Good morning. I call this meeting of the House Education Committee to order. It is Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, and the time is 8.02 AM.
Members present are Representative Dibert, Representative Schwonke, representative Ischide,
Representative Underwood, co-chair Story and myself, Co-Chair Hymshoot. We have a quorum to conduct business.
I'd like to remind everyone in the room to please silence your cell phones. Makes you a much better meeting.
And we are in the Betty Davis Committee Room 106
in a state capital building here in Juneau, Alaska.
The documents for today's meeting have been distributed
to members and are available on the table outside the door
and on basis.
I'd like to thank our recording secretary, Kayle Brown,
and our moderator from the Juneaux LIO, Zach Lawhorn,
for being here this morning, and of course our committee aids,
Ella Lubin and Tammy Smith, make it all work.
So thank you to them.
We have one agenda item scheduled for today's House Education Committee meeting.
It's an update from the State Tribal Education Compacting Demonstration Schools.
There will be one slide deck and members have copies, have a copy of the slide decks.
I would like to welcome our presenters, Misha Jackson, with Tribal education liaison for
the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, Mark Roseberry.
from the education,
he's the Education Director and School Administrator
at the ICAS Harky Academy.
Sonia Skan, Education and Training Director,
Ketchikan Indian Community,
Harle Shambli, Executive Director Knek Tribe,
and Kiminak Matty Akviak-Elvana-Stimful.
Can't wait to hear that pronounced the right way.
Curator of Educational Programs at Katurvik.
Cultural Center and Dr. Joel Isaac compacting contractor with the Department of Education and Early Development
I know you guys were talking about how you were going to three at a time or however you wanted to do this
But when you come forward if you would introduce yourself for the record
So we can keep track of who was talking when and then begin your presentation
The floor is yours. We're glad you're here
Good morning for the record.
Misha Jackson, Chukungi Kla, I work for Clinket and Haida
as the tribal education liaison.
Geech for having us here.
So through the chair, thank you guys for starting us off,
kicking us in the second week,
and it's good to see you all again.
Nice to seen new faces, happy to be here and share this.
Today, we essentially call ourselves
the Stack Tribal Partners,
is this is the family that we've become.
Stack is a state tribal education
compacting tribal partners,
from Clinkett and Haida,
Knek, ICAS, Ketchikan Indian Community,
the village of Solomon,
and King Island.
I got all five of them off the top of my head, so thank you.
And just for perspective, we recognize Joel is here to assist.
He contracts with deed.
He provides a lot of the technical details.
That's not to say we don't know them.
We just make sure he rises to the occasion
and share those one called upon.
So this is Tribal Partners presentation.
This is from the perspective of The Tribes
about this bill, something that we've been very passionate
about for the past couple years and probably the last 10 plus years as many of us will
express.
So we wanted to start off with really trying to ground the conversation in what success
looks like in education when it's operated by tribes.
put a lot of images in here hopefully so that you guys can see this is more than just a bill
in front of you. These are our children. Uh these are future generations.
These the future of Alaska.
really is what we're talking about trying to have an impact and an influence and a seat
at the table for. There's a very great video from Cook and Lit Tribal Council as part of
this process about education. That's the dialogue that's been going on since 2016.
There have been a lot of statewide partners and regional partners as
part that process trying bring this vision and the story to life. They have a great
video there. It's about 13 minutes long. We're kind of going to
just enlighten you of it if you haven't seen it yet, but we do know it recognized a few
you've seen and will make sure that link gets shared and possibly shared at another presentation
in the future. But really what that video is guided to show is just the historical context
of what this experience has been like for Alaska Natives in particular since again this is a
tribal perspective of education and it really speaks to the strength-based approach that tribes
take two education and what education could be, what
education is right now when we are at the table and we play a
partnership role and
what we know that our communities want to hear, want
to see, you want feel in school for their children and
that's what's possible is we really want
to get people to start thinking not from a threat, not
a protective but really what happens when you open the door to another partner in education and a partner that
Historically through that video you will see all of the different bills that have happened and things in a historical events
That tribes have been pushed so far off to the side and education that this is just trying to get you to reframe
How we're looking at education from a different perspective right and at different possibility, so
I'm going to jump in for just a second and mention a couple of things that 805 were joined by Representative Elam, glad you're here.
And also, to be really clear, this is a presentation today, there is an bill in front of the committee, so it would change how we do some things.
So, thank you.
Thank you
So, to give a general overview from a tribal perspective of what is compacting, is it's
a contractual agreement between two or more sovereign governments.
And so, the way we have found the easiest way to describe this to a lot of educators
when we've presented and talked with folks at a, sorry, Alaska Association of School
Boards.
Presentations is sovereign government are the ones that are allowed to issue you a passport
country lines, so that's federal, state, and tribes.
So that is probably the most important thing for us to get folks to understand is there
are three sovereign governments and you will find over
different laws and cases that it has been found that there is a trilateral responsibility
of those three entities to ensure the education of citizens, right?
And so for us, that's our tribal citizens.
But it also means that we can also play a role and we want to play
a roll in public school education.
That's out avenue here in Alaska and our avenue and
our mechanism to get there, is through compacting through these agreements.
tribes choose to participate in requirements of the compact that honors the interests of
both parties.
And so this was a process we went through, we started in our negotiations for about eight
straight months really looking at what would a compact agreement look like and what those
provisions be of how we would operate schools in Alaska through a pilot project and, what
requirements, basically state providing funding, what are the expectations for the state,
what're the expectation for their tribes.
And so that was very lengthy discussions.
We were able to build off of the Washington state example and they have a compact agreement
with seven different tribes, they've seven, different compact agreements and you will
find little nuances that are different in each of them depending on their case but those
have been, I think, in existence for close to 10 years now at this point.
Tribes have long-term experience with compacting, so this is something new new
to the state for education. It already exists for healthcare and child's I call
it child support services, but I guess it would be.
OCS. Tribes are leading the way as to how to conduct negotiations in these processes and to be
in partnership. And so I can't emphasize those words more. You know, I think a lot lands on the
process of negotiations is what we call them, but really they were in-partnership conversations
all of our tribal teams, which were filled with lawyers, passionate educators, elders, teachers,
all the folks behind me as well. So it was a very empowering process that we are really looking at
how the tribes can finally be a partner in education in the state of Alaska.
be. I added a couple bullet points in here because it felt like, since we're in front
of House Education Committee, I appreciate all the insight you guys have, the years you
have with these conversations and presentations in
front of you.
I do recognize that probably this first one is a class in itself at a graduate level,
but I put in their federal school policy starting from boarding schools and to BIA, in
Alaska became a territory and boarding schools and mission schools, and then eventually once
the...
the federal government came in with the BIA.
They were often seen as day schools.
That those all are an interruption
to traditional educational systems.
And so we did not have a,
and I say we in the sense that we as tribes
did have not a seat at the table, right?
And back then we weren't even quote unquote
federally recognized tribes,
but we had our own governance structures,
we have our education systems,
we our knowledge systems and so when this idea
and concept and construct of education
system came through, tribes were not at the table for those conversations.
All of the BIA comes through and federally recognized tribes are acknowledged, are created
essentially.
Again, tribes that are not at the table for those conversations.
Statehood comes to be in about the 1950s, even though the statehood conversations date
back to 1916, technically.
Again.
Tribes as entities are, not in those conversation.
The Constitutional Convention, I believe we had one representative from Southeast.
We had allies at that space, but if you look at voice and the voice of tribes in the designing
of the system of education in Alaska, tribes have not been at the table.
And it's hard to really see where that voice has come through.
And so as we continued on with the one system education statewide, once the Constitution
Joel does a much better job of describing this, but in essence, the Bureau of Indian Affairs
decides they are going to pull out of Alaska, right, this dual system that exists because
the Constitution only wants to recognize one system of education.
And so the BIA and their federal trust responsibilities, they pullout and are basically, you know,
it's assigned to the state, these responsibilities.
During that process, again, tribes are not at the table, and so you can look at those
statewide federal conversations but you will also see that tribes are
requesting that this not happen because those BIA schools were the
avenue to self-determination and education and so once the Bia pulled out
of those then tribes were not able to access what's called ISD EAA which is
the Indian self determination and Education Act.
And so we aren't able to then start triggering our role in self-determination.
And then that's what's different down in the lower 48, is those schools, they have BIA schools
which then they are able start taking over as tribally controlled public schools or tribually
controlled schools.
And that avenue exists in lower forty-eight, but it doesn't exist up here.
And up in here in this state they eventually, you know, it goes from one statewide system
process with the Rural Education Agency area.
Yeah, the REAA system, and I think what's really interesting to note of that is it does exist,
it still is part of our system. But tribes are not a part
of the policy, right? And I don't know if it was inherent or assumed I wasn't here during those times,
but you're looking at rural education and tribes
are now partners in the creation of this system and the maintenance of
the system I'm not saying anything against it, but I am just trying to get you to reframe
these conversations, right?
And so they do have representation.
They have the, I believe they're not called school boards,
but essentially they operate as schoolboards elected
through that process.
And they are representatives of the community.
But again, like, where is that tribal voice,
that sovereign tribal Voice for self-determination
in education, especially over these communities
and the Community of Education?
So.
That went way longer than I expected to to kind of paint that picture.
But then if you kind think about these things and all the education policy that's come since then,
like where are tribes in these conversations, right?
