WASILLA — The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is working to create a new “advocacy office” that will allow members of the public to lodge complaints with the state against individual school districts.
Education commissioner Deena Bishop said that up to 90% of calls to the education department are currently redirected to local school districts, which are responsible for most education policymaking. She said the new office would allow the department to respond to public queries without redirecting them to districts as often.
“This is new ground,” Bishop told members of the state board of education during a presentation on the proposal Wednesday.
Under proposed regulations unanimously advanced to public comment by the board on Wednesday, members of the public — including parents, students and educators — could file complaints with the office “to allege that a school district has failed to comply with an education law or regulation that is enforceable by the department.” The office would then investigate the complaint, and if it finds that a district is out of compliance, the department could withhold state funding from the district.
The mission of the proposed office is “to empower Alaska’s educational stakeholders through a centralized office, ensuring access to information, advocacy for rights, and assistance in navigating Alaska’s education system,” according to a presentation made by Bishop.
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In an interview, Bishop said the idea for the complaint process did not stem from any known lack of compliance by school districts with state laws or regulations.
“We wanted to ensure that we had a process that was open and fair and transparent,” said Bishop, adding that the office would create “accountability” for school districts to ensure they follow state laws.
The department already has several processes in place to ensure districts comply with state laws, including requiring annual financial audits and reviews of special education accommodations. Those processes would not be affected by the new advocacy office, Bishop said.
Though the complaint process cannot be adopted until the board has taken public comment on it for at least 30 days, the Department of Education is already seeking to fill the job of office manager for the Office of Education Advocacy. Bishop said she’d already created the office without public input, and it would not require any additional funding because it would be staffed by diverting existing department staff members.
Bishop said “nothing” is currently preventing the department from creating the office, and the department is “moving forward already” on providing additional “customer service.”
The state board of education members did not ask questions about the proposed complaint process.
An advertised office position, which comes with a compensation of at least $81,763 annually, “will be responsible for streamlining inquiries, providing comprehensive educational resources, and ensuring stakeholders receive accurate information and guidance,” according to the job description, which was posted Oct. 4, five days before the board of education first considered the proposed office.
The office was initiated by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, according to public documents. Dunleavy’s spokespeople did not respond to an interview request on the idea, nor to a list of questions about it.
Currently, school districts are overseen by locally elected school boards, which regularly take public input. But board member Sally Stockhausen said, “Sometimes people are nervous about contacting your local people, and so they’ll go straight to the top to get an answer, which is great.”
Association of Alaska School Boards Executive Director Lon Garrison said the office could strain the department’s resources and hamper the local control of districts.
“What I see is a continued push by the administration to step into the way of local governance,” said Garrison.
Garrison said it could be better for all concerns lodged with the department to go to a centralized office, but the office could lead the state to “stepping in where they really don’t need to be.”
He also said that the new complaint process could stretch thin the department’s already strained services.
“The department has lost a tremendous number of staff over the last decade,” said Garrison. “What I fear is that turning the department into a complaint repository will distract (from) the work of what we can do proactively to being nothing but reactionary.”
This is not the first time that Dunleavy has sought in recent months to empower the state education department at the expense of locally elected school boards. Earlier this year, Dunleavy vetoed what would have been the first significant increase to the state’s education funding formula in several years because lawmakers refused to adopt his education proposals, including one to allow the state board of education to establish new charter schools without local approval.
Currently, groups seeking to establish charter schools must first go through their local school boards. Groups can then appeal a local board decision to the state board. Dunleavy’s proposal would have allowed groups to go directly to the state board without consulting local officials.
Dunleavy’s education policies have repeatedly bumped up against policies sought by a majority of lawmakers. The state board of education, whose members Dunleavy appointed, has served as an avenue for the governor to advance his education agenda despite legislative pushback.
In 2023, the state board of education adopted a policy limiting the participation of transgender kids in school sports according to their preferred gender, after the Legislature refused to adopt such a restriction.
Earlier this year, the Legislature removed funding from the budget for a reading academy sought by the Dunleavy administration and enthusiastically endorsed by the state board of education. The Legislature cited the academy’s unclear mission statement, which morphed multiple times in the span of a few months.