ANCHORAGE, Alaska—
Anchorage School District Superintendent Carol Comeau announced her response Wednesday morning to a forecasted multimillion-dollar budget gap for the district in the 2011-2012 school year. Comeau released her budget for the school district during a worksession with the school board. To cover the gap, she outlined major expense reductions she is proposing throughout the district's many schools.
Comeau is proposing to cut the summer-school program for elementary schools entirely, and reduce summer-school programs for middle school and high school.
“This level of cuts is disruptive and disappointing,” Comeau said. “We have focused our programmatic priorities on the 180-day school year, thus we have had to reduce many summer school opportunities.”
While one educational technology teacher position is proposed to be eliminated, the budget largely avoids cutting teaching positions.
Among the positions slated to be cut next year are nine library and media aides at middle and high schools.
The budget places on the chopping block a slew of support staff positions, including eight high-school secretaries and seven graduation support coordinators districtwide. Two assistant-principal positions -- one high school and one middle school -- are proposed to be cut.
Several fees, including those paying for high school summer school, certain high school sports and student parking, are scheduled to increase
Comeau also announces some position increases, including five language/cultural liaisons, 10 middle-school career guides and nearly 20 IT and technical support positions.
Compounding the district's budget problems was the expiration of federal stimulus funding. Several positions provided by that funding were incorporated into the district's general budget for 2011-2012.
Contact Jason Lamb at jlamb@ktuu.com
