Good morning, the Tribal Affairs Committee will now come to order.
The time is 8.02 AM, Tuesday, January 27th,
2026 in capital room 106.
Members present are from my left to right, representative Freer,
and myself chair diver.
Let the record reflect that we have a quorum
to conduct business and a quick reminder
to please silence your cell phones.
I would like to thank Jordan Nicholson,
the Tribal Affairs Secretary from Records,
and Susan Quigley from the Juneau LIO
for staffing the committee today.
Thank you so much.
I also would also like
to recognize Almaria Alcatra.
From my office who is our committee aid for the tribal affairs committee and for all of her hard work getting us going for
The session if there's anything you need from her during our Committee meetings
Please signal for her attention and she will be happy to assist
and
Like let the record reflect that we have been joined by representative schwanke at 803 good morning
Before we begin, I would like to thank you
for joining the committee this session.
Oops, ahead of myself.
Even though we have two items on the agenda day,
let me start that again.
Before being, we had two item on agenda today.
First,
we will have a presentation on
the Alaska Native Tribal Education Consortium.
After that, we will have a presentation from Elisagvic College in respect to both presenters.
I will be having a hard stop at 9.20 for the first presentation to allow time for our second
presentters. And with that I would also like to welcome Representative Ruffridge to House Tribal
And thank you for joining the committee of this session.
This is representative Refriges first meeting with us.
Thank you, even though.
I don't, we don t want to be too hard on you.
We did break up the all-female committee, but we're very happy to have you and to do this.
We can change that.
Welcome.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm looking forward to discussions with you, and the committee members, on just,
things that our tribes face here in the state of Alaska.
So starting the presentation off will be Dr. Joel Isaac,
Kle, Kha, yes, and Misha Jackson, Chukungay,
Kla, Andsanya Klann.
If you all could please come up to the table
and state your name and title for the record before you begin.
I ask that each presenter does the same
as they start their section to keep track
who's speaking throughout the hearing on a boss seat.
Thank you.
For the record.
Then, Inish, Iji, like Ayis, Canadian Indian Tribe,
Raghavatnu, a state of Alaska,
compacting, consultant, R'aghvatnu.
So, for the record, my name is Joel Isaac.
I work for Canadian Canadian Tribe
as the Director for Language and Culture,
and I also work
for The Department of Education as a contractor.
for compacting. So that the two and tech and stack are both acronyms. They both have
tribal in them.
They will have a C word that's in
them, so if there's any confusion, I am happy to clarify today is about the consortium
primarily.
So if compact questions come up, we can field them but it's going to be about
the Consortium and then I'll turn it over to Misha to introduce us out for the record.
Misha Jackson, Chukungi, Klaoyu, Hetu Asak.
I am Flinkett.
I work for Central Council of Flickett and Haida Indian
Tribes of Alaska as the tribal education liaison.
I also serve as an at-large representative
for the National Indian Education Association.
I'm going into my second year of a four-year term.
And I'll also participate in the Tribal Education
Department's National Assembly.
And for record, I, oh, is that working?
Yeah, OK.
a Sonya scan from Ketchcan Indian community. I am the education and training director and
I also am Alaska Rep for NIA National Indian Education Association and just thank you for
allowing us this time this morning. Wonderful. Thank you.
and go ahead and begin.
Sounds good for the record, Joel Isaac.
And this is just a brief agenda for today.
We're going to do our introductions.
And it's going to segue through tribal sovereignty background, what the Alaska Native Tribal Education Consortium, the acronym being ANTEC, so you're going
to hear that and see that a lot throughout the presentation. And then the formation of that, and then an overview and also for how the membership is conducted,
and how individuals or organizations would be able to join. So that's the overall agenda today. There are three of us here. They've been the co-facilitators of
our tribal partners who have been part of the work as well.
So we have Maddie with King Island Community
and Carl with Canik tribe and Mark
with the Anupia community, the Arctic Slope.
And so it's one I've recognized them.
And then also there's been about 80 individuals
who had been on Zoom meetings and in person to form this.
So I just wanna not gonna go through all 80
individuals, but just want to do the shout out
to those who've been making this a reality.
So on slide three.
Just the beginning, if it's through the chair to the Chair, I'm going to do kind of a mission
vision overview that may pause for questions in different chunks if that was if what you'd like
or I can hold till the end, whichever you prefer. I guess if you if the committee has a question,
I'll keep track of time because we have till 9.20. So we'll see how how many questions come up and
Alright, Joe Isaac for the record, jumping back in to slide three with the mission statement.
The mission of ANTEC is to uphold advanced tribal sovereignty and in education by empowering
tribes to collaborate, coordinate, and advocate on matters affecting the success of Alaska's
Native students, families, communities.
So really the tribal education consortium is very tribal focused, which is there in the
name, also in our mission.
and tribes are not the only organizations
that care about kids, and so it really is
about the success of all students
and making access for while it is tribal focused
and Alaska Native pedagogies focused,
it does impact and benefit all the students
and the existing system, you'll see that
throughout the presentation.
So going on to the next slide slide four,
we have the vision.
It's a unified and sovereign Alaska Native educational voice that drives transformative cultural line systems of education from early childhood through post-secondary, rooted in indigenous knowledge, languages, and governance.
This committee has done work on Alaska native languages. We appreciate that. You see that would make sense in our education.
That's one of the vision statements includes languages so that there's space for everybody.
This is one of the main visions for the consortium.
is to amplify tribal voice in state, federal,
and intertribal education policy discussions.
There are 229 federally recognized tribes
in the state of Alaska.
There's the State of Alaska.
We have school districts, we have state education agencies,
there's tribal education agency, there are school
support organizations.
So it's really about how do we amplify the tribal
voice and those various systems.
But I think one of the exciting things for this
is that inter-tribeal.
One of the things that came up in house tribal affairs last session when we were doing the compacting conversation was how do tribes work together?
And so this is one of those the ways that tribes come together as governments is through entities like this that form
Because it is it can be very difficult to get 229 governments to work
together
And how do we not work in conflict?
How do you resolve conflict, how
do amplify our voice, and then the resources
that we have to not duplicate services or amplify
the things that are working well.
The second item, advocating for direct access
to funding, data, decision-making authority
for tribal education.
And my hope centers want to add anything to this slide.
They're great at talking about this item.
But it's one of the things that tribes don't have because of
the Stevens rider at the congressional level is the
Bureau of Indian Affairs funding coming into our state.
And you may hear tribes come to your offices or anyone who's
listening offices and say we need funding for education.
And it is a federal piece with the BIA and that whole complex
legal conundrum is one the thing that frequently comes up.
And so that's a discussion that is kind of a perennial discussion with tribes.
And then the data, we had just talked about our students,
our tribal citizens are in our current public education system by and large.
And what tribes are missing is the
data to be able to track how are our student doing.
FERPA often gets used against tribes to have access for their citizens,
even though it's federally protected under Title VI,
there's federal protections for that.
So that often, this is one of the things
that come up in that decision making.
We often have to go to DC and then get our federal delegates
to like, This is the law we wrote.
Go tell the school district.
And then the schools are like we didn't know
that law changed 10 years ago.
And so it doesn't always have
to be combative, but often the information that's happening
in DC does not trickle down to every school
district, which is a tall order.
So, that is some of ways the consortium
helping with that information flow.
I just want to say that this is Sonia for the records on your scan and through the chair. Thank you
I
just wanted to add that
The direct access to to
the curriculum and all of those different things we don't have one place to go right now
People are going okay
I live here so I can go here and I could go there and i can do this
This would enable oneplace to be a storehouse for curriculum for all those things for
For all schools for All LEAs for
Not just for the tribes, but this would help with bringing in those
components into the districts that are looking for them and need them.
And this is a great way to do it, because I know as a tribe, we get a lot of phone calls to come into this school to teach certain things.
This would give that ability to have a set curriculum that is used area-wide.
coordinating regional and statewide advocacy to improve educational outcome for Alaska Native
students. I think that one kind of speaks for itself but it's really it about improving
the educational outcomes. Our goal is our kids and you'll see that tribes don't own the
traditional value of caring for children but you will see many tribes on the wall in practice.
children, youth elders are considered a very strong benefit to society. They are an added value,
not a pulling away from in any way. So that's one of the things that just looking at how does
that tradition value and action look in our state? And that is one the goals or the purposes of
Through the chair, Misha Jackson, I would just add
There are models for this that already exists. So part of that is the Tribal Education Department National Assembly that that myself and Mark both participate on on a regular basis
Over in Virginia. There is also a tribal education consortium that they've put together
And especially during the past year or so you have seen different regional sets of tribes
Coming together to share information advocacy
et cetera, that have been going on passionately.
And so this is a model probably we've
been working on since we started negotiations.
And it was clear that this was a gap in a need.
I'd say just to give a quick example
of the history of Alaska Native Education,
because that's the one thing I can bring to this,
is this did exist in some shape or form,
but it always grant funded.
Right. So there was the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative back in 1995 that was funded by the
National Science Foundation. I think it was in partnership with AFN. And they basically helped
create this statewide group that would work together and then break off into regions.
So a lot of the cultural curriculum that you guys see to this day that has those historical roots
from that huge grant. But once those stopped and the money stops coming through, only certain
those groups of education pockets, right?
And then you can see how that played out
over the next 20 years.
