And there is a lot of information I know to be told today, so I'm just a case viewer.
Watch the gavel the gabble on the house floor.
We did get to introduce our lovely guests today.
But I am just going to give a little brief synopsis.
Somebody else has yours, I'll make it up.
But we have today three special guests.
It's not on.
Three special guests today that I'm honored to introduce.
First is Lee Sloane of known Lee for many years.
She's the president of Alaska School Choice,
which is a nonprofit that's a granting organization
that expands school choice opportunities
for Alaskan families, homeschool mom,
former public school teacher,
and she administrates a hybrid...
homeschool community, it's known as the Green Room.
It's in North and South Anchorage.
I do have friends that have their kids going there
and they rave about it.
She has a podcast and platform called Brave Nation
and author's two books.
Pride and Privilege is her newly published book
and then The Little Brown Hen for Children,
which we got to hear this morning is incredible.
I would highly, highly suggest reading that.
The proceeds from The little Brown Head for 2026
will go to support Alaska School Choice, which is amazing.
So please welcome Lee.
And then we also have Miss Pamela King here.
She serves as the head school, head of school at Mountain City Christian Academy with 32
years of experience in education, spanning elementary through high school.
She brings a deep understanding of student learning across the del-
developmental stages. She's a lifelong Alaskan. Pam grew up in rural communities across southwest
interior and northwest Alaska, shaping her strong commitment to access opportunity in student-centered
education. And her unique perspective reflects both professional expertise and lived experience
grounding her leadership and diverse needs of Alaska students and families.
been friends with her for years. She is the superintendent at Mountain City, and oh my goodness,
I wish I had Julie's thing.
just a wealth of knowledge.
When it comes to education for years,
as you can see, all three of these women,
they have given their lives to educational.
This isn't just something that's on a whim,
both public, private, charter school, homeschool.
There's just so much that they
have a Wealth of Knowledge, and so I am so privileged.
Please welcome all of three
of them,
and I'm gonna turn it over to who's gonna go first.
Ms. Bamm.
Thank you.
Good morning. Thank you so much for joining us for lunch and learn
Which I understand that the joke is you may not lunch-and-leave
Thank You so my first visit to Juneau ever lifelong Alaskan, but I've never been here before and it is gorgeous here
So thank you. So much. For having us. I
have the privilege of telling you about some student stories and
the incredible gains that we have seen in education.
I'm going to tell you three particular stories,
but there's probably 300 that I could tell,
that are coming out of schools
and out my 32 years of experience.
So welcome to School Choice Week.
School choice to open doors for more Alaskan students
to have access to the educational opportunities
of their choice.
One of the most beautiful things about education is the diversity that we have in education and the choices that parents have
in educating their students.
So 20% of Alaskan students are in correspondence and private schools.
33 private school serve 4,000 students, 20 percent are non-faith-based,
30 correspondents homeschools,
serve 23,000 students and 503 public schools are serving 131,587 students.
That's a lot of students in the state of Alaska.
And we serve very diverse learners.
Private schools support a diverse range of
students, different cultural backgrounds,
varied learning needs and abilities.
At our school we have 15 to 20 percent of our student body that are on IEPs and 504s.
So there is a growing need to be able to service our students who have significant
academic needs. Also different socioeconomic backgrounds. One of the myths of private school
is that in private schools diversity does not exist. We last year did a deep dive into
the stats of that and found that it was very interesting right down the street from us probably
about a mile and a half is east high school one of the most diverse high schools in the nation
and our demographics in our school very much mirror that if you can just take a moment to
review that. It is a beautiful beautiful community. Now I get to do the fun part. I
One of the classes I took at university was storytelling,
which I dropped out of because it was terrifying
to tell stories and get up and speak in front of people.
Dropped out twice, so bear with me.
Every student brings a story.
We're going to start with this sweet young lady.
Her name is Talia.
a deaf student who came to our school because she was not able to receive the support in the
services that she needed and her family wanted in our local school. We have watched her flourish
this year. She's become part of our American Sign Language community within our School creating
blooming. The beautiful thing there is we've been able to add ASL3 to our
offerings of our courses so that we can bring her along with us and it's
creating a very very thriving ASl community within our school. This is
Lavina. She came to her school because she had experienced extreme bullying in
To the point of being physically assaulted in her local school, so she came to our school single mom
the beautiful thing about the funding through
Correspondent schools and partnerships that we have with Correspondents schools is
That they can help families like this who don't have the fun to afford a private education
But they could use some of that to pay for lessons classes tutoring
So she came to us performing below grade level and very withdrawn to the point where
she's on the chair squad now and her map scores show that she has gone from performing two
deviations below grad level to performing at grade levels because of the support that's offered.
needed a lot of academic help.
