Legislature(2025 - 2026)DAVIS 106
03/05/2025 09:00 AM House EDUCATION
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| Presentation(s): Special Education in Alaska | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | TELECONFERENCED | ||
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
HOUSE EDUCATION STANDING COMMITTEE
March 5, 2025
9:06 a.m.
DRAFT
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Rebecca Himschoot, Co-Chair
Representative Andi Story, Co-Chair
Representative Ted Eischeid
Representative Jubilee Underwood
Representative Rebecca Schwanke
Representative Bill Elam
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Maxine Dibert
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
PRESENTATION(S): SPECIAL EDUCATION IN ALASKA
- HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
No previous action to record
WITNESS REGISTER
TOM KLAAMEYER, President
National Education Association Alaska
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Gave a presentation titled "Special
Education in Alaska.
KIM WARD-MASSEY
Language Pathologist
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered committee questions on the
presentation titled "Special Education in Alaska"
DONALD ENOCH
Alaska Special Education Director
Anchorage, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Answered committee questions on the
presentation titled "Special Education in Alaska"
JOSH GIRARD, Intensive Needs Paraprofessional
Kenai Peninsula Education Association
Kenai, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on the presentation titled
"Special Education in Alaska".
JADA KAHL, School Occupational Therapist
Juneau Education Association
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on the presentation titled
"Special Education in Alaska".
ACTION NARRATIVE
9:06:47 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY called the House Education Standing Committee
meeting to order at 9:06 a.m. Representatives Eischeid,
Schwanke, and Story were present at the call to order.
Representatives Elam, Himschoot, and Underwood arrived as the
meeting was in progress.
^PRESENTATION(S): Special Education in Alaska
PRESENTATION(S): Special Education in Alaska
9:08:11 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY announced that the only order of business would
be a presentation titled "Special Education in Alaska."
9:09:20 AM
TOM KLAAMEYER, President, National Education Association Alaska,
gave a presentation titled "Special Education in Alaska. He
began on slide 1, which outlined which specific teachers are
serving special education students and continued to slide 2,
which highlighted that 40 percent of Alaska's teacher and
personnel vacancies are in special education positions. He moved
to slide 5, which gave background to specific State and Federal
policies that affect special education in Alaska.
9:13:28 AM
REPRESENTATIVE ELAM asked if the teacher and personnel
statistics displayed on slide 3 had more specific regional data.
MR. KLAAMEYER answered that the further off of the road system a
school district is, the harder it is to fill the position.
9:15:05 AM
MR. KLAAMEYER resumed the presentation on slides 6-8, which
provided more specific background information regarding special
education in Alaska. He skipped to slide 10, which emphasized
three critical actions to be taken in the name of strengthening
public schools in Alaska. He moved to slide 11, which
highlighted the need for special educators to be compensated
with a competitive salary.
9:18:46 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY asked the invited presenters if they were going
to speak on the 4 different levels of special education in
Alaska.
MR. KLAAMEYER invited Kim Ward-Massey to answer the question.
9:20:21 AM
KIM WARD-MASSEY, Language Pathologist, answered committee
questions on the presentation titled "Special Education in
Alaska" She explained that tier I students are general
education, tier II students are students who need more
assistance, tier III students are students who might be on an
Individual Education Plan (IEP), and tier IV students are
students who are on an IEP or might have intensive needs.
9:25:10 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY asked Donald Enoch about the different special
education categories and how a student might qualify for each
category.
9:25:31 AM
DONALD ENOCH, Alaska Special Education Director, answered
committee questions on the presentation titled "Special
Education in Alaska". He listed 14 categories for determining
eligibility, those being learning disabilities, emotional
disturbance, death, hearing impairment, deaf-blind, orthopedic
impairment, visual impairment, speech-language impairment, other
health impairment, multiple disabilities, early childhood
developmental delay, autism, and traumatic brain injury. He said
that any one may make a referral for a student to get evaluated
for special education needs, but the student's parent must
approve the evaluation.
9:28:59 AM
REPRESENTATIVE SCHWANKE asked Mr. Enoch for insight on how
school districts face underfunded correspondence special
education students. She asked if additional funding should be
granted to school districts to service the needs of special
education teachers in rural school districts.
MR .ENOCH said that if a student's needs are so severe that they
cannot be met in a correspondence environment, the student is
encouraged to attend their local public school to obtain such
instruction. He said that he could not answer any state budget
or regulatory questions.
9:33:26 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY asked if school districts do not have a strict
criterion to follow when qualifying a student for special
education services.
MS. WARD-MASSEY answered that a student must receive a medical
diagnosis and have the tested needs confirmed by a special
education team.
9:35:42 AM
REPRESENTATIVE SCHWANKE asked Mr. Klaameyer if he was aware of a
national shortage of special education teachers.
MR. KLAAMEYER returned to slide 6 to explain that there are an
increasing number of special education students nationally and a
decreasing number of special education teachers nationally.
