In a move that could inspire many more homeschooling families to drop out of the already rapidly shrinking Anchorage School District, school officials have decided to clamp down on families that utilize homeschool allotment funds to send their children to private schools.
On July 25, the director of Anchorage’s public charter schools, Jason Hlasny, sent a memo to the principals of the district’s correspondence programs – Family Partnership, Frontier Charter and AKChoice – notifying them that families are not permitted to use homeschool allotments to pay for private school enrollment.
Hlasny’s memo claims that using the funds in this manner violates the Alaska Constitution, which prohibits using public funds for the “direct benefit” of any religious or private educational institution.
He notes that district correspondence schools receive funding through the local school district. A portion of this money is then allocated to each student, which parents can spend on certain materials and instructional services for the education of their child.
“Alaska law requires each school district to ensure that allotment monies are not used in a manner that violates Alaska law,” Hlasny states.
Hlasny’s memo notes that the district will no longer allow families to use their correspondence funds in the following ways:
— When a child is enrolled as a full-time student at a private school, families cannot use educational allotments to pay for any portion of private school tuition or to supplement a student’s private school education.
— If a student is enrolled part-time at a private school, families can no longer use more than half of a student’s correspondence allotment to pay for private school tuition, materials or fees, even if these are for non-religious classes or subjects.
— Finally, no portion of the allotment can be used to pay for religious courses or materials.
The Anchorage School District’s new restrictions appear to contradict a 2022 opinion from the Alaska Department of Law.
The funds may be used in the following manner, Hlasny said.
— If a student is enrolled in a public correspondence school, then half or less of the child’s allotment can be used to pay for part-time enrollment for non-religious courses at a private school.
— If a student is enrolled in a public correspondence school, allotments can be used to pay for extracurricular activities such as swimming lessons, attendance at music or drama performances, or participation in athletic competitions.
The changes will likely affect hundreds of children who were previously allowed to use their homeschool allotments to seek educational opportunities at private schools across Anchorage.
A number of families have already begun to leave the Anchorage School District to enroll in alternative statewide homeschool programs that still permit families to use correspondence allotments to pay for private schooling.
The Anchorage School District’s new restrictions appear to contradict a 2022 opinion from the Alaska Department of Law, which affirmed that parents could use correspondence allotments from public homeschool programs to pay for services provided by private or religious schools. While parents cannot use these funds to pay for “tuition” directly, they can use the funds for classes and instructional materials provided by private schools.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
Unlike the Anchorage School District, the Department of Law did not suggest that full-time private school students, who were duel enrolled in a correspondence program, were somehow unable to use their allotments to pay for individual classes or materials at a private school.
Over the past three years, home and private education has surged across Alaska, driven by Covid closures, controversial curriculum and concern over poor academic achievement in standard public schools. It’s unclear how the Anchorage School District’s new mandates will impact their overall enrollment in district-run correspondence programs.
TAKING ACTION
— To contact Anchorage Superintendent of Schools Jharrett Bryantt call (907) 742-4312 or email officeofthesuperintendent@asdk12.org.
— For information about various correspondence school programs available to families across Alaska, click here.
21 Comments
This is going to be interesting to follow!
This was a known problem that needed to be fixed. It’s clearly unconstitutional for public funds to be spent on private or religious institutes. If you want to homeschool your kids, homeschool them. Otherwise send them to public school like everyone ear. If you CHOOSE not to participate in the public school program then you can pay for private school yourself.
These are not public funds they are our Tax dollars and as a Taxpayer I should be able to use my money. The school system should not get taxes from the homeowners than.
Steve. That’s not how government works. First, your tax dollars are public funds to be used for the benefit of all of us. Second, once you pay taxes, you no longer have authority to commit the funds to a particular use.
Lucinda, you speak like the true marxists that have overtaken the White House! I am sure that they are very proud of the fact that you are constantly pushing their narrative to overthrow America for good. The evil only has power that God Almighty gives it. God wins.
Wrong Clark. It is unconstitutional for the government to get involved in education in the first place. It is unconstitutional for the government to steal private money in the form of taxes and strong-arm the citizenry to be compulsory, captive audiences to government machinations and left-wing indoctrination including the exclusion of religions other than the state sponsored religion of secular humanism.
In response to your challenge, I do homeschool my 10 children and have done for almost 20 years. I will NEVER send them to public school, leftist universities, or any other decayed, rotten, and worthless institution.. I DO pay for their schooling myself. It is the local school who BEGS US to attend because the state gives them $15k-$20k PER CHILD to sign up and the school kicks back about $2k of approved schooling material. NO THANKS!
Government ought not be involved in education at all.
Our whole education system in this country needs to be revamped. The money should follow the child, creating competition. Parents can them decide where they want their child educated. Right now the PS system is a monopoly that is not producing a good product and is more about political agendas and questionable ideologies than really educating.
Pushing the public to increasing more online education. If these adults were so ignorant and arrogant, they’d be slowly moving toward compromise as Northstar school board is moving along to just keep less families leaving its district. While there are a multitude of online curriculum homeschool families can use including private online academies that brick public school do not offer online diversity. These public administrators want to be stubborn and arrogant then let them go their way. They can’t compete with online education to eventually they will face inevitable cuts and job losses.
Actually, that means the School District is discriminating against religious education. Nowhere in the funding for homeschooling does it limit where you can purchase instruction materials or sources. By stating that homeschooling funds are limited only when religious entities come into play violates the Constitution of the US, so there’s that. The government can’t limit our free expression of religion. That’s really the hard fact.
Agree!
Cite your constitution reference.
First Amendment
Wonder how this reconciled with “ Carson V. Makin”
https://ballotpedia.org/Carson_v._Makin
Time to raise HELL with your borough. The leftist lunatic’s have completely gone off the rails! I am not sure where their money trees are growing but
it maybe worth investigating! It would be interesting if all tax payers quit paying taxes!
School District funds are meant for public school students. If you want your child to go to private school then pay for it.
No, school funding is there to educate children, and anyone who chooses not to participate in public school indoctrination can opt out and still get funding for schooling. Nothing in any law states that school assessments are for public schools alone.
FoH. My two second primer on how government works was factual. Steve Chappell, I thought, might appreciate the correction. You though, see my even factual statement as an offense to your feeble principles. You toss around scantly relevant words like Marxist to reiterate your fact-free list of conservative grievances.
You continue to prove to readers that your reason has been replaced by air.
Don’t you have a parked car to chase? Go lay down by your dish.
My, now grown kids, were enrolled in FPCS when it first began. We were never allowed to use funds for Grace Christian or Lumen Christi, but that is where two of them went for high school while using FPCS for extracurricular and tutoring. We could not use funds for Christian curriculum, so I bought that and it still counted as credit for the subject when we did full homeschool. The public money should not be used for specifically Christian education or, before you know it, the Municipality or State will be telling the Christian schools what and how to teach.
My, now grown kids, were enrolled in FPCS when it first began. We were never allowed to use funds for Grace Christian or Lumen Christi, but that is where two of them went for high school while using FPCS for extracurricular and tutoring. We could not use funds for Christian curriculum, so I bought that and it still counted as credit for the subject when we did full homeschool. The public money should not be used for specifically Christian education or, before you know it, the Municipality or State will be telling the Christian schools what and how to teach.