Pearl Creek charter appeal for August opening should be withdrawn
Let me start this by saying I respect parents who care enough to be deeply involved in the education of their children and put in the time and effort to improve our public schools.
It is clear that a lot of work has gone into the Pearl Creek charter school proposal by people who are doing their best to help their kids.
There are also parents just as concerned about the quality of public education who think the charter plan is the wrong approach because it will erode the resources available at Anne Wien, University Park, Woodriver and other neighborhood schools in Fairbanks.
I spent many hours in recent days listening to recordings of school board meetings and reading every document I could find related to the Pearl Creek charter school proposal.
I think the most important thing right now is to recognize that the charter school cannot open for the 2025-2026 school year without creating chaos.
There are far too many unresolved points of contention regarding enrollment, school boundaries, the budget and staffing. These will not be sorted before teachers return to the classroom or kids return to school.
The school district was deep into a difficult series of decisions in the early months of the year when it opted to close Pearl Creek and two other schools because of declining enrollment and finances.
The Pearl Creek charter proposal is an effort by some parents to keep the school in operation in that building. The charter school has not been approved by the school district.
To claim that this is an emergency requiring immediate intervention by the Dunleavy administration and the state school board is counterproductive and unreasonable.
They allege that the school district broke state law by not acting on their February 18 application for the Pearl Creek charter within 60 days.
They say that not acting on the application is a “constructive denial” of the application. I believe this legal interpretation is wishful thinking.
The disagreement regarding the application and the 60-day rule is not as clear-cut as the charter school advocates and the state education commissioner believe.
Existing state law says "a local school board shall prescribe an application procedure" for a charter school. That is paragraph A.
An application procedure for anything almost includes an application deadline.
Paragraph B of that existing state law says that charter school applications "must be issued within 60 days after the application, and must include all relevant findings of fact and conclusions of law."
Paragraph A and paragraph B have to be read in tandem, not independently, meaning that only applications filed by October 1 have to be responded to in writing within 60 days.
Too much of this hinges on the dubious claim that paragraph B is all that matters.
A sloppy new state law, which emerged from the Legislature because of this dispute and takes effect July 1, includes two sentences that add uncertainty: "The application procedure must allow an application to be submitted at any time during a school year for the following school year. A local school board shall announce the deadline to submit an application for establishment of a charter school for the following school year."
The school calendar is the big thing now—not the Fairbanks school board, the education commissioner, the state school board, the governor or the deadline in the law.
Students return to class on August 19 and hundreds of families deserve to know what the immediate future holds for all of the Fairbanks elementary schools.
The Pearl Creek charter advocates are asking "that the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) overturn this denial and grant the PCSC application for the 2025-2026 school year."
There are legal and technical problems that will not be resolved quickly or easily. The issues are complicated enough that they must be examined in the context of the district's entire operations.
State law says that if a school board rejects a charter school request, the advocates can appeal to the education commissioner. But it’s debatable that this was a denial.
It strikes me as akin to saying that someone who fails to apply for a Permanent Fund dividend on time is being "denied" a dividend. (It is true that the decision to close Pearl Creek came more than four months after the Oct. 1 deadline, making a timely application impossible for the coming school year without school board approval.)
The school board did not act on the charter appeal, citing its policy under state law for an October 1 application deadline.
The school district says that following the timeline is not the same as a denial.
State law says the commissioner is to "determine whether the findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence and whether the decision is contrary to law."
Since there are no findings of fact by the Fairbanks school board, there is nothing for the commissioner to review.
The law also says that "If the commissioner approves a charter school application, the commissioner shall forward the application to the state Board of Education and Early Development for review and approval."
Bishop’s letter added to the confusion. “Without a decision of the school board, I am functionally unable to conduct my review to determine whether the school board’s findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence.”
All of this is entirely separate from the real debates about the specifics in the charter application and the unexamined impacts. I worry that the charter movement has weakened public education and that this proposal will widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.
It’s much harder for people who don’t make much money to send their kids to charter schools—transportation and the requirement to provide a certain number of volunteer hours are two of the obstacles.
The lower class sizes in charter schools are a great idea. But they come at the expense of neighborhood schools where class sizes are growing. That's a problem, one that the school board, the state school board, the Legislature, the governor, the borough assembly and the voters have refused to grapple with.
For now, however, the immediate problem is the lack of time. If this is to move forward at all, it should be for the 2026 school year, allowing time for a comprehensive review.
I have not seen a clear examination about how this plan relates to the day-to-day operations of other schools in the district. There is a complicated relationship here that has to be understood. It is not about one school.
Key questions include these: What impact would this have on class sizes in other schools? What would this mean for the budget for the entire district? Would this hasten the need to close another school or schools?
Here is the Pearl Creek charter school application.
Here is a school district letter saying it did not act on the proposal and would review it in the fall, citing the Oct. 1 deadline.
Here is the education commissioner’s May 12 letter.
Here is the school district’s analysis of the entire matter.
Here is the June 6 appeal by the charter school advocates to the education commissioner.
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