And I think inherently what's starting to happen is nobody is necessarily...
at fault, but it does start to feel like there is not trust
that tribes understand education enough to be at the table,
is kind of where it's coming from.
So my case in point is, you know,
after the Alaska cultural standards are passed
and there's initiatives to make sure language
and culture get inside of the schools,
the creation of type M limited teaching certificate comes
to me, which is a fantastic process
of making sure we have language teachers,
years. And as states, as you know, and essentially in a leader in indigenous education at one
point in time, there are almost about 20 states that have something similar, a language and
a cultural teaching certificate in their state. The state of Alaska is the only one that doesn't
incorporate tribes. So all other states have this certificate, require them to go through
whether or not they are proficient in language to provide this certification and the state
of the Alaska is the only one that doesn't have tribes as part of that policy.
So that's kind of my example of like, okay, so where are we going with this and then
why are tribes really wanting to be at the table now for these initiatives?
So I'm going to ask you, Hause, for just a second, it's been a lot of information.
So is it okay as we go through this to stop every now and and take questions?
Absolutely, because I can keep going.
So, my policy...
Definitely don't mean to break your train of thought. I appreciate where you're going with that.
I was just, I know that particularly with the Alaska Native tribes and throughout the communities,
the language thing is a big, big issue.
I hear about it regularly. What kind of demand are you seeing
with our families, with parents, and what kind
of involvement are are looking at from your communities outside of just the traditional
educators and and folks that you know that yes thank you through the chair
apologies if I said that wrong.
That is probably one of the most beautiful poignant questions.
That's why I sit at this table.
So to speak personally, my husband
is an intermediate language speaker.
Both of our family lines, the passage of language
was interrupted.
And so it has been a passion to find different ways
to ensure we can get language inside of this school.
And so I'm thankful my husband now teaches for us in the Juneau community in
the Klinkit Culture Language and Literacy Program, where he's able to do that.
But they also have elders that come into the classroom.
They are not Type M certified.
It's a part of this optional program that they've created basically.
And we have seen one of the most recent grandmas that
come through there.
She was a dormant speaker.
And then just putting her in that place, and she shares space inside of my
probably one of the best teacher aides I've ever seen in my lifetime these I
mean yeah I recommend you go watch her in action but through that process that
the language is coming alive again in her and she is a phenomenal speaker with
deep deep knowledge that just needed to be in that space right and so
She comes with her own experiences, and I think that replicates a lot of our elder
generation of they have it in them, but they haven't been provided the space or the confidence
and knowledge to be in those spaces.
And so you see that trickle down, we have a very large population, in Juneau we make
up about 30% of the student body population.
in there. And so when we do surveys about budget cuts and everything else, our parents
are demanding that our language is protected.
And as a tribe, what we're doing on the parallel side is we've created an immersion nest,
where we have second – what do we call it? Second birth speakers?
who are running classrooms fully in clinket for a small group of students and graduating
students out of there. And our families want more of those opportunities. TCLL has a wait list,
our immersion list has wait lists, the demand is high,
the adult speakers is growing slowly but surely, and so we need to be creative with how to get
them into the classroom and simultaneously teach them while they teach children.
and southeast I think I hope the folks behind me that are doing a lot of the
work as well can kind of explain how language impacts and the demand for that
as, well, so I hoped I answered your question correctly. Yeah, no, thank you.
Okay, and Representative Dibert? Yes, through the co-chair,
thank, you, I thank You, Ms. Jackson, for your presentation. I just wanted to
I think it's really important to go over this history.
We might have new people on gavel to gavell
who are watching this, and it is important
to hear kind of the history of where we are today
with language, tribal topics,
and getting elders in classroom.
So just, I love to keep going.
And then to follow up with Representative Ilam.
From what I understand there might be like a clearing house of curriculum that could be available to educators where teachers can access curriculum
that has might have some language in that area. So that's, I'm not sure, but that might
be the goal. Thank you.
REAAs, what is it, rural education attendance areas, regional education
attendance area, I think, yeah. In those areas I
think that the type M is not just in those
areas and the Type M
is locally requested. So just to be clear if you're in the REAA, if
you are in an REIA and you want a local person to get a Type
M, that's a
like a local decision. So in that case there could be very strong tribal voice so I'm not saying
that it's okay not to require that but not every type M is about language either.
So I guess that I think there was an assumption maybe made with the
when that type m was added that
it would be locally determined and that that would include tribes but it doesn't necessarily
explicitly say that so yeah through the chair thank you for that clarification it
teacher prep in Alaska is pretty complex as we are and is still adapting as
we go. And so the point I was trying to make with the type M that is used specifically for
language and culture is the requirement is only that the school district
verify that this person.
qualifies to teach this language, and oftentimes they ask for a letter of support or a resume,
and then the school district then sends that to deed as verification and the deed goes
through their process to provide that.
And so the point I was trying to make is that we are the only state that doesn't explicitly
include tribes as part of that process.
who are making this recommendation that goes up the chain and
basically kind of circles around a tribe as a sovereign government who
inherently has rights and knowledge and expertise of their language and culture.
Okay, thank you for that.
Representative Schwanke.
Thank you through the chair.
Quick question on that, I know in the Carper River we have
some new type M educators that are coming in through
Atna with some of the cultural certifications that they're receiving out of
the University of Alaska. And I believe our Indian Education Committee is
integral in vetting and communicating and of course small communities. Everybody
knows everybody. Can you describe how your Indian education committee down here
I think this is a great example of the different elements of local control.
So, here in Juneau, we don't have requests that come to us or
interactions or partnerships with our Title 6 Indian Education Office.
Or those folks about those situations, I guess.
Do you have an Indian education committee associated with?
Do you know Douglas school district through the chair? Yes. So we have what's called title six
Indian studies program. It's been around since probably the 70s, I want to say.
It is a very strong program, it works in primarily in the elementary schools,
but all the way up to the high schools and we
have different what are called cultural para educators as part of that process.
Under that classified para educator kind of a lens
They are not necessarily type M certified to be in those positions
And I just did a little check here, we have 41 slides.
We have about an hour and a half to go.
I want to ask you to guide us here because people are in town.
I think we'll be able to, you're here all the time,
we can get you.
And Dr. Isaac,
you would come back if we needed,
but our other partners might have a harder time getting here.
So you tell me how you want this to
Yeah, we just have a couple more slides that kind of set the tone for the bill and then
we're going to go into the examples.
Okay.
And I try to make my clink and hide example really fast because I hope you.
Right.
And we can get you back.
Yeah.
Thank you, please proceed.
Thank, and I appreciate all the conversations.
So through the chair, on bullet point two,
I added one about statewide efforts,
because again, as Representative Dibert mentioned,
it's really important to share this level of history.
Back in the late 90s, there was the Alaska Rural Systemic
Initiative that was funded by a National Science Foundation
grant in collaboration with Alaska Federation of Natives.
all of the state into regions, but also created statewide newsletters called
Sharing Our Pathways. Lots of instrumental folks that played a role in that. A lot
of our elders were at those tables, having those conversations, creating
their organized group in the different regions. Building the curriculum that
is still housed online to this very day that's available. And so what I try and
relate this to is essentially this is what we're trying to replicate again is
state-wide efforts for Alaska Native education and that idea of creating this space for curriculum,
for models, for strategies,
for MOAs,
for partnership ideas that can really innovate the state of Alaska and share knowledge.
Because we are spread so thin that it really, we do need a statewide driving force.
And we had presented at the Tribal Affairs about this Alaska native tribal education course
on Alaskan Native education to really push out what has already been done and what can
be done.
And so that Alaska Rural System initiative was actually the brainchild behind the Alaska
Cultural Standards that got passed very, very quickly through the state processes, which
I think a lot of people back in those days were pretty shocked and also very proud of.
An ideal conception that may not always in practice be ideal, right?
And so we refer to these.
I hear folks refer
to Alaska cultural standards very frequently, but what that looks
like in practise for teacher evaluations, curriculum review processes,
right, it's not at the centre of those processes and those are really rich.
They are about schools.
They're about families.
They were about teachers.
And they cover all of the different elements there.
And so one thing that I know we had a lot of conversations
is that we stand on those shoulders of those giants.
And for us, as tribes, centering those Alaska cultural
standards in the design of a system,
in a design, of an operation of school,
is to us what we see as the difference maker.
It's not an additive.
It is not this outside element that
when we choose, just like our cultural identities,
our tribal citizenship, our identity,
it's with us every day.
And so being able to center the work of those folks
from the late 90s is really what excites us
more than anything else when
we're looking at the operations of a school.
So in terms of the bill itself,
we had the Alaska Education Challenge 2016,
which picked up these conversations
that were starting in the 80s
about compacting and education.
It was one of the primary goals of Alaska Education, and then it led to the passage of SB 34 in 2022.
And I think deed can go into a lot more details and nuances about this process,
but the tribes were very much at the table throughout this
process. The five tribes applied over the course of three months. There was a window of opportunity,
and five Tribes, I like to say, we rose to
It's scary and it's a lot of work to undertake and so we went through the process of successful negotiations is the best way I can describe it.
And the outcomes were a 70 page legislative report that we all had pen and paper on.
This deed was at the table, but tribes were definitely the driving force behind the language.
What was in there?
What are the findings?
What we think is needed as a statewide?
system to make this successful and so that report then was presented in 2024 I
want to say by February of that time.
