Good morning. I would like to call the second meeting of the House Education Finance Subcommittee to order.
It is now 8.01 a.m. Friday, February 6th in Davis room.
Members present are to my left.
To my right, we have Representative Isha and we also have representatives of co-chair work on that.
Can shoot and also joining us today from the finance committee. We have a representative more.
Representative Dibert has also joined us. Thank you and online we
have Commissioner Bishop.
Thank You for joining.
I'm going to ask you and myself, Representative Galvin,
Chair of the House Education Subcommittee.
Please take this time to silence your cell phones
for the meeting.
And I want to especially thank Chloe Miller from the Juneau
LIO for moderating.
I apologize.
I have the wrong name here.
I am going get that for you.
It's done terribly.
Underwood, thank you. We also have our subcommittee A, David
Jane. And we have Doug Jones here from the, you know, LIO.
Thank you, Doug. Oh, yeah, apologize.
Bridges.
Miss.
Pardon?
Bridges?
I didn't mean Doug?
Bridges
Bridges, I did not say that, right?
We love you Doug
We should have Kale Brown who is also here with the LAO. Thank you. Oh, he's not actually here, sorry.
Pardon me. He is not here apparently. This is a figment of our imagination. It is Friday.
fun Friday and he's here for the next meeting. Thank you for being here. All right. Today
we're going to continue to hear from Deputy Director of Innovation and Education Excellence,
Kelly Manning, along with Division Director
of innovation and education excellence, Monica Goyette.
As they finish their slideshow on the department's teacher recruitment and retention initiatives,
Please come on forward.
We're after we finish this particular presentation.
From our last meeting, we're going to take a very brief at ease at approximately 830 to transition to a presentation on the Alaska Performance Scholarship and Alaska Education Grants from the Education Director of Alaska Commission on Post-Secondary, Ms. Kerry Thomas, and the Division Operation Manager of Innovation and Education Excellence, Miss Deb Riddle.
All right, and then at nine o'clock, the House Finance Education Subcommittee will be
adjourning and there'll be a very brief at ease so that we can transition it to the
House Education Standing Committee and the presentation going forward.
So thank you for coming forward, Ms. Manning, Director Manning. Appreciate that.
Right now I believe we are on slide 11 and also joining us online, I want to make sure I caught
I have the commissioner, it looks like we have in room the other two, so I think we're good to go.
Thank you so much for being here.
Good morning, thank you for having me again for the record, Kelly Manning,
Deputy Director for The Division of Innovation and Education Excellence,
and Director Goya was not able to join us today so Commissioner has joined as well.
I will pick up on just
moving through some of our apprenticeship work that we're doing.
I had covered most of the principal registered apprenticeships,
and so I'm going to move on to educators rising and some information around
student to teacher pathways. This slide demonstrates the growth in
participation in the educators' rising program from 2017 to 2025,
so they have been able to attract a lot more interest in
This is a career in technical education program approved CTEP.
And so some of the ways that this is supported is one,
the University of Alaska Fairbanks has educators raising funding,
which helps assist paying for travel for the participants,
being able to come to convenings.
They currently are able
to help pay for assessment for a paraprofessional exam.
So they have some funding additionally
education program districts are able to tap into their Perkins federal CTE funds to help
support costs for individuals, individual students to participate.
With this program, because of the work that we've been doing on apprenticeship, we have
engage the educators rising in alignment to the teacher
registered apprenticeship, but also look at other pathways
for student to teacher.
So we've been working with the universities,
both on how we can make a connection between educators
rising,
but I also looked at those dual enrollment,
dual credit pathways and create additional CTEP pathways
for engaging secondary students in the education field.
share, you know, why this might be an exciting pathway for students around the
state and with that
We will, as we're building out that pathway, we are really looking to have it created as
a career and technical education program so that we can tap into those Perkins funds
so the individual districts can support students in participating.
The goal with this is to create that Pathway for Apprenticeship that starts with students
special education and principal. So our goal is to have the full spectrum of
opportunities through apprenticeship.
This really touches on that information, so I couldn't move to this slide,
so i'm going to go to the next.
In addition to the apprenticeship work that we've been doing,
we have also been able to tap into some resources.
So at the beginning of 2025, some federal grant funds had been
tabled. They were reinstituted in the fall.
That included both the Regional Education Lab Northwest,
which is a grant awarded to West Ed.
And then the Northwest Comprehensive Center
both of those had been ended, picked back up in the fall.
And so with that, we scoped work with both
of these organizations to pick up some of the teacher retention
recruitment work that we had stopped
at when some the funding had then reduced.
