Such a program, Dunleavy said, could provide funding to families who would have otherwise received correspondence allotments, with no strings attached.

Dunleavy said his administration estimates that the state spends around $120 million per year on more than 20,000 correspondence students. Not all of that money is directed to allotments — in most cases, half the funds directed to correspondence students are used to cover the costs of school buildings, staff members, and administrators, among other expenses.

"We don't ask people how they spend their PFD. For all we know we may have families using their thousands of dollars in their collective PFDs on their churches. We don't ask what they do or how they spend their money. So we may be looking at an educational dividend," said Dunleavy.

Dunleavy also said he would consider repurposing a fund currently used to provide university scholarships to instead pay out scholarships to grade-level students, which could be used more freely than allotments.

Before the enactment of the statutes that Dunleavy had proposed, the state education department had put in place regulations governing correspondence schools, including limits on how allotments could be used and statewide reporting requirements.

"We shouldn't be here and we don't need to be here," said Sen. Löki Tobin, a Democrat. "We could propagate emergency regulations today to stabilize the system. We could ensure that our families know and are able to predict what comes in August."

Zeman, the judge, also said correspondence allotments could continue with the right legislative action.

"If the legislature believes these expenditures are necessary — then it is up to them to craft constitutional legislation to serve that purpose," he wrote.

However, Dunleavy said that "statutory considerations won't remedy the situation."

Wielechowski said the governor's unwillingness to advance legislation while an appeal is underway makes action in the final weeks of the current legislative session unlikely.

"If there's no alignment between the executive and the Legislature, it makes it a challenge to pass legislation," said Wielechowski. "My concern with that is it provides uncertainty to people who are homeschooling their kids."

(c)2024 the Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.