So some key highlights from those negotiations, and I've been able to touch on some of these throughout the time
But there's they're just bullets to kind of keep in your brain as we're reframing what tribal education our lens is is
For us first and foremost it always came down to innovation and collaboration
Every day at that table and then those conversations we were talking about education innovation
Things that we know we we are capable of doing when we center what we knows
is for us and the definition of success
and through the Alaska Cultural Standards,
through self-determination and language and culture,
when you mix all of those together,
that's the root of that innovation.
Oh, sorry, Representative Elon.
Thank you. Sorry to interrupt again.
You're just hitting on a lot of things
that I'm really appreciative of.
So thank you for the conversation.
I'm curious from a governing perspective, how the tribes would work with some of this.
A lot of the stuff that you're describing is language immersion, which we have some charter
schools up throughout the state that do that on the peninsula.
We have a couple of different charter schools that other programs that are the Keeneye
Education programs and stuff and so how would you guys be would be you
Guys be governing some of this whenever I was looking through the proposed bill
it seems to have actually a fair amount of
Structure behind it and how you Guys would Be working for for governing
Intertribally and I'm just kind of wondering how that works with some Of these sort of family and tribal connections
I'll let a new voice enter.
Okay.
Joel Isaac for the record through the chair
to represent Emmett's good to see you this morning.
It's also my school district that I went through.
So the piece around school governance
is one of the main three pillars of
the bill and the legislative report.
And the process that's outlined is that
each tribally compacted public school,
as a public schools,
the tribe would set up its own governing body.
The the structure of the bill is that the tribe functions as a school district
So it would have its governing body like a current school District has a local school board and the Tribe would set up that local
school Board for that school
So, it's not mandating that that tribes have the same one for all five schools
Each tribe has their own governance of that School because each tribe
Has its own unique cultural language and it also its government and so that's I think the in the nutshell that
governance piece, and that's the, one of the critical foundations of
the innovation and the sovereignty in action is that governing body.
Follow up.
I mean, there was a lot of, whenever I was reviewing the bill,
there were a lotta layers of I
mean it looked very accountable to the tribes.
in creating this governing body and everything and so would you have community members participating
in that you know how would make sure that your language and traditions and culture would be immersed
into that and still have all of that with the with accountability would create like small school
Yes, it would essentially be like a small school board, and I'll do a nod to the tribes behind me.
The process is the tribe, for example, with ICAS and with Kannick,
they've set established ordinances, which is tribal law, to set up an education committee.
Can I see India and tribe in your district?
Has an Education Committee set-up by its council.
So although can I sees not, I'm...
in their tribal partners, many tribes around the state have a school or an education committee,
and for the five tribes in this case, it would be following those specific accountability frameworks
that are in the bill would need to be added as duties of that committee if they want to use that
And so that the school board is meeting the accountability
structures that existing school boards have to make sure
like finances, evaluations, et cetera.
OK, thank you.
I'm all good.
Thank you, I don't want to take too far off the rails.
OK.
And just for clarification, maybe
misunderstanding this, but to be a federally recognized tribe,
a tribe must have a constitution and bylaws.
Through the chair, yes, there are.
You'll hear indie and IRA tribes and traditional councils as two names,
but you're going through a legally binding agreement with the federal government
and the tribal citizens, and that's typically it's a constitution is that legally-binding document.
And then to be clear that constitution, so the requirement is to have a
constitution but how that is written and what the by-law say is tribally directed.
Yes, and depending on what era that tribes constitution has written, many of them have
a provision that requires the Secretary of the Interior to certify and run the election
or the, not the Election, the constitutional amendments.
And some tribes, when they wrote their constitution, did not include the Department of
votes to remove the secretary of the interior as the one who runs that
constitutional convention essentially. But that's that kind of nuances that
might come up in that that like why is the Secretary or the bi or Department
of Interior involved? It's because there were template constitutions that were
basically shopped around to the tribes and then the tribe's adopted that and
then some were later and they didn't include that language. Okay, okay, ready?
All right, let's keep going, all right.
Through the chair, I was like,
I let Joel answer that one,
because I could spend a lot of time on that, one as well.
It's an exciting part for us as a tribe
as we're starting to develop our education code
and the process for that has been really fun
and very community driven.
So happy to speak more on it.
Yeah, I would just wrap up with these ones.
I think the teacher recruitment and retention, it was a key part of negotiations.
And essentially what we as tribes, again, from this is a tribal perspective, was
a deal breaker for us if that was not a part
of the process that we could have essentially control in partnership with
deed about what teacher recruitment retention and most importantly the certification looked
like and training, then this was
not going to work and was
Being able to train teachers and I have wonderful folks in back that can speak really in depth about this
is
Absolutely, what helps define what we can do and includes all of these elements of family and community engagement
So imagine our teacher prep programs now where that was the center of your teacher preparation
Was knowing how to pick up the phone and call a parent and how do communicate across cultures?
That isn't necessarily something that's emphasized right
right now, right?
And so that's the lens we're looking at
is we know what works for our communities.
We also unfortunately know
what hasn't worked for communities
and being able to bring that forward
in how we train our teachers and prepare our teacher
so our teaching can be successful,
our teach can feel supported,
and our teaches want to stay.
And that truly what we feel is a goal of this program
and I think is gonna be the innovative part
that has the chance to really change
what education looks like in Alaska.
So high level overview of the bill, please remember this is a tribal perspective.
I have Joel here for those finite questions.
Essentially what HB 59 SB 66 is designed to do is establish a process for
government to government agreements between the state of Alaska and tribes to operate public schools.
It is design as a standalone pilot project, so building off of
This is a pilot project built off of that demonstration.
It's uncautified and it's limited in scope.
It is designed to essentially be like research designed
to test, revise, and evaluate because if this is something
the state wants to see more tribes want to be a part of,
this an opportunity for five tribes to
test and revise and evaluated as we go, essentially,
and really being a partner of the community research process.
And as the bill has written it, the tribal compact schools must be in effect in operation by June 30, 2028 is what's written into the Bill.
Inside of that bill, it also refers to the creation of compact agreement for education services between each tribe and the state of Alaska.
And this is where the State agrees to provide and do X, Y, and Z.
And then the tribe agrees, to do XY and z as part of the services.
team of probably 10 different lawyers came through and helped us define and
negotiate through that process. Some highlights from that is it does maintain
statewide standards and accountability. It creates a limited teacher tribal
teacher certification opportunity and in essence what it
does is that outlines the provisions for tribal operations and for us it's also
looking at the opportunity for shared services with local school districts as
well as across the tribally compacted schools if that's something that tribes
to opt into. I have a question. Any other questions on this slide? My question is
what is driving the June 30th, 2028 date? To the chair, Joel Isaac, for the record,
then in the negotiations we talked about the need for a school to ramp up and
there's the question mark of when in session might a bill passed and then
this the the processes for bill to become the law and so it gives the tribes to
two years to set up a school. The pilot needs to be probably other things as we want to see
results from the pilot, the legislature, and the department. And so the two
years is a typical process from talking with the tribes and then also looking at the federal
government has funded tribal programs that start up charter schools and so modeling off of like
how long does it take a tribe to start a School if they don't have one? It's a two to three-year
window, and then there's five years for the school to operate. And that's why it's by
2028, so the trius has up to two years to open its doors.
And so I am still confused about demonstration pilot project.
Here's how I have it sorted in my head, please correct me. We are in a demonstration period
The bill that we keep referring to, even though this is a presentation, sets up a pilot project.
To the chair, that is correct.
Senate Bill 34, as was mentioned on a previous slide,
that was a demonstration.
And if you think about proof of concept, to send to the legislature,
and then to make that proof-of-concept a reality,
that's where a bill is needed to create the pilot to test, revise, and evaluate how efficacious those schools are.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank.
So, as part of the processes and hopefully through the context that we're starting to
move towards the.
the different tribes and the examples, what we, the language we landed on that we feel
was really important moving forward was we would like these to be considered tribally
compacted public schools to help with this narrative and understanding of the context
that they've provided the negotiations and et cetera is making sure tribes are in that
level of a government to government agreement this is.
And then public schools.
So I know this entire time I speak from a tribal perspective.
I am a Tribal citizen.
This is my life through and through for I don't know how long.
But these are, I'm a public educator at heart.
I Am a graduate of all public school and universities
across the country.
I have never been to a private school in my entire life.
I only know public education.
So,
I hope that as people make the assumption
about tribes and teaching tribes.
For me, the assumptions are, I'm talking about all public
schools, all students.
This is open to all the students, we
will meet the same standards as the current.
public schools that are open to all students.
So I want to make sure I kind of put this slide here
so that you understand like, this is my perspective,
but what may not come forward is that I am speaking
to All Students in Alaska.
And so tribally compacted schools,
tribly compact and public school for us is local control
of public education that centers tribes and communities.
Essentially that's our easiest definition, moving forward.
So, why this matters to education in Alaska?
This is where we get to bring up all of our experts standing with us in the five tribal
partners.
This from our perspective of why it matters in Alaskan.
So, since I'm here, I, again, am the tribal education liaison for Klinkit and Hayda.
I came to Kinkit & Hayta happily after many years in public education at the University
at The Local School District, working for JOM staff, contracting, playing a supplemental
summer camps, you name it, graduate education over and over again, probably more courses
than I can imagine, but this is the happiest place I was meant to be.
I am here because of this opportunity.
I work with Clinket and Haida in what's called the Education Development Department, which
was created and it's designed to move Clicket & H
into education programming, but what's really important for us to make sure folks know is
that Clinkett and Haida already operates education programs.
