ANCHORAGE \u2014 A state lawmaker is proposing an increase to the minimum number of students required to make schools eligible for state funding.<\/p>\n
KTUU-TV reported that Alaska schools must have at least 10 students enrolled in order to receive funding from the state government. Wasilla State Rep. Lynn Gattis is looking to have that number raised so the state can save money.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know I\u2019m looking at the bigger picture and I\u2019m not stuck on 20 let\u2019s put it that way,\u201d Gattis said. \u201cThe bigger conversation is, we have small areas that don\u2019t have an economy and the school is truly the thing that subsidizes their small economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state currently allocates about $5,000 per student to schools.<\/p>\n
Gattis\u2019 proposal has been met with concern in Alaska\u2019s rural areas, where student enrollment is much lower and schools rely more on state funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are very small villages, and they are passionate about their heritage, and their culture, and when we close a school in a small rural village not only is education impacted but the village is impacted as well,\u201d said Kuspuk School District superintendent Sue Johnson.<\/p>\n
Meghan Richmond, a teacher in Twin Hills, said increasing the requirement could force more students into homeschooling, which could create problems for children who don\u2019t have access to the Internet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difficulty with online options is our Internet out in the village isn\u2019t very reliable, it\u2019s also very expensive. The home internet is not up to standard for homeschooling purposes,\u201d Redmond said.<\/p>\n
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ANCHORAGE \u2014 A state lawmaker is proposing an increase to the minimum number of students required to make schools eligible for state funding. KTUU-TV reported that Alaska schools must have at least 10 students enrolled in order to receive funding from the state government. Wasilla State Rep. Lynn Gattis is looking to have that number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10104"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}