And so we did have one in Southeast Alaska,
which played an instrumental role,
but it did eventually kind of fizzle out
over time without that extra funding.
And, so, this is really designed out of what
the gaps we saw.
during negotiations, but also knowing that this has already existed.
This is what helped push through the Alaska Cultural Standards.
And so being able to play that role again and advocate as well as follow suit
from a lot of different regions across the United States, it really is just a time
to empower tribal voice and shared experiences since a law you guys serve
on the Education Committee.
But we know there is a a lotta turnover for teachers, superintendents,
but there's also a lots of teacher for administrative staff.
experience is often who's in the seat that has the control of data, that
has control, of a school building, et cetera, and then we have to like
re-teach and relearn.
And when that comes from just one tribe, sometimes there can be a lot of
defensiveness and protectiveness, which is naturally inherent when it comes to
children, but then it's on tribes to reteech everything, right?
And it kind of turns into this system where it feels like you're constantly
fighting for what you know exists, just to get people to kind
of catch up and understand what's out there.
Really, that's how I envision what this is able to offer,
is all the other tribal education,
the Alaska Native Corporations.
We get a lot of university professors
that are tribal citizens dedicated to this work,
and being able share with them,
like the laws, the regulations,
the things that're going on in other places
and share that space,
helps them as they start training new teachers,
they started training, new superintendents.
And so,
the trickle down of the information
is only going to enhance.
And, so we look forward to working
with those other 80 people plus as we continue.
forward. So thank you. For the record, Joel Isaac, we're going to go to slide six. The purpose
has their six purpose items were halfway through the purpose are number four, outreach and engagement
of Alaska tribes, tribally empowered organizations in Alaska education policy, advocacy and transformative
So one of the technical distinctions, and we're going to get more into the
technical legal jargon as we go, because that's always the fun part.
If you're like me, you enjoy that, but if you not, then you can learn to enjoy it.
The Alaska native of non-government organizations is one
of, I think, the terms you might hear.
So a corporation, like an Inca corporation or a village or regional corporation
is considered a non government organization.
Are you asked to waive sovereign immunity?
And if you're not and you are a negative organization, then you'd be considered a non-government organization.
That's the, I think the simplest way to describe the difference between a tribal government and a, and non government organization?
So just, we'll see that throughout the presentation.
The key piece is we want to make space for both.
And that's, I think, really one of the exciting things about the consortium is this is a first
to be able to make space for the tribal governments, the Tribal non-government organizations,
which includes the nonprofits, and our school district educational supports like the university
system, et cetera.
Number two on this slide, promoting collaboration and shared learning across tribal education
departments.
Sonya had spoken to this a little bit.
AIDS, tribal education agencies, which is a federal definition, and so the goal is when
not all tribes have an education department and some do.
And so we've had, since we started the Zoom meetings
in the spring, tribes reach out and say,
how do we form ordinances, which are tribal laws?
How do create a tribal education department?
The federal government occasionally has grants
to do the development of a Tribal Education Agency,
but not always, and so that's one of the things
that consortium as more tribes join are able to show.
This is an example of tribal educational codes.
You don't have to start from scratch.
Advancing, the last on the slide, advancing the continuity of language, culture, and indigenous
worldviews in education. And so we've kind of spoken to that one already, but this is one of
the pieces that it can be very difficult with the turnover within a tribe, at the school district,
How do we understand it? How to we keep adapting it and building it if one tribe has the curriculum
another one doesn't all those types of things. How did we do that continuity?
And so where we maintain institutional knowledge
and that expertise, even though people might be
fluidly moving back and forth between systems,
that's one of the gaps that we noticed
when during the, what Misha and Sony were talking about
during that state tribal education compact negotiations,
a lot of needs came up.
And, so that is one the responses
to the need of our state.
On slide seven, we're gonna jump into a little bit
about the background.
and tech, the Alaska Native Tribal Education Consortium,
legally is a tribally sanctioned organization.
And to be a tri-bally-sanctioned organization,
you have to have a sovereign immunity
as a tribal government.
And so where is this recognized in Western courts?
This has been inherently
embedded it since time immemorial with tribes doing self-governance but if we
look back to before the US was when the U.S. was still a colony and when Great
Britain or England was doing the colonization around the world this is
one of the things that King George
the third had his royal proclamation. And this is one of the key parts just to kind of position
what was on paper versus what happened. Nations or tribes should not be molested and disturbed
in the possession of such parts of our domains and territories as not having been seated to or
So, some key pieces of that is the disturbed or molested parts that happened with colonization,
which is one of those things about international law.
And then one thing you might also in this committee here about Anksa or Nilka.
It kind of has to do with those traditional hunting grounds
and purchase and all those types of legal framework
comes from the 1700s.
And not all of the law in this proclamation
or from 1700 is still actively recognized
by all the nations who signed off on it in the Treaty of Paris.
But that is one of things that just to kind
of positionality, where does sovereignty,
how is it recognized, and where did it come from
in Western courts?
If we look at, so there's the international law.
If we go to slide eight and look at the tribal sovereignty in U.S. law, in 1787 there was the
Northwest Ordnance, which I'm not going to read the whole piece here, but I'll start out the
beginning part. The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians, their lands,
and property shall never be taken from them without consent, and in their property rights and liberty
they shall not be invaded or disturbed and less than just and lawful wars authorized by Congress.
More in that quote, but a key piece of this one is Congress.
Congress has what's called plenary discretion
or not discretion, that Congress can make laws
to impact Alaskan tribes across the country.
They have plenery power, if that's the word I was looking
for, so it's two peas in a row, plenary power.
And that is where we start to see this in US law,
is back in 1787, which is very early on for our country
On slide nine, we're going to go to the U.S. Constitution.
So tribes are listed in the Commerce Clause.
The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce and foreign nations among the several
states and with the Indian tribes.
So when, if you hear the question, like, well, where does this authority for tribes really
come from?
These are some of the answers to that.
And it's rooted legally in the United States Constitution,
which is still legally active.
And go back to Britain and the colon,
I'm like, oh, that's not quite legally
active, but the Constitution is.
And you see this in tax code, because tribes
are treated as states for tax purposes, which
is why tribes don't always have to have a 501c3
to accept donations, just as a practical example.
On slide 10, we jump more into the recent timeframe.
So 1934, you see the Indian Reorganization Act.
And this is where we start to see a,
this was during what's known as the termination era
in federal policy.
So the goal was to eradicate tribes
and native people across the country.
And you'll see that this
is when it started to do more of a further articulation
in Federal law for government to government relationships
with tribes and the federal government.
And then we jump to 1978, you have the Interior Department.
And if you've heard of FAP, which is the federal acknowledgment process, this is how
you might ask the question, well, how do you become a federally recognized tribe?
Because that's been brought up a lot in this committee over the years is federal recognition for tribes in Alaska
We don't have state recognized tribes where other states in the lower 48 do
We have federally recognized Tribes in Alaska, and this is the beginnings of that technical term and then jumping to slide 11
1994 and
This is what's known as the list act and
The way that a tribe becomes a federally recognized tribe by an act of Congress,
by the administrative procedures under 25 CFR Part 83, or by decision of a United States court.
So what you see is after 1994, there were more tribes that became tribes in Alaska.
So the number of federally-recognized tribes is not static, nor is it static across the U.S.
so that number does change. It doesn't change real quickly. You can imagine trying to go
advocate to Congress. That could take 30 years to become a tribe, and that is a real number.
And so, that's just a little bit about like where the tribal sovereignty for Antec comes from
and why we're set up the way that we did as a tribally sanctioned organization.
It's with that sovereignty piece.
HB 123 was passed and signed into law.
And this bill provided it for the state recognition of federally recognized tribes.
So it did not create new tribes, it didn't transfer any trust responsibility.
It was the states saying federally recognize tribes exist, and we recognize that they exist.
And this is the section of that bill, section 0115100.
And it just recognizes the unique relationship
between tribes and the United States.
And that is one of the things that you've heard
in this committee, during we talked about education
with compacting or other presentations,
is tribes are governments.
They're considered political subdivisions
at the federal level.
They are treated as states and various sections
of federal law, which is why for educational purposes,
they're different than school districts.
And while you hear tribes coming and saying,
we want to engage with the state,
we wanna engage the Federal Government
because under the U.S. Constitution,
tribes were treated at states.
Maybe hopefully some of those through lines that you've heard in the committee and also where the again the authority for the consortium comes from
So that's the some the legal background
Now we're gonna get to maybe someone more interesting stuff about the the Consortium itself and how and why it formed
So there are three membership eligibility options for joining ANTEC, and this is on slide 14.
So because the consortium is a tribally sanctioned organization to maintain that,
the voting membership, you have to be a federally recognized tribe in Alaska.
However, we also have two other forms of membership which are affiliate memberships,
which is members of eligible,
Alaska Native serving organizations.
So that's like those tribal non-government organizations
or nonprofits, and then non voting affiliate members
through local education agencies.
And we're rounding out how to include some of that,
like the university system,
but the goal is like, the public education system
that is not native or tribal based.
