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ASD governance committee weighs adopting class-size policy to meet House Bill 57 targets
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Summary
The Anchorage School District governance committee discussed a draft class-size policy intended to comply with House Bill 57, agreed to post a Fairbanks model as a starting point, and asked administrators to develop reporting and administrative regulations before returning the item to committee.
The Anchorage School District governance committee discussed a draft class-size policy April 23 aimed at meeting requirements in House Bill 57 and agreed to use a Fairbanks model policy as an interim starting point while administrators develop implementation details.
Board member Kelly Blessings, who introduced a detailed draft, said the policy’s purpose is to "connect our budget cycle" to class-size targets and to make public the reasons the district could not meet statutory levels. "If we cannot afford class sizes at the levels indicated by House Bill 57, I want the public to know why we can't afford class sizes at that level," Blessings said.
The conversation focused on whether the policy should be aspirational or prescriptive and on technical issues about which classrooms count toward the statutory "target average class size." Members noted the statute excludes library, music, computer science, vocational tech and physical education classrooms; Blessings read the statute’s limits that "for grades K through 6, the target average class size may not exceed 23, and grades 7 through 12 may not exceed 30." Committee members and administrators agreed much of the operational detail belongs in administrative regulations and that a public dashboard or monthly reporting could help transparency, though staff warned the district currently lacks automation and compiling class-size data is labor intensive.
Deputy Superintendent Sven Gusterson and staff described the district’s complexity — co-teaching, aides, mixed-level classes and program-specific enrollment rules — that makes automated class-size reporting difficult. Committee members asked administrators to propose ARs and reporting options and to return to governance with revised materials. The committee agreed without objection to post the Fairbanks policy as a starting point and to place the item on the next governance meeting agenda for further work.
Next steps: administrators will draft recommended administrative regulations and a reporting approach; the governance committee will revisit the matter at its next meeting.