Rel Northwest, we have been working with them to pick up a project that they had worked on
with the Lower Cusca Quim School District. Just checking my notes to make sure I have
the right district, sorry. And yeah, Lower, lower Cuzcaquim school district. They had
done some work with LKSD to identify pathways to support
retention in rural remote districts, and so they had kind of done a pilot research project
with LKSD. And so, they're picking up that work with the reinstatement of that grant
to look at ways to create sort of toolkits and resource guides to support other districts in
taking some of the pilot's research work and sharing that more broadly with rural
Thank you, pardon the interruption, but I'm going to ask as you move forward through the rest of these few slides, would you please, if you're referring to a grant, let us know how many dollars are associated with that, this is the finance subcommittee so I am trying to help people have a sense of how
Galvin, I do not have the dollar amounts for the Ralph Northwest and the Comprehensive Center.
The funds go to those organizations and then they're funded to support the state.
So we don't have like a direct contractor grant that comes to us for them to do the work, the grant goes to them.
But I will follow up and get the total amounts from both of those grants.
And then the list of what they are doing for that department.
Thank you, please proceed.
All right, so the comprehensive center grant
Sorry, I think I jumped ahead, there we go.
So when they re-instituted, we were able to pick back up some of the work that we have
been doing around taking the teacher retention recruitment playbook and unpacking that and
really looking at what are the things that different stakeholders can take forward from
that work.
And so they are convening some working groups for us to really look at that playbook, and
to the individual strategies in the playbook because the
playbook is so comprehensive and it's a really a wonderful
resource. But it can be, you know, for a district that's
trying to look at strategies, it is a lot to unpack. And so
really looking at how can we take that work and make it
accessible and continue the work of unpacking it and making
the strategies accessible for different stakeholders. So
that is one of the pieces that they are supporting with the
picking back up of the comprehensive center of work.
The teacher certification system, as we have shared,
the modernizing the certification
system has been one of
the strategies to support teacher retention and recruitment.
And so the, the Teach A.K. platform,
the that system.
We have now got fully up and functioning,
programs that are a part of that, the processes are all functioning well.
As I shared on Wednesday, we did have a little bit of a leg over the holidays, but they're
now caught back up.
And so we are to this, you know, when we were in the process of updating it,
quite far behind in processing applications and we are now back to that four to five week
processing time for our certification processes.
So that's been a really great undertaking and continuing to streamline those services.
Additionally, since 2017, the State Board of Education has taken up a number of initiatives
to streamline the certification process with 31 certification regulation adoptions and
amendments since 2016.
So there's been a lot of effort in that area to streamlined and support more efficient
The next few slides go through some current data, we were able to use some of the teacher retention recruitment funds last year to work with the Institute for Social and Economic Research
to take a previous regional education lab northwest project that had provided data on turnover and update that through 24-25.
But that was an ask that we had had last year was, you know, we
had older data.
It had only gone through 2019.
And the ask was could we provide updated?
So this is our current update on that teacher turnover data
Through what's from when we started tracking the first day teacher vacancies
This shows our first aid teacher vacancy through 2025 and you can see that we did have a spike up to 2024
And that has come down in 2025
The emergency certified teachers continues to fluctuate based off of need annually, and
that currently sits for the 2025-26 school year.
There were 209 emergency-certified teachers at the beginning of the school
year
This question has come up a few times, but around the visas that we currently support educators.
There are 280 H1B visa teachers this year, and 180 J1 visas.
There's five additional under different types of visas for Canada and Mexico.
But so we have 465 certified teachers in Alaska on an international working visa currently.
This represents the current trend data for teacher and principal turnover the darker line at the top is our principal
Turnover you can see that that we previously had had through 2020 on this table
So this shows what has happened since 2020 we definitely see
That there was a trend of staying in place around
COVID and that
That has since spiked back up
And so for principal turnover we currently for the 24
school year sat at 35% turnover end and this is statewide we do know that in
row remote principal turnover in particular is significantly higher
sitting more more at 55% the teacher turnover tends to be a little bit
more stable it's it has it a bit more of a common though it is a
Where the urban fringe teacher turnover is a little bit lower, but otherwise it sits roughly about 30%, but that principle turnover spikes quite a bit when you get to rural hub and rural remote districts.
In addition to the update for the teacher turnover one of the things that was a recommendation
of teacher retention recruitment playbook was to conduct an educator exit and stay survey.
We are using title 2A funds to support the implementation of this survey, it did go out
at the beginning of that week and I believe I spoke a bit about that when I presented
All right, those are the rest of our slides if you have any questions for me, thank you since you just mentioned title 2a funds
Can you share how much that?
Total was then for that survey. I don't have that off the top of my head, but I will get that for you
Yeah, Thank You so much director Manning, and I am now going to move to our queue
We have representative Underwood first
Thank you, Chair Galvin.
