Anchorage School District aims to test a program that would provide affordable child care

The Anchorage School District may pilot a program next fall that would house care programs in existing elementary schools and offer reduced-cost child care to district employees, according to the district’s chief operating officer, Jim Anderson.

The idea is to help solve two of the district’s crises at once — a teacher shortage, and a lack of affordable child care options for families — by contracting with providers to offer discounted child care to school staff, provider staff and possibly others, Anderson said in an interview.

The average price of child care in Anchorage is between $1,200 and $1,400 a month per child, Anderson said.

“So, if you’re a school secretary, after taxes, if you don’t take medical … you take home about $21,000 a (school) year,” Anderson said. “But child care for two kids: $21,600,” he said, calculating the cost based on a school year.

“They can’t afford to work,” Anderson said. “So, if we could get reduced-rate child care, it would be an incentive for them to want to work with us … and also to stay with us.”

Details about the pilot program, including locations, will be contingent on the school board’s Dec. 17 vote to decide on the district’s so-called “rightsizing” recommendations to close four elementary schools this May.

If the board votes to close one or more of the proposed schools — Nunaka Valley, Baxter, Fire Lake and Lake Hood Elementary — each school would be repurposed to house a charter school, the district said in a proposal just before Thanksgiving. Some of those schools might additionally house child care and pre-K programs, according to a Dec. 3 memo from Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt to the school board.

[Education commissioner says districts should stop relying on remote instruction when weather forces school closures]

However, the pilot program will likely happen even if zero schools close, Anderson said.

Until the district knows each school’s projected population for next year, Anderson said he’s not sure which buildings might have space to house a pilot program, how many the district might pilot, or what sort of interest they’ll have from both providers and families. Also yet-to-be-determined is price per child, and how applicants would be selected.

“Everything will be rewickered once we find out what will close or won’t close,” Anderson said. “I’m at this point now where I have a concept, and I need to wait to find out: What buildings do I have?”

Beginning in January, the school district will evaluate available building space, brief the school board on the idea, and begin to draw up a proposal to solicit bids from providers based on the board’s feedback, he said.

The model would rent child care providers space at below-market value, with the idea that those overhead savings could be reinvested to provide lower-cost child care, Anderson said. Providers could attract staff by transferring some of their operational savings into increased salaries, and by offering reduced-rate child care for staffs’ own children, similar to how the district would hope to attract new employees.

The district’s idea is in step with creative solutions happening throughout the state and country, according to Stephanie Berglund, the chief executive officer at thread, an organization that assists families in finding affordable and quality child care.

Over the last five years, availability of affordable child care in Anchorage has escalated to a crisis, Berglund said. Since the pandemic, many child care facilities have closed, or reduced capacity due to staffing shortages.

In Anchorage, the number of licensed child care programs has dipped below 200, the lowest it’s been in several decades, Berglund said. But by utilizing existing infrastructure and sharing resources like electricity, heating, and snow removal, the whole community stands to benefit, she said.

School board president Andy Holleman said that, for now, the board is focused on how potential school closures might affect students and families, rather than what will become of vacated buildings, or those with extra space.

“I wouldn’t want people to think that we ended up closing their neighborhood schools because we saw what we thought was a better use for it,” Holleman said. “The driving force (for the proposed closures) is the lack of K-5 students.”

After Dec. 17, he said, the school board can focus on what comes next.

“We want to do right by the neighborhoods first, and then, if there’s a building that’s got some unused space, we would want the administration to move to make it available for child care rapidly,” Holleman said.