Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

Kenai Peninsula Borough School District employees voted Wednesday to strike next fall over rising healthcare costs. Members of both unions representing teachers and support staff in the school district voted overwhelmingly in support of the strike if both parties can’t agree on terms of a new contract this summer.

Now that spring is more or less here, it's time for the annual sprucing up and cleaning rituals. Volunteers across the Peninsula can be found along highways and lakes and rivers, picking up what’s been left under the snow all winter. KDLL’s Shaylon Cochran caught up with a few students from Soldotna who were cleaning up at recently at Centennial Park.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly’s annual meeting in Seward usually has a fairly light, local agenda. But this year, they’ve even switched venues from city hall to the more spacious high school auditorium as education funding measures on the agenda are sure to draw a crowd.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is holding meetings across the Peninsula to gauge public opinion on different options to consolidate or close schools in the face of expected budget cuts. At a public meeting this week, district officials discussed the possible consolidation of Soldotna Prep into Soldotna High School, putting freshmen through seniors back in the same building for the first time since 2014.

Education funding, even more than most years, will be a hotly contested topic in the coming weeks. There's one line item in particular the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is lobbying for. On this week's Kenai Conversation, we talk to John O'Brien, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction for KPBSD about mental health care in schools and the district's request for $600,000 to add more counselors, especially at the elementary level.

As budget negotiations continue between the Kenai Peninsula Borough and the school district, one line item that’s a holdover from last year is the addition of more school counselors. The district requested $600,000 to create four new elementary counselors, and also expand what’s offered in the high schools beyond the two counselors currently working in the district at Kenai Alternative High School and Homer Flex. The district’s Assistant Superintendent of Instruction, John O’Brien, spoke with KDLL’s Shaylon Cochran about what role those counselors will play, if the funding is made available.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly and administration from the borough school district held a budget work session Tuesday afternoon. The money struggles the district has been dealing with the past several years don’t look to have much relief coming in the next budget cycle.

Education funding. It’s the single biggest expense for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, and paying those costs with current levels of revenue is getting more and more difficult. Last year, the school district ran a deficit of about $2 million. That could be the case again this year, with a projected deficit between $1.3 million.

New student assessments have been released based on a new rating system for school. The new system replaces the Alaska State Performance Index and schools on the Peninsula range widely.

Times have been tight in recent years. The district has run through most its savings trying to bridge multi-million dollar budget gaps the past three years. At a budget work session with the school board this week, Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones said despite cutting administration staff through attrition and other means, cuts in the classroom still loom large.

Negotiations continue between the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and its teachers and employees unions. Teachers and staff went to work in August without new contracts and the two sides were stuck mainly on health care costs. Another meeting Wednesday night didn’t provide much forward movement.