Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

The cuts are being proposed as school board members trying to reconcile a roughly $8.5 million forecast budget shortfall, and come as community members fervently advocate to keep their programs.

The district is going to come up about $8.5 million short if it wants to operate next school year with the same number of employees and programs as it is this school year.

Josh Bolling, 17, is a junior at Kenai Central High School. Alaska’s state school board is a group created by state law to head up the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.

Aurora Borealis Charter School will welcome ninth and tenth graders to the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s first charter high school program next school year.

Approval from the Alaska Board of Education came roughly two months after Kenai Peninsula school board members also signed off.

Early estimates put the district about $8.5 million in the red if it maintained the same staffing and programs next school year.

Aurora Borealis Charter School pitched two new grades – ninth and tenth – to the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s charter school committee Monday in Soldotna.

The district attributes the anticipated shortfall to a decrease in state and local funding next year caused in part by a forecast net drop in student enrollment and a rise in the taxable value of borough property.

School board members generally supported the plan, but said they want more information about each scenario before signing off.

On today’s episode of the Kenai Conversation, we’re joined by Zen Kelly and Virginia Morgan, both of whom are former members of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District board of education.