In the third grade, his teacher identified
that he was not reading and was performing
very low, big, low grade level.
So because of the partnership that our private school has
with Denali Pete Correspondent School,
he wasn't able to get testing and test it
into special education.
The challenge then was
Where and how do his parents receive services in order to support the fact that as a third
grader, he tested into special education, testing at upper kindergarten, first grade
level, again, the beauty of the correspondent school and the partnership there with school
choice being able to put Zane in an Orton-Gillingham Barton method tutoring system that we created
At the end of 5th grade, he was testing into eighth grade and post-high school in mathematics astounding gains for him.
The end-of-the-year fifth grade award ceremony,
he took the trophy for English and math, highest grade point average,
incredible and that is because of school choice and the partnerships that we
have with the correspondent schools. Every story resonates doesn't it? This
one in particular because that's my kid. He's
my boy and as we faced a student who struggled in not knowing what to do
what an incredible benefit for him to have the resources that
And now, ironically, he wants to sit here.
He has politics on his brain.
He's going to be a politician one day, Mom.
OK.
I need to bring him next time.
There are so many more stories.
I could tell you story after story, just the benefit of having international students
in our school from Thailand, Korea, Africa, Columbia.
Just this semester, we were able to enroll a Colombian student and a Thai student.
they are immersed in the English that we are offering in our school and the
support services that they receive to be able to flourish with the hope and idea
that there going to continue on to UAA and UAF. Single parent homes, foster
families, we have many foster families in
our School. Students with learning disabilities, the financially challenged,
many people want to be able to afford a private education but they're just not
able too and so these school choice opportunities the partnerships its
correspondence schools give us opportunity for all Alaskan students and
families to have a choice and an education that they want for their
child. Why school-choice matters because school
choice allows students to thrive environments that best suit their needs.
and school choice holds the key to the future success of student outcomes.
The whole goal in this is for our students to be able to grow in their academic gains,
their map testing scorers, to able see that they are thriving, and in all of the stories that I
told you, it's amazing to see when students are in an environment that is supported, part of a
that they bloom and they blossom and thrive.
So thank you so much for your time this morning.
We're going to pass it off to Dr. Jessica Parker.
So, along with this presentation is a one-pager that kind of summarized what we're going to be talking about today.
But this is the Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program.
This is bare bones because it's new, right?
It's not starting until January of 2027.
So some things might change along the way.
I know that a recent development was the dollar amount per tax filer versus individuals.
QR code here that you can follow going to edchoice.com and it will keep you
apprised of all of the recent developments.
So, what is the Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Program? It used to be called ECCA, by the way,
so if you have heard of that terminology, it's the same program and
it came about through the big
beautiful bill act and it's a nationwide federal initiative. It's the first federal tax credit
that was specifically designed to incentivize donations for K-12 scholarship programs nationwide.
Donors get dollar-for-dollar credit. The word credit is really important.
It is not a deduction in their taxes, it is a credit in the taxes which is much more valuable.
And the credit is up to $1,700 for contributions to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations,
and it's $1700 per filer. So if you're married and you are filing jointly,
you can only receive the $7,600 credit. It's not per individual. And for businesses,
they're also capped at the seventeen hundred dollars.
You do need to donate the money to an SGO,
which is a scholarship granting organization.
So you're going to hear the word S-G-O a lot.
And actually, lease loan is going
to present purely on S.G.O.s in just a minute.
And it is needs based.
So students do you need
to qualify financially in order to receive the funds.
And its eligible to students.
It can pay for things like,
well, we're gonna talk about that in a moment.
What can it cover?
It's for eligible students paying funds to parents chosen school for qualifying expenses.
So, the donor targets the school that they want to give it to.
You cannot target the student, but you can target this school.
And these scholarships begin in January of 2027, and it is completely voluntary.
It is donor funded and there's no federal or state funding or spending.
So, here's the donation process, donors, and it could be individuals or businesses.
And remember, if it's a married couple, they're capped at the $1,700 as well.