Through the chair, I just had a question about the apprenticeship program.
I was just curious how that works, sorry for my naivety on that.
Are they enrolled in the UA system while they're doing the pathway and
getting credits for like on the job teaching and then doing online classes?
Or could you explain to me how it works?
Yeah, yeah, through the Chair to Representative Underwood.
It is a unique approach to apprenticeships, but it does,
certification. We have worked with all of our Alaska Education Programs, so the
University of Alaska Southeast, Anchorage and Fairbanks, as well as Alaska Pacific
University. And then there were districts working on grow your own work with
Shadron State College aswell. So those are the approved education preparation
providers. They provide the instruction and then the mentor support is provided
roughly two to four thousand hours of on-the-job learning as they go through
their coursework. They are employed in the district that is a requirement of
apprenticeship. Most of our districts are using paraprofessional positions and
then they work on releasing them for teaching opportunities to get that on
the job learning opportunity. And then one of the really great things about the
apprenticeships is that that, that On-The-Job Learning is embedded as
they're getting their instruction through the university so as
the mentors aware of what they're working on, and they can really identify
here strategies that you can employ in the classroom from what you're learning in your instruction.
Follow-up please.
Thank you, just a quick follow- up, thank you Ms. Manning.
Could somebody in Homer, that's a paraprofessional, for say, because I do know somebody down there
that is working with their teaching degree, but they don't have their certificate yet?
Could they enroll at like UAF online or UAA online,
and then could they do the mentorship somewhere in Homer, or do they have to move to go get that certification?
Yeah, through the chair to representative Underwood.
Yes, it is based in their local community.
The district does have to sign on to the sponsor.
So if their district hasn't signed on apprenticeship, they wouldn't be able to participate.
But once the district signs on, then they can.
And all of the universities are providing coursework outside of working hours to align to
the requirements of apprenticeships.
And so they do their course work remotely from where they are in the state.
Thank you, co-chair story
Thank You, how to chair Galvin and welcome again director Manning
I have a few questions sure and if I may ask co chair if you would if if
You're referring to a specific slide go ahead and let
The director know and we'll make sure that we can help the public follow along with you if he'd like
Yes, thank you. So on the educator rising slide, which I think is page 12, I am wondering
what, not what the outcome, the goal is, but what numbers have we set for the educated
We're low. I'm just trying to get a sense of how we are doing and meeting our hopes for people participating in the program
Through the chair to member story
the I
Think that there was a more like a general goal set of increasing engagement as we're looking at the pathway and growing it
That is one of the things that we were working on right this year with our with one
comprehensive center is to set some metrics for apprenticeship.
To date, we've really been getting the groundwork laid.
And so as we look at what are those pathways for student
to teacher,
we are looking to engage more with the educators rising.
But I think that the goal before had been more just
increasing engagement in career and technical ed programs
more generally.
And this was one that had seemed growth and engagement.
Follow-up culture. How many teachers do we need statewide?
And maybe I'll qualify that by my question was going to be I see that
on page 19 you report that we had
313 first-day teacher vacancies and then you had a number on the next page of
of emergency certifications.
And I've seen deed list the number as 598 vacancies.
And, I didn't know if you were taking that,
that's the need because you had to
emergency certify these other numbers.
So, what is the true of vacancy rate in Alaska?
And how many teachers do we need?
Through the chair to representative story, I think that the math that you're doing is probably a good estimate.
In addition to those, there's also some areas where we have out of field teachers as well.
With the emergency certified teacher, though they are on an emergency certificate, the
requirements to be on emergency certificates are to enrolled in an education preparation
program and to have an assigned mentor.
And so, although they're on the Emergency Certificate, they should be in a program moving
toward certification.
So I think the bigger area to focus is on those first day vacancies where we really
don't have a educator in the classroom.
And so I think filling both of those gaps are areas
that we're targeting as we look at our teacher retention
and recruitment.
Yes, coach, your story.
Thank you for that.
That helps me get kind of a true picture of the need.
And we know how important having them and retaining them
is.
So on page, and there I do not see a page number on the 23.
On page 23, when we're looking at ISER's study,
of course we know when
we see a movement that this affects student achievement
because the more relationship you have with the teacher,
we've trained the teachers so they have more experience
and so then when they move out and a new teacher comes in,
it really hurts our impact and achievement
which is why all the efforts that you're doing
are critically important.
on this slide. I guess always our goal is to retain teachers. And so if we have, I'm just
trying to get my mind around all the numbers because if have like 530 teachers, so we're
And some of them, I don't know if you could ever break
a time by how many move within our Alaska,
or are they moving out of Alaska?
And what's helpful to me to know about that number
is at least if they're moving within Alaska
we know that we're still getting the benefit of how
we've been training them for like the Alaska Reads Act.
