Under a bill signed into law by Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday, Alaska’s education department will begin collecting information on how families spend funds they receive through state-sponsored homeschooling programs.
In a lawsuit filed last year, a group of Alaska parents and teachers claimed the state was violating the Alaska Constitution in allowing parents to use public funds to cover the cost of private school tuition. The Alaska Constitution states that “no money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
The Alaska education department claimed it had no knowledge of the practice because it was up to school districts — not the state — to track the use of correspondence funds, under a law championed by Dunleavy when he was a state senator more than a decade ago.
A lower court judge sided with the plaintiffs in April, leading to an expedited effort by lawmakers to pass a bill that would keep in place Alaska’s correspondence programs — which offer families up to $4,500 per student per year to cover education materials.
The Alaska Supreme Court ultimately reversed the lower court decision and remanded the case back to the Superior Court, finding that the lawsuit should have been brought against specific school districts that had allowed correspondence funding to flow to private schools, rather than against the state education department.
Attorney Scott Kendall, who represents the plaintiffs, said Friday that the plaintiffs plan to continue pursuing the case by joining a school district in the litigation in the coming weeks.
“Obviously not every single school district is allowing the spending of allotments for private school tuition, but several are,” Kendall said.
The bill Dunleavy signed Friday had passed during the final day of the legislative session. It empowered the Alaska education department to adopt temporary regulations to ensure the correspondence program allotments could continue to be paid out to parents.
Under the law, which expires next summer, the department must collect information on correspondence programs, including “an accounting of student allotment funds that have been disbursed,” and present that information to the Legislature early next year.
The law is set to expire in July 2025, meaning the department is only required to collect the information for a few months.
[Most Alaska students are not proficient in reading, math or science, state test results show]
Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge, the co-chair of the House Education Committee who took a leading role in crafting the correspondence legislation, said Friday that he hoped the report would confirm his assumption that the vast majority of parents use the allotments to cover the cost of homeschooling materials and private lessons as allowed by law, rather than for private school tuition. He said the report could provide “accountability” for a public funding stream that was revealed to be opaque.
“That’s what I heard from people on both sides of the aisle — ‘We’re asking these questions and not finding a lot of answers. Is there a way to improve accountability with state funds?’” Ruffridge said.
Ruffridge, who has enrolled his children in correspondence programs and used allotment funds to cover private lessons for his children, said he thought that the allotments should not be used for private school tuition — a question that remains open before Alaska courts.
“I don’t want there to be a black mark on the people that are doing it right because of a handful of people who might have been doing something they shouldn’t have,” said Ruffridge.
Dunleavy, who has spoken in favor of allowing allotments to be used in private schools, declined to answer questions from reporters Friday.
In prepared remarks, Dunleavy said that the state Supreme Court’s June decision to remand the case back to the Superior Court was “good news, especially for places like Mat-Su, Kenai” — naming two regions with relatively high concentrations of students enrolled in correspondence programs.
The bill addressing correspondence programs also created new provisions requiring schools to stock opioid overdose drugs and train staff on their proper use. State officials on Friday celebrated the move, which they said could help address Alaska’s opioid crisis.
The state has seen a sharp rise in opioid deaths, but officials did not provide any evidence that overdose deaths had previously occurred inside school facilities.
Dunleavy earlier on Friday also signed four health care-related bills at the Capstone Clinic in Wasilla. Among those bills was one to legalize direct health agreements, allowing health clinics to offer services on a subscription model similar to that of gyms. One of the bill’s strongest advocates was Wade Erickson, a physician who founded the Wasilla clinic where the bill was signed.
Two other health care-related bills, both sponsored by Ruffridge, went into law earlier this week without Dunleavy’s signature. One allows optometrists to delegate tasks to assistants. Another relates to medical review organizations.