Anchorage School Board to listen to public testimony regarding potential school closures

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Anchorage School Board listened to public testimony Tuesday night, regarding remaining potential school closures.

“We do have a number of people showing up for testimony,” said Andy Holleman, Anchorage School District school board president. “The administration has changed around their recommendations about school consolidations...I suspect we’ll have a couple of hours of testimony.”

Elementary schools Baxter, Fire Lake, Lake Hood, and Nunaka Valley continue to remain on the chopping block as the Anchorage School District school board inches closer to making a decision this month on which schools will be closed next year. This is part of the district’s plan to “Rightsizing ASD.”

On Nov. 1, the district announced its initial agenda with its “Rightsizing ASD” plan, which included either closing, consolidating, or repurposing seven elementary schools in the district. Those initial schools included Baxter, Fire Lake, Lake Hood and Nunaka Valley, Bear Valley, Tudor, and Wonder Park elementary schools.

“It will save the state some money. It will reduce the amount of funding coming to Anchorage from the state, but we will be able to staff better,” Holleman said. “We’ll be able to run better schools in fewer buildings than we can in the number of buildings we have right now.”

However, in late November, the district announced that it would move forward with only recommending the potential closers of ASD elementary schools Baxter, Fire Lake, Lake Hood, and Nunaka Valley. If chosen, these schools would close by May 2025. Bear Valley, Tudor and Wonder Park elementary schools were removed from the list, after hearing public testimony, the district said.

“At this point, we’ve learned a lot so far about the schools that have come off the list and that’s really the purpose of this, is to give the community a chance to speak out,” Holleman said.

Holleman said Tuesday’s discussion will be used to gain more public input about how the community feels about these schools being potentially cut before the district makes its final decision on Dec. 17.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com