And I see that.
We have gotten 2000 somehow certifications in the Alaska Reads Act,
and I can't remember what page number that was on.
And again, I don't know how many elementary school teachers that we have,
but how close are we to meeting the goal to having everyone certified
in standards for teaching science of reading?
Through the chair to the representative story.
I'll look and get a current count of what we have for elementary positions that are teaching
within those grades and then the certifications so that we can have that comparison for you.
Thank you and Director Manning. I'm going to break us for just a moment because
online we had a commissioner who would like to answer this line of questioning in part so
I want to make sure to welcome you to the table and the discussion commissioner.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is Dina Bishop for the record and I just wanted to share in regard to
the first day vacancies and some of the reporting that was done in prior years. What we identified
in working with districts is that the report for first-day vacancies were all certified positions.
And so what the department is really focused on are those certified positions that are sitting
in front of a classroom. So we've, for teacher recruitment and retention, we're really bringing
a focus to the actual classroom and not district office positions. And much of our data in prior
is key that what are the vacancies in actual classrooms
when they need to serve students.
So just wanted to share that clarity
in regard to the changes of those numbers.
We are now reporting and separating out
the vacant districts provide vacancies
for all certified positions.
We're narrowing down to this certified position
that actually work with children as teachers.
And the additional data that's requested is excellent
of like how many of those movements are actually internal
movements and how much are leading the state
or leading their education as well.
So I just wanted to add that clarity and that additional
detail from the prior data
that is presented by districts and what we collect.
We've asked them to narrow it down to your teacher certifications.
Thank you.
Thank you very much commissioner and next in the queue. I have co-chair him shoot
Thank You
Chair's story chair
Galvin I
Want to go back to the commissioner if it's okay on the same line of questioning you wanted to bring clarity
And I think I lost focus because I'm completely muddled
First hit first day teacher vacancies indicates certified so slide 19
certified teachers
So when you say the ones in front of students like so you're saying exclude say a certified teacher coach
Is that who's not included here or I need a little more description of who we're not looking at on this slide
Like what changed from 24 to 25 in the data that's used to generate this line
Through the chair to
education co-chair Hymshoot. That's a great question. What we eliminated from
this slide and separated out when districts report first aid vacancies for
certified positions, they are looking at all their certified if they have an
opening in their school district. They look at is it certified or non-certified?
And then they report that what we've then narrowed down is say we don't
positions that are in your district office as teacher experts supporting the classrooms.
What we really want to identify and especially focus on the TRR work are those teachers that
children. And so administrative positions that are certified and need to be certified,
we requested and have separated those out for you so that we can actually
look at the need of districts of not having classrooms with teachers that
are in front of them the first day of school. So the eliminated positions or the separated out,
are those that actually have classrooms that are open.
For instance, in Anchorage, there's
over 200 people in the district office.
We're not as the impetus and the crisis
isn't really with district-office supports.
The crisis is in those classrooms.
Co-chair Hymshoot, follow up.
Thank you, Chair Galvin, through the chair.
So then that distinction that you're drawing,
you made all the way back to 2019 just to be clear.
So we're comparing apples and apples.
I guess to Commissioner.
Through the Chair to Representative H
And she regrets not being here, she had a family emergency that in 2025, you are, we
want to report the real needing classrooms that teachers are experiencing in schools.
So that number does reflect the open first day of school that is actually a teacher that
should be teaching a classroom.
And that could be special education.
That could general education, but that they would not have someone in front of students
Okay, and I'm going to drill down a little further here through the chair, so what about
a certified librarian or a Certified teacher in a, we don't do computer labs anymore?
A Certified Teacher who's a Specialist for Gifted or something like that, those are pulled
out, I assume?
Through the Chair to member Hymshoot, no, if they serve students directly, they are included
So librarians teach students, computer teachers teach
students.
Music teachers, teach
students so these are students you know a music is a class.
We honor that class so
these our non-district office or
non administrative support services that see students have a
student list that they represent and that
they serve.
Okay, and then follow-up co-chair him shoot in a time check
We are going to need to move on to the next presentation in five minutes
Okay looking on slide 20 in combination with slide 19 when I add
2024 together in 2025 together and 2024 it's 594
Total and I suppose I would have to take the emergencies and do it differently and subtract those to get the offset
I think my point that I'm trying to make is
that steep climate emergency certificates that we see on slide 20 is deeply concerning to me.
They may be enrolled in a program and they may
be with a mentor and maybe stellar teachers but the fact is they have not met the requirements
for a certificate. I'm very concerned about the high number of emergency
certificates and as an emergency measure to keep somebody in front of our kids I understand why it's
I just really, really fundamentally don't like it.
