Two men from rural Alaska are in the running to become Alaska\u2019s next commissioner of education, but regardless of who wins the role, he\u2019s in for some long hours.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the State Board of Education and Early Development will interview Stewart McDonald of Kodiak and Michael Johnson of Glennallen for the state\u2019s top schools job.<\/p>\n
Each is vying to replace Michael Hanley, who was appointed under Gov. Sean Parnell and served until February, when he left the position following the failure of the state\u2019s Alaska Measures of Progress standardized test. Hanley was the architect of that test, which was developed over three years and created specifically for Alaska needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a great deal of work that I think awaits the next commissioner,\u201d said Lon Garrison, coordinator for school improvement for the Association of Alaska School Boards.<\/p>\n
The test isn\u2019t the only thing on the agenda, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some other issues that really need to be addressed,\u201d added interim education commissioner Susan McCauley.<\/p>\n
McCauley had been a candidate to replace Hanley, but last week announced that she was withdrawing her application. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 26 years of prioritizing my career, I\u2019m going to start prioritizing my family,\u201d she said by phone on June 8.<\/p>\n
Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District superintendent Robert Boyle likewise was a candidate but pulled out of the running in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got some projects that I\u2019d like to see finished,\u201d Boyle told Megan Petersen of the Ketchikan Daily News in early May. \u201cMy heart wasn\u2019t in it to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCauley\u2019s announcement that she was giving up her application came shortly after Juneau\u2019s legislative delegation sent a letter to Gov. Bill Walker expressing concerns that a commissioner candidate was considering moving department staff from Juneau to Anchorage.<\/p>\n
McCauley was the only one of the three candidates with significant ties to Anchorage or the Mat-Su.<\/p>\n
Asked whether she intended to move jobs from Juneau, she responded, \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been no conversation among board members as a board about moving the department out of Juneau,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With McCauley out of the running, the new commissioner will enter an office with an interim deputy director and an interim director of instruction, the de facto No. 3 spot in the department.<\/p>\n
The new commissioner will have to implement the new federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaces the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. <\/p>\n
The commissioner will also have to come up with a new testing system to replace Alaska Measures of Progress. After the test\u2019s failure this spring, the state asked the federal government for a waiver excusing the failure.<\/p>\n
There is less than a year (barring another waiver) to implement a replacement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to be a huge task, and I think all of the candidates look like from what I know are the kind of people who would be good at facing that challenge,\u201d Garrison said.<\/p>\n
The new commissioner will have to make all of these changes with fewer people and less money. In fiscal year 2017, which starts July 1, the department\u2019s budget will be 4 percent \u2014 $66 million \u2014 less than it was in fiscal year 2015, according to figures from the Legislative Finance Division of the Alaska Legislature.<\/p>\n
The Department of Education will have lost 6 percent of its permanent staff and 61 percent of its temporary staff in the same period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going through restructuring through layoffs,\u201d McCauley said of the process.<\/p>\n
In April, state school board president James Fields told the Ketchikan Daily News, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be surprised if there were a lot of people that looked at that and said, \u2018This is a big job right now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
McDonald and Johnson each have connections to the state\u2019s education establishment, though neither has worked at the state level before. <\/p>\n
Norm Wooten, director of the Alaska Association of School Boards, is from Kodiak and has repeatedly served on the school board that directs McDonald. Fields, meanwhile, serves on the school board that directs Johnson.<\/p>\n
McDonald leads the Kodiak Island Borough School District, which boasts about 2,400 students in schools across the Kodiak archipelago. According to information provided by the state department of education, McDonald worked as a special education teacher before becoming assistant superintendent and superintendent in Kodiak. He holds degrees from the University of North Florida and the University of Alaska Anchorage. <\/p>\n
Johnson directs the Copper River School district, headquartered in Glennallen on the Richardson Highway. The district had an enrollment of 445 students in the 2013-2014 school year. He has taught and served as a principal in the Copper River district before becoming the district\u2019s director of instruction, then superintendent. He has a doctorate from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.<\/p>\n
The state education board will take public comments on the selection of a commissioner at 1:15 p.m. Thursday. Call 586-9085 at the appointed time, or visit the Goldbelt Building on 10th Street to offer your comments in person.<\/p>\n
The board\u2019s selection of a commissioner must be approved by Gov. Bill Walker before becoming permanent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two men from rural Alaska are in the running to become Alaska\u2019s next commissioner of education, but regardless of who wins the role, he\u2019s in for some long hours. On Wednesday, the State Board of Education and Early Development will interview Stewart McDonald of Kodiak and Michael Johnson of Glennallen for the state\u2019s top schools […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"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":[34,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-alaska-legislature","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27738","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\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27738"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}