newsminer.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — In Kotzebue, school administrators are running radio and newspaper ads reminding parents and kids why it’s important to go to school.

Their concern isn’t just reading, writing and arithmetic.

In one Fairbanks school, officials are offering prizes, including an iPod, to kids who can get their friends or siblings to enroll.

And, in the Interior village of Manley Hot Springs, where the school is on the cusp of closing by not having enough students, a tribal administrator is begging home-school parents to consider public education.

Right now, school officials across the state are in crunch time. For the 20 school days ending Friday, the number of kids enrolled will ultimately determine their piece of the state’s $1.1 billion in education funds.

“Superintendents chew their fingernails waiting for this count to be done,” said state Education Commissioner Larry LeDoux.

It’s a nervous game played out every fall in Alaska, where the state allocates its education funds well into the school year, after teachers are hired and other spending decisions made. Some districts come out ahead with more students than predicted and end up with surplus money — a boon that can mean new books, more teachers and teaching assistants. Other districts lose because they overestimated — meaning program cuts, less support staff and, in some extreme cases, closed schools.

“Most superintendents are very, very conservative on their estimates because it’s easier to add than to cut,” LeDoux said.

This year, across Alaska, the numbers are off more than usual, making for an even more unnerving count period. Bristol Bay, Nome, Sitka, Chatham and Wrangell are among those that are well below their anticipated enrollments and will likely face painful budget cuts. Anchorage, meanwhile, is seeing more students than expected — 18 more teachers have been hired to accommodate the extra 475 kids. A good number of the new students are Native kids from the Bush, according to school officials. The Mat-Su School District, the second largest in the state, has about 150 more kids than anticipated.

The numbers may reflect a shift in the demographics of the state.

The state pays most public education costs in Alaska. Some districts have more local contribution, like in Anchorage, where about 30 percent of the school budget comes from city property taxes.

The state divvies its money under a complicated formula that considers the district’s size and the needs of its students. For example, significantly more money is paid for special-needs kids. At the heart of all calculations, though, is the number of students.

The Chatham School District in Southeast said it is down at least 15 children.

“That really hurts when we only have 155 students and were planning on more,” superintendent Elaine Hopson wrote in an e-mail.

Some schools over the years have had to close because a state law mandates that individual schools have a minimum number of students — now 10 — to receive critical funding. More than 20 schools have shut down since 1999 because they didn’t have enough kids, including the South Naknek school in Bristol Bay, Ivanof Bay, which is 250 miles southeast of Dillingham, and Rampart in the Interior on the Yukon River.

This year, in Fairbanks, the Effie Kokrine charter school faces that problem. The 4-year-old school has a Native Alaska emphasis and a primarily Native Alaska student body. Right now it might not have enough kids to stay open. The state funding formula essentially requires charter schools to have 150 students. Effie Kokrine has 146.

“We’ve always had trouble with enrollment,” said principal Linda Evans. “I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

Some small schools struggle with making the critical threshold every year — for example, Hope, on the Kenai Peninsula, and False Pass in the Aleutians.

In Manley Hot Springs, a small town on the road system 160 miles west of Fairbanks, the school has been on the brink of closing for years. Last year, the town’s 70 residents brought in cousins and grandchildren for the critical count period, said Elizabeth Woods, tribal administrator for the Manley Village Council.

This year, Woods said the school is in trouble. It only has nine kids. It needs 10 to stay open. She said she’s distraught about the school closing but what can she do? The kids will have to be home schooled or move. And the seven people employed by the school will have to look for other jobs.

Longtime teacher Heidi Wright, one of those people, insists Manley has 11 kids not necessarily in attendance but 11 kids enrolled. “The public doesn’t always know the confidential information in a school. They think they do. And, we can’t really broadcast stuff,” she said. “And, it’s enrollment that counts.”

Wright thinks the state needs to consider forward funding of its schools. “It’s not good fiscal planning to start a school year then find out if you have enough money to run a school,” she said.

Sometimes, school administrators hope cities and boroughs intercede and pay to keep the schools open when state funding stops. That happened in False Pass, when the school had fewer than 10 kids. And it is likely to happen this year in Akutan, another Aleutians East Borough school, said superintendent Phil Knight. The school has only seven kids.

“In those small schools, all it takes is one family to move out and you could lose half your (student) population,” Knight said.

Thwarting the best efforts of school officials to keep their student count up during the 20 days is the Alaska Permanent Fund dividend, some administrators complain.

Norman Eck, superintendent of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, said the district’s stress of October attendance is exacerbated by the fall arrival of the PFD, which often enables families to go to the big city for their shopping or family vacation. This year, the earlier-than-usual and higher-than-usual payment may have been a factor in his projection being off by 50 kids.

Eck would much prefer to see the PFD arrive in the summer or Christmas break.

“It’s a terrible pattern we see every dividend time.”

Nome’s superintendent Rick Luthi said he’s seen the same trend in his district.

“A lot of families have taken their families and gone to Anchorage, and they’ll come back when the money is gone,” he said. “But then we will have missed them for the count.”

Nome’s enrollment is about 10 percent below its projection and the district is likely to lose $500,000 from its $11 million budget, Luthi said.

“If you are a parent of about 10 or 12 kids, we’d love to see you move to Nome,” he said.