State ignored law with secret Pearl Creek decision

Opening the Pearl Creek charter school would probably lead to the closure of another neighborhood school in the Fairbanks area with Woodriver, University Park and Anne Wien the most likely to be reviewed.

That’s one of the key reasons why the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board voted unanimously against the Pearl Creek charter plan.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is determined to override the local government, which is a key thing to know about why the state education department and Dunleavy’s appointees on the state board didn’t hesitate to approve the charter application.

The biggest problem with the action by the appointed state school board is that it never held a vote in public or a discussion in public before approving the charter school over the objections of the elected school board.

“Members of the public have a legal right to know how the members of the State Board each voted. The State Board’s violation of the Open Meetings Act was willful, flagrant and obvious,” the Fairbanks school district says in a lawsuit filed this week.

“The State Board’s decision was made in secret. This is antithetical to any concept of a representative transparent democracy. Neither the public nor the parties were provided any notice as to whether or when the State Board met to deliberate and decide this matter. Neither the public nor the parties have been provided any notice as to whether or how the members of the State Board deliberated or voted on this matter.”

It’s been clear for months that the state action was illegal.

This is one of the reasons why the borough assembly has no business in moving ahead this week with a special meeting to advance an ordinance to lease the former Pearl Creek building to the group that is hoping to open the charter school.

Assembly members Tammie Wilson, Kristan Kelly and David Guttenberg should reverse themselves, push pause on the lease plan and respect the position of the school board, even though they disagree with it. They could always resign and run for school board.

It needs to be pointed out that one reason we are in this mess and face a challenge in paying for basic services is because Wilson and other right-wing members of the assembly manipulated the tax cap in 2023.

Charter school decisions should be made by the school board, not the assembly, not the governor and not the governor’s hand-picked state school board members.

Advocates of the Pearl Creek charter claim they will attract enough students who are not currently enrolled in district schools so that the opening of the charter will not harm district finances, but will bring in more money with more enrollment.

School board members have questioned that assertion and it remains a point of dispute.

The district and the Pearl Creek charter group were in court today debating key elements of this situation. I’ll have more later.