They donate to an approved SGO,
and then Sgo means scholarship granting organization.
and then that SGO provides funding for tuition, curriculum, tutoring, instructional services,
technology, I even saw the word transportation on there, educational therapies and this is for
this, is the most important part. This is what I love about school choice, all students, public,
The SGOs are for all students.
That's the beauty of this program.
And then the donors in return receive 100% tax credit
for their donation.
So what are the benefits of these?
The number one benefit is that it costs the state nothing
because the money is coming from donors, individuals
and businesses.
to say yes to because it's improving student outcomes without impacting the state's budget.
The second benefit is that it expands family access to educational options that are tailored
to student needs. So it allows the hard part is the money goes to the school and the
But the beautiful part is that it's all schools, so it can be given to a public,
to private charter, homeschool, and it prioritizes the needs of those
who have the greatest financial need as well.
As said before, it is 100% funded by donors,
and I keep saying this, that is for all students.
Why does this matter for Alaska?
It matters because Alaska is unique, you hear this all the time, or diverse, we have a lot of
rural populations, and so this can impact the individual needs that students have. I envision
there being SGOs that are very local based, like ones that serve rural communities, ones
that service public schools, one that serves private schools.
targeted to serve our diverse group of students.
The other beautiful thing is that it doesn't reduce public school funding.
If anything, it increases it because it can allow money to
serve public schools students just as well as any of the other school choice options.
And then here's the other thing I was talking about,
about SGOs reflecting local values.
I think that's really important.
I can see a lot of SBOs being targeted
to serve the needs of our students.
This program expands access to flexible learning options
tailored to the need of Alaskan students
Alaskan students deserve an education that helps them reach their full potential.
In a state as vast and diverse as ours, a one size fits all, does not work.
That's why school choice is so powerful.
And we're very excited about the Federal Tax Scholarship Program.
Because regardless of zip code, regardless income,
This allows school choice to be accessed by students all across the state.
Students, the states must opt in to participate.
And if you saw the proclamation just a couple of days ago, our governor has already opted our
state in. So we're very excited about that.
So I'm going to skip the first one. I made this PowerPoint.
I think three days ago so very exciting news at Alaska is already participating in this.
So if a state participates then scholarships can become available to its residents starting
in January of 2027. The resources are donor funded and they're allocated nationwide through
governor approved as GEOs which Ms. Sloan is going to talk about in just a minute.
We are participating, so we're very excited about that.
And that is it.
So I'm going to pass the mic on to Ms. Lee Sloan.
Thank you, Jessica.
I am excited.
We're the 23rd state to adopt these SGOs.
There's only a couple of states that have opt out it
opted out of it so far. So scholarship granting organizations and their potential impact here
in Alaska. Like I said, they said before, I'm a former public school teacher,
I run a hybrid home school co-op. Well, it's not really coop,
it is a cohort of sorts. And so I am passionate about school choice, obviously,
There are some students that we think, oh, we have all these choices in Alaska,
but some student don't, and I'm going to talk a little bit about why that is the case.
Oh, I didn't get the clicker.
Okay, choice in Alaskan. We basically have three ways we
have choice and Alaska. One,
we don' t talk about much, but
some families can.
Pay for those options that is a legitimate choice they can choose anything around them because they have the financial means to pay
Number two, we have charter schools and we had allotment programs some charter school have allotments programs
Some are correspondence programs, but these are the primary ways we access school choice right now
You can either go to the school that meets your particular need your
particular gifting or that type of thing or you can use an allot ment
that some of these charter schools give out and that is really empowering because that
means you can get a collective of independent vendors to serve your needs and it's really
really flexible.
But now we have a number three.
Now we new scholarship granting organizations opening up more choice for education in Alaska.
Now, some of you might know this, this might be kind of obvious, but when we don't have choices, when more stripped of choices
there's a lack of upward mobility. When we can't make choices we cannot climb out of poverty and things like that.
I live in East Anchorage and I see this all the time. A lot of kids are on the edge of being able to choose these choices
or not based on their level of income.
is actually no choice of your parents when you were a parent or you're a
parent and you say you can either do it my way or
you could do my weight. That's basically what we're saying when we say we
say well you
can choose well if you only have one choice then that's not really not a
choice at all.
So we talk about school choice deserts.
What are school choice deserts?
There are places where families cannot always access their preferred method of education.
They don't have the funding.
There's a lot of different reasons for that.
So I'm going to go into a few examples of a school-choice desert.
Number one, safety.
And this can also include like the appropriateness of the school.
