OPINION: Anchorage School Board should keep schools open

As parents of children at Birchwood and Inlet View elementary schools, we are writing to urge the Anchorage School Board to keep our neighborhood schools open. There’s no question that years of education funding cuts have led to a structural deficit for Anchorage. However, rather than close high-performing schools, we should all advocate together for the state resources our schools need.

Our school system has suffered from years of inadequate capital and inadequate operating funding. Lack of capital funding threatened schools like Inlet View, which are fully enrolled but need either major renovations or replacement of buildings to stay open. Fortunately, last year the Legislature restored capital funding that had previously been vetoed. As a result, the school board can and should appropriate a portion of that funding to rebuild Inlet View and keep the school open. That was the intent of legislators who fought for this funding, and it’s the right thing to do.

Other schools like Birchwood face threats primarily because of inadequate operating funding. ASD claims Birchwood is “under-enrolled,” but that’s because ASD itself hasn’t been able to hire enough teachers to staff Birchwood, and sadly, the school has been turning kids away. We’ve seen how high-performing schools like Birchwood can improve kids’ academic achievement. Like Inlet View, Birchwood has a mix of working class and upper middle class students. Data from schools across the country show this kind of socioeconomic diversity is positive for kids, including as demonstrated in test scores. Keeping Birchwood open is more complicated than just completing a capital project: The school board, parents and our whole community need to demand the Legislature and governor finally increase the Base Student Allocation, the operating funding formula from the state that match our local tax dollars. Clearly, we can’t have any more governor vetoes of operating funds.

Both Birchwood and Inlet View are powerful examples of what strong parent-teacher communities can do for kids. When Eagle River Elementary was being rebuilt and kids were temporarily relocated to Birchwood, their scores rose. Despite Inlet View serving a larger percentage of households from higher-poverty census areas, Inlet View’s academics are among the best in the school district. That is partly because of strong diversity in Inlet View, which is more socioeconomically and racially diverse than Anchorage as a whole.

A consultant hired by the school district claims that the population of students will decline indefinitely in the future. Considering the incredible economic promise Alaska has as a result of federal infrastructure investment, a renaissance in mining driven by the electric vehicle industry, continued growth in both remote work and demand for cargo and associated airline operations, our future can be bright — but only if we invest in education that attracts and retains skilled workers.

Closing high-performing schools would make population loss a self-fulfilling prophesy. Let’s invest in our schools. The school board needs to appropriate capital funds now as the Legislature intended, ensuring Inlet View can be a great school for another 65 years or more. And the board, PTAs, teachers and our whole community should work together to raise the BSA so all our high-performing schools can stay open. It would be a mistake to close these schools now, before we’ve even had a chance to fight for the resources we need from the state. Rather than give up, let’s fight for the resources our kids and our schools deserve.

Heather Calcaterra is a past PTA president of Birchwood ABC, and her youngest daughter is in the fourth grade. Hannah Brewster is co-PTA president at Inlet View, and her daughter is in kindergarten.

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