The Alaska House Education Committee adopted a committee substitute for House Bill 98 on March 20, changing the bills metric from a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) average to a maximum class-size standard and limiting initial application to districts with an average daily membership of 35,000 students or more.

Representative Rhett Fields, the bill sponsor, told the committee the substitutes central change is to replace PTR, a staffing average, with a hard maximum for class size because PTR can mask individual classrooms that are unteachable, he said. Fields said the substitute as drafted would affect the Anchorage School District and that he was open to expanding coverage if other legislators request it.

The primary difference between the original bill and the committee substitute is the committee substitute changes our class size metric from pupil teacher ratio, or PTR, which is an average, to maximum class size, Fields said, adding the substitute also lowers the threshold for covered districts from 40,000 to 35,000 average daily membership.

The committee adopted the substitute by voice after a brief procedural objection was removed; no roll-call vote was recorded on the motion. The sponsor then presented the bill for invited testimony and committee questions; the committee held the bill for further consideration after testimony.

Invited testifiers offered differing emphases but general agreement that class-size extremes harm instruction. Tom Claymeier, president of NEA Alaska and a high-school social-studies teacher in Eagle River, urged either statewide caps or at minimum inclusion of the states large districts. Claymeier said PTR and simple averages conceal the distribution of students across classrooms and described concrete classroom impacts.

The average class size at Huffman Elementary in Anchorage is 24.9, Claymeier said, and then described that in that school fully nine of those 12 classes are above that average — a distribution the average conceals. He recommended class-size and special-education caseload caps and said any limits should be paired with adequate funding.

Mike Bronson of the NAACP Anchorage education committee told lawmakers his groups data show a large share of kindergarten entrants in Anchorage score well below benchmark on district screening, and he urged the committee to use incentives or grants — not exemptions — to reduce overcrowding. Caroline Storm, executive director of the Coalition for Education Equity, testified in public comment that the bill draws attention to chronic underfunding and that increased funding (including prekindergarten investment) is necessary to hire the teachers HB 98 would require.

Committee members asked about the evidence base (Fields cited randomized studies such as Tennessees STAR and an adequacy analysis he referenced to frame trade-offs), whether class-size maximums should target early elementary grades first, and how a state-level mandate would interact with local budgeting and collective bargaining. Witnesses and members repeatedly emphasized that additional funding or a grant mechanism would be necessary to make mandated maximums binding and sustainable.

The Department of Education and Early Development provided a departmental fiscal note stating no fiscal impact to DEED; Representative Fields said the bills intent is to identify the total funding needed to achieve particular class-size limits and that actual costs to implement (for example, lowering K3 class sizes to 15) would require further fiscal analysis. Committee members discussed applying the measure to the big five districts, tailoring approaches for small rural districts, and possible phasing tied to appropriations.

Action at a glance: the committee adopted the committee substitute for HB 98 (change PTR to maximum class size; threshold 35,000 ADM) and held the bill for additional hearings and fiscal analysis. No final passage or statutory change occurred at this session.