Unfortunately, like I said, I live in East Anchorage,
It's not something fun that we like to talk about, but I have had teachers come to me saying,
I feel like I work in a prison ward.
Not that I'm a Prison Ward, not a school teacher.
And this option may work for some families,
but for others it is not as safe option and it maybe doesn't meet their needs.
We're not here to judge whether this, necessarily whether the school is a good school or a bad school,
but it's clearly not safe for everyone.
who was it, Lavina?
Laviena, her school option was not safe for her.
Therefore, she needed a different option.
That option,
her parents removed from the table, right?
So she need a to different options.
Every time one of these isn't met,
it removes an option from a table.
So either it's unsafe or it is inadequate
to meet their needs.
I grew up in Los Angeles public school.
I went to a school like this.
It was no good for me.
So, another example is if you have a special need.
Now, the allotment programs, usually they're the same amount for every kid.
So if your a neurotypical kid, you go in and you get your allotments and
you're able to use it, no problem, but what if if
you are a down syndrome kid?
You get the say allotman.
There is no change in your allotment and so it's not really,
it doesn't behoove them to choose that method because they don't have enough funding.
to meet their level of need to choose these options.
So you can say, well, we have this wide variety of options
and you could choose, but it's really off the table
for high special needs students.
So again, one option is not a choice.
Another one that is very applicable to us in Alaska is location.
A lot of these places in rural Alaska are isolated
and so they may only have one physical school.
They don't have access to internet or really reliable internet
that can open up a whole new world of school choice options.
So that's another example of a school-choice desert.
And these deserts happen all around the US.
And so we just need to be aware.
It's not that we're bad for having school
choice deserts, but we need
to aware so that they can start addressing them.
And we can address them with our SGOs.
Another one is if your income is super, super low.
It's hard to access these programs because, for example,
when you have, again, I'll refer to the allotment program
because that's a huge one.
A lot of my students, we're a collective of independent
vendors, so I get a lot on the lower income.
And sometimes they're just on defense of being able to use
enough of that funding.
Like, if they don't go to a traditional public school,
they lose out on free lunches.
They lose that on transportation.
They, a lot of times, they're single-parent homes,
so they don't have enough time to be at home with their kids
to actually home school.
So there's a lotta issues.
Sometimes it's even this.
In some of our charter schools,
a lots of them, most of em,
you actually have to get reimbursed.
So you have have money out there for certain parts of it.
Like, for example, I purchase a curriculum
that's reoccurring like Nicole the math lady.
You know,
I use that for my students.
put the money out, then I get reimbursed maybe two months later, maybe three months
later. That's not acceptable for someone that has a very low income, that can't put
that on their credit card. So, those choices are effectively off the table for low
income even though we say that they're open. Does that make sense? So scholarship
granting organizations will be able to close those gaps. And a lot of what we
Alaska School Choice is closed some of those gaps.
Some of the requirements for SGOs is that we are approved by the participating state.
We have to have our governor approve us.
There is a question mark as to which governor is going to prove that.
But I'm hearing mixed things so I'll leave that up to them for you to ask them that
and then we they must offer funding for more than one school program.
So it can't just be a one-school scholarship program for that school.
And at least 90% of the tax credit funds must go directly toward the scholarships, which is great.
And we have the freedom though, because we are not receiving direct funds from the federal government.
We have freedom to create our own goals, choose our target demographics,
measure our impact, communicate with our donors just like any nonprofit would, and raise community awareness.
Because part of what creates school choice deserts.
is that a lot of times families are just not aware of the options that they have,
and that's a huge part of what we do at Alaska School Choice.
There are some extra resources you can go and look into this a little bit more.
The Children's Scholarship Fund at the bottom there, that is where I first started.
There is a guide to creating an SGO that you could find there. It's really informative.
And then the Yes Every Kid Foundation, we have Brett Hubert in the room of Americans
for Prosperity, and that organization is one of the organizations that is kind of in
the umbrella of your organization's, correct?
Yes.
And so they actually, I'm excited because next week I am going to go learn more from
this organization.
Yes, Every Kids.
I've been going into Ireland to Virginia to learn about how to become a proper SGO,
and so there are also a great resource for us.
