Wrangell schools are not short of dedicated staff, engaged students or supportive parents. But what the district is short of — and getting shorter — are students and funding.
That is a bad combination, putting stress on the schools as management puts together a budget for the 2022-2023 school year, and creating a serious long-term problem that needs the full attention of the school board, borough assembly and, most importantly, the community.
The Wrangell School District has been losing students for the past 25 years, dropping from more than 500 kids enrolled in grades K-12 for the 1991-1992 school year to about half that number this year. Enrollment had been holding just over 300 students a few years ago, but then COVID-19 spurred a lot of parents to pull their children for homeschooling or other options. The district has recovered from its low of about 200 students, getting back to around 250, but enrollment is only part of the problem.
The other part is money. State funding will cover about 60% of next year’s $5 million school district draft budget. The state foundation formula, as it is called, is based on enrollment. Fewer students means a lot less state money to cover a lot of the same fixed costs.
State foundation formula funding to Wrangell totaled $3.7 million for the 2020-2021 school year, and is projected to fall by almost half-a-million dollars for the 2022-2023 school year.
It’s not just lower enrollment that is squeezing the state’s contribution to public education in Wrangell. The Legislature, and governors, have not increased the per-student formula since the 2017-2018 school year.
That is far too long.
The Wrangell district has been surviving on federal pandemic relief aid, stretching out the one-time money to cover budget potholes the past couple of years and plans to do the same next year, too. But that money will run out. The latest draft budget for the 2022-2023 school year shows the district ending the year next June with just $360,000 in its general reserve fund, down from about $1.2 million in July 2020.
It’s a familiar fiscal picture for Alaskans: Spend down reserves rather than confront the harder choices, which include the Legislature and governor agreeing to boost the state funding formula; maybe a larger contribution from the borough, which means from Wrangell residents through taxes; or eliminating even more programs for students.
At some point, the bare minimum of programs barely resembles a full-service school.
The school district and borough assembly have talked about the problem and are fully aware of its seriousness. The community also needs to pay attention and push elected officials in Juneau to help schools across the state. The funding formula that worked in 2017 no longer works in 2022, especially not as higher costs are making it harder on schools to do their job.
And the community needs to think through why it has lost so many students and if there is anything it can do to reverse the trend. The arrow is pointing down, and that is a painful direction.
Wrangell Sentinel
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