The Facts - Overview

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The superintendent is the only employee of the School Board and takes all their direction, expectations, and receives approvals from the School Board.

  • Emil Mackey was first elected to the School Board in 2015, took a leave of absence in 2018 and was re-elected in 2019 and for 8 years has given direction and approvals to 3 different school superintendents.
  • Elizabeth (Ebett) Siddon was elected in 2018 and for 6 years has given direction and approvals to 2 different school superintendents.
  • DeeDee Sorensen was elected in 2019 and for 5 years has given direction and approvals to 2 different school superintendents.
  • Elected in 2021, Amber Frommherz  has given direction and approvals to 2 different school superintendents.
  • Elected in 2021, Will Muldoon has given direction and approvals to 2 different school superintendents.
  • Brittney Cioni-Haywood and David Noon were both newly elected in Fall 2023 and had been in office less than 4 months when the "deficit crisis" was announced.  They have given direction and approvals to 1 school superintendent.
  • Since January 2024, the Juneau School District (JSD) has lost 55 valuable, experienced educators and para-educators totaling hundreds of years of educational talent and experience lost to our children.  This does not include all essential support staff, such as: nurses, librarians, office staff, custodians, etc.  Currently, the district has 22 teacher vacancies (5 general education, 8 special education and 3 special education specialists) and 44 support staff vacancies throughout the district. 
  • The 2017 Facilities Study, contracted in 2016 by CBJ to analyze and assess our education facilities, identified a declining student population at the elementary school level, significant facility maintenance needs, building capacity issues.  The contractor provided optimal consolidation recommendations, however, the Juneau School District (JSD) failed to heed the warnings presented and took no further action.  The study was not adopted by CBJ/JSD, nor did they authorize the next phase where the contractor would have developed the recommendations into a strategic plan.
  • In September 2023, CBJ contracted JYW/Ericson & Associates to determine if and how the 2017 Summary could be updated and developed into an adoptable Comprehensive Facilities Master Plan.  With short turnaround, an Updated Executive Overview was provided as a companion to the original study, highlighting important data points and updating some information. This information was presented at the September 26, 2023 Joint Assembly/JSD Facilities Committee.  Sorensen, Muldoon, and Hauser were in attendance. 

 

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  • Per the contractor, the 2017 Summary had concluded that wide-scale changes might be needed to align district facilities with district needs.  Changes in enrollment and funding since 2017 have likely just exacerbated the issues highlighted in 2017.  No further action was taken by CBJ / JSD despite consistent, independent analytical evidence and JYW/Ericson & Associates willingness to develop a strategic plan.

  • 9/29/23 Finance Committee meeting minutes posted on JSD on November 14, reflects that board members were warned, by the previous CFO, of a looming $5.4 million deficit. Board members also discussed the best option for community engagement throughout the budget process.

    No additional finance committee meeting minutes were posted for the remainder of the 2023-2024 school year.  

  • 1/10/2/24 JSD publicly announced they were in a $9.5M budget crisis and needed to consolidate schools, then hastily pushed out an undesirable Consolidation Model which was voted on and approved by the Board a mere
    33 business days later.

  • 2/10/2024, Juneau Education Association (JEA) sent an email to the board warning them of an overstatement of expenses in the budget.  Further, Dr. Noon restated strong concern about the JEA warnings to the Superintendent, warning that JSD was overstating costs significantly.  Remarkably, concerns from both parties went unanswered.
  • On 2/22/24, the Juneau School Board (JSB) violated the Open Meetings Act, when after the initial consolidation model vote failed to pass by 4 to 3, a recess was quickly call by VP Mackey and the members went off mic to pressure two Board members to flip their NO votes.  Then a "new" motion was presented, by removing a couple words, and a 2nd vote was held to successfully get the consolidation model passed.  This vote was held after 12:30am, more than 7 hours into the meeting.

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  • 3/4/2024, Despite significant public testimony & demand for conditions on the loan of taxpayer dollars, CBJ Assembly approved 3 ordinances totaling $9.5M to bail out the Juneau School District, including increasing CBJ’s percentage share of school building expenses.  This did not include the added expense burden for CBJ to assume maintenance of three empty JSD buildings that were returned to the city.

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  • 3/28/24 The consolidation letter was sent to Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) and the approval from DEED was reported in the April 16 Superintendent’s report and two days after the recall petition received books.

  • 4/8/24, the day before the recall petition books were provided to the petitioners, Superintendent Hauser issued an Administrative Regulation which sought to block any signs or gathering of signatures on school property - a direct violation of the 1st Amendment and Bill of Rights.  School property IS public property.

  • At the 4/12/24, Finance Committee meeting, the JSD financial expert admitted that she may have “overstated expenses” resulting in no actual FY24 budget deficit.  This turn of events was likely in response to the stark reality of the petition process to recall Sorensen & Mackey launched just two days earlier.

  • 4/22/2024, JSD announced it went from a $9.5 million debt to a $633,185 surplus for the FY24 school year, but still needed to consolidate for the FY25 year to fix the deficit.

  • To date, the JSD has not presented, in its many meetings, the matrix used to equitably compare the costs of various consolidation models, the transition plan developed for students and staff (pre, during and post consolidation), or a long-term plan outlining future steps to minimize disruptions due to continued flat state funding and declining enrollment. 

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