What Alaska School Choice has been doing is that we started this nonprofit about a year ago
We only gave out a couple scholarships because we didn't have a lot of funding
But we're excited this year. We actually created a searchable last year
We created search able database so statewide there wasn't a database where you could go where parents could
Go and search for all the different options that We have in Alaska, so we created that
We create all of the infrastructure for it. It's kind of like a Wikipedia so you can
Choose, you know, any educator can just become a vendor and decide that they want to, here's
what I want my families to know about what do and what offer.
So if you wanted to search up, piano teachers or any number of different things,
you could go find it on this website.
The issue is we need to have more people put their information in so it's a really robust
resource for parents, but we're really excited to roll that out this year.
And then we raise awareness through community events.
We've been doing these for the past five years.
This week is National School Choice Week.
We are really thankful to work with the National
School choice organization that helps us put on these events,
we did one in the valley on Monday,
and we're doing another one, in Anchorage.
We have our annual Expo in Encourage on Saturday
at the Native Heritage Center.
So elastaschoolchoice.com is where you find all that information.
And then we, this year, we're really excited to say that we are using our funds that
we were gathering from these events and all, you know, from just regular donors, and we
are going to give out book scholarships.
They're smaller scholarships, but they're going provide books.
for a person of any type of schooling.
So let's say somebody from public school needs a little bit of remediation,
or maybe they've run out of books to read, and they're gifted,
and the need more books, or, um,
or may be they need, you know,
some online services will provide as well for,
you Know, certain websites and things like that.
But we're providing these smaller scholarships this year.
We hope to provide at least 30,
maybe between 30 and 50 scholarships with the money we raised this
So, I'm Lee Sloane, you can contact me, just remember that when we say we have choices
in Alaska for, oh wow, we had a lot of time.
When we said we've choices, and we do, so many great choices for students in Alaskan,
and yes, the public school option is a great choice for a lotta kids, but maybe not for
all of them.
have their kids in private school, public school
charter school home school and they're all the same family. So it's not really
about that. It's about the needs. I know my kids are
are super different with their needs I think my son is going to go to the
military school next year because he wants to graduate super early.
But um but yeah so we have all these neat all all
these different choices but we need to remember
what prevents kids from accessing these choices.
Sometimes it's their special needs. Sometimes is where they live.
Sometimes, it is that their income is just so low that they can't access those needs
I have kids walking to my school because they cannot afford any other form of transportation
which I'm so glad we have it close by. I've some kids though that have begged for my teachers
because I had one that is major than special ed.
And they said, but I don't have the funding, she said I can't
have you in my classroom with all these other kids because you
need extra and she can afford to offer that to them, just one
on one with them because they don t have
the fundings she has to turn them away in tears.
So it's not just about the kids we serve, it s about
the kid we don' t get to serve.
And when I was in the LA Unified Public School District
another school, and I was able to get out of a bad environment.
I just thought about all the kids that were left behind that, you know, maybe,
maybe it worked for some of them, but I knew it wasn't working for me and that I
was a shrinking violet.
And if I didn't get
outta there now, I would,
I wouldn't have suffered.
Um,
and if you want to go on to my,
I have a podcast that you might be interested in, um,
Brave Nation is my podcast and you can actually listen to,
I'd just did an interview.
with a lady by the name of Virginia Walden Ford,
and she led an army of thousands of educators,
Elvern Washington, D.C. in the 90s.
And she talks a lot about how her kid was actually
on the brink of going into some gangs
and just getting some really bad stuff.
And, she said, I can't wait.
And. She's a single mom, low income single-mom.
She was like,
I cannot wait,
I gotta do something now.
And they shifted.
the whole course of DC education.
So just want to put that out there
and do you guys have any questions for us
as we wrap up here?
Yes.
I have a few questions.
I'm just a little confused because I don't know
a lot about SGOs or anything.
We're all learning together.
So an STO, it sounds as if people decide on their own
to become an SEO and apply for that.
It's a non-profit.
all the SGO choices or the governor is supposed to approve.
What they want to focus on a man.
Sure.
So an S.G.O. focuses on certain things.
They can choose their goals.
Their goals?
And so you could have a state that has a whole lot of holes,
still more deserts.
Right, right.
Even with SOs because there's no government regulation.
It really does.
Yeah.
And it really depends on the sGO.
And if there are no SGS, we can't provide this.
Yes.
And so the other question then is, you were saying that, like kids are special needs.
So if you have a special need, I mean you could have such a need that you actually need
a little bit of individual attention, and so $1,700 isn't going to pay for that.
But the thing is the SGO can decide how much they're giving to the students.
