HB 48-AK PERFORMANCE SCHOLARSHIP; ELIGIBILITY  8:49:29 AM CO-CHAIR DRUMMOND announced that the next order of business would be HB 48, "An Act relating to eligibility for the Alaska performance scholarship program." 8:49:44 AM CO-CHAIR STORY, as prime sponsor, presented HB 48. She stated that career and technical education (CTE) is a valuable part of post-secondary education. She said that research shows that it motivates students, keeps them engaged in school, and gives them a meaningful path towards their future work and education goals. She shared that she introduced the proposed legislation during the previous session, and it had been received with enthusiasm from the CTE community but given the late start and the COVID-19 early shut down, the bill did not move far enough. She explained that she sees HB 48 as a first step towards recognizing the value of CTE in a well-rounded, rigorous course of study. She commented that she would be interested in integrating some of the recommendations from the previous presenters' report into the proposed legislation. CO-CHAIR STORY explained that HB 48 offers students options to apply CTE coursework towards Alaska Performance Scholarship (APS) eligibility. She said it broadens the range of courses a student can count towards APS eligibility and recognizes the value of CTE for all students and for meeting the needs of Alaska's future workforce. She opined that APS is an important financial resource that more students should have access to, and said she wanted to be sure that CTE options count in the scholarship. 8:52:27 AM MARY HAKALA, Staff, Representative Andi Story, Alaska State Legislature, presented the bill packet for HB 48 on behalf of Representative Story, prime sponsor. She directed attention to the fourth paragraph of the sponsor statement which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: HB 48 offers three avenues for a student to incorporate CTE courses in their APS application: ? Replace one credit of social studies with one credit CTE under the math/science track; ? Replace one credit of social studies with one credit CTE under the social studies/language track; or ? Replace two years of world language with two years of CTE, with one year of CTE in a sequence of increasing rigor within a career cluster. Note - A credit is equivalent to one year or two semesters of course work. MS. HAKALA noted that this was similar to the summary of changes and continued with the bill packet. She directed attention towards the "APS Checklist," and offered this as an easy way to understand what HB 48 does. She referenced the previous presentation and noted that one of the institutional factors that discourage APS use is the complexity and burden of eligibility. She said [the chart in the bill packet] is based on the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education's (ACPE's) format and maps out for a student and guidance councilor how a credit option of CTE or two credit options of CTE could be integrated into the required curriculum. She noted that the categories were defined by ACPE to better guide students, although this isn't how the tracks are defined in statute. She said one year of CTE is required to be a sequence of courses in a career cluster. 8:55:09 AM MS. HAKALA moved on to the fiscal notes. She said the fiscal note from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) has a $6,000 cost to promulgate regulations for these changes. The second fiscal note is from the ACPE, she shared, and is a zero fiscal note. She said the hope is that the proposed legislation's impact would be to increase the eligibility and use of APS by students, so there would be an increase in cost against the higher education fund, but at this point the cost is unknown. MS. HAKALA directed attention to a graphic from the CTE community, entitled "Who Are Alaska's CTE Students?" She noted that 73 percent of CTE concentrators continue to post-secondary training and pointed out the 95 percent graduation rate [of high school students who have taken CTE courses]. She mentioned that the proposed legislation has two letters of support at this point. She shared that in Juneau, 97 percent of students who take two credits in a career pathway graduate from high school. According to ACPE provided data, 65 percent of Alaska's best jobs in 2025 will require a post-secondary credential, she noted. 8:55:09 AM SANA EFIRD, Executive Director, Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education Department of Education and Early Development, provided invited testimony in support of HB 48. She stated that HB 48, which would expand the eligibility requirements for APS to include a high school CTE pathway, is important to the commission. She emphasized that the commission is aware of the need to expand CTE opportunities in Alaska and support CTE as an integral part of the future success of Alaska students. She stated that the change places equal value on CTE career tracks as an option for postsecondary education, and if passed would allow more Alaska students the opportunity to be eligible for the APS and would expand options for high school CTE students. She said this pathway would align with the existing APS CTE award, which is needed for Alaska's workforce. 9:00:31 AM CO-CHAIR DRUMMOND commented that this seemed to be meeting the recommendations of the McKinley Research Group, LLC, regarding an increased availability of CTE awards. 9:01:00 AM CO-CHAIR STORY commented that as shown by the grid that charts what is involved in APS, there is great academic rigor, even if the testing requirement were removed. 9:02:04 AM REPRESENTATIVE ZULKOSKY directed attention to [Section 1, subsection (a), paragraph (3), subparagraph (C), on page 2, lines 6-9] of HB 48, regarding the different scopes of curriculum of the proposed legislation, and she asked if making the scholarship more equitable across Alaska was the intention of this section. CO-CHAIR STORY replied that the intent is to open the scholarship to the CTE opportunities that Alaska is trying to offer more of in high schools. She commented that one of the equity pieces was the curriculum availability across different school districts, because some districts did not have opportunities to offer certain courses. She said she thinks this will make more courses available to students. 9:04:31 AM CO-CHAIR DRUMMOND recalled the presentations from the previous week had highlighted the popularity and availability of CTE classes and the success of students who took CTE in various districts. CO-CHAIR DRUMMOND announced that HB 48 was held over.