So I guess I'm just making a comment there.
My question though is on page 14, slide 14.
And this question might be to Deputy Director Manning
through the chair.
I see this teacher retention and recruitment initiative work.
It's all very necessary and I am completely baffled.
Educator, Retention and Recruitment Center, doing great work, they were dealing with visa
questions.
They were doing with TPP, which is now personnel and placement, or teacher and personnel placement.
I think, anyway, changed the name, same function, basically.
And I don't see them here, and now we've got like Northwest Comprehensive Center doing
I'm sure they're fantastic, but that other organization was embedded in a local Alaskan professional organization that knows the districts well.
So I am confused, where did the AERRC go?
And what have we gained by switching over to the NWCC? There must be a win there. Can someone help me understand?
Director.
Through the chair, I'll let Commissioner Bishop respond to that.
Thank you.
Thank you for the record. This is Dina Bishop, Commissioner of Education and through
Chair Galvin to Education co-chair
Kim Schucht. Just as a little background, I'm going to share two different things.
In conjunction to your prior questions about teachers not being in the seats
and administrators and that turnover,
focused on actual district needs directly where the values at it.
A lot of people know I use the word gimbal which is a Japanese term for where
the value is added which the classroom and as a classroom teacher and a science
teacher I know you know that. But if you recall the teacher retention and
recruitment initiative was not created in statute or regulation. It really
began through that TRR work as the governor's initiative and the legislation
in prior fiscal year's funds to really support that action.
But in 2026, the dedicated funding for the initiative
was eliminated.
If the legislature actually establishes
some statutory requirements and designates funding
or direct particular activities related
to teacher retention, we would absolutely implement
that direction consistent with law.
But when...
obligations involve the use of external contractors. We are required to follow the state of Alaska
procurement code and the department is not able to direct fund to any specific organization
outside the established procurement process unless explicitly authorized. So
As of note, the Alaska Council of School Administrators
who ran this is a nonprofit, a tax-exempt corporation,
and it's not an agency of the executive branch
of state government.
So they really would not be exempt
from the state of Alaska procurement code.
We did eliminate ARK, and we did
eliminate the contractor who actually did the TRR work.
When we had a limited amount of money,
we said, where is the value added?
And it was at districts to get
teachers and administrators in those seats in
those places rather than at the, you know,
administrative support level.
So in trying to broaden this work,
when we had an opportunity through federal grants,
as Deputy Director Manning said,
those are federal grant.
And so we utilize, wait a minute,
if we're eliminating a miss work and refocusing funds,
let's go to these partners who support Alaska
20, 30 years in this work and have, you know, it's not like they're not familiar with Alaska
because this agency center has worked with us, but would that, that decrement to TRR overall
had us had to prioritize? And I hope that explains just some of the decisions that were made
to move the TRRR work forward. We had
was a focus. Thank you.
Thank You Commissioner. We have a follow-up co-chair him shoot.
Okay, I'll try to wrap it up with this one. I just want to make a comment quickly about
can't remember which page, but you talked about modernizing the certification process.
I'm really pleased with what you guys are doing there. Again, it worked great for me to get reinstated
and so much less laborious than the five years previous when I
renewed my certificate.
Thank you for that good work, but my question is on page 21 on the visas.
And I just want to say, and follow up to the commissioner's comments,
the legislature did put the money in to continue the work that was going on at the arc.
And so having that eliminated, I understand the pivot within the department,
but we did assert ourselves and say what we wanted.
So it's frustrating to see you guys having to scramble and go in a different direction.
When we were clear about what we we're wanting to see done. So on page 21 on the visas
What would be helpful here? We have a crisis with h1b that hasn't resolved yet that I know of
Would have been nice to have the arc working on that because they were already deeply involved in that issue, but apparently that's not going to be possible
So my question is on this slide
The h 1b I think is a three year or a five year and then so we are going
to Have some number of these
280 educators are going to be somewhere in the one year, the two year or the three year
and then they have to take a break for two years and come back and I'm not, again I don't
know exactly what I am saying here but there's going be some number of folks who aren't going
to come and that's not reflected here so it would be helpful to know what that gap is
going going forward to break this down by who's who is going mandatorily leave.
And then there's a million other problems with this scenario, so.
Thank you, co-chair, him, shoot.
If you'd like to comment on that, I would also appreciate your commenting on the potentiality
of districts needing to pay $100,000 per H1B that's already currently in law.
So we need to understand what.
What you think district should be doing because if we are worried already about it looks like just short of ten
Thousand of our children are starting day one in school without a teacher
So I'm going to pause on that one for a moment so that we can all imagine what that looks. Like for our state I
Can't even imagine
God bless every single one of those educators who are still in there and I know what I'm
imagining what they're doing is they are combining classes, they pulling in janitors
or anyone else to help make sure that they cover throughout.
especially in rural Alaska to make sure those kids are with an adult.