And these three pieces are super important because often what happens is when we being tribes go to DC there's or to the legislature it's the question about like well what do the corporations think or what are the tribes think and historically the laws have been constructed to I think the good intention
from them is how do you get the trust responsibility from the federal government to meet every Alaska native human being.
and there's so many different definitions of what that looks like and the
experiments of the corporations and
the tribes in separating out land and money and governance created this
quagmire for Alaska and that can get used as a wedge.
to separate the tribes and native families from each other and powers and money and let you put all
of that in the mix and then it often creates the fighting and our goal for the consortium
is to bring all those entities together and recognize there are limited resources.
How do we make the best of them and how do put kids at the center?
And that really is part of what's transformative about the consortium, is it's from not from a scarcity mindset, like, this is mine, I have to fight for this.
It's we are working and fighting for our kids and we need to bring all of our pieces together.
And the other thing we had early on in the conversations back in February of 2025 is do we make space for the non tribal voice in this organization?
Because what we've experienced as tribes is there usually is not
space for us in a lot of the big entities. We have to kind of claw our way in and then
try and advocate for an advisory role that's kind
of lower and that we didn't want to replicate that. And so we spent about nine months figuring
out like how do we maintain sovereignty and the mission vision purpose but still give
access and working together. Because again, our tribal youth are in our public school system.
So, if we create an artificial wall, that's an adult problem, and our kids feel the effects
of it.
So we didn't want to root an organization in division, we wanted to bring it together
in unity.
Excuse me, um, you have a question from Representative Story.
Thank you, Chair Diberd, so good to see everybody today.
If you could help me.
I have two questions.
If could just give a few examples of the last Canadian serving entities, the non-affiliate
and then local education agencies are school districts.
But it'd be great just to have a few more names on that.
And then when you say that they're non-voting,
I know a lot of times tribes have been asked
to be voting members or meeting with our state agencies,
government to government.
They should have the seat at the table.
And so why are you making them nonvoding when
when I see other tribal entities wanting to be government to government and having a seat at the
table. Janan, thank you for the question. Joe Isaac for The Record, through the Chair to Representative
Story. It's good to see you and thank for your questions. Some examples are we've had conversations
with...
Bristol Bay Native Corporations Foundation.
We've had conversation with Cook and Let Tribal Council,
which is the nonprofit arm of the Siri Corporation,
which in Alaska Native,
or in ANXA, Alaska native.
corporation and so those are some of the like big regional corporations and we've had some
conversations with Chukachmoot which is over on the north of Kodiak and the Valdez side of Alaska
looking at how do oftentimes the tribes that are smaller
they will kind of defer through their foundations
or through the corporations to help filter information
and bring back to their councils
what they need to be following.
And so we've had the conversations around that
where a single individual might be bringing multiple tribes
might choose that single individuals
to begin a meeting for them
and then bring the information back
to those tribes which is again different than the NGOs.
But what we're seeing is that some of the the NGO's
are serving as that communication network for the tribes.
And if we were to have like no NGOs allowed,
then it makes it hard for that information
to disseminate to everybody.
So that's three examples of them.
We've had university, as Nisha said,
university faculty attend the meetings.
We had principals and superintendents attend
the meeting, which those are obviously not tribal,
but those aren't examples of the other non-affiliate members.
And then to your second question about the non voting piece
is that it comes back to that federal law component
about how do you maintain your status
as a tribally sanctioned organization.
You don't have that tribal government in that federally recognized tribe status.
The organization would no longer be incorporated under federal law legally if we allowed for voting members who are not tribal governments.
And so that's the why for that is legally because we're incorporated in federal laws.
recognized by the federal government is what we're incorporating under and there's two ways that
tribally sanctioned organization can form. One is through resolutions where each tribe
she opts in through its government official voted resolution. The other is a tribal government
and create its own legal code for how to create a tribal organization and tech decided to go the
everyone gives their own resolution because otherwise all the tribes are under one tribal
government and that's a hard sell to have everyone all of the Tribes as governments choose to be
under someone else's tribe. So this maintained individual tribal sovereignty and voice also the
We're not mandating that everyone, every tribe joined this.
So that's the route we went and why we
went that route.
Do you want to add any examples?
OK.
All right.
Thank you.
That was a very great answer to break it down,
because it's a really confusing subject.
We have a question from Rep.
Karrick, and then one from Rev.
Ruffridge.
Thank, you, thank you so much for.
breaking it down. I am still just a little confused what an example of the non-voting
affiliate for an Alaska native serving entity is, and then an
example or maybe a couple for the local education agencies. And I think you
listed all of those in there, but I was just kind of trying to put
you know a couple of examples under each of those headers. So could you maybe go over that just one
more time? Yes, thank you for the question, Joel Isaac, for The Record, through the chair to
Representative Carrick. The non-government organizations, or the tribal non government
organizations. Cook in the Tribal Council was the one one of the ones I gave, CITC,
and then to gatch mute, and I apologize,
I'm not great with spelling,
and it starts with a CH.
And then I keep going with my muscle memory on my keyboard.
Those are three examples that we've had meetings with her
who have attended the meetings.
We also have had conversations with
C. Alaska Heritage Institute and they've been in...
We've done outreach to them.
This is not saying that they have committed,
but that's the discussions that we've had
with the CEOs of SHI and CITC.
And some of the conversations have been very productive.
And it's some that, we need to see more information.
We need see how this plays out.
There's a lot of change happening federally.
We wanna see as more as this progresses.
So as something starts new, that list will expand,
but we started.
Then the local education agency, we've had principals
and I think it's UConn Flats is one of the school districts
where principals came to our in-person meeting
and that was one things we had to address
where we have a tribal only meeting
and then people fly in and we're like,
we are not gonna kick you out.
But there may be discussions that we ask you to like
Either we're going to be in executive session.
We need to step out for five minutes.
Maybe talk about something, but we didn't have to do that.
And so throughout the meetings, we've
had to figure out how do we respectfully figure this out
as we go, and the principal is also
very respectful of that?
We've had conversations to kind of
briefly with the superintendent from NOM at AASB's conference as well because they're
one of the compacting affected districts and he's kind of explaining the difference between
the consortium and a compact.
Thank you.
I would just add, sorry, through the chair of Misha Jackson, for the non-affiliate member
Oftentimes, it depends on the size of the district
in terms of who would come.
So we've gotten some that are tribal citizens,
that our teachers or work in administrative capacity
in the local education agency,
or we have non-tribal members that join as well.
But oftentimes you'll see whoever is in charge,
the title varies, but whoever's in
charge of what's called the Title VI funding,
which comes from the Office of Indian Education directly.
We had a lot of those folks come in.
had the list of all the different names that we could give you.
But so we had a lot of those ones.
In smaller schools, you will tend to see
the superintendent or a principal come in,
because then they handle all of that funding,
I think, especially over the past year,
since that was questionable on the federal level,
or it felt threatened.
That's where a lotta the involvement came in
and then the interest as well.
So to paint the light of the LEAs,
you get anything from a teacher
to administrator to superintendent, that'll come.
Sonya scan through the chair. I also would like to say that the NGOs are
tribal serving organizations and so they serve the same members that the tribes do and the
tribes are sovereign and tribal-serving organizations are not which is the point that we were making
to be a part of that sovereignty and underneath that
sovereignty we want to
be under the tribe's it doesn't mean there's no voice because we're all in the
same boat as it were so
I just wanted to make sure it's like, it would be a duplication of services if we were to have the entities and the tribes because we're serving the same people, so it'd be like the
same vote.
Well, thank you for that.
We'll go ahead and go to Representative Ruffridge and Representative Burke, and then we should
continue on.
I saw there's many pages, so Representative Ruffridge.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
A couple of questions.
First is, I think it seems like maybe Antech is relatively new.
How many voting members from federally recognized tribes are currently in Antec?
Through the chair, July 6th, the record to Representative Rushbridge. Currently there's eight, and that represents we were doing some paper napkin math because we didn't, we don't have every tribe's active role number, but we're pushing close to 50,000 tribal citizens that are represented by those eight tribes.
And we've had other tribes who've attended meetings but have not put resolutions forward at this point.
to the other part of your question.
This is very new.
The Constitution became active in December
and the fiscal agent component became
active, it was last Friday.
So this is, we are now able to accept money.
The piece with this work is that tribal voice is leading it.
So the tribes that we're looking at forming it
and entities.
that chose to come were paying their own way and putting together the legal fees to be able
to talk to attorneys about this. So this is not grant funded currently. This is something that is
grassroots built by the tribal voice and the Alaska Native serving entities that want to
be part of this work. And so it is very, very fresh. Second question, if I may, but I'm sure.
outside of my realm of expertise, like a really long way.
What would be the relationship between,
I guess what we all think would
be
the largest collection of tribal voices together,
which would the Federation of Natives.
I thought there was an education component to AFN.
What is your relationship with AFM?
maybe this is in addition to the education work
that was happening within that organization and it felt
like potentially there was more tribal members
within the organization, is there a partnership there I think
is essentially the basis of that question and how has
Joe Isaac for the record representative reference. I appreciate the question. That was one of the lists that I or the entities that
I forgot to mention when representative care got the questions. So we have been meeting with AFN
to talk with them about
what we're doing, we are not trying to create competitions,
we've invited them to meetings,
we met with them,
we have been sharing our draft resolutions
and the constitution to form,
to kind of keep them up to speed
on what the consortiums' goals are,
what were advocating in Washington DC,
the state level,
and also when we had the face-to-face meeting
in the spring,
Kendra came from AFN to the meeting,
and it was helpful being able to talk through like,
how do, like what works?
with an entity that's as large as AFN for the tribes,
the corporation voices, all those pieces
to kind of kick the tires on the considerations
that were probably going through your head
for like, how would you do something that was big
and how does it start?