Yeah, the SGO is the that amount is only the amount you can give into it
It's not the mount that they that the sGO can get out. Does that make sense?
It only limits the email you've given and and also sorry you
Can't give in above that. It just that you won't get the tax credit for it. So yeah
That's part of the reason why we're here, too, is to inform and to educate we want s gos to
To quench all the deserts
as a metaphor. We need SGOs to be created now, so in January of 2027 we can properly
meet the needs of our students and use the money properly. So that's part of
our reason is, come on let's go. Let's create some some SBOs that meet
the goals of all of students in our very diverse state.
And I will say unabashedly, Alaska school choice hopes to be among one of the first
SGOs, if you couldn't get that.
Yes.
I have two questions.
Since the federal regulations have not been written yet, you've presented some information
that sounds very sure about how the SGS are going to operate, but we actually don't
know yet.
Right?
We know some not all.
Getting into the details of like we know how to create an SGO. We know what the funding limits are we
Know what? The requirements are for giving
like for example a new rule that just came out as you have to like prioritizing
Returning students and siblings or something so that was brand new that. Just came up. So those details
But the bones we totally know
Okay, so my sort of a follow-up question is you, you talked about low income,
this being great for low-income kids, which has definitely not played out
in other states that have voucher programs.
The reason being if you donate 1700 and the scholarship grant organization,
which you can't be assured that that grantee organization is then going
to give your student money yet.
You can't designate it for a student, so it's not like your own student that you're getting
them.
You're just, the government's allowing you to give a non-profit that money, period.
Right.
That low income family that scrapes together $700.
They don't need to scrape together that, money.
It's other people that are putting it in.
And then we get to decide who qualifies for the, or was it true that that low-income
family currently doesn't have a choice, right?
So now they could get a business that wants to make a contribution that comes through an SGO,
could give them up to $1,700. That's what the business tax credit is. But the
business can give above and beyond that if they want to. The SFO gets to determine what amount
they're going to do. We don't know what all of the regulations are yet. I think that's correct.
and we know what the initial read has been.
So I think all SGOs are going to have to watch the regulations be promulgated
and understand how to work right within those guidelines, just like they would.
And is this the perfect mouse trap? Likely not, but it is a choice that didn't exist, right?
It's so from our perspective of AFP, this isn't about private school,
this is not about public school. This is about homeschool,
this about charter school it's about all school so this
that lets kids be funded regardless of the choice they make that empowers parents a little more
which we think is a good thing is it the perfect mouse trap no will it well all of
the deserts as you suggest no but it's going to be a
little less desert it'll be less dessert and another
choice that can avail themselves regardless
of which delivery mechanism we choose public private charter
The point being is, we don't know how much
that branding organization is going to be able to give.
So, for example, an acreage PNA's tuition is like 15,000
or 20,00, that kid's choice.
First of all, it's determined on whether or not
the grant organization's going
to grant that low income kid the grants.
Absolutely.
And then it might not still cover the full tuition.
Absolutely, okay.
Yeah, so it just,
it up to the SGOs to solve this problem.
I mean, it is, they can choose to focus on special ed,
they could choose focus of low income, any number of problems.
But some, our position is some is better than none.
Solving the problems of sun, and opening up more opportunities,
but it's better then less opportunity, yes.
So the SGO could be just one person?
No, its a board, a non-profit board.
Does the state administer it?
No.
It's a private nonprofit organization because they don't get direct dollars from the
state.
It is the tax rebate that comes from federal government.
Sorry.
None of the states.
It all the federal governments.
So some donors decided to give an SBO and maybe say Juneau and they decided
to get that money to a home school.
Can they do that or do they have to give it to the school?
They can give that for like books or supplies
I mean it has it's not going to go to just the student itself, you know
But but we can't give for books and supplies or for a teacher to teach them at home or whatever that is
Yeah, it just depends on how the SGO is set up and what their goals are
Is it if a corporation is making a donation they've got a $1,700 limit and you may not I understand if you don't know
For instance, Exxon wants to make a donation and here's a list on behalf of their employees,
in other words, they could have, you know, if you agree, check the box on your employee
and we'll pay the money, but it's on the behalf these 500 employees.
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that.
I know what you can do is you could ask your employees what school your kids go to and you
That's one thing that they are allowing is earmarking for schools, but not students.
But with the donor, if the owner was a corporate donor could they give over the $1,700 limit on behalf of employees?
Who gets the tax credit, I don't know.
