Gov. Sean Parnell speaks Wednesday at the Native Forum at the ANB Hall as Edward K. Thomas, past president of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, stands by to direct a question-and-answer session.
Story last updated at 3/4/2010 - 10:57 am
Gov. Sean Parnell's proposal for scholarships got both applause and some skeptical questions during his first address at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall since becoming governor.
Parnell said his scholarship proposal will change education in Alaska, and cause parents to demand improvements for the opportunity for their children to go to college.
"This opportunity could be transformational in nature," Parnell said, speaking to the ANB Camp 2 and Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes' Native Issues Forum on Wednesday.
While Parnell acknowledged that some of the state's rural schools didn't now offer the classes to meet the scholarships requirements, he said they would begin to offer them if the scholarship plan was imposed.
Parnell's plan is being modified in legislative committees, but it offers full tuition scholarships at state colleges to students who receive A grades, take a rigorous class load and achieve a minimum score on a college placement test.
Lower grades would earn smaller scholarships.
The rigorous course load would require students to take four years each of math and science, compared to the two years now required.
Right now, Parnell said, more than one-third of students who begin ninth grade don't finish their senior year.
"If we give them something to work for, something to fight for, something to hope for, things can change," he said.
Kimberly Clark, a member of Angoon Sen. Albert Kookesh's legislative staff, said that Kookesh's huge rural district included 25 of the state's 52 school districts, and couldn't always offer the required classes.
"A lot of the schools, they have one teacher teaching all their high school students, they don't have the expertise to teach the advanced classes," she said.
She asked Parnell whether he would support new funding to help schools offer more classes.
Parnell said that those classes are already available by distance education, and that schools will likely find ways to offer them if they're demanded by students and parents.
Parnell also supported his efforts at domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, and said the problem in Alaska was statewide and across all cultures.
"It's an issue that's ripping us apart," he said, adding that Alaska needed to change its tolerance of those issues if it is to protect its children. "It's going on around us, and its wrong."
Parnell got cheers when he said he'd hire more Village Public Safety Officers each year until there was one for every village that wanted one.
• Contact reporter Pat Forgeyat 586-4816 or patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.
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