And so we have had active and we're still ongoing
conversations, we were then
facilitated the panel discussion at the ASB conference in the fall and we were able to talk
with him after that and just kind of bring him up to speed also. So it's about every other month.
We've been either meeting face to face or on the phone and then emailing back and forth.
And then one of the other just examples is
AFN would be an NGO that would
be eligible to be part of the consortium.
And whether or not they choose to do that is
like AFNs prerogative.
And AFM in those conversations, I'm not
going to speak on very detailed for what they do,
but they have an education committee
and they advocate for education.
And AFRN also does much like a lot more types of advocacy
than just education, and so that's
one of differences is that the Consortium is really
the education arena exclusively, and then has a broader,
articulate, like specific purposes that we talked about,
that narrows the focus, but it allows us to go across a
broader spectrum of advocacy and deeper, which might be more
difficult for an organization that's trying to do so many
different types of Advocacy, is it's kind of how we're seeing
that progress.
And then one of those other things like we're not trying if they're doing the heavy lift in an area
We can be a supportive voice and we don't need to pick that up and vice versa
Where it's like AFN supports what we are doing then they might not have to do as much of the
heavy lifting and
We might do more of that heavylifting
All right, we will go to representative Freer and the current time is 845 so we have about
30 minutes left and it looks like about six more slides
Thank you chair diver actually representative reference answered or asked my question, so
I'm good. Thank
Wonderful, please continue dr. I
Thank You for the record you'll Isaac moving to slide 15
This is the how do you become a member and we've talked a little bit about some of these slides, but we'll
refresh them. Membership is made active by transmitting a signed resolution or
assigned authorization of an eligible entity. So for example, a tribal
government is going to need a Tribal resolution that that government
officially recognize like is requesting to join what it looks like for the
various NGOs. It might be different than a resolution, it might
be it so we're figuring out what that looks
like because each entity might have a board vote and it
legal mechanisms, but you'll see resolutions as the most common one is what we're experiencing.
And then to maintain the tribal sanctioned legal status, only federally recognized tribal-
Antech memberships are voting members.
However, all other members are eligible to be part of Antec and serve on
committees, participate in meetings and antech activities.
So the way that antec is functioned functions is we're developing working
groups. So for example, a policy initiative might come forward and there's a
working group that would form around that they make a make
a recommendation if there needs to before a vote, that vote would go to the tribal
voting membership, but really the structure of how it's vetted and what gets
to the voting table is made through those working groups.
And we were specific with the term working group
because as I just discussed,
there's not funding for this right now.
So how you get to table, is that you work.
that's what happens. If you want to be active, then you're doing the work. And we are actively
looking for funding to help with staff and things like that, but really it's an open invitation
and what that work is. It looks different for each member,
but it kind of that traditional value of how does everyone contribute,
and that contribution might not look the exact same way.
It's like I was talking earlier, a child's contribution to society might look different
contributing. And one of those, the base contributions is you
show up to the meetings.
And that's how really how we are getting most of the
information out and you follow your email. So like, that is the
baseline. Everyone has to do that to be actively involved.
And then we go from there.
Moving on to slide 16. These are the formation protocols.
So the presentation kind of talk talked with the legal
status and how the legal foundation for how it formed, how you become a member of it, and then as we kind of end the presentation there's there is space for some more questions but looking at like what was the protocols we use to do something like this that's never been done in our state.
there's also a similar thing that's happening right now in the plains area of our country
and they're grappling with moving like working across state boundaries and across like country
like between Canada and the US and we haven't quite had the Canada conversation with our
Gwichon and other Alaska Native who can get relatives who live in Canada or go back and forth
but that one of the things tribes
There's these boundaries that were foisted upon us that we are working as tribal
governments, essentially it's international exchange that
we're doing. So just as a person, the context.
So looking at being respectful of all participants and all communications, we all try and listen, understand, and not react.
It's okay to disagree, but not blame, shame, or attack ourselves or others.
This is one of the other things that we have in a lot of our foundation documents on item two,
is there are the federal recognized tribes, they exist to sovereign governments,
and the tribal sovereignty of these tribes shall not be diminished nor impaired.
So that's one of the questions that come from the tribes is it's like if we join this,
are we diminishing our tribal authority or our voice?
And so we have this explicitly listed as one
of our things that we shall not do that.
And it provides that test, if you will, like an illegal standpoint,
like,
if were starting to do
that and we
have
this statement, you can test the decision or the process against is this diminishing
depersonalizes it and puts it back to the question.
There is a commitment to demonstrate honor and respect of Alaska Native culture and self-governance in education.
Slide 17, we will do what we can and at least for now let go of what
we cant. There are a lot of things that could be addressed in
education as all of you are aware of and the consortium starting out this
We often, when we're spitballing at our face-to-face meeting,
we had lots of big sticky notes on the walls,
and they were filled with everything
the consortium could do.
It's like, OK, well, now we know what everyone's looking for,
and how do we start, and eventually get there.
And so just recognizing we have to go slow and start small
to further and grow.
Working group participants will work in good faith and the spirit of collaboration and then part of that respect of
that and that collaboration is the resources both financial and human are limited.
Duplication replication of the existing educational system should be avoided.
And that's part like we're not trying to create the exact same thing that exists already.
And we make that very clear with with our meetings.
And then on slide 18, one of our acknowledgments that we have in our meetings is that students
have the right to be educated within their own community and through their culture and
language.
And just acknowledging the horrific effect of forced removal are still felt by Alaskans
and especially the Alaska Native community.
And this is the boarding school era especially.
We still very actively feel the effects of that.
And so just acknowledge that that affects our work.
And then all students and communities benefit from having
an understanding and knowledge of Alaska Native peoples,
cultures, ways of knowing and language.
This is a benefit and a strength unique to Alaska.
Through the chair, Misha Jackson,
I think
a
Dr. Isaac undersells his ability right here in facilitating groups but these acknowledgments allow
everybody to come to the table in the same space and with that idea of being future focused and
moving forward and so we have all shared and and I can look at the folks behind us as well we've all
And this is probably the hardest part is getting everybody to that shared understanding.
So this usually how we start pretty much every meeting is these acknowledgments that yes,
we acknowledge that these things have happened.
These are the goals.
These the expectations and this what we're working towards so that we can start from
there and it helps those conversations move forward.
But it's also that part of that healing and that voice and acknowledgement in Alaska
Native culture I think is one of the most universal values that
we have just acknowledging people personally, acknowledging.
You know spirituality etc
And so being able to bring that and ground that in the room has been very beneficial
And it allows us to go from like talking around ideas to actually doing the work
And I think that's what allows this to set that working group model forward
So I just wanted to speak light to these ones because this is definitely a practice that it's beneficial for working with Alaska native and Alaska Native tribes
Joe Isaac for the record
I think the other thing, as just kind of reflecting on what Misha just said, is in the meetings,
we had discussions around the boarding school trauma, and we did create space for it. It wasn't
a long time period because it's an acknowledgement that everyone in this room lives this. And as we
have non-native people joining the meeting, it starts to create a space where they can see how
even though they're not Alaska native, or it's affecting their school, even
though it is not a tribal school. And one of the things that I think is the benefit and
strengths we need to Alaska is that by having the tribes lead this formation of a consortium,
and the tribes are helping leading that healing work
that our entire state needs.
And that's one of the things we could see
as like through lines across the sticky notes
in that meeting is this is affecting
every single person in our state.
Every, we all are impacted by education
in one way or another.
And as we see little pockets of that that pop up,
sometimes it can be really hard to talk about.
Other times it's really beneficial.
It's fun to spend time outside.
You don't learn a lot by hunting and fishing and spending time with family.
Alaska Native people don´t exclusively own the right of family value.
But it benefits everybody.
But what has happened with the forced removal of kids is that our Alaska native families
experienced our traditional value of a family being removed.
We were told you can´T be parents.
You can't raise kids.
that affects the whole community and the school environment for a teacher
coming in from the outside or if the teacher, even if they're like born and
raised their generation of people from Alaska that aren't native, it still
affects them.
And so that's part of this work,
creates that healing space and leadership
to where it also helps for the non-native voice
that is really wanting to do what's right
and what is best to not feel the pressure,
to have to like go in and feel like I'm stepping on toes
trying to fix something.
because the tribes are, in this case with the consortium,
making that space, leading that conversation,
having these acknowledgments,
having our meeting set up in a way
to revaluing everybody at the table,
but still recognizing like, yes, this is tribally focused,
but there's still space for you.
And that's been, I think, one of the ways of embedding and taking, like, 11 months to figure out how do we set something up that is fundamentally and in our foundation documents allows for that to be carried out in practice.
And we still have space to tweak that, but I that one that the things that drawing people into this conversation, and we'll have a really big impact on our state.
We started our first statewide Zoom meeting,
took your like kick off after reflecting
from February through April.
Like, how are we gonna do this?
Having some conversations in Washington DC
with our congressional delegates.
Think we were in the midst of doing house tribal affairs.
Hearing committees for compacting,
so kind of putting all of that in real time
learning experience together.
And then we started out the first meeting
with the governance and structure,
and then scope discussions.
