Gov. Mike Dunleavy is calling on lawmakers to pause their efforts to address a court ruling that threatens the state’s homeschool system, saying they should wait for a ruling from the Alaska Supreme Court.
“This is literally a disaster, potentially, an emergency because of its magnitude,” he told reporters at a news conference on Wednesday.
The decision from an Anchorage Superior Court judge found two laws underpinning much of Alaska’s homeschool system unconstitutional. Alaska’s Constitution prohibits spending public money “for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution,” and Judge Adolf Zeman found that payments to homeschool families for things like books and lesson plans had been used for tuition at private and religious schools, which he declared unconstitutional.
But Department of Law Civil Division head Cori Mills, who appeared alongside Dunleavy on Wednesday, said the decision throws a lot more than homeschool spending into question.
“It’s difficult not to read the decision to say that any private organization is impacted,” she said. “So a private organization, in the court’s opinion, seems to equate to a private educational institution.”
And schools spend money on private organizations all the time — books from McGraw Hill, bussing from First Student, tutoring from Sylvan, the list goes on. The plaintiffs’ lawyer in the case, Scott Kendall, said the broad interpretation is “bizarre” and “misleading” and that Dunleavy should seek more guidance from the court. But Dunleavy insisted there’s not much choice but to wait for the Supreme Court to rule.
“This is why we’re saying a quick fix that some are advocating for, we don’t see how it fits into the ruling right now,” Dunleavy said.
But there’s still a big unanswered question: It’s not clear when or if the court’s ruling will take effect. It could be any day, or the end of June as the plaintiffs requested, or longer, as the state and parents backing the homeschool system have requested. And Dunleavy told reporters he’ll likely call lawmakers back to Juneau for a special session if the Alaska Supreme Court doesn’t allow the homeschool laws to stand.
But Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, said that could be tough to pull off — this summer and fall is campaign season, and he said he’s not sure legislators would be able to get together. So he said he’s in favor of passing a law that puts guardrails on how homeschool funds are spent — or a regulatory fix from the Dunleavy administration that, according to the Legislature’s attorneys, would be compatible with the decision.
“If we put a statute in place, or quite frankly, if there are regulations put in place before that, then homeschoolers will have certainty. Correspondence school families will have certainty. They’ll know what the rules are,” he said. “I think if we don’t do that, this potentially creates tremendous uncertainty for families that use correspondence schools.”
The Senate Education Committee rolled out one possible approach in late April. The sponsor, Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, says it’d restore components of the system that existed before the 2014 law that was declared unconstitutional.
The House Education Committee has its own version of a fix. It would more closely mirror the more recent homeschool system, but with stricter limits on buying things like ski passes, power tools and private school classes.
Education Committee co-chair Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, called for an immediate legislative fix after the decision came out — and despite Dunleavy’s call to hold off, he says that’s still the plan.
“Well, I think if we say we can’t pass statutes to fix things, why would we ever pass a statute ever again?” Ruffridge said.
He said he agrees with Dunleavy that lawmakers have to think long-term. But he said passing a law clarifying the rules would be a good idea.
“We also have to take a view that says, ‘How do we bring stability to folks?’” Ruffridge said. “It’s a lot of people, 23,000 students, so I think we have an obligation to both.”
Doing nothing, Ruffridge and Wielechowski said, risks leaving homeschool families even more in limbo than they already are.