So we certainly have some concerns.
I appreciate your calling out what we're doing with regard to the visas and supporting those
particular teachers.
I also have one more on in the, you've been so patient, Representative Schwanke.
Please join us in this conversation.
questions. Number one, the emergency certifications, can someone just help me
understand do they include certified teachers that are taking positions from
out of state so that they may actually hold certs in another state, so just
help understand that. And then the second question I have super quick,
the survey that just opened for certified teacher has done that before
from the administration.
through the chair to Representative Schwanke.
To the first question on emergency certified teachers,
it does not include out of state teacher.
We have an out-of-state teacher transition opportunity.
So there's an Out-Of-State teacher certification.
So that is specifically for those that do not hold
the required education preparation
for full professional certification
and to your second question,
regarding, sorry if you wouldn't mind repeating it.
Oh, the survey, yes, thank you.
For the Survey, I am not sure if we haven't done
this particular survey and I'd have to go back
and get information on the last time we may have surveyed.
I'm sure we've surveyed educators,
but I don't sure when and what that scope would have been.
So I can get more information for you?
Thank you, Director.
And perhaps there we can.
look into whether other organizations, it's possible that the Educators Association has also done some of that work.
Would be good to get as much as we can to help us see.
I appreciate your thinking around a longitudinal sort of study on that, especially if there's been some consistent.
numbers. Thank you. Do you have any other follow-ups? No? Okay.
Thank You. I appreciate everyone's patience.
I know we had to rush through this.
Thank
you so much, Director Manning, for being here and for
allowing us to bring you in again to finish this up.
I
appreciate that.
Thank
you to the commissioner.
And now we're going to move into the second segment of this meeting.
So, what we have next is we're going to have a brief at ease so that we can transition
to the next presentation.
reconvening so that we can have this wonderful presentation of the Alaska Performance Scholarship and Alaska Education grants from Executive Director of Alaska Commission on Post-Secondary Education, Ms. Thomas.
Thank you again for being here.
Please bring yourself, you're already here at the desk and please introduce yourself for the record and begin your presentation.
Thank you. Good morning. For the record, I'm Kerry Thomas, Executive Director at the
Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, or ACPE. Thank for the opportunity to speak
to the committee this morning, my presentation is structured around the information that was
requested from the Committee related to ACPE, the Alaska Performance Scholarship,
and the funding and communications around those topics.
So quite a number of topics to cover in this presentation.
So we'll go ahead and get right into it.
The Alaska Commission on Post-Secondary Education is established in statute
to administer financial aid programs and interstate compacts for the state.
We also serve in an advisory capacity to the governor, the legislature,
and post-secondary institutions relative to higher education in Alaska.
We administer state institutional authorization and deliver education consumer protection through that function.
And we serve as the state's higher-education agency.
Relative to the Higher Education Investment Fund, that fund was established in statute
as a separate fund for the purpose of making grants and scholarship payments to qualified
institutions on behalf of students, and for funding the Whammy Agreements.
The Alaska Education Grant established in statute is the state's need-based grant which is funded by the Higher Education Investment Fund and administered by ACPE.
This need based grant program provides up to $4,000 per year to eligible students for post-secondary education at qualified institutions in the State.
Based on the students with highest financial need, the data FAFSA filing and other prioritization
criteria until the funding is exhausted.
The financial needs is determined by the student aid index or SAI, which comes from the FafSA.
negative 1500 up to 999,999.
The lower S.A.I. indicates higher financial need.
The Alaska Performance Scholarship was also established in statute
and is the state's merit-based scholarship,
which is a program for students who meet specific eligibility criteria
in high school to qualify for the scholarship.
fleet a rigorous curriculum and earn a qualifying GPA or minimum test score.
This scholarship program provides up to $28,000 across eight full-time semesters
within eight years of high school graduation for use at participating institutions in the state of
Alaska. There's also a step-up opportunity for eligible students once they begin their
academic program. If they perform well, they can increase their eligibility level.
Next, I'll talk about funding sources and levels.
If I may, I'm going to ask you sorry to interrupt,
but we are going try to get to the 27 slides or 25.
So if it's something that we can read,
I am going ask to just give me super high level
if you wouldn't mind kind of synopsis of that
so that in case someone has a question,
after hopefully we're all reading these,
do that, we will be able to engage with you.
I want to make sure to asking you some questions
if people have those questions in mind.
Thank you so much.
Thank you chair
This slide just shows how a student's financial aid might be structured and
This next slide shows the major state and federal financial
um sources and their funding levels over the last two years and I would note there are many
other funding sources for students in the state specific to their programs or student groups but
This slide depicts the higher education investment funds funding allocation.