9:37:32 AM
MS. WARD-MASSEY implored the committee to vote "yes" on HB 69
and increase the Base Student Allocation (BSA) and emphasized
the importance of adequate funding as a means to provide a
quality education to special education students in Alaska. She
explained that school districts rely on adequate funding to
recruit and retain speech-language pathologists and highlighted
their critical role in supporting public school students of all
ages in Alaska. She said that nearly one-third of speech
language pathologists in the Anchorage School District (ASD) are
tele therapists, who are contractors that live in the contiguous
united states and also require an in-person paraprofessional to
deliver their services which amount to a cost of approximately
$1.2 million. She said that in-person speech-language
therapists would eliminate the cost and emphasized the
disconnect that students experience when they receive their
therapy online.
9:42:25 AM
JOSH GIRARD, Intensive Needs Paraprofessional, Kenai Peninsula
Education Association, testified on the presentation titled
"Special Education in Alaska". He urged the committee to vote to
increase the BSA and explained how the current funding
shortfalls have impacted his daily workload and his ability to
deliver a quality education to his students. He said that he was
often working past contract hours to meet the needs of his
students and highlighted the need for a full-time, in-person
teacher in all school districts in Alaska. He said "teachers
and paraprofessionals like me should be able to afford to live
in the community where we work" and said that teachers are
consistently being asked to do more with less.
9:45:17 AM
JADA KAHL, School Occupational Therapist, Juneau Education
Association, testified on the presentation titled "Special
Education in Alaska". She read from a prepared statement [not
included in the committee packet] which read as follows
[original punctuation provided]:
My name is Jada Kahl and I work as an
Occupational Therapist for the Juneau School District.
In the schools OT is a related service to special
education, so all serviced students must be identifi
ed with a disability with signifi cant sensorimotor
delays along with unmet needs. An OT helps students
develop, improve, or maintain the skills needed for
daily activities that are essential for learning and
participation such as fi ne motor skills, interpreting
sensory information , and even self-cares (like
getting dressed or using the restroom).
Required job duties include supporting students and
staff . support ranges from direct student support, to
school wide or program support to indirect
collaboration support. Therapists must assess, write
and update eligibility reports and individualized
education plans (IEPs) for every student on their
caseload (mine currently sits over 40 students), write
treatment encounter notes for each session (therapists
average 6-10 students per day). write progress
reports, attend weekly special education meetings for
all covered school sites ( I attend 3), attend student
specifi c meetings, mandatory trainings, complete
modifi cations to assignments and not to mention
supporting students in crisis.
These past two weeks alone I spent over 7hours
supporting a student due to an unfi lled vacancy. I
also spent over 3 hours in collaboration andmodifi
cation of assignment for 1 student and spent time
supporting a student in crisis who isn't even in my
caseload.
So while yes a portion of my role is to provide direct
therapy services to around 40 students, , that is only
part of my job duties. You see my job is more than
just a caseload number, it is a workload that is very
multifaceted and can be a bit unpredictable.
In order to support my students with their learning
they require access to a variety of resources.
Resources including tangible objects, to equipment and
space.
But most importantly our students require the resource
of adequate staffi ng. Highly trained and educated
staff who are able to support their needs. Staff who
have the time to work together, to collaborate, to
modify assignments, to observe and provide feedback
and to support the whole student.
Understaffing is a major concern in our state,
especially in my district. We have emergency
certificated staff in numerous buildings, all with
various levels of experience or education themselves.
This year alone we have gone through countless
vacancies in regular education, special education and
related service providers alike. My own daughter has
had 3 different social studies teachers just this
year. JSD has gone through 3 different OTs and
continues to have vacancies amongst related service
providers. I continue to get asked to do "just this
one", or to "just take a look and let us know what you
think" Who do you think suffers when staffing
positions are unfilled? The student. In the words of
my daughter, "The switching, switching, switching just
brings so much stress to the already stressed out
teens of today"
These staffing issues are not a "this year's" problem.
They ARE the problem.
Year after year we lose staff and year after year our
districts begin to outsource our Alaskan jobs to
contractors who don't even live in our state or our
communities.
Why do people keep leaving?
Why can't we retain the high quality educators?
Because our jobs have become unsustainable.
Understaffed Districts keep pushing a higher and
higher caseload onto the special education teachers
and related service providers, while not seeming to
even consider the WORKLOAD that it takes to support
the student. The workload we are asked to do with
fewer and fewer resources is mind blowing. The number
of students we are asked to support continues to grow
yet the support of resources does not. Students' needs
are being unmet
So now you tell me how are we supposed to support our
students without having a cap on the Workload that
each educator and related service provider is asked to
do? How do our students get the resources they need?
And how are any of these resources possible without
FUNDING?
How are we supposed to attract, retain and compensate
our staff without funding?
We CAN'T
I urge you to appropriately Fund education, to cap
caseloads by using tools such as a workload calculator
and to do better by our students. They are our future.
If we continue to do what we are doing we will
continue to lose high quality educators and fail our
AK students.
9:50:30 AM
CO-CHAIR STORY reminded the committee of an amendment deadline
for CSHB 57 (L&C) and delivered committee announcements.
9:51:56 AM
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business before the committee, the House
Education Standing Committee meeting was adjourned at 9:51 a.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Special Education; Presentation 3.5.25.pdf |
HEDC 3/5/2025 9:00:00 AM |
|
| DEED Resp. to Q at HEDC 3.5.25 Meeting.pdf |
HEDC 3/5/2025 9:00:00 AM |