budget encompasses a +4 to the pupil-to-teacher ratio,” Bryantt said. “If that levy passes, that’s the equivalent of a -2 PTR. So if that levy passes, then the net increase is a +2 instead of a +4.”

The proposed budget next goes to the Anchorage School Board. The board has a work session scheduled for Tuesday on the proposal and will vote on it later this month.

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This story was originally published by Alaska Public Media and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.