Mat-Su Assembly withdraws request to start school after Labor Day

What you need to know:

• The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly voted to scrap a formal request that the school district move the first day of school from mid-August to after Labor Day starting in 2027. Members instead agreed to discuss the proposal informally with the school board.
• Several assembly members criticized the resolution as an overreach into school board affairs. District officials plan to survey parents again about their preferred school calendar.
• Supporters said a later start could benefit families involved in farming and hunting and help ease bus driver shortages. School administrators warned the change would extend the school year into mid-June, disrupt high school testing schedules and worsen
• Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.

PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly this week voted to scrap a formal request that the Mat-Su school district move the first day of school from mid-August to early September, after Labor Day.

A resolution approved earlier this month asked the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School Board “to change the start date for all schools in the borough to the day following Labor Day, beginning in 2027.”

Rather than send the request to the school board, the Assembly voted Tuesday to cancel it and instead discuss the idea informally during an upcoming joint meeting.

The resolution was proposed by Assembly member Michael Bowles and initially approved 5-2, with Assembly members Maxwell Sumner and Ron Bernier voting no.

Bowles said moving the start date could help families who rely on farming and hunting and might ease bus driver shortages.

School administrators said starting school in September would require the district to push the end of the academic year into mid-June and force high school students to take end-of-semester tests after the holiday break instead of before.

It would also worsen the bus driver shortage because many drivers take tourism jobs starting in May but do not finish them until well after Labor Day, administrators said.

Bowles said the resolution was meant as a conversation starter. But other Assembly members said voting to request such a change went beyond talking about an idea and amounted to telling a separate group of elected officials what to do.

“This is not a discussion starter. That’s not what the terminologies here say,” Assembly member Dmitri Fonov said during Tuesday's meeting. “We’re pretty much telling them, demanding (of) them what to do. And knowing that we control funds, I could see that could be used as intimidation, and I don't think that's our position on the school board. We want to have this discussion, we want to have this conversation, but we should not demand here the superintendent and demand the school board to change this.”

The Assembly voted 6-1 against the request, with Bowles voting no.

Sumner, who also voted against the initial resolution earlier this month, said the document, discussion and vote were a waste of time.

“I feel like I'm going crazy because we have a lot to deal with on our plates, and this is not something that's in our lane,” he said during the meeting. “We spent a lot of time on this pointless resolution that is outside of our scope of job duties, and I think we need to stop.”

Debate on the matter consumed about 45 minutes across two Assembly meetings and one school board meeting this month, according to meeting transcripts. Information on how much time borough and district staff spent crafting the resolution or related materials was not immediately available.

District officials said they plan to conduct a new survey asking whether parents prefer a September start date or a late May end date. In a 2023 survey of about 2,500 parents, 75% preferred an August start date over a June end date.

-- Contact Amy Bushatz at contact@matsusentinel.com