They just might not fit the everyday definition of what education is, and then that's what
we're trying to get folks to reframe.
This is our tribal assembly that is governing body all of those those wonderful faces on that photo
This was from the 89th annual tribal Assembly where President Peterson
Did make the announcement that we are going to be working towards the creation of an education campus here in Juneau
So our mission is to preserve our sovereignty enhance our economic and cultural resources and promote self-sufficiency and self governance for our systems
And we believe that it's possible through education
So we have right now this is a growing slide for those of you guys that have seen the slide before I got to add two more people
I hope to ad plenty more
These are just a few of our education tribal education expertise. You are looking at
seven
Alaska's certified teachers that currently work for the tribe, a lot of master's degrees,
a lots of graduate work up there. It was really designed, unfortunately, what I do here or don't
hear and read between the lines is that tribes aren't capable of doing this. And so I put this
slide up front to show you we are more than capable, not just as tribal citizens,
frameworks and knowledge as well.
So we want to be equal partners.
We have a lot of expertise.
And part of what Representative Elam was referring to
is we actually have, a grant right now,
where it's a tribal education department grant.
And we are currently in the process
of designing our education code
and implementing, looking at how our tribal values
are gonna influence all of our educational programming.
And, we have probably about 25 people
house at Clinkett and Haida that come to the table for those conversations that have
education expertise and then we're going to expand that through community conversations
as well.
In terms of the education programming we provide I just am here highlighting our
early education we are a primary operator in southeast Alaska of Head Start and
so we have our in 10 southeast communities and have upwards of 15 Head
Start classrooms that educate 190 young children and their parents every day.
That is actually growing and expanding as we continue to develop partnerships and build
out.
Prince of Wales will have a new campus that we work a lot with in the childcare realm
as well.
And so we're expanding to make sure that those two things are complimentary at the
same time.
Wrangle is another place.
You'll see some expansion probably happening in near future as
well and then as I mentioned Prince
all at the same time in Prince of Wales, Craig and Clark in those two places.
So we offer education programming.
We have family home visiting programs.
We fatherhood, motherhood is sacred programs, we have community behavioral services, which
is another space for really important education with folks sometimes on group levels, one on
one levels.
operates on Juneau and on Prince of Wales, doing a lot of hands-on learning
carpentry. It's always growing and our goal is to be cradle to career. The K-12
section is probably the biggest chunk and probably
the most influential chunk of time that we are missing. We do provide services and
support services for students in those age groups and for families.
But we do not operate a K-12 school at this time.
What I can also brag about is we run the Ha'yukhatangikudi
immersion nest classroom, which is for ages three to five here in Juneau.
We have centralized all of our early education in Juno out at Floyd Dryden.
So it's a great space to go visit as we're starting to open up classrooms there.
Graduated upwards of 25, I believe, students into the Juneau School District.
I don't have official research results, but as the Alaska Reads Act has built up,
and they're looking at developing language assessments, the Clinkit language is one of the assessments.
And they've done some pilot studies at the local Clankit Culture Language and Literacy Program,
where a lot of teachers are part of that development of a language assessment.
higher than their peers in TCLL.
And that's both at language and in English reading.
And so those Dibbles tests, et cetera,
it's our nest students that are testing the highest
and essentially kind of skewing the results as well.
So we know this works.
We now have the data to show we
know that this is working.
It clicks something else in your kids' brains
when they go through immersion.
And I think that what's really exciting,
I had one child that was able to go
through the immersion nest.
in the way she can think is dramatically different
than her sisters, and it's a fascinating thing to watch, so.
Just a second, I know that Representative Storey
has a question.
I also just want to highlight, along with building,
new Head Start facilities in both Craig and Kolok,
there's also a senior center going in in Craig.
So Plingett and Heide is just really
carrying a lot of water in The Prince of Wales region.
I'm grateful for that.
So Representative storey, co-chair store,
you had a questions.
Thank you chair him to I basically I didn't have a question
I just wanted I had a comment and wanted to let everyone know that my daughter
Mallory story teaches in the immersion nest and is an intermediate
I click at speaker and my granddaughter who was three. I is a student there and she is learning the languages and not native
person
and the the research behind
People who speak two languages is sometimes it can hold you back a little in elementary and then it propels you forward later
And so anybody who has the opportunity to speak to languages. It's getting a great opportunity
Okay, going on
So through the chair community and family engagement is at the heart of education for us
And so I'll touch on the sources below just to provide some context
But we are very proud at Klinkit and Haida. We have had a strong history of indigenous educators
That have played a role of in education in this community across the state and across a national level as well
the National Indian Education Association very well respected. He is Clinket and we have a lot
of other folks and he helped spearhead in 1983, the Southeastern Conference on Native Education,
where he brought in a lotta the educators that were trained, elders, etc. And the richness of
the information we had from that and since is what has been guiding a LOT of our education programming.
And so we used stuff from there and all of the meetings we've had since in more recent
Since times, we held, hosted a Juneau community conversation during the consolidation here
in Juneaux in the budget cuts where they were going to close schools.
In Clinkett and Haida,
we hosted our own community conversations where we had over 120 community members who had not
yet participated in those budget conversations come forward and have their voice heard by
school board members and such.
We also are, as I mentioned, working on a tribal education department project that will
include community voice as well, but current expertise.
These three things that are coming through that our families want they want us to protect and expand the teaching of clinket language culture and history
They want an emphasis on academic and social emotional supports
Cultural identity knowledge and tribal values and they what intergenerational learning spaces and more engagement
I just wanted to, I need to step away for a few minutes,
but I wanted just to thank you for coming out.
This has been a really great information.
I hope we continue this conversation,
and I should be back in just a little bit,
but just respectfully wanted
to just thank for you coming up.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Okay, here we go.
Through the chair, again, as we reflect
on our tribal education project that we're going through,
we, since we haven't-
do not operate a K-12 school.
The opportunities for us are endless for these pathways
that we can create for families to guide us there.
And obviously at the top is language immersion.
Service-based learning is really important to us
as a community and really as
a way to integrate the community.
Career and technical education,
that is something we already offer
and being able to create that pipeline.
Pre-apprenticeship both in career and technical fields,
but also for us for education,
is at the heart of probably my work for the past 15 years.
You won't find a student in June that knows me
who I haven't tried to recruit to be a teacher yet
or make volunteer in my husband's classroom.
I've been doing this work
for too long and I'm not gonna give up.
College preparation, dual credit opportunities
and really looking at that lens of a...
Pre K to 14 is really the model we're starting to look at and what that could develop into.
I'm really excited for you guys to hear from the folks behind us of what they are doing
live in action that has been guiding some of our conversations as well.
And then I leave just with some quotes that I have shared before
and some more information as Dennis Demert is another indigenous educator.
He was Clinkett out of University of Alaska Fairbanks.
And so what we're really trying to guide towards is a structural transformation
in education and that's what's grounding us in our work at Clankett and Haida.
And, so I had this quote that kind of guides my own personal perspective on education
but how to make the change and the difference.
is bad and people get upset about it,
all kinds of corrective programs are spread,
like nets over the educational grounds.
Each program snags natives,
just as we used to snag humpies,
puts them on tally sheets and justifies its existence.
Bad education, like good fishing is good business.
Everybody's busy and everybody's happy,
but it's the poor fish that can't cut.
And so we are looking for structural change,
systems change.
That's why we're looking into operations of public schools,
This is, we don't want to keep replicating what has been happening.
There is a lot of success, but we truly believe that this operation is focused and the delivery
model focus is what can be the difference.
And so, Eve Tuck is an educational researcher.
She has roots from the St. Paul Island, 2009.
She published a very famous letter to her colleagues as education researchers called
damage-centered research that documents the pain and brokenness in ways for
especially native communities, it reinforces a one-dimensional narrative
of our communities. Right? That they're to be fixed. It's echoing what Dennis
Demert has said and so what she is calling for is a reimagining of
research, that is conducted by for and with communities and this is what we
believe this project is. This is the opportunity for us as a community to
and the difference and so it's taking that strengths-based approach so
good to teach. Before we lose Ms. Jackson I had just a couple of questions that I
should have asked several slides ago so my questions have to do with Washington
and that are happening there. Are those compacts on reservations? Through the
chair I would have look at their map there are approximately six or seven
All of them, but one, are a compact with a BIE-funded school,
so most likely directly tied to the reservation land in that sense.
But there is one that is just solely a Compaq school.
I believe is it?
to the chair realizing for the record Chief Kids App Academy is the one that does not
engage with the BIA and they have different facilities that are often on reservation and
that the students go to because they are fishery, location that they do, it's a great campus
if you ever get to go do it, the kids get bus there for doing some of the science pieces
the students are on reservation or the location is on
reservation and non-reservation students come to the
reservation to be able to go to school and similar teachers are
able go between the existing school district and get be
employed with certification and retirement systems at the
school that's on the reservation by the tribe so both the
teachers and students can seamlessly flow if they migrate
as we know families do. So the compact is with the state and
To the chair, the compact is a state tribal compact.
And because of the status and the BIA engagement with the lower 48 tribes,
they also receive and do separate reporting for Bia funds that are not considered the state
tribal compound itself, except for Chief Kitsap, which is just with this state.
So that's, there's not a federal compact, it's a B.I.A.
