Alaska school districts named in lawsuit over public funds used for private schools

Yahoo

08-02-2025

An empty courtroom in the Boney Courthouse in Anchorage. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Four Alaska school districts have been sued by a group of parents and teachers as part of a legal case alleging public school funding for correspondence programs is being used illegally for private school tuition.
In a court filing Thursday, the plaintiffs named the Anchorage, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Denali Borough and Galena City school districts as defendants in the case, along with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.
The filing is the latest in a years-long court battle over how Alaska distributes payments for correspondence school programs — which most homeschool students attend — and whether they can be used for private schooling.
Last year, an Anchorage Superior Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and said that use of public school funds for private schools is unconstitutional. The state appealed the decision to the Alaska Supreme Court, who reversed the ruling and reverted the case back to the lower court. The court issued a summary order citing some constitutionally permissible uses of correspondence program payments, and said that in order to proceed with the lawsuit, the plaintiffs must name specific school districts whose correspondence programs they argue are unconstitutional.
The court has not released their full opinion on the judgment to date.
Families can receive up to $4,500 per student per school year from school districts under current law. There were more than 23,000 students enrolled in correspondent programs last year – about 18% of all Alaska students. The public funding allocated to correspondence schools in 2024 amounted to over $119 million, according to court documents.
Scott Kendall, the plaintiffs' Anchorage-based attorney, said his clients brought the lawsuit after learning about the growing trend of families enrolling in correspondence programs to use the funds for private schools — some schools even advertised for it.
'So for example, we have a parent handbook for Galena (City School District), which runs the IDEA homeschool program,' he said. 'That parent handbook specifically says, enroll your kid in private school full time, and you can get the maximum amount of your allotment for reimbursement. … 'So keep in mind, the more private school classes you enroll in, the bigger a check you can get.''
The lawsuit argues spending on private school tuition is unconstitutional, and Kendall emphasized it's a misappropriation of public funds and the true cost is largely unknown.
'We don't know if this is a $20 million problem or $100 million problem, because to date, the Department of Education has been completely opaque on how many kids are doing this,' he said. 'All we know is that it's happening and that it's growing.'
Kendall said school districts are required to track reimbursements, and so the true amount will be revealed in court.
'Homeschooling is a right. Every parent has the right to do that. The problem is, some parents have been engaged in a bit of a farce,' he said, and they argue that those dollars take away from the public school system.
'These funds are actually counted as public school funds,' he said. 'Even though the money is going, in many cases, directly to a private school. And that, to me, is really problematic.'
The state has emphasized that the correspondence programs are public school programs for public school students. The state and parents who use state money to send their children to private school last year asked the Alaska Supreme Court to decide whether it is constitutional for families to spend the homeschool allotment on full-time private school tuition. The court declined to do that when it overruled the judge.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The Department of Law did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said Friday that last year they had heard public testimony from families about their use of homeschooling funds, and some practices she believes are unconstitutional and inappropriate.
'They saved it up year after year after year so that they could pay for their child's flight lessons or take trips to Hawaii for cultural experience and exposure. And there were several folks who said that they also used their allotments to offset their tuition to private schools. And for my reading, my plain reading of our constitution, it indicates that those are not necessarily constitutional uses,' she said. 'And so I am looking forward to hearing the cases that are made on both sides, and I'll be following it closely to see if there is a need for us to revise legislation going forward.'
Sen. Shelley Hughes, R-Wasilla, has been a vocal supporter of families' choices for educational options, and the governor's efforts to expand correspondence school programs. 'I'm glad it's being addressed, because we need to know what the courts decide one way or the other,' she told Alaska Public Media in an interview on Friday, shared with the Alaska Beacon.
Hughes argued that public education funding is already going to private vocational programs, higher education programs, and preschools. 'So if we allow it for before K-12 and after pre-K-12, there's an equal protection element there with K-12,' she said. 'So I think we need to figure it out and get it right.'
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE