All of the candidates running for Juneau School Board this year cite state education funding as a top concern.
Budget cuts and stagnant funding at the state level have burdened school districts in Alaska for years. This year, the Juneau School District found itself with a $758,000 shortfall when Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half of an expected one-year funding boost.
Meanwhile, the state education department notified the district that it could not use supplemental “outside the cap” funding from the city to fill budget holes — a practice it’s relied on for years.
Two seats with three-year terms are open on the school board. Two of the candidates are educators, and all three have children attending Juneau schools.
Britteny Cioni-Haywood is an administrative operations manager for the state and an adjunct professor of economics for the University of Alaska Southeast. She said the district’s struggles with teacher recruitment and retention all tie back to state funding, which is becoming a “critical mass issue.”
“It is also somewhat outside of the school board’s power, per se, but given our proximity to the state capitol, I think it will be important for us to advocate and encourage all of our friends and family to advocate as well for that funding,” Cioni-Haywood said in an interview.
David Noon is a history professor at UAS and served as faculty senate president two years ago. In that role, he responded to budget cuts to the state’s university system. He said inadequate funding for public education has brought teachers and staff to a breaking point.
“We’ve endured a lot of cuts beyond the point at which the district can successfully fulfill its mission to our students, which is the most important job our community has before it,” Noon said in an interview. “So addressing the funding crisis, resolving the budget deficit is obviously going to be a top priority.”
Paige Sipniewski also works for the state and is a lifelong Juneau resident. She said while the district needs to address issues like lower enrollment and rising costs, she also wants to focus on improving student achievement in math, reading and writing. And she says any increase in state funding needs to be tied to that.
“An increase also needs to increase our children’s test scores, and we need to see an improvement along with any funding that’s going to be increased in the test scores,” she said in an interview.
One area where this year’s candidates differ is in allowing transgender students to use bathrooms and play on sports teams that match their gender identity. In interviews, Cioni-Haywood and Noon both said they believe students should be able to express themselves as they wish, while Sipniewski said she believes in “protecting girls’ innocence” by not allowing transgender children to use the same bathrooms or locker rooms as them.
“Little girls should not have a transgender girl in the bathroom or on their sports teams because there is a biological difference, and I don’t think it’s appropriate for kids to be changing in locker rooms or using bathrooms with girls,” Sipniewski said.
During a Juneau Chamber of Commerce candidate forum earlier this month, the school board candidates also differed on the district’s policy regarding which books should be available in school libraries. Cioni-Haywood and Noon said they support the current policy. Sipniewski said she opposes “anything regarding gender, sex, religion, profanity, drug use, race — as far as literature for kids in school.”
Longtime school board member Brian Holst originally filed to run for reelection this year, but later withdrew his candidacy. He told the Juneau Empire he wanted to give other people a chance to serve on the board. Board member Martin Stepetin Sr. did not file to run for reelection.
Voting in this year’s local election ends Oct. 3.
KTOO’s Katie Anastas contributed to this story.