Processed it's not compacting. Okay, and then I just I want to point out Washington has had robust tribal consultation since 2000
This was a millennium project or whatever it was called
And so they have some really strong foundations for this kind of work that we have had
Fits and starts of trying to do here in Alaska, but we
Don't have things as in places Washington in that area with 2022 just
you know we finally recognize tribes so the consultation piece that they've had for some time
we've we started on it and we scratched at it but we don't have it in place really well
so um co-chair story hi yes thank you co chair him shoot
state of Washington. Are they funded through their base student allocation and federal
both or is it just federal funding for some of the schools or
is that through the base to an allocation? Through the chair to represent the story they are funded.
I don't know, I think Joel can speak to the actual funding formula that they use.
I can speaks to that fact that, they are both funded by the federal government through BIE as well as through the state.
And so, when we,
I was only able to zoom meet with one group to kind of get an understanding of that complexity of managing those two pots of money and
where you use things for all students versus tribal citizens, etc.
funds. Did you want to add some? Yeah. Through the chair to
representative story, drill eyes it for the record, they are
using Washington State's public school funding appropriations
process for their.
to fund the schools. And then as Misha said, the federal government does a completely
separate funding mechanism through the BIA, through
the BE, so Indian Affairs, Indian Education, for those two, and they have a
completely separate reporting and accountability system. So for example,
Chief Kitsap, it's the one that only does the state not the Fed.
And then they figure out how to pay for anything that the state's not covering.
And with the federal state funds, it's with Chief Lesh, I've been able to visit that
school as well and talk with their school administrator.
The tricky thing is they spend a tremendous amount of time doing federal reporting because
those two systems don't speak to each other.
And that's part of the issue that they experience is you're accepting federal money and you
And there's less red tape with the state of Washington than the Fed.
And, there is more funding coming from the State of
Washington for students than federal government because BIE is so underfunded.
And I think what I looked is one of the schools located in Bellingham.
I would have to the chair to Isaac for the record.
I had to get back to you, I believe so,
but my Washington map I was looking at cities yesterday
and I'm a little bit mixed up in my mind.
Yeah, it just seems like I saw a similar curriculum
to what we used in elementary school where I taught
and when I looked at one of the schools
and this has been quite a while ago.
So I will welcome help from you in reaching out
to Washington to find experts in what they did
and how they do it anytime that we don't have
Completely recreate something if we can learn from someone else is a good opportunity, so any other questions before we
Go on and anything that you want to add before I move us to the next section
Okay, okay, I think we'll go on at slide 15
I'm gonna get to hear the name pronounced correctly. Thank you
You did good. Thanks.
Okay. Next one.
Uh, through the chair of la loitac, long a gimminac agviac.
Uh gimmmina, this is gimbinac madi ag viac
Um, good morning and thank you for having us.
Um.
I'm from Noma, Alaska and my mom's family is from King Island.
Um and I am with...
representing my tribe, King Island Native community.
And we did this step,
step application application in partnership with the Village of Solomon.
There's four tribes that reside in Nome and King
Island and Village in Solomon, we decided to go in on this
step-application together. And,
we currently don't have a school, but our mission
for our tribal school is to revive and restore our Inuit language and culture
So, as has been mentioned this morning, language revitalization is big with...
tribal schools and especially for ours, our potential tribal school, we want to
revitalize our Inupiaq language and immersion schooling it provides
communities with a proven successful approach to language revitalization and
doing this work, language work time is really crucial our youngest fluent
speakers are 65 and older and we just had at our annual meeting in December we
We found out that we only have 20 speakers left in Gnome
that were first language speakers and you know we're losing elders every
every year so time is really crucial to revitalize our language and two of our
younger speakers are actually in this picture here
and my cousin Maryland, Kazuna Ireland, I was a teacher for nine years, teaching Head Start
through second grade and in 2020 I had the opportunity to be an InuBelke immersion teacher
at known public schools and for four years yeah from 2020 to 2024 I
was still learning Inupelk so my mom would come into the classroom with my
And no more, no, there's a couple others.
But for the King Island community,
they are the youngest fluent speakers.
But they would come into the classroom
and help me gain my fluency.
I'm now an intermediate speaker
and I am still becoming fluent.
But, they'd come in every day
and speak with the children.
And in this picture here,
we're actually making Miserock.
A lot of teachers like to plant flowers, but I never wanted to do that because in the springtime
we make seal oil and so this year in particular was the first year I did get to make Mizukkok
in spring with my students and these are these were first graders and this memory it's stuck
They're in fifth grade now and one girl. She said, Miss, give me an up. I remember when we made seal oil
So these these activities they stick with the kids, you know, they're like core memories of doing these
activities that are subsistence activities, that if people have done for thousands of years, um,
I did and currently though I
After 2024, I did leave the elementary school, and I work now at
Kawera Gutter Cultural Center as the curator of educational programs.
Even though I was extremely grateful to be any Belk immersion teacher in our public school or there was just absolutely
No support. There is no admin support we didn't have a curriculum. I
was literally
Getting everything ready to teach the students right before the kids would walk in the door
And we had no control over the teacher trainings that we would receive or professional development
I think the last year I was there our school adopted bookworms and I had to
sit through the two-day training for that that was not relevant for me at
all so yeah we just had we had no control over what what we wanted to teach our
kids and we yeah, we have no training so that's how we arrived here with this
opportunity with the chance to have our own tribal school.
So for our goals for tribal school, we want to start small and grow as we go approach.
So we just want start with one grade and then add on every year.
And we're hoping that it could be a K through four for school.
But yeah, you want a small in and go grow.
As we grow and our curriculum, it'll be embedded with traditional knowledge from our elders.
And now is the time to learn from them before they all leave us.
In our curriculum, of course, we'll be place-based learning.
Our environment will shape our curculum,
creating hands-on cultural activities,
and students will learn traditional ways of harvesting animals,
which will foster food security and environmental stewardship.
The pedagogical approach of our STEC school
will be deeply rooted in our language, in any language.
And that inherently reflects our any felt world view and one
that encompasses our relationship with each other
and the natural world, and our lessons will draw directly
from the land and sea, which are resources
upon which our people have relied on for survival
for thousands of years.
And the relationship we have with our environment is fundamental
to our identity as any people.
By learning from the land, students will come to understand themselves through the
language in ways that will uplift them to their highest potential.
Our worldview, values, and knowledge systems will be the core of our curriculum, not just
So the sex school will provide students with the ability to live in ways that align with who we truly are and
Language revitalization. It is a growing field. I'm currently a graduate student right now at the University of Victoria
in British Columbia and
attaining a master's in indigenous language revitalization.
And there's more and more research out there
that shows a link between language
revitalizing and well-being.
Studies show that there is a significant correlation
between a language
revitalize efforts and improvement
in Indigenous people's well being.
And you know, that's why we're all here.
We want our communities to be well.
We wanna students to live a good life.
And that is why you're here too as...
Representatives and senators for Alaska. We all we deeply care about the health and well-being and we're all here to serve Alaskans
And we know we all want one's best for our kids.
And just this weekend, Sunday we woke up to some sad news.
There was actually a suicide of a young man in Nohman.
And you know this happens far too often.
Our current systems are continually failing our kid and we desperately need change.
It's time to provide our children with opportunity to truly know who they are as native people.
foster well-being for our state and you know that's why that why we're here we
want we want our kids to to live you
know so yes through through the sex school we plan to provide rigorous
instruction in both in Epilch and English and we we wanna prepare our
students for success in the world that we live in and I'll just end with a
From a Mohawk speaker, Ryan DeCare, he stated that it is said that people revitalize a
language, but really, it's the language that revitalizes the people.
And you know, that's how I envision the outcome of our sex school, to revitalise our people
in a way our ancestors can clearly understand who we are today and we can understand them.
Thank you. Thank You, and I think I can speak for the committee and offering our condolences when we lose somebody
Especially in small communities like gnome the whole community carries that grief. So
Are there questions for this part?
Story, huh? Thank
You co-chair him shoot a comment and then a question
I
Think one thing I hope everyone realizes around the table and else again is my understanding is right about this is
As we go forward with this and when we look at the bill, we should all be aware that we're going to have to make an investment in our tribal compacting schools.
It's funded through the BSA, but if I'm understanding it right, your school will be funded with a startup fee and then as if you have 120 students.
And correct me if wrong, I am just looking at prior fiscal notes.
And the other schools have a certain amount of funding
because they're growing and they are planning
and this is my understanding anyway.
And so we are going to be having to make an investment
when we will still have some of our students in the regular,
in school that they now and then they'll
choose a different school or they
might choose the tribal compacting school we don't know.
But my question is, and again, I'm kind of using this as a hearing, but also to prep for a future kind
of bill hearing so we know what to be looking for.
And that is I know in Senate Bill 34, the Board,
the Department of Board.
Our state board of education and early development was to meet with all the different communities
and then also to me with the local education association and I know they've done that but it
would be nice to have the reports of those meetings just so we know the conversations what they
talked about and as you know we started the bill here in last April and we had the superintendent
you know, said at the same time they're trying to have their language immersion program in their school
and when they have a loss of enrollment, then they
have to cut and oftentimes, you
know you unfortunately you're cutting language because of that we don't have
a you have
to
have
English math science to graduate from high school.
And so those are the kind of core programs they keep
when they're unfortunately cutting things
that they know are really important to kids.