And then the next week, we looked at more of the detailed focus
discussions.
And it was really looking at how are we
going to do this work technically,
now that we've kind of scoped out,
and then how do we get more people who are at the table?
One of questions we asked is, who's missing from this
conversation, and how did we connect with them?
And we did an in-person meeting in Anchorage in April as well.
April was a very busy month.
We did, that was an all day meeting,
technical working groups.
We worked on the mission, vision, purpose,
drafting that together.
And then from August, we took a break for summer.
Everyone recognized that fishing is not
the time to get everyone together on Zoom.
And so we did not fight that and we all went fishing.
And we came back in August and
we started doing monthly and tech Zoom meetings
the Department of Education helped with sending this out through the Alaska Native Education
newsletter. Like I was about 1,800 people across the state to do that outreach. And then we were
also doing monthly meetings from September and into January, September 25, into january 2026.
going to Washington DC meeting with our congressional delegate offices for Alaska.
We've also had conversations with Hawaii because they're also not part of the BIA
and looking at how did Hawaii do this because the Hawaii has a model that's a little bit different
and so we read through the federal law and then talked to them like what worked, what didn't.
They have one school district, we have over 50, they have 1 language that has dialects but we
So just looking at similar differences.
And then we met with the Secretary of Education
a couple of times, once in the spring,
once the fall, to kind of temperature check.
We're forming something new.
How does this work with federal law from her understanding?
What are the possible pathways and partnerships we could do with the U.S. Department of Education?
We started these spring conversations when it was announced that the Department
of education was cutting half the staff and the goal was to get rid of it.
And so one of the things is like we're coming to the table saying we want to start something
new in education and then it looks like the message is we are closing education.
How do we work together at this?
And one of the outcomes of The Consortium's work is that the third strategic priority
from the Secretary of Education for the U.S. Department of education includes returning
education to tribes.
So that was one the things that we were able to work on federally throughout this last
year that got published in the federal registry.
We've also been meeting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
There is the Stevens Rider, which removed the BIA from Alaska in 1986.
What does that look like?
How do we engage with BIA and the Bureau of Indian Education?
And then in December, as I mentioned previously,
our Constitution was empowered through tribal resolutions
and ANTEC became an officially,
officially a tribally sanctioned organization
legally on paper.
And in January, Ketchikan Indian Community agreed
to be the fiscal agent for the consortium.
And then our last slide for the kind of nuts and bolts piece.
This is the shout out.
If there are, if you know of any tribes or NGOs that we've mentioned who would be eligible or interested,
please have them reach out and we can send them a draft template resolution for how to join.
So they're not having to figure out from scratch,
We just want to express our thanks for the committee.
One of the other things that came up in this process,
as some of our meetings, we started out our Zoom meetings
where half the meeting is everybody, the tribes, NGOs,
and the LEAs or the education folks that come to the
meeting, and then about halfway through we shift into two
breakout rooms.
And one of questions we asked the LEA's is, or
the Education Partners, why are you here?
like, this is a tribal education consortium, what brought you to the table.
And I think that was one of the things that really helped solidify we're doing the right
work and what the gaps and needs are.
So it showed that, and we knew this before, but it's always great to hear it from people
who are living it.
they're looking for these resources and especially something like a clearing
house for curriculum. How do I better serve my students? How
do i learn more about bringing language into the classroom?
How to i support my administrator to support me better
and carrying out the work in the class room but also help my
administrator feel more confident and how to transform the school environment.
So we were getting really good feedback from the educators who were attending and then the other thing that throughout the meeting
Is that we would ask is how would you like us to outreach to you and make it clear?
When's like respectfully when we need you to be in the room and when you need to do to get out of the
room for this kind of
work to happen and
that that we got good feedback on how to be very direct and
Also the acknowledgments at the beginning of the meetings to make it clear that it's not meant to me rude or exclusive
We just want to take it very clear
So you're not respectful of your time if you know you only need to
Be here for half an hour you'll only book a half hour your Time and it is not that
We are rejecting you which just that's what this meeting is for and so that was one of
The helpful pieces to just kind of continue to refine how we engage respectfully
there's anything and I'm gonna if I may turn mark is there anything you want to
add for student success if through the chair if that's okay
absolutely we have time so Mark Roseberry if you could come to the table and
put your name on the record
Through the Chair, Mark Roseberry, I'm the Director for Education for the Nupia Community
of the Arctic Slope and the Administrator for our Caraget Academy Tribal School.
What we're seeing with our students, you know, our student's come to us,
what they experience in the school, a vast majority of them are bullied,
and they come us for a different opportunity. The students because our environment's different,
in line with the community. You don't see the students stressed in the same way as
they were in a school and they feel at home. It's it's a family environment.
So if you imagine that you're going to see interactions very much like a
family and you are going see students smiling and that stress. When you take away the stress
it changes the education. I will say this a lot of the older students that we have come in
Many of them are far behind in their proficiency levels.
We see that in a state test.
We know that's happening.
It's real.
And so it takes time for our staff to work with them.
And they work them in the way that is a growth model.
So take them from where they are very undisciplined
in education or feeling like they weren't successful.
And it take time.
They're not like overnight changing into the model student.
but they are moving in that direction.
And we see that growth and through patience and time
and our staff working and we have all local staff
so they know the students, they now the families.
And so when you see a vast majority of those students
all in a growth model, not coming in and...
and going the other way. They're all growing and they're growing at different
pieces. We've seen just, you know, we have specialists that work with them now
because we touched them when they come in if they are far behind in reading, writing,
and math. It's very difficult to do your
courses is if you don't understand what you're reading and the words and
everything. So we have specialists working with them so we build that along
with other things and we see growth. Some of the students in a little bit of
time got the grade level others are taking a
little longer but they're all moving in that direction at a pace that is
exceeding what would be expected so that they can catch up. If they only do on
what's expected then they stay at their level that
Thank you for all of your work and thank you
for your words.
We have a question from Representative Story.
Thank You Chair Diberd.
Through the chair, what is the size of
your school community?
So we have two physical sites.
One's in Wayne Wright.
One is in Utkehavik.
And then we had home school students that we serve.
We had a total of 44 students.
Right now, we about 15, no 27.
I'm sorry, 15 in Utkiovic and then we have about 12 in Wainwright and the others are
homeschooled.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, sure.
Representative Schwonke.
Thank, thank you through the chair, Dr. Isaac, and all I just wanted to say thank
you for coming and considering the opportunities to bring people together, I know we've had
Quite a few conversations on that topic and
this this opportunity I think is
one of the most
transformative
opportunities for parents
across Alaska because we do have a disconnect in in a lot of especially small rural communities and
It's where I'm from but maybe it
exists entirely in some of the largest districts as well, I'm not as familiar with, but this
opportunity to engage families in the quality and the importance of education, and I
I am really looking forward to seeing how the consortium can balance the two sides of
education in Alaska, um and that is a culturally relevant experience,
on a global scale because every one of our tribal children are shareholders in
multi-million dollar or billion dollar companies and it is
extremely important for these individual children to be able to graduate from high school and step into a
global economy and succeed. So I just wanted to put that on the table and then not just kind of a little final
I had to laugh when you noted
coming up with a meeting date and I think you might struggle
as you grow your organization. A lot like my husband and i had a hard time finding
a date to get married
because in in fall there's there is a hunting season in the winter there
is trapping season and some are there
fishing season so we got married in march. So
August, interior, caribou, hunting and berry picking so I'm just throwing that out there.
Actually, I was married in March as well.
It's a quiet time.
Interior.
Dr. Isaac, engaging families and small communities, thank you.
Just to generalize it for the record and to the chair and wrap up, that really,
I think you hit the nail on the head, is we're looking at something that's additive.
When we have meetings, we've had to do the technical piece.
How do we do legal work?
How did we make sure we followed the rules that are in federal and state laws?
But we want to make that those voices aren't excluded from the table just because it's
like, oh, you have a voting meeting so you can't come.
And that's again why we go to the working group.
And we invited people to come who said, well, I'm not an official representative for my
I work with my kids doing language and it's like you should come like your voice matters in this work
And you don't have to be only a voting member
To be able to attend a workgroup or a planning meeting in
this way
And then the other piece with it is it. It's not like we want culture or
education
It is together
and thinking about why
and not learning to read. And it's like, well, we should be able to do both.
And that gets us to the shared goals. It's not the hierarchy of like oh, this entity or this
group of people's goals are this and ours are. This and.
one's better than the other. It's like we can achieve both of these. And the example
that you listed Representative Schwanke I think is a great one for it's, like, we want
our kids to be able to read, do math, be beable to function on the land, learn language,
and we're looking at, how do we make that change? And that really is, I
think that that, you see throughout the slides, that driving conundrum.
And The answer is that everyone has to work together and recognize that it is both shared
not one or the other and then it works and so I just wanted to appreciate everyone's time in the
committee and our contact information for the co-facilitators. Thank you. We have one more
question from Representative Refrage. Yeah thank you Madam Chair and I guess my question is
may be very basic questions in your mission statement earlier. So I'm going back a little bit.
The mission here is to uphold and advance tribal sovereignty and education.
And some of your slides after that are really establishing
What needs to be advanced in this area,
because that word I think is very specific.
And I guess what is the barrier that you see
to tribal education existing?
I mean, Mr. Rosebury, I thought that was what you said,
your name was, thank you, it was nice to meet you.
