A Superior Court judge is expected to rule next week on whether his ruling striking down a broad swath of Alaska’s home-school laws should be put on pause and, if so, for how long.
Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman ruled that the changes made to Alaska’s school laws in 2014 by then-Sen. Mike Dunleavy were so constitutionally flawed that it required striking down large portions of the law. At the heart of the case is a growing practice of private and religious school families applying for allotments to subsidize their tuition, taking advantage of the loosened laws — a scheme that Dunleavy has since defended.
The Alaska Constitution expressly prohibits public dollars from benefiting private and religious schools. Dunleavy has argued that it’s the families, not the schools that benefit. Judge Zeman disagreed, noting that the amount of public funds a single family could spend on private and religious school tuition could cross $350,000.
Just what it means for home-school families isn’t entirely clear. Judge Zeman noted that it’ll be up to the Legislature to craft a constitutional program, not the courts, but the Legislature has also been deeply divided on the path forward with some pushing to install the necessary guardrails to prevent public spending on private and religious schools while others have advanced plans to amend the Alaska Constitution.
Both the state and the plaintiffs — a group of parents of children in traditional brick-and-mortar schools — agree that a pause before the ruling goes into effect is justified, but disagree on the length. The judge doesn’t have to grant a pause, but is expected to with all parties calling for one.
The state has argued that an indefinite pause on the ruling is justified because they claim the underlying ruling by Judge Zeman is so vague and over-broad that it could prohibit schools from buying textbooks or basic supplies from private companies. In its briefing, the state paints a near-doomsday scenario for public education, writing that “the court’s decision causes an earthquake in the education system.” The Department of Law complains that Judge Zeman wasn’t more specific about the needed fixes to the program, though it concedes a straightforward fix is doable.
“The court suggested that the legislature could save the program, but the court’s sweeping decision leaves little room for such a fix,” the state argues. “The plaintiffs’ main concern was that student allotments are sometimes used to pay for classes or tuition at private schools, and it’s true that the statutes could be amended to prohibit such spending. But this statutory tweak would not comply with the court’s ruling — on the contrary, the court applied such a broad reading of the constitutional term ‘educational institution’ used in (the Alaska Constitution) that the court’s ruling would render unconstitutional even basic purchases by brick-and-mortar public schools from private businesses like textbook publishers or equipment vendors.”
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs accuse the state of being hyperbolic about the impact of the ruling and say that a simple fix that plainly outlaws spending on private and religious schools could remedy the constitutional concerns. To that end, they’ve asked for a pause through the end of this school year, recognizing that teachers, students and families are near the end of the school year and that pulling the rug out from under them would be more disruptive.
The order argues that “even though some amount of unconstitutional spending might occur in that two-month window, having the order take effect at the end of the fiscal year will provide needed certainty to school districts and parents.” It goes on to argue that it would also give everyone involved a reason to reach a final resolution, likely at the Alaska Supreme Court, sooner than later.
The concern over potential foot-dragging was given credence on Wednesday when most House Republicans voted in favor of a non-binding resolution that voiced the chamber’s support of a stay on the ruling, allowing the spending to continue into 2025. Several Republicans argued that the Legislature couldn’t possibly be expected to come up with a solution in the remaining three weeks of the legislative session or in a special session this summer, which Gov. Dunleavy suggested was a possibility at a news conference last week.
“This is simply asking the court for that time,” said House Rules Committee Chair Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, who cited the division over the resolution — which passed 20-18 — as evidence of the impossible task ahead of them.
Rep. Johnson also went on to complain that the ruling was so vague and over-broad, largely echoing the thinking laid out by the Dunleavy administration’s Department of Law.
However, not everyone is convinced that legislation is even needed to restore the constitutional guardrails on the program.
According to a memo requested by Sen. Bill Wielechowski and included as evidence in the plaintiffs’ briefing, the Department of Education has the power to restore much of the home school program to its pre-2014 status through regulations.
“May the executive branch implement these pre-2014 regulations again to ‘fix’ the correspondence program allotment issue raised in the Superior Court? The short answer is yes,” explains the memo. “Nothing currently precludes the state board from enacting regulations governing correspondence study programs, including regulations that are similar in substance to (home school laws); ie, regulations that require an individual learning plan for each student enrolled in a correspondence study program and that allow for student allotments. The regulations, however, may not permit the use of public funds for the direct benefit of private or religious educational institutions.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.