And they had suggested like a hold harmless
and I think the superintendent from Ketchikan
had also suggested some type of hold
harmless mechanism as we go through.
since we fund on student count as we go through this transition in the communities
that have the tribal programs and I'm saying all this it puts a just to know
that what would that look like if you had some ideas if
you're talking with the superintendents in your area so they can have ideas to
give to the board about what that would look
like so anyway thank you for what you've shared about
you know, put out those thoughts because we want to have you having a dialogue how to make this a reality
Because we know it's so important. I
Don't know if you had any comments to that. Did you?
This is giving up up be up so thank you for that comment and just wanted to just make it
Add to That that yeah the
that any Belk immersion program at public schools doesn't exist any longer but that's
and it's because I'm not there because i moved but um moving forward um what we can do is you
know have a partnership between the tribal school and the public school, and provide language services
through many classes or going to their classrooms,
but we could partner with the school district
to provide those language classes,
because right now, there's none.
There's not an existence right
now because I'm not there.
Thank you through the chair. Yeah, and that was conversation
I'm hoping can be happening right now with the current superintendent what that would look like and a framework for that
I think that wouldn't help inform the committee
Thank You and then I guess my question about that is my understanding is if if you have a tribal compact public school
It's the whole shebang
But can it be that that you?
Have a compact
And again, the compact is with the state, not with
the local district.
So I was thinking if human resources were compacted,
or language immersion was compact, bits and pieces
rather than the whole thing, is that an option?
To the chair, Joel Isaac,
the mechanism for that, currently the way that the
conversations with this specific bill language and
With the tribally compacted public school
functioning as a school district,
it doesn't require then an additional compact
with a School District,
it's just like a shared services agreement.
And things like HR were discussed,
building costs and transportation costs,
those types of shared surfaces,
that some school districts currently do that anyway.
And that's one of the, that that model
and that part of important,
like one those pillars of this bill process
is that the tribes function as the school District
school districts do so it's not having to have a compact with the state and then a
compact the school district because the
school District is not a government and so
it becomes a form of contracting. It's a little bit different than a
compact but it is the same way that school
districts currently do and that's established in Title 14 already so we
didn't amend that it it currently permissible. So if a tribe simply wanted
to offer programming during the School Day say language classes
right now that's possible to the chair if the school district were to pay the
tribe for that that mechanism exists as a way to do that there are significant
alignments that have to take place to make that happen and it typically does
not happen because the shared vision is not
connecting enough and often it has to do with it's the perception of
English is the valued piece and the school district needs to be the driver's seat and there's not that
willingness to work with the tribe as an equal, and then the state certification
problem becomes the other issue. And I run and speaking from personal
experience, I ran into that where I'm allowed to volunteer, but the school
district can't have me be a teacher, because I am not an employee of the
school district. I could go much further into
that. But that's essentially the issue of employment and
then how you do this. Again, my tribe, not a compacting partner, has seven
MOUs with a school District. Many tribes do that process right now of M O
but it's limited because of that authority
of not being a district.
What I'm getting at, there are 229 tribes in our state.
If a tribe wants to offer one piece
but is not ready to do, can't do the whole thing,
then they would say we're not gonna become,
we are not going to try to operate a TCPS.
We are going offer this bit that we
are currently offering that were able to
offer, in that case the tribe would not participate.
Okay.
To the chair, yes.
The tribe could just do like a contract or an MOU with the school district if they were
not ready to go full board and operate an entire classroom.
And that's the health service model versus the compacting model.
When we talk about the compacts, it's like for an entirely grade band versus just teaching
math or just, and I say just as a single class, or a simple subject, the compounds
are operating at minimum and entire grade level.
is the threshold for compacting.
So a tribe could compact with the state and offer fourth grade.
if there is authorization from the legislature
to allow for a tribe to receive public school funding
through the BSA Foundation formula, yes.
That piece of letting the public dollars flow,
deed does not have the authority as an appropriator
to direct public funds to whoever,
whatever entity it chooses.
Obviously for protective purposes,
that's the department can't just be like,
oh, we're funding the school, the School and not this one.
And that's the district piece that is part of the bill.
I guess I'm just trying to get at the root of this.
If you're going to be a tribe with a compacted school, you are going
to offer the whole school.
But that isn't what I thought I heard you say, which was a single grade level.
To the chair, that single-grade level is like the threshold for a school you see in the
doing multiple grade bands and that's the the sorry for the legal permissible answer versus
what's practically being done is multiple grades and so it looks more like you would
typically see if we're a school being like a k3 or k6 but that threshold that minimum threshold
is a full course not just one part of education. Okay all right
Thank you, through the chair.
My question has to be, not you don't have to share that this time, but I know that you
picked 120 BSA, I think you have 120 students, and I
know you said you were starting smaller, so it would be helpful to know how you picked
that number.
You donít have share it now, just as we go along.
In fact, be curious for all the projects, the tribal compacting schools, how the number
And the vision for that. So thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. We made it to slide 17 folks
17 of 41
It's good conversation though
I'm really glad that you guys are here and that we're having this time and to the chair on the number of slides
These there are in for more information slides at the end that were there as
Rather than trying to do multiple handouts. I've just as far as some of those at. The end are for informational purposes
Okay, great. Welcome back representative under wood
Well, good morning. My name is Carl Shambly. I'm the campus director for
Connect Tribe
the Michael Tuck of Learning Campus. Not to get executive director, but
And I'll just give you a little bit of background. So I grew up in Alaska.
I graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
I was a teacher and a principal in Kotzebue for 18 years.
I finished up my
education career as a federal programs director for
Matsuboro School District. That was about seven or eight
years ago. I don't remember exactly. And then I took on a
job with Connect Tribe to help develop their education agency,
their code of ordinances, and also start the Connect Charter School.
So we'll talk a little bit about that.
And this has worked on with quite a few people in the community.
We had over 40 Zoom meetings and in-person meetings with over 350 people
in The Wassella community, and it was real important to the
community to have a world-class education that also includes academics and culture.
And eventually language.
hopefully our partnership with KineiC will work out and we can get some
denial language going in the Knek area. But it's primarily about finding
success for students in their future endeavors and that's our mission and so
whatever we need to do to that. Go ahead and I'll go through this. So our school
goals and just so you know we started the school four years ago.
and four years ago we had 80 students and currently we have 250 students in grades K through 12.
We have waiting lists, we need to do a lottery system in order to fill up some of our classrooms
currently. So we are quite a bit of growth over the last four year. Our school is in 20 portable
Next door to the school, we also operate a STEAM Academy,
which is Supplemental Education Services for grades 6 through 12.
It's funded through the federal government A&E program primarily.
So we receive grants to do that. We teach construction.
Computer programming computer build programs. We do 3D printing CNC machines
We offer high school credit through an MOA with the Matsuburil school district.
We're open year round.
We serve students over the summer.
We offered over a hundred students the opportunity to receive high-school credit just into summer sessions this last year.
So, we've been very active and it's a very popular place for young people.
Also, you know, our goal is for it to build a strong community and still indigenous knowledge
and values all of our federal grants as well as our school.
Our goal to include culture, indigenous culture with local culture and Alaska-wide native
And, of course, steam, yeah.
So that's kind of an old slide, but that is kind
of our mix from last year.
This year, you can add about 50 students to that currently
or near for operating the school.
You can see some of the activities the students are doing.
The other thing I would add is the school is open to everybody.
It's a public charter school.
We have a 10 year contract with the with
the Matsuburo School District.
And so we've been operating the
school with a team of teachers and a principal
from the matsubura School is higher
through the Masubururo school district.
And they are governed by the APC as other charter schools.
And we'll talk a little bit about that.
Those were written and the governance structure.
Are you operating, I'm sorry, are you
operating your own correspondence program
or are they correspondence through the Matsu?
Thank you for that question.
When we did our application with the
Matsubaro School District,
we included a K-12 brick and mortar school
and also a k- 12 charter correspondence school
in that single application.
So we are offering both.
through the Connect Charter School.
So we have students that are blended.
Some students are full-time homeschool
and some students our full time brick and mortar.
The fulltime home school students also have access
to all of our STEAM programs that's in the building
next to the school, which we offer free and reduced lunch.
We do offer some busing.
Our school is about 65% Alaska Native American Indian.
and 35% non-Alaskan Native American Indian.
Also, we're about 90% free and reduced lunch.
And you said that some of your funding came from ANE,
which is federal, and often federal funds are,
here you go, try it out.
And then you have to figure out how to make it work when those funds stop.
Usually it's like two, three year grant cycles.
Yes, Chair Hymshoot.
So we operate, currently we're operating seven different grants within that.
Four of them are sunsetting at the end of this year, which employ about 14 individuals.
So those four grants are very specifically written as to what they'll provide.
One is a construction grant, one is an aviation drone grant.
a subsistence grant. So food, security, subsistence. We do hunter safety with that grant, we do
a lot of outdoor activities with the students with a grant so those grants are sunsetting
and there are very specific goals with those grant each one I think at 17 objectives and those
are through the ANE program. we have three grants that will carry some of our programs forward.
But that, like you said, that funding, those are originally three-year grants.
We made the money last.
We asked for no cost extensions for an additional year.
We were able to carry on all those activities for
an initial year, but this will be then for those four grants?
So then you'll be operating off state funds and then the three remaining grants, correct.
So we're operating really dual programs,
so two programs separated by 150 feet.
So the school operates off of the state,
BSA through the charter school.
And those students are shared with the Steam Academy.
The Steam academy itself is funded
through those federal grants.