It sounds like you have a school that's operating
maybe in a sovereign way.
I'm trying to understand what's missing if there's a sense that something needs to be
advanced or changed.
Is there a barrier to establishing tribal education?
And if so, what is that barrier?
Mark Roseberry through the chair.
That's great question.
What are challenges?
That's how we keep it we started with our tribe received discretionary funds and our Tribe is one of the two
regional tribes in the state of Alaska clink at height as the other and
We our tribes covers around
94,000 square miles a little bit bigger than the north of burrow
but
The challenge is is funding. We don't have a stable form of funding and so I am deeply
like bare bones funding even with that you know we have people dedicated we've
been had some people that were volunteered when we couldn't pay them our
secretary volunteered for a while to continue the work so we don't have
stable funding the federal government through the Stevens writer as Dr. Isaac
mentioned blocks
BIE funding from coming to the state of Alaska and all that.
That's a long story on why that happened.
We are working with the federal government now to fulfill their trust obligations,
but there isn't a mechanism at this point in time other than tribal compacting and
then grants that are given that can't really be used for operations.
That that's the challenge.
I can get funding for special projects.
But for operations, there isn't a steady flow.
So I'm out there either with our local municipalities,
other entities that will be like Conoco Phillips
that donate, that's how we're operating.
And it's usually month to month, just making sure.
I wasn't even sure I was going to be able to get down here.
And we were working on that because we
were sort of funding and then we found some to come.
That's all tight it is.
If I may add to that,
for the record through the Chair to Representative Ruffridge,
I think the beginning presentation
of the federal state law pieces,
what Mark mentioned with the Stevens writer,
what happened with that in the 80s,
is Congress used their planary power
to say our federal trust responsibility,
which includes funding,
was being transferred to the state of Alaska.
And that transfers not the completely correct legal term,
it's there's not like one word kind of answer to that.
But Congress uses its authority to say,
the state of Alaska is going to meet the educational needs
of tribal citizens that the federal government's
responsible to do.
Because the State of Alaskas Constitution
says there is one system of education in Alaska.
And it was determined in that decade
that having the BIA end
deed happening in Alaska at the same time was two separate systems of education, and
then Alaska said there was a constitution, said that there is one system.
So Congress's solution was you as the state deal with it.
And the tribes are like, well, there's a federal trust responsibility,
and when it was transferred to the State,
there no legal mechanism for tribes to receive operational funding in our state.
And that's why the compacting conversation is a vehicle for that to address in state law how do tribes access state public education dollars because the federal government said the state and the states said we're going to do this.
And then it never happened.
with the way the education is foundation formula funded.
The Department of Education, deed,
does not have a block grant that they can say,
oh yeah, we're gonna use deed money to fund education.
It's not appropriate it that way.
And that's one of the differences between like the Indian health service
compacts which is the federal government being in our state doing
health care and then compacting came in and it's a transfer for those services
from the Federal government operating them and now the funds come from
the feds to the tribes to operate health-care.
Because the federal government's not operating education in Alaska, the Federal Government cannot transfer those services to tribes.
It has to come from the state to the tribes, and that's kind of I think the easiest way to show those parallels is IHS.
What I just mentioned with the current state laws.
Thank you, just to follow up if I may.
Follow up, Representative Reffridge.
And that's really helpful. Thank you. That really, I think, clears up quite a bit. I was,
I guess, from your perspective, you know, potentially the sovereignty piece is not
is, not the baseline here for the mission. It is establishing, because the
But I feel like there's a piece missing here, and that is, how do you fund it?
And I appreciate that sort of coming, because that really wasn't anywhere in this conversation.
And it really comes down to who is paying for it.
And so I guess how to you envision that payment model working?
a separate formula for tribal education?
I guess what is the mission for,
and maybe you haven't talked about this
because Antech is new, but what do you envision
that funding piece looking like
that would empower this?
That's a great question.
Yes, Dr. Joel Isaac.
Thank you, through the chair,
to Representative Ruffridge.
For the consortium operating, we have been working with our federal delegates to look at what does federal funding look like to staff the consortium.
And that does not solve the operational questions
that we just discussed,
but it's kind of like there's the braided conversation.
So we think funding for the consortium,
we're looking at what does the federal appropriation look like
and then doing like fees for service
so someone could contract with the consortium.
So there is that piece of the Consortium.
The
to actually carry out and operate schools. The consortium, one of the things that we've discussed
is not the intent of The Consortium to operate a school. That's part of that amplifying the
tribal sovereignty. How do we advocate for the funding to go directly to the tribe?
Rather than going through a consortium getting skimmed and then going to a tribe, we don't want
For good or bad that's not the intent and that so that what we're looking for and what the consortium would be advocating for is something like tribal
Compacting where the funding flows directly from the state to a tribe or some mechanism from a federal source to
a tribal source and
That's really that advocacy piece is how how do we advocate to make that happen?
Because we we don't want the Consortium to infringe on a tribes funding to go to their school
And so that's really the core, one of those other core statements that we've had in the
meetings is, ANTAC is not a competition for a tribal school. We're here for like the support
around it, not the operation of it. And, so, that is why we need something, we being the tribes
in this state needs something like tribal compacting to happen in order for tribes to receive what is
Legally or arguably what is legally entitled through trust responsibility is public education dollars
Currently a tribe has not stopped from using whatever ways that can fundraise mark talked about it
Are the tribes that are you saw have figured out how to either do grant endowment philanthropic to make a school happen?
That doesn't stop it, but it also doesn t you spend all your time fundraising and there's no guarantee as Mark said
So that's really the funding fix, is we need something that is reoccurring dependable operational funds to meet that responsibility.
Okay, thank you. Dr. Joel Isaac, and we are at our time right now. I really appreciate all of your hard work the past 11 months.
It seems like we might need to have further discussions on this, so I look forward to those.
we can work with you and Dr. Isaac to get those answered and with that I just
thank you so much for your presentation as a longtime educator who also wrote
it's very important for healing in Alaska and I do appreciate that slide on that
and just your work and with that thank you on Abbasi so much thank
you Mr. Ruth Berry and we're going to take a brief at ease as we prepare for a
final presentation brief ease
All right, we're back on the record.
Good morning, everyone.
I would like to give a warm welcome to President Justina
Wilhelm and External Affairs Coordinator Frieda Nagyak
from Illisawgvik College.
Hello, welcome.
Please state your names and titles for the records
and begin your presentation.
All Right, create a book.
Thank you through the chair.
My name is Justina Wilhelm, and I am president of Elisagui College.
Through the chair, my name's Frida Nurek.
I'm the excellent first coordinator for Elissawvik.
So, uvla latak, pogolagipsi, ouvunga jestina, inuparak-seniga avu,
udkyag bing, miyugu runga, sabaktungah, Elizagvi College me,
angiukaka, mori and rozana limenlu,
and simian and laretta kunaknanalu.
I said good morning, greetings.
My name is Justina.
My Inibag name was Avu.
I come from Utkiagubik, and I work at Elisagumik College.
My parents are Mauryan Rosanna Lehman,
and my in-laws are Loretta and Simeon Konaknana.
For the record, Frida, Uvena Tihluk, Tanixinina Fridah,
Okavimirunga, Saavaktuna Elisaagupikmi,
board member. So I said my name is my English name
is Frida. I work at Elisave College.
I'm also our school district's board
member, right? Thank you. Justina Woham for
the record through the chair.
So we have a general presentation of Elisa
providing some general information, some statistics,
and a look ahead of where we're at.
Really excited this year,
we are celebrating our 30th anniversary of Ili Sagovic.
So please feel free to ask any questions
as I go through this presentation.
So.
Moving first we want to just acknowledge the land that we come from up on the
North Slope of the Inupac. We honor the people, the culture,
the animals, land and ocean. There's one little typo there all that you find it
but apologies for that. Also we wanna acknowledge
the lands that were here on here in the southeast. The Linkit, Ani,
We're very exciting to see mountains. We woke up and was like, whoa,
to our flat area. I had to take a picture for my kids.
Our vision, we're here to help build strong communities through education and training. This picture is our Student Government Association that we
have currently on our campus.
and our mission. Our mission is to provide quality,
post-secondary, academic, and vocational and technical education in a learning
environment that so happy to share that we could embed our
in-depth culture, language, values,
and traditions in all things that
we do so that
we can work to grow a well-educated trained workforce,
not just for the North Slope but Alaska and beyond.
A little history about Elisagavagan, our physical location.
If you haven't been to Utkiagavaik,
we're 2.5 miles out from town,
and we are currently occupying an old naval infrastructure.
There's about 15 facilities,
and some of our science labs and our classrooms are in quonset huts.
And we have water that fills our tanks and sewage trucks that come
and take our sewage from us still.
We're thankful for the facilities that we have, but very excited to be moving forward.
Looking to some of our history of who we are, we were once upon a time part of the University
of Alaska Fairbank System and various iterations through the Northsoap Borough University,
Prior mayor, George Amalek was very focused
on workforce development, where he initiated
the Mayor's Workforce Development Center,
and hitting our official 30th, 1996,
as becoming an accredited tribal college
through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.
And in 2005, we became a tribally controlled
and chartered tribal College.