So every July, the Department of Revenue determines the amount of the Higher Education
Investment Fund that's available for award or appropriation for the Alaska Performance
Scholarship and Alaska Education Grant.
So as shown here, as of June 30th, 2025, the fund's balance was $435 million,
which means $30 million is available and that is allocated two-thirds, one-third for APS and AEG.
Pardon me. Again, I just want to make sure that there is a slide later in, if not,
then we need to be sure to know this now, that this fund is now over $100 million less than what
Is there another slide in here where that's reflected. Oh, Chair Galvin. No, it is not reflected here
Okay, so for the committee's education
I'm gonna make sure that you're aware that this number because we had and the public should know this as well
We made some we being the legislature last year
The way we pulled our budget together
Was to draw from this particular fund and so now the governor and others are working to put to make that fund whole
again, but I want to make sure that you're all aware approximately $129 million was taken
from this fund.
Thank you.
Please proceed.
Thank You, Chair.
In our FY 27 budget for ACPE, we have requested 100% of the available funding for APS from
And then I would just note that with the passage of HB 148 and 2024,
there have been significant increases far beyond what was envisioned at the time of that legislation related to this program.
This slide shows our projections of the future need to provide full scholarships for all APS eligible students.
The number reflected for 2026 shows that the supplemental request that's been introduced and then beyond that for the next three years what we think is needed.
For the Alaska Education Grant, our FY27 budget also includes 100% of the funds available from the Heave for this program.
And I would just note, based on the way they're tied together, any changes in APS funding amounts have a direct impact on AEG funding.
And I think on this slide, the key takeaway is that AEG is a fantastic program to provide grant funding to students with high financial need, but the funding that's available just kind of scratches the surface.
There are many students in the state that qualify for a need-based grants from the federal Pell program that we just don't have sufficient funding.
The next section of this presentation is outcomes and challenges, and I will try to go quickly through this.
This slide just shows the number of recipients for the Alaska Education Grant over the last several years.
This line demonstrates where those funds go within the state, the various post-secondary institutions and where the students are attending.
Relative to APS outcomes, we recently produced the annual outcomes report.
You all should have received that.
We report on how this program is meeting its goals to have students perform well in high school,
prepare for college and career training, perform
well on those college career-training programs, and continue to live in Alaska.
And I'm happy to report that this
program continues to show very positive impacts or meeting all of those goals.
This slide depicts the history of the program in terms of dollar spent and students served and the graph on the right shows the implementation of HB 148 in 2025 is the first time we saw that impact.
And the upward trajectory of $1 spent on this scholarship.
Next, this slide just shows the history from inception of the program to present of
the number percent of eligible graduates.
And then the slide below that is of those eligible, what percent utilize the scholarship
in the fall after their high school graduation?
Our funding financial challenges, our funding projections indicate substantial and
continued growth based on increased eligibility and usage.
We're currently requesting 100% of the calculated appropriation available from the HEAF.
We also have limited data since there's only been two graduating classes since
the implementation of HB 148.
So, we're doing our best to project future funding needs and program outcomes.
And then, relative to AEG, there's still significant financial need for students that
are high need, and so that's just an ongoing challenge.
Additionally, the timing of award notifications continues to be a challenge relative
Although the legislation created new earlier notification for students starting in ninth grade and then a preliminary eligibility notification after their junior year, students don't find out they're fully eligible for
Due to the structure for funding and it goes to students with the highest financial need,
students can't predict if they're going to receive this grant or if
they'll continue to received it as they progress through their educational program.
We also found during our annual APS survey of students that many students were very unaware that
the program had been transformed and improved, how they could gain APS eligibility,
and many of the students that we knew were eligible in the survey did not know they were
eligible. So if there's still a lot of work to do in communication with students.
And then these last few slides, you can refer to, they're just talking about some
of the communications, ACPE does relative to financial aid, we communicate with
students, parents, educators, legislators, institutions. We have a lot of
information on our website as the administrator of
Operationalized multi-channel communication strategy with APS and some of the specific activities are listed on this slide.
And then the specific requirements established in HB 148
are the last three bullets on this slide.
And lastly, this is just for the committee members'
information.
These are various outreach programs
that ACPE offers to the public.
And there's a QR code if you want to learn more
or access the information
Director Thomas, I'm pretty sure you win the award
for the most efficient slide presentation
covering more information imaginable
than any other presenter I think of the building.
I don't know if it's of this year or of of
the decade but congratulations and thank you so much.
I apologize for rushing you through this so
much I see already that we have a few in the.
Q and I'll leave this to the co-chairs as to how long we can make this go.
But I am going to first ask for Representative Schronke if she has a question.
