The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska has been working on expanding its education programs for years. One of the tribe’s next steps is building an educational campus in Juneau focused on culturally relevant, place-based learning.
This is one of many efforts Alaska Native tribes around the state are working on to improve educational outcomes for Native students. The state is joining in by working with tribes to develop an education compacting program.
An education compact is an agreement between tribal and state governments that allows tribes to run their own public schools. Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development is working with tribes to kick start a compacting program and give tribes sovereignty over education.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is moving things along with a bill proposal that would approve a pilot program for tribally compacted public schools. The House Rules Committee introduced it as House Bill 59 last month.
Mischa Jackson is an education liaison with Tlingit and Haida – one of five tribes that would be part of a pilot program to see if the compact works.
“Compacting is the mechanism to provide tribes an opportunity to play a role in the operation of schools,” Jackson said.
Jackson presented to lawmakers in a state House Tribal Affairs Committee meeting last Thursday. She talked about what education compacts could look like in the state.
Tlingit and Haida — along with the King Island Native Community and the Village of Solomon, Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, Ketchikan Indian Community and Knik Tribe — negotiated with the Department of Education and Early Development, or DEED, to create a report on how compacting could work. According to the report, the program came out of a list of education priorities the state Board of Education is following. It aims to close the achievement gap between Native and non-Native students in the state.
State testing results in recent years show a gap in Alaska Native students and other students of colors achieving proficiency in math and language arts when compared to all students.
Results from the Alaska System of Academic Readiness exam shows fewer Alaska Native and other students of color consistently reach advanced or proficient levels in math and language arts when compared to all students. The same goes for students experiencing homelessness and students in foster care.
Jackson said she’s really excited to implement the program.
“This has long term gains we’re really excited about, and I would say we have a pretty strong team and a lot of Indigenous educators throughout Southeast Alaska that are really excited to help contribute to this project,” she said.
Jackson said many Alaska Native tribes aren’t structured in a way that allows them to receive federal funding for education. Compacting would allow them to do that. She said the program would give tribes more say over education they don’t have under current state law, even if they operate as a charter school within a school district.
“For the vision that a lot of tribes have for education, we’ve never had the true opportunities to be able to work as an education system with the level of authority and autonomy,” Jackson said.
Joel Isaak is a consultant with DEED for tribal compacting. In an interview, he said the program would give tribes the ability to oversee many aspects of running their own schools.
“The tribes are the ones carrying out the education in the classroom, and the state is the one that’s providing the fiscal backing, and then ensuring safety and adequacy,” Isaak said.
This means tribes would be able to hire teachers, design curriculum and create a governing body like a school board to run the schools, as long as it follows state requirements. Isaak said tribes can also create training requirements for teachers.
While some tribes may want to require their teachers to simply get a teaching degree at a university, he said others may want teachers to be trained in place-based or cultural learning.
“It allows the tribe to really direct how they weave together the culture, language with those regulated skill sets around, for example, reading or math or science,” he said.
Tribally compacted public schools would also receive state funding. To determine how much funding they receive from the current formulas in place, they would be treated as Regional Educational Attendance Areas. These are educational districts in places without a taxing authority like a borough.
This bill also includes start-up funds for carrying out the program. A fiscal note for the bill estimates it could cost close to $17.5 million for the next fiscal year. This includes both foundational funding and start-up funds for all five pilot schools.
Isaak said compacting is a way to improve the state’s education system.
“It does not fix every single thing in education, but it brings in another person to help carry the weight and to help think about how you get there more efficiently, or how you get there with everybody,” he said. “And that’s why it’s a systems transformation, that’s really powerful.”
Washington is the only state that uses education compacts since approving it in 2013. The New Mexico Legislature is also considering a bill to allow the state to enter tribal education compacts.
Jackson, with Tlingit and Haida, said the tribe is already working on building an education campus in Juneau behind Fred Meyer.
If the bill doesn’t pass, Jackson said the tribe is ready to find other sources of funding for the campus.
“Our movement towards the education campus is going to happen whether this bill passes or not,” she said. “This will just be another vehicle towards supporting the infrastructure, and what will go inside of the buildings. The education in itself is going to move forward.”
If the bill passes, Isaak said DEED will negotiate compacts with the tribes to get the schools running.
The House Tribal Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the bill on Thursday at 8 a.m.