We are sanctioned by the Inupiate Community
of the Arctic Soap, and we're currently
Alaska's only tribal collage.
history this year we've been very busy with a land acquisition of 15 acres we're purchasing
land from ukpragavic inupia corporation to build our new campus that will be centrally located in town
right next to the samil simmons hospital where our our land development is growing in that
direction and then as 2026 we are turning 30 so very excited about that
You've heard a little bit this morning from our previous presenters and tech with their consortium.
And Ili Salkovic is currently part of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium.
So we're part a consortium of 37 tribal colleges all throughout the United States.
It's a very valuable group to be amongst sister tribal
colleges that are grounded with the cultural and holistic view of serving students.
And we are able to meet with them in a variety throughout
DC for the legislative summit where Frida and I will have two students joining us as we go
meet with our state contacts as well as with other tribal colleges and universities.
So what does it mean to be a tribal college? So there are some requirements that we need to
maintain. As mentioned, we are tribally chartered by the Inibid community of the Arctic slope.
We need to maintain a 51% Alaska Native Native American enrollment.
We're currently at a healthy 63% with our
population right now, and the majority of our board needs to be
Alaska Native American Indian. We currently have 12 board of trustees, which
is eight of Our North soap communities, an at-large seat,
and we have three seats that are dedicated, one for our tribe, ICAS, the
second for the school district, to prioritize pre-college programming and
communications,
as well as the Arctic Soap Regional Corporation
and the, an at-large seat.
A little bit about our funding.
We received two-thirds of our
funding from the North Soaps Burrow.
As stated in 1996, we are through the Municipal Code,
a subset of the north soap burrow government.
And then a third of funding comes from various state,
federal, local, private donors.
We do our due diligence to identify other sources
Yes, I have a question and we'll go to Representative Carrick.
Can you share with us if federal cuts have affected Illisocric College?
Yes.
Thank you through the chair.
Thankfully, with AHEC have been monitoring on the ground in DC some of the various cuts as of now.
Thankfully there have no impacts.
Some of our current funding is forward funding, so even if there were to be a government shutdown or
funding that would take place, we are okay right now, it's a constantly moving target with all of
With the Department of Education moving, all of the colleges will be moving under Department
of Labor, but tribal colleges would be going under the department of Interior.
So it's very unknown.
We're waiting to have more information of what that looks like and how that funding would
look like.
Thank you. I just want to start by saying thank you so much for being here and I've actually had
the opportunity to stay at and participate in a few activities at Elisabic and i really
love the campus and really appreciate you all being there.
I was curious, I see on this slide a third of the funding comes from state and federal grants.
Do you have funding that is passed through the University of Alaska system, and then
I know through a technical vocation education program, some of that funding for that kind of training comes through
the state, but can you break down a little bit further what some
of the pass-through funding from the State looks like,
Thank you through the chair. Thank You Representative Carrick for your question. So currently for the state we have two
funding sources, which is one is the T-VEP funding that we receive and there's currently
Ten recipients who receive TVIP funding and
There's a various breakdown of the percentages of those T VEP and how much those entities get we only receive three percent
The UA system receives forty five percent. There is and it it
varies 3% 7% and I believe that needs to be a
approved through a bill.
So putting a plug in there, if we have a slide later
that will show you some statistics,
but we would really very much advocate
for a higher number than 3% for that funding.
And the only other funding from the state
is a pass-through grant through the federal government
for our internet at our Tuzzy Library.
We operate a public and college library,
Tussy Consortium, and we receive funding for
our Internet.
So those are the two current fundings
that we received through this state.
As for the University of Alaska system,
there are no pass-through funds that we receive.
We are an independent public college
and are not connected in any way to the university system.
However, we have many partnerships
and articulation agreements with our Alaskan colleges
for articulating agreements and pathways
for our students to pursue.
I guess just one quick follow-up.
Follow-ups.
Very recently, the last time T-VAP was reauthorized,
the sunset date was just taken out of it.
So unless the legislature takes it up as a special item of business,
it's not something that will come up for reauthorization now.
But thank you for the advocacy on that.
Do you have any exam it's okay if you don't off the top of your head, but any examples of the
partnership work that's happening there
Through the chair. Thank you
Representative Carrick. I have a slide for that if if You want me to get to that
Okay, thank you. Please go all right
So through the Chair just need a Woham I'll continue forward some institutional attributes and partnerships
So again, we are accredited through the Northwest Commission and colleges and
universities, same accreditation as the UA system.
That's our western accrediting body through The United States.
All of our academic programming could be completed via distance.
We have students from statewide as well as students
from all, I've signed acceptance letters from Tennessee, California, Nebraska.
We had students that are part of Our Elise Algovic-Mute.
We have $205 is a credit hour per credit hours,
so pretty cost effective for our students and tuition waivers.
So our Northoverl Mayor provides a generous contribution
for all our Northwest residents,
native or non-native, to pursue college at Ili Salgue,
as well as we offer a Alaska Native, Native American
tuition waiver for ALL.
So partnerships through the Northwest Commission,
recently added the Alliute community of St. Paul tribal government as an instructional site.
We've had a long standing relationship with the alliut community
of st. paul so happy that we're moving forward to that they currently have some
inungen to new classes as well as wanting to grow some of their workforce
Speaking to the university system, we recently signed a MOA with the University of Alaska
Southeast for health information management track and supports for our University
of Alaskan Fairbanks.
We have an Ili Saari Gupta program.
We closely work with a northsobero school district to grow our own teachers so our students
and then move on to the University of Alaska
for their BA degree, all while staying at home
in their home communities, so really excited about that.
For the university of Alaskan Anchorage,
we have Early Childhood Education program track
that we work with them for.
And for the Alaska Pacific University,
we worked with our pre-nursing certificate
through RAA program that will feed into there for a year.
nursing program. So again, very large state,
very important that we work along all of our higher ed partners.
Speaking to the pre-college programming, we also have not just with our school district on the North Soap,
but we have dual credit programming with the Annette Island in Metla Catla.
We recently began a MOA with Monetchum this semester, offering dual-credit for their new buck studies language classes.
And then working with Northern Industrial Training, NIT for the workforce trainings.
contractors to come up to help fill those needs,
so we can continue offering those classes.
Moving forward, we are lifelong learners.
We're always constantly learning and growing
and you can never grow too much.
So really focusing on our pre-college programming,
we have an amazing recruiting team that works
with our elementary age students, our middle school students.
program. We just approved 11 summer camps that will be taking place this summer.
Through generous grants and donations, we are able to open that up statewide.
We provide airfare, lodging, room, board so our students could receive a college experience
to get that taste of what college looks like so that they're ready when they graduate.
They can have college on their mind and hopefully, at least I'll make it if not others, but
We're very happy for that and moving to the high school, some of those summer camps have dual credit opportunities as well as our general dual-credit opportunities that we have.
And moving on, we do have our programs
that I'll share in a different slide,
but there are people who may not want to pursue a degree
or a specific certificate.
They want go straight to the workforce
and their specific certifications and trainings
that are very much critical for them
to perform their job duties.
So we work with various entities
to provide short-term trainees,
as well as a lot of residents who choose
to just take a skin sewing class,
a soapstone-cooler class, so we have a lot of our residents
who may just want to continue to learn
and have those cultural opportunities that take classes.
I could think of an elder who has taken a skin sewing class
I think four times because she loved it so much.
So having that flexibility to embed our culture
is just amazing.
Yes, Representative Fromfridge.
Thank you.
Just a quick question on this slide, which is, I guess,
maybe could you describe what, are you doing work inside
elementary school, middle school and high school
sort of as pre-preparation or I
guess recruitment?
I thought that's maybe what you were saying,
but I was just wondering if you could describe that a little
bit more.
Thanks.
Through the chair
Thank You representative reference to answer your question. I would say all of the above
So are working within the schools bringing students to campus to have different experiences
We have middle school glimpse programming where they can come after school to learn our extension programming has
kids in the kitchen yoga
various community workshops on the weekends.
We're very present statewide at various school conferences.
We have booths for recruiting.
We love our first Alaska FAI Elders and Youth Conference.
This past year we held two workshops and one lunch and learn,
as well as our booths to make sure that we're our reaches as far
as much as we could help recruit and share about Elise out the week.
Please go on. Thanks. Thank you through the chair. I will continue on
About our our programs and the degrees that we offer we offered one bachelor's degree in business administration
11 associate degrees and 25 certificates various certificates
That also include endorsements as well
I won't go line by line, but this is an overview of our 24-25 enrollment of
our students. We almost had a thousand students this past year.
three students graduated from their BAs and all of the different certificates and
degree degrees. 60% of our student population is age 25 and over and we are
working to grow that 18 to 25 year old pathway. Last.
The last statistic, I believe last year, was 70%.
So that decrease is a positive for me to know
that we're reaching our younger generation of students
to pursue college.
A lot of first generation college students,
students that are entering our doors
are not familiar with college settings.
And we have a wonderful student services team
that works with them on first year pathway program
supports onboarding.
education related. It's family, home sick, maybe there's a funeral and they need to go back home
to to be with their families. What are we doing as an institution to
be accommodating to support our students but at the same time support
our student in other ways so that they can focus on their education pathways.
I thank you through the chair, welcome, both of you, glad you're here today.