Thank you, Chair Galvin.
Through the Chair, Ms. Thomas, thank you for the presentation and covering it so efficiently
as pointed out.
statement in there that the amount of higher education funding available for
AEG is proportional to the
amount available to APS and then it lays out the two-third to one- third
split but then the next bullet says any change to
APs funding will directly impact AE G funding so that statement makes me
believe that when it how does that work if the split is stated the
work if can you explain that?
Yes, thank you.
Through the Chair, Representative Swonke,
it's really either or any change to APS funding
directly impacts AEG funding or
any changed to EG funding directly
impacts APs funding.
So historically
We have determined how much funding we believe is needed for APS and then the AEG funding
amount is essentially by default based on that two-thirds, one-third allocation.
If that answers your question? No. Okay. Backing up to slide eight. The statute
allows seven percent from the higher education investment fund to be allocated for the total
between APS and AEG. And that total is then divided two-thirds, one-third APs and
AIG. If we could bring slide eight up, that would be helpful. Oh, thank you. I'm sorry.
appreciate that. And so this tries to depict that so if we increase the amount
for APS then we need to also increase
the amounts for AEG to keep that proportion aligned.
Okay I think that makes sense. Okay thank you we're going to have one more
question or line of questions and then we do need we have a hard stop in four
minutes but I do want to remind everyone on this committee that these folks are
great at getting back with us any questions can be asked either via phone
or email rep co-chair Hymshoe please thank you I have two quick questions my
first one is on slide 24 the other one I don't think is
The last bullet points about school districts notify students how do the school
districts know that they need to do that and is it happening? So if you're a
sophomore you might choose classes according to I want to qualify for the
APS and so it's really important that that notification happens. Is it
happening and who makes it happen? Does that come from D or does it come
academic counselors so anything you can add to that yes thank you through the chair
co-chair hymn chute
ACPE works with the Department of Education and Early Development to communicate the requirements to districts.
And then each district is responsible for how they make those communications.
So the information to 9th and 10th graders is general program information about APS.
And during the 11th grade year, it's.
intended to be the specific requirements each student needs to fulfill the APS requirements
prior to graduation. I don't have specific information about how each district is accomplishing
cross agency work group that was operating over the last year included a number of school districts
or district representatives and they all have discussed different ways that they approach this.
So to my knowledge it is happening but I think it looks different in each district.
Follow-up. This is really quick and it must be happening because we've seen an uptick so something's happening
So that's good. My other question
I don't think was in the slides and Alaska is notoriously lowest in The Nation
I think 53rd out of 50 states on FAFSA completion
So how's that looking are we improving our FafSA Completion because it's part of
APS you have to apply for the you. Have to do your FASSA as
Part of getting the performance scholarship, correct director
Through the chair, co-chair him shoot, that is correct.
The FAFSA is the application for the Alaska Performance Scholarship to ensure
students are receiving federal aid and other needs-based grants.
We are still the lowest in the nation, but we are one of the states with the
biggest improvement.
We just have so much.
of such a big gap to grow or to address.
So that's a positive.
We are seeing an increase in the number of FAFSA's,
but we still do rank low across the country.
Okay. Thanks.
We'll keep plugging away at that one.
Thank you.
All right.
We have one final question.
And then by represent a co-chair story, please.
Thank you chair Galvin through the chair. Welcome director Thomas. Thank
you for all your efforts. It's so encouraging that we are keeping more of
our own for post-secondary in the state. My question has to do with I've noticed
on our changes in The Budget that the department that has recommended more
funding for the higher education for The Alaska Performance Scholarship
I don't know if you can tell me now, but is that money what you are asking for in your presentation?
Through the chair, co-chair story, no it is not.
So on slide, I'm sorry to flip through it, on Slide 10.
This is the projected amount that is estimated
to provide all students full scholarships,
but we're limited in our budget request
to the 7% cap from the Higher Education Investment Fund.
And the statute also says if there's insufficient funding,
then those scholarships shall be prorated.
So our budget request is the limit from the heat.
Thank you for that information.
Thank-you and for those of you who are tracking that
in your blue budget books.
There is a line item seven for that particular line
item and there are a couple of others in there if you wanted
to start tracking the HE fund and requests from this
particular section of education.
Were there closing comments that you would like to share
or were ready?
Okay, great.
Well, thank you so much again for your presentation and we
portion of the Education Subcommittee next week.
The next subcommittee will be held Friday, February 13th,
from 8 to 10 a.m.
And at that hearing, we're going to hear an update on Mount
Edgecome and Mount Edgecomb High School, other.
residential schools and its budgetary request and then expand the discussion
among other schools. The time is now 9.05 and the House Finance Education
Subcommittee meeting is adjourned.