So, the money.
only really mixes when the kids walk across the street or the
kids come in from home. We provide those services.
And what happens to the STEAM Academy? It's one of those three grants that are continuing.
Well the Steam Academy will continue operations. It will have to scale down the amount of offerings
I've spent some time going down to Washington DC recently
and we're looking at alternatives
to losing our funding or replacing the funding.
There are other grant opportunities
we are constantly looking
at grant opportunity.
It's a full-time job just looking for grants
and writing grants and then reporting on grants
and tracking the finances of grants.
So...
Evaluating the grant?
Yes.
So, but it's worth it because we can provide
some real high-quality programs for our students.
Thank you.
Yep.
Thank You.
Oh, I apologize.
Coach, your story.
Uh, thank you, uh, through the co, co-chair Hymshoot, kind of this, ah, kinda two, a similar
question I asked before is, the conversations you've had state board with your school,
also with the current superintendent, since you are a charter school.
I believe the district would only be having 0.4 percent for administration.
overhead or helping, so it's not as big of an enrollment adjustment as maybe other districts
would be.
But I'd be curious, your conversations, ow.
with your local school board as well as the state board.
Not at this time if I'm not, but I was just saying
future preparation be good to come with that.
I can talk about just briefly, our application was something that we
worked on with our community.
Um, and what we put in that application, the things that were important to us for the charter school, we rolled that
application through our tribal council,
the bylaws for how we would operate.
I kept them up to speed the entire way.
They approved it. I asked for their approval,
the tribal counsel approval first.
They were the ones initiating this process to, to open a charter schools.
So they got first look at everything.
Once it went through them, then it then went to the school board and the
schoolboard heard it. We had a couple different meetings, we had parents and
students show up and testify about how this was important to them and and
the School Board thankfully approved it as well and then I went
to The State School board. And that was a similar question and answer session and
we described what we wanted to do and were approved in June and we opened our
Yeah, hired a principal between June and August and we found a temporary facility until our
facility could be opened in January that year.
All right, let's continue.
I don't recommend that timeline.
So this is kind of the work that we did prior to opening the charter school, so this path to
education compacting also lends itself well to education-compacting, but the Connect Tribe
Constitution, which goes back a long ways, and then established a tribal council. And you can see
Part of my first job my 1st year there was to
write a tribal education code and have that adopted by the tribal council and
That was adopted
by The tribal Council within the Tribal Education Code
We set up a Tribal education committee and a Tribal education department for policy and day-to-day operations and
and just running all our education decisions through those two and so those recommendations
from the tribal education committee then go to the Tribal Council for approval.
That established a connect tribe as a tribal educational agency under federal law.
So this is going back six years and that made us eligible for some of those federal grants
and set us up for being able to administrate those grants.
So, as far as state tribal education compacting, when that opportunity opened up, I was aware
of it going back to Alaska's education challenge.
You know, in those days, that was an administrator and I
was following and was participating in
those things.
And so,
I wasn't aware of the opportunity coming down the
that was one of our goals so that we could establish the school in such a way that the
transition to compacting would be easier and more seamless for us. So this was something that
we had in mind when we established the charter school. And so so, that opportunity came about,
pay our attorneys and myself as lead negotiator for Connect Tribe
to sit in those meetings for a year and and work on this going through Title 14, going
through all the details and adding my experience as being a teacher and a principal and then working
And so that's that kind of the long and short of I'm happy to answer any questions and invite you all for a tour at any time
I know a representative under what has been there and helped us with our first graduation
The only question I have and I do want us to keep moving because we have to finish at about five to ten so
My question is, when you say you opened it in a way that would make it seamless
to transition into becoming a TCPS, what kinds of things are different
about your school than a different charter school?
Well, for one, there's many things, but what I'm kind of proud of is that, you know,
there are no barriers for anybody to attend our school.
We have free and reduced lunch.
Of course, there's the culture piece, of course there is the subsistence activities, the outdoor wreck,
all the things that we do from the tribe that I described earlier, those things don't exist in most charter schools.
that the school could want.
The science teacher wanted to do an environmental study
on Cottonwood Creek.
So we did a partnership where we provided the vans,
we provide a chaperones, we picked the kids up,
we drove them to the creek,
we created a video and app for them
to summarize their project and submit it
on a national scale.
So, so we have that sort of partnership
that happens almost daily where
We can take kids on field trips. We have to sign them out from the school
Sign them into the tribes so the liability piece and then we can
Take them and chaperone them with the band. So
There's a lot of things that make us different, but those are the things I'm most proud of is the fact that the tribe can lend all of its
expertise and
And resources to make that school much more that would be if it was just the BSA and just those 20 portables
and the busing is that provided by the tribe?
The bus thing is provided
by this school district through the transportation grant
that the school districts provide.
So the School District is able to provide three buses,
I believe, two for sure, one that goes east
and picks up kids at a satellite location
and then one goes west and pick up students.
So we have kids, students that arrive
from all over the valley.
Is there busing for other charter schools?
It is offered for others charter
schools as well. Like existing routes
pick up kids and drop them in
different places or is it a separate
system? No, it's basically we're using
the same bus transportation system that
the other charters schools are already
using like academy charter school and
some of the others. So it it its buses
provided by the bus contractor and then
the director of transportation
establishes the routes.
So the neighborhood schools have a bus system and the charter schools
have the bus systems? Yeah I think you know it's operated very
similarly by the same contractor and through the
same department of transportation at the Matsuboro School District.
Okay but it is not as far as you
know there is one route and it serves all the schools
whether they are a neighborhood school or a charter school.
How they do the routings I'm not really clear on but I
think we have two buses that are dedicated to us for
drop-off and afternoon pick-up,
and I think that's the same with the others as well.
Okay, all right, thanks.
Other questions?
Coach, her story.
Thank you, Coach Herham-Shoot.
I was gonna suggest that if we have other questions,
we could just share them later and get them out
to the districts, and then we can move on
to our other guests that are here.
Okay.
Because I do have some other question, but.
Well, thank you so much.
Thank-you very much, okay.
La La Tuck, Wenga Mark Roseberry, and Nupiek Sinen is Ojagak.
Anyway, through the chairs, co-chairs, thank you for inviting us today and I am the education
director for the NUPIA community of the Arctic Slope and the administrator for Ogea Academy
Tribal School.
You know, some of you may have heard of these things before,
but I know there's always a lot of questions on the legality
and why tribes have the rights.
And I'll briefly just go through with the ICAST Council.
About four years ago, the IACAST council
decided to exercise what's in, you know
there is a question about the Constitution.
In the ITAST Constitution, education
is one of those services that the council
is a part of the tribe for us to present.
And yes, the RICAS Constitution was signed off
by the Department of Interior and the Secretary of
Interior when they developed in 1971, I believe.
So anyway, ICAS is the sovereign Indian tribe
and we are one of two regional tribes in the state.
Clink at Haida is another one.
And so our lamb base is
Jurisdictional area anyway is around 97,000 square miles, so it's a little bit bigger than the north subboro
Anyway, the ICAS council
Decided that it was time they received funds as many groups did with COVID and
Use those discretionary funds to develop the education department. So as part of that
when we had that and in
2021 on July 2021 we established the education department that was established initially by
a resolution and then we codified it with an ordinance and within that ordinance defines how
ICAS will exercise education the within there is the development of an education committee which
to the ICAS Council, but also is the governing body of Carnegie Academy Tribal School,
and so that there are bylaws that are associated with the Education Committee.
So that's how we started legally, so if we can go on to next slide.
So, Carnegie academy now is a tribal school,
but I'm going to go to to this slide and how it began.
So up in the North Slope, there's always been
this desire, grassroots desire of what can we do differently?
The people for decades and decades
and decade have been wanting the language culture.
and all of those things in the school, and I know the local school district has tried over and over,
but when you are bringing in administrators and teachers that are not a part of the communities,
they don't just automatically absorb and know what to do with the culture, language, or anything else.
And so when have high turnover rates of every two years is usually the average and lack of longevity.
It's very difficult to have consistency, so the local people, elders, they had how many
different education summits and talking about it, and it always comes out with the same thing.
This is what we want, but we're not quite getting there. So, you know, before
Carnegie Academy started, we were looking at different options. And this is grassroots looking
at some of the leaders up there were talking with me about, do we do private school? What do
And so one of the options was a charter school and so we started that and we developed a we
made an application and the charter School was approved by the local school board and approved
by state school Board and you know we did that relatively quickly as well within a year we had
the some members of the school board changed out and the new members did not
want to charter school and so they started dismantling it from within a
month.
And so that's when the Academic Policy Committee
came to the tribe and said, hey, we still want this to go.
We were not able to come to terms with the district,
and so it became a tribal school, and we established it.
Now, they don't just transfer, because it's government,
so they closed down the charter school.
It wasn't a transfer and it was not a commodity.
In the same way, our tribal schools
is fully under the tribes.
And so we used discretionary funds to start that higher teachers and then we started within
that same year and have continued for the last four years.
The challenge for us and what makes Carnegie Academy so differently, different is, and
that's the process we use to get there.
What makes it different, is the focus that we have, so you see the conventional schools
late 1800s and early 1900s, and it's based on efficiency and based
on, you know, the industrial revolution and everything that's done was done.
You know this is when the first time people were paying taxes and
everything and was designed for efficiency.
People didn't want to pay to high taxes.
And, they wanted to get them ready for the Industrial Revolution.