I was looking at a slide eight where you have a partnership with Northern Industrial Training,
and I wondering of the 35 certificates, the endorsements, if you could break that down
a little bit about what was popular, anything through that partnership to meet your job training
Through the chair. Thank you representative story. Justina. Well home for the record
We have a slide for that as well, but off the top of my head the majority of the needs for NIT is CDL
HEO
Heavy equipment operations those are high demand for our area for
Keeping our power and lights on for clearing our roads. It's a constant need something really happy that I'm
through the state of Alaska, so that we're able to provide
not only CDL and driver's license, but real IDs, permits,
those important identification pieces
that our residents need to travel to apply for work.
Thank you.
And we have a question from Representative Kerrick.
Okay.
Thank You through The Chair.
I was just curious on the enrollment slide.
almost a thousand students, has that been kind of the average enrollment over the last,
say, five to ten years of your history or is enrollment increasing over time?
Through the chair, thank you, Representative Carrick, Justina Woham for the record.
That dropped this past year. So we usually typically are around 1,100 to 1.,200 students.
So it was clearly a drop. We looked at why did we have this drop and
Something as small as starting a week earlier than the school district really impacted some of our dual credit students
We've had some turnover on our staff living in a rural environment is
The reality of filling positions from instructors to
Administrative positions have been a barrier for us. So those are some of the areas items that we've seen this drop-in enrollment
But just looking at this past fall 25. We've already seen an increase so where we're hopeful that will continue on
With those enrollment numbers
We have one more question from representative story
Thank you through the chair.
I appreciated hearing about Northern Industrial Training.
I'm assuming the other certificates or the majority.
I know you had a dental program on one of your slides.
If you could just tell me about your health endorsements
and the others ones that you are giving opportunities for the people.
Thank you through the chair, Representative Story,
just Dina Woham for the record.
So this slide covers our programs that we offer.
And within these programs, you could receive a certificate one,
like a counting certificate, one and then a two
that will build to a AA degree,
same for allied health or our education programming.
So being a tribal college and also
something we want to continue to do to accommodate our seasonal
seasonal lifestyle is looking more towards stacked
courses or shorter eight-week classes so that our our residents could start and stop at fresh times is something that we're moving towards
as we look at future calendar operations, some of those other certificates, all of our
HEO heavy equipment operations and our construction trades pathways also build with certificates
and all our HCO you receive college certificates but you also receive the NCCER nation certificates
for our construction traits, technology instructors.
Thank you, President.
And I'm looking at the time we have about ten more minutes and about 10 slides.
Okay.
So I think we'll save questions for time at
the end.
this time.
Thank you.
Anabasi.
Thanks.
Through the chair.
Again, Justina Wilham, I'll just continue with our indigenization efforts, our strategic
priority one, being a tribal college.
Our foundation is on indiginizing all things Ili Salguabique.
We recognize that we live in a diverse state,
a diversity community, our staff,
our students, we're very diverse.
But if a student or an employee is going to elect to work
or attend at least a week,
they are going experience and a new back experience.
But that does not take away their own personal ethnicities.
We're inclusive to all,
we wanna make everybody feel welcome.
We have
students from Imanic, Ilam, Chugiac this semester,
we've had a record-breaking 31 dorm students in the fall,
finished up with 29, a strong number,
so making sure that we're inclusive to all
who choose to be at Ili Salcovic.
And quickly, this is just some of our employee opportunities
where we give the gift of out culture
and we are intentional with providing field trips
or attending cultural activities,
just pushing our employees to go be somewhere.
Come be with us, sit with and we'll show you
and share our culture.
Also to our students, just they get homesick
and if you put a pot of caribou soup
in the residential kitchen area
and you get that whiff across the hall,
I swear that cures homesackness.
So having that ability to be able
to have our own cultural freezer
or to having activities,
in new fine arts festivals that we have every spring and fall
that our Inupet faculty lead.
So, again, just emphasizing on indigenization is very key
as a tribal college.
Some of our T-BEP numbers, so this has the 10 institutions
that receive T BEP, I just wanted to highlight
that Ili Salghavit College was the highest percentage
of employment for the first year exit for what,
the 1st, 1 to 12 months, as well as the,
one to 12 months after exit.
So those two categories, columns in the first,
Ili Sugwig is leading those with the percentages.
Okay, we have a quick question from representative.
Okay. Just thank you through the chair.
Just a very quick comment that this chart is not reflective
of the most recent reauthorization of TVAP.
And so.
It now includes a couple of new recipients and a
Couple of changed percentages. I just wanted to note that but otherwise it's essentially accurate in general
Through the chair. Thank you. Yes representative Carrick for that
This is our the most recent TVT report that we have and that was online and available to us
And just speaking to some of the variety of workforce trainings that are requested
and that we provide to our community. This is not everything but the high level of
what it is from a blend of soft skills, office management to CPR first aid services.
I'll skip through these photos.
And this is our data.
So our institutional research data
that Ili Salguvik maintains, the full report
is on our website if you want to do some more data review.
But this a five-year review of the various workforce data
trainings data that we have.
provided so looking to 2024-25 we provided a number of 169 individual trainings and of those 169
trainees, 118 of them were scheduled and 51 of these were requested by specific entities
per their request of what is needed. So a high completion rate of 96 percent and I won't go
CDL, licenses and classes, representative story, you were inquiring about some of the
high asks.
This is definitely one of high ask that we provide to our residents totaling, we served
134 participants this past year with various behind the will.
general knowledge, we do what we can up on the slope, but we
do have to bring our students down to an official two lane
highway where they could drive a certain speed limit and do
crossing and intersections. So they remain here for two weeks
if it's Fairbanks, Wasilla or Anchorage are areas that we
bring students to.
And on the horizon, looking ahead, I shared we are pursuing a new college campus.
That's a pretty hefty price tag living in the North Slope and the cost that it takes to do a stick build piling.
campus, but we're not going to lose sight. We're going
to continue to move forward with this process. Our current
process is we are purchasing the land.
We've just completed an environmental assessment of this land
and we were the pictures in this slide.
We have a we went through a design competition in 2018
and since it has been some time we will be reviewing this to meet.
enrollment numbers that need to be revisited so we're happy we have a
design we are hoping to look at it to maybe do some cost saving but very
excited this is broken down into three phases of our new campus. We also are
looking at 105L leasing and we've had some congressional direct funds from
Some of our unmet needs for our Ili Salka Week, as mentioned, our new campus.
Our heavy equipment is in need of a Class A truck to...
provide those CDL trainings and on the academic and student services front looking to fill
some funding for future positions to grow. Science is very important in our state and
our region being placed in the Arctic. There's a lot of science opportunities and collaboration
and partnerships so we are looking grow our science programming degrees. Also data is
and the student supports for cultural specialists
as well as our outreach and programming.
Wrapping up, this is our final unmet needs slides
research for our students.
So focusing on some of our student research opportunities
that we currently work on, we have some Arctic Tundra
research that our faculty works with our
students
And then also having some funding set aside for our students to travel to various conference conferences to share their storyboards as well as to be amongst other students and learn and have that opportunity with their science science work that they're doing.
internet is a big thing we had nine months of a ice scouring event we do the
best we can with our internet connectivity it's very it varies through
our our community some have fiber some don't have
fiber bandwidth is an issue but we
do work to provide our students internet stipends as well it is not
noted here but also provide loaner laptops to our
students with six credits or more so providing those supporting academic
with their education.
I see you.
It's 958, and I know.
I was jamming through, so if external refers, now that there's anything you want to add
real brief.
Through the chair, Frida Nurek for the record, I just wanted to say thank you for giving
us the opportunity to present, and so I have a lot of work experience, but I don't have
a degree.
So I'm currently at Elisavic students working on my AA and business management,
and my dream was always to be a nurse.
And so through Elissavik pre-nursing program and through Samuel Simmons, hopefully one
complete my nursing degree at home.
So it's really, Elisavic has really embraced the culture.
I worked for a lot of different native corporations
throughout the state, and so this is the first entity
that really truly embraces the cultural and its...
the number one, you know, embracing the culture, making sure language classes are free for the
region and for people, so I just wanted to add that, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story
and best of luck. We have a comment or question from Representative Freer.
And Frida, thank you guys so much for being here. I'm so happy we were able to get you in front
of Tribal Affairs. Elise Agavek is home for me. My Aka was an assistant professor of Inibag Studies
and helped build a curriculum for that program throughout my childhood. And I grew up in the
halls of Elise AbaveK going to the Christmas parties and going into Tuzzy Library after school.
previously served as the Executive Director of Human Resources
for Elise Elvick's college, and I was on the Elise
ElVick College Board of Trustees as
the North Pole Rural School District.
And so everything that you guys are doing,
it's all near and dear to my heart.
I'm so happy to get that.
You had the opportunity to share that with everybody else.
You guys were doing amazing things and
I am so Happy to celebrate
Elise Alvicks' 30th birthday.
So thank you for being here.
Yeah, I want to go to the birthday party. If there is a birthday
party, maybe our whole committee, you're all invited.
Oh, we'd be happy to have you. Wonderful. Yeah. Maybe virtually.
Any more questions or comments from our guests from
Okay, well, Anna Bossy, thank you so much for your presentation and just sharing your
beautiful work and campus way up in the north and a huge congratulations.
I heard that the sun came back to your community this last week and that must be really a beautiful
don't hesitate to reach out. And with that, thank you for your presentation. It is 101,
one minute over, um, this this Tribal Affairs Committee's ended. Thanks.