I know you can get more than $1700, you just only get the credit for the 7,800.
with Hillcourt, they do something similar to that.
They give their employees X amount of money
to build a somewhere wherever they choose.
So, I don't know if they have those pictures.
Quick question, did this funding doesn't compete
with any funding that's currently in existence?
No state funding, no local match,
no participation, this is new money.
Is that correct?
Okay, and new money, right?
It's not something that's making choices
among funding that is already in place.
And then I'd want to take the second to apologize.
If I talked over you, I'm sorry, if I talk over,
if i talked to you I certainly didn't do that.
I think that we also be able to find commonality in this,
right, so do we know everything about this program?
Ladies, you don't get,
regulations are going to be promulgated.
We know it's additional,
right we it something more than we're currently doing.
I think that's a plus that we should all be able to agree that
we'd like kids to be better prepared, better educated,
do a good job.
There's commonality there.
Lots of us are going to see different ways to get there
from my perspective.
This is a new resource that could provide a
new assistance, doesn't compete, and isn't delivery method
specific if a public school wants to establish an SGO
to help build these bridges?
They can as well, so.
And it's in private solutions.
So if I spoke over, sorry, it certainly didn't
It's a private solution to a public need, but yet the federal government is empowering
that private solutions.
So we get to rise up and say, here's what we want to do with our SGO and our community.
And those areas, some of those deserts that I talked about, especially the gap kids,
I'm seeing a lot of that that, I want us to address with Alaska school choice.
So that's what we're trying to do.
Yes.
So there's no federal money involved, it's just a-
It's the rebate that you get.
Oh, with rebate.
Yes, credit.
That's between you and the federal government.
And so yes.
So is there an opportunity for-
for outside organizations from Alaska to donate to this?
Yes. I totally forgot. Thank you for saying that.
Yes, if you have an uncle in Tennessee and he wants to
donate, to your daughter's school. Where'd your
daughter go to school?
They're homeschooled with an organization with a
homescare organization.
Home Bridge. So your uncle in Tennessee could donate $1,700 to Home
Bridge even though he lives in
Tennessee he'll get the tack now if Tennessee is one of the if they opted in
I actually didn't look up that state to see if
they did but other state funds can be directed towards Alaskan schools that is
a beautiful thing yep right right federal tax credits
Yep. Thank you.
Yes.
Yes, thank you for the information today.
I was wondering, since it's coming from the federal government,
we have separation of church and state.
So can they not go to faith-based programs,
the dollars?
They can because it is the private dollars.
It's what they're getting back from, the government.
It is a roundabout thing. It' indirect.
So it' not that federal dollars are going directly to these.
There's no funding from the federal government for the SGO.
It's all private dollars.
There is no initial funding.
No, it's just an incentive that the government's
getting to do this.
And then with those, yes, and with the 1700,
we're a little bit limited.
We have to spend the 90% and all that.
But with more dollars, above that,
we can do other things with that money.
Yes.
So the SEO that you're creating is funded by the 10%.
That's not going to the students.
Well, we can fund it any way we want.
However, you want to raise the funds for it.
You know what I'm saying?
Because it's a nonprofit.
It's with a non-privacy people out
and do fundraising for your extra fundraising.
People can give more than 1,700 if they want,
it just that that's the park for the tax credit.
Does that make sense?
And you could have always done all of this, right?
Yes.
The new thing is there's tax credits that help.
There's an incentive.
That the only difference, yes.
Quick question, my apologies if I missed it at the beginning, would this, do SGOs have
to already be an existing non-profit or is this a no stand-alone?
You can create a new one on profit and I think that will be many popping up.
I'm under totally separate regulations as far as your organization now being a non profit.
Yeah, that's why we're learning to become, you know, make sure we are complying with everything.
Yeah.
Thanks.
um like donate in kind things like desks or materials instead of money.
I don't know that as far as getting the money back from the federal government for that.
I do not know the answer yet.
I am so sorry to cut this off.
We are getting booted out of this room though but we could talk about it all day but I also
fellow people on the education committee with me as well,
Rep. Schwonke, Rep Elam.
Give me time to talk if they're not gonna kick us out,
but I just wanted to recognize that we are all
very supportive of school choice.
Lots of choices kind of competition raises the bar.
So thank you for coming and I'm sure
that there will be a bazillion more questions.
Please reach out to these ladies.
They are literally a wealth of knowledge.
So, thank-you.