Mat-Su
Alaska Graduates Just 80% of Students
In 2025, roughly 1,999 Alaska students who started high school four years earlier did not walk at graduation. That is one in five.
For Every 100 Seniors, Alaska Has Only 84 Kindergartners
Fire Lake Elementary, Lake Otis Elementary, Campbell STEM Elementary. Three Anchorage schools that will lock their doors after this school year, casualties of a district staring down a $90 million def...
Alaska Never Actually Recovered
In February, the Anchorage School Board voted 5-2 to close three more elementary schools. Fire Lake and Lake Otis were running at roughly 50% capacity. The district has now shuttered eight schools in ...
Virtual Districts Are the Only Ones Growing in Alaska
Galena City School District is a village of roughly 500 people on the Yukon River, 270 air miles west of Fairbanks. It has one road in and no road out. It also enrolls 8,279 students, making it the fo...
Fairbanks Closed Three Schools. It Was Not Enough.
Christine Fik's children attended Pearl Creek Elementary, a school their family considered a community, not just a building. In February 2025, the Fairbanks North Star Borough school board voted 5-2 t...
Half of Alaska's Districts Hit Record Lows
In Sleetmute, a village of 80 people on the Kuskokwim River, an architect declared the school building unsafe for occupancy in 2021. The foundation had deteriorated to rubble. The Kuspuk School Distri...
Anchorage Lost More Students Than All of Alaska
Campbell STEM Elementary is Alaska's only STEM-certified elementary school. It has a waitlist. And it was approved for closure at the end of the 2025-26 school year because the Anchorage School Distri...
Alaska Enrollment Hits Seven-Year Low
Anchorage lost 4,530 students in seven years. Fairbanks lost 2,017. Juneau lost 753. Together, Alaska's three largest traditional school districts shed more students than the entire state did, because...
Alaska Publishes 2025-26 Enrollment Data
Last year, Alaska's public school enrollment dropped to 126,284 students. It looked like the state might be finding a floor — the previous two years had shown modest growth that nearly erased the COVI...