They treated students like commodities and you start here and
you're going to do this and here's your standards for doing this, this this
and this except human beings are in a commodity and everybody's different.
And so in Kudhya Academy the tribe recognizes this
and so our school model follows research actually and if you look at
Montessori research and there's other schools like Waldorf and
Human beings learn and so we're taking that research and we started designing a
School that follows that and training the schools
That do that follow in that framework. So if I can go to the next side because I know
I'm gonna I'll ask that we if you don't mind if no we can. Go on. Yeah
So, one of the things you're going to see, the environment in Colgate Academy is very
different.
And because of that, and because our structure is really different, we don't have a six
period day or seven period a day.
We have blocks of time that we work and we're able to monitor the students.
And I know I don't have a lot of time to go through some of these things, but a big part of it is we realized that we can't just put our teachers through a prep program that teaches them in the traditional, you know, conventional way and then expect them to come back and teach in
the way that.
We need them.
So we're creating our own apprenticeship and we started that with APU.
We finished the first course that this last fall.
courses can we design and fit in there and there's some things that our teachers are
just going to take that are the basics but it works and we're going be able to get what
we wanted for Carnegie Academy and the teachers will be going back to their degree and actually
get a tribal certification and with the way that the legislation is written then we would
give that certification to deed to could review it and then issue a state
certification. So we're already starting that process. We also have a appropriation
request and as you know our federal government gets their act together if
they pass it then we'll have an appropriation this summer that will also
help us enhance the the teacher apprenticeship. But it takes a lot of
us to maintain the tribal school because as we've seen there's not just all this
funding out there and so you know a large portion of my time is spending
fundraising and advocating and doing those things anyway
You know, we have a whole child and we really operate in the whole
child, so you're not going to see, oh, you know language and
culture is inherent because we hire local educators, but we also
have how we're going keep the academics.
We have virtual contracted educators that fulfill those
highly qualified areas to help our students along.
And next, and then, I mean, these are just some pictures of we
did have graduates.
You can see that the environment's differently.
But what I really want to show you in these pictures
is what the students are doing.
Yes, they're doing the academics,
but these are the things that really inspire them
and help them become who they are
and build their culture identity.
And, you know, when I share in this with people,
we had a education, I mean, not an education
but we got a tribal summit bringing all of the village tribes
in and when they saw these picture,
I can't tell you how many people had tears in their eyes
They grew up not having in school.
They were disciplined, my wife being one of them.
You speak the language, you were discipline.
You don't do any of the cultural things
or you're disciplined.
That had a long-term effect on the people up there.
And when they were seeing these pictures
and what we're doing in our school,
it just brought so many tears
and it brought a emotional reaction
to we really need this to happen.
And that cannot be duplicated in the current systems.
That's why tribal compacting is so important.
Anyway, questions?
Any questions.
Oh, okay.
Coach, I have a story. Thank you through the chair.
Thank for being here.
Just wondering what virtual programs have you, are you working with?
And do they have more indigenous content?
So, on the academic side, what we really wanted to do is separate out the indigenous content,
not that it all has to be, because you could have projects that incorporate it.
But our students, we realize that our
students need to understand how to operate
in the Western world.
When you go take tests or you're going to college
or getting certifications, they don't adjust those tests
and our student need understand and understand the language.
So we're really focusing on,
we actually like having the western academics.
And our teachers can incorporate, so say we have an activity or project, we place-based it.
And then we're bringing, because we've local educators in, it's inherent in our day-to-day
operations throughout the day, I don't have to have a special class or a specific curriculum
to figure out how to incorporate the culture because it is done automatically by the instructors
that are there in the classroom because that's what they know.
And if that makes sense, because one of the things,
when I saw curriculum that you put the cultural elements in,
if you have somebody teaching it that aren't of
the culture, they're not teaching
it, and I observe that in our own school district.
They're really not taking it.
It could be in there, but they don't know how.
to really incorporate it, and what they do is really shallow.
So anybody that's been in the culture a long time will say,
okay, they're just touching it.
So they are touching maybe what the animal is
and the different parts of an animal,
they'll use a local animal.
But that doesn't tie to the deep connection
that the Nupia people have with an animals.
We're going to enter up here for just a second,
and not that what you're saying is important,
but I think the question was,
what are the virtual programs that you are using?
Yeah, we're using a mental and adoptions academy.
Through the chair, and who is that with?
Um, Edmonton.
Edmonton and Ed options academies through Edmonton
I'm sorry. I am not familiar through the Chair. Not fair.
Edmonton is a we can look it up probably online through chairs
We can email you the the spelling in the name if that'd be helpful. Yeah, I think I had it on previous slides here, too
Yeah
I do need us to move on. One last question of Mr. Roseberry, is your background in education
before you came to this work for you? Yes, I was a teacher and administrator, career
and technical administrator assistant superintendent. And then what is
your homeschool district? North sub-boro, school district. So I
was the science educator and they are known across the state for their work in.
cultural standards through science.
Yeah, and they have really impressive work.
Yeah it is and it's very impressive what what happens is
and we've when I've worked in the schools,
teachers coming in get stressed out because they said,
we're not from here.
I have had teachers with tears in their eyes,
not that the work itself is impressive.
It is awesome.
But when you have educators not familiar coming into a new place on a regular basis,
it is stressful on them.
And that's what our point is, it's very stressful one.
And there's like, we're expected to teach something that we don't know.
And I can't tell you how many have been brought to tears.
High quality, place-based education requires knowing the place.
Yes.
It takes time to get there.
Okay.
Could we, I'm sorry, to rush?
We have five minutes.
We're going to cut it off at 9.59, OK.
It's OK, mine's pretty fast.
So I'm glad that the slides at the front
are the these I was going put them at
the end, but this was last, as you can see, 23, and then
25, 24, 25.
So this is last school year.
And these are the scores of our students that were in tribal school or tribal
scholars last year. A lot of them are still in this year, except for the ones
who have graduated. And you can see the test date when we initially did our
testing and our map testing, and other testing that we do and I would have to
So, as you can see, we have kids in the 12th grade who were reading and this, no, math.
This was, their math was at a fourth grade level.
And within that, just over a year, they're college-level math, and we almost...
We have about one, two, three, four of our students on here that were urgent intervention.
We had two that we got to do intervention and on watch.
We only had a few that are at level or above.
most of our students tested on or above their grade level,
and that's math.
Our next slide is reading,
which is very similar in the sense
that we were able to see even greater jumps
in our reading scores.
And one of the things,
you can go on to the next slides
since you guys have access to that.
One of the things that we do in our Tribal Scholars Program, which is started with an A&E grant in partnership with the Ketch Ken Gateway
World School District, we still work in partnerships with this school district.
We utilize teachers that are district teachers and we have been able to take our kids places.
We do place baseball and learning. All of our are kids are going.
to the University of Alaska Southeast for biology.
We have a great teacher.
We've a fantastic teacher that is with our kids right now.
We're very fortunate to have amazing teachers
all the way through for the last few years.
So 13 to over 10 years, when we're going to.
Scott, I'm going in for a second.
I see some dignitaries there, including Bob Zaz.
Oh, yes.
But could you put your name on the record also?
Oh I am so sorry.
so sorry. So I think we have one more so this is something that we love to do and we've tried
to incorporate always and that is getting out and being on the land and going through and looking
our local tribal members come in and teach our children how to put together a
skate. We were one of the only school district our schools in the state and I
think even further that we got an educational permit from NOAA for
halibut and so we take our kids out and and
teach them how do get halobut.
obviously shrimp, salmon, they had a salmon omelet with greens and oh it just
looks delicious. And our students they they were able to then take this food and
give it to our elders. They were also able
to take it home and
cook for their parents.
One of the things that we know is a lot of our kids
don't have driver's license.
And I don' t know if that's all over the state,
but I certainly know when catch again, that is the big deal.
And so that' s one of things is getting the kids
to the DMV to get their permit and getting them ready to go.
So, in short, I know I'm out of time.
I just would love for you to look at what we do.
I know there's some reading here.
If you have any questions, my name and number are on here,
I love what do as a school.
I like tribal scholars and where it's come.
And we want to grow what were doing.
And the compacting is how it is going to happen.
So thank you for your time.
It's much appreciated.
I apologize for running out of time,
it has been a good conversation today.
We have anything to add, Dr. Isaac.
Just for the record, Joel Isaac,
we really appreciate the chance to model
the tribal voice leading,
kicking off this session and presenting this.
So thank you both to both co-chairs.
And again, we appreciate you for coming last night
for The Compacting Summit
and for sending the time with us today.
Thank you so much for your time.
We are going to have to wrap up.
I do want to also put on record
We said on Monday that the department was unable to come, there was a miscommunication about whether or not they were invited, and so I just want to make sure that's really clear that there
was, at no point did they decline to cum, they couldn't come on that day, it was miscommunicated,
and we do have questions pending with them on the CLSD grant, we'll get those answers to you soon.
So we're going to conclude our meeting, our next meeting is this Friday, January 30th, 2026 at 8 a.m.,
on assessments. We'll have testimony from Dr. Martin West on the governing board of the
NAIP, Superintendent of The Matt Superrow School District, Dr Randy Traney, superintendent of
Kodiak Islands, Burrow school district, and on committee announcement we misspelled it,
but it is Cindy Mika, Doctor Mica. And then the Department of Education and Early Development
will be here with us, so with no further business before the committee this morning,
we are going to adjourn at 10-0-1.