State lawmakers weigh costs, benefits of school policies, programming

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - House lawmakers on Monday met to review three different education-related bills, including legislation focused on teachers’ student loans and programming; funding student meal programs, to include breakfast and lunch in participating school districts; and a ban of mobile devices, such as cell phones, in public schools across Alaska.

House Bill 12, led by Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks, would direct the state to provide funding to districts for free breakfasts and lunches for any student who requests them. The meals would be free of charge to the student.

Staffers of Dibert explained Monday that about half of all Alaskan students qualified for free or reduced-price meals last year, and that federal pandemic-era funding helped cover free meals for kids across the state. However, they said, those funds have dried up, leaving many districts — and students and families who benefited from the free meals — in a lurch.

Now, a fiscal note of what lawmakers said amounts to more than $28 million is being proposed to bridge the gap for all but nine districts that, as of now, aren’t participating in the national school lunch programs.

Alaska Children’s Trust President and CEO Trevor Storrs said in part that meals help set students up for success and reduce a burden that many Alaskan families face.

“Nearly 20% of Alaskan kids live in homes that experienced food insecurity at some point during the year,” he said, “but the benefits of this legislation go beyond supporting student nutrition.

“Hunger can hinder learning, focus, and overall performance,” he continued. “Schools across the country are implementing free meal programs because of the educational and health benefits for their students.”

Lawmakers, however, had questions for Dibert’s staffers, who were in attendance in her place during a House Education Committee meeting Monday.

“A lot of our districts are pretty tight, as far as who is working in the building, especially the very small schools,” said Rep. Rebecca Schwanke, R-Glennallen. “I’m a little bit concerned about the extra cost of this program to administer because we have several rural schools where — for various reasons — our kitchens don’t qualify.

“We have a lot of volunteers from the community,” she said. “They bring food, they donate game meat, they cook meals. And replacing something like that with the free lunch program actually changes the dynamic of the community, and it changes a good thing that is happening in the community.”

At least eight states have passed “school meals for all” policies, according to Clarissa Hayes, who serves as deputy director of the Food Research and Action Center out of Washington, D.C. In Alaska, as of now, many schools take from their general funds to help cover meals provided to students, according to lawmakers.

HB 12 is being held over with lawmakers anticipating responses to several of the questions that were posed Monday but went unanswered.

Separately, lawmakers are considering House Bill 57, which would ban non-school-issued devices during regular school hours — including lunch and passing periods — in an effort to reduce risks that sponsors say are related to the use of cell phones in schools.

Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, sponsored HB 57 and said Monday that even having access to a cell phone “degrades student achievement and increases the rate of bullying,” noting that mental health issues being seen in adolescents are a major factor in pushing forth the legislation.

Some argue that cell phones in schools can be beneficial, for example, to access resources; facilitate communications between students, parents, and teachers; and serve as a means of action in the event of an emergency.

However, multiple lawmakers have been eyeing a mobile device ban in public schools for some time, with several having pushed for related legislation last year — which have now been combined, culminating in the form of HB 57.

“There is a growing body of evidence about the negative impact of cell phones and social media on academic achievement,” Fields said to the House Education Committee. “Both myself, Sen. (Bill) Wielechowski, and Gov. (Mike) Dunleavy all drafted bills to essentially do the same thing.

“My bill is now consistent with the proposed language from the Administration,” he added, ‘And we had a lot of discussions about that."

Certain technologies, such as hearing aids that utilize wireless connections and are considered medical, would still be allowed even if HB 57 passes the Legislature.

You can read the full text of the bill by clicking here.

Also reviewed was HB 28, which centers on student loan repayments for teachers in Alaska.

Alaska Commission on Post-secondary Education Acting Executive Director Carrie Thomas told lawmakers that since its inception, the higher education investment fund has been used for various purposes. Specific to loan repayment, she said, there has not been an appropriation from the higher education investment fund for that.

HB 28 would establish a student loan repayment pilot program in which potential recipients would apply through the commission and meet a set of requirements — such as the applicant has been a resident of Alaska for at least a year before completing a post-secondary degree or certificate program outside of Alaska, and carrying student loan debt — in order to possibly receive up to $8,000 in grant funding on an annual basis, for a maximum of three years, with the program totaling up to $1 million in grant distribution yearly.

“We did have a forgiveness program, which is different than the loan repayment structure we’re talking about now,” Thomas explained, adding that the program ended decades ago. “There has been no loan repayment program offered through the Alaska Commission on Post-secondary Education ... The program ended because it was not financially sustainable.”

Bill sponsor Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau, said the bill is meant to be part of a solution to the outmigration seen in Alaska.

“We have lost a lot of our talented youth and other people who have gone out for their education and gotten some good skills that we frankly need,” Story said, noting particularly high vacancy rates in schools. “So, this is an incentive to encourage those people to come back home.

“We know Alaskans who have grown up here, who have lived here for a while, that they are more apt,” she said. “They know this place. They have connections, typically. And we know they are more successful than when we have hired people from other states, who have come up and not put their roots in as deeply because their roots weren’t started here.”

Read HB 28 in full by heading to this webpage.

See a spelling or grammatical error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

Copyright 2025 KTUU. All rights reserved.