For the first time in recent history, the Anchorage School District will not be opening its doors for summer school.

This means more than 6,000 student will not be attending summer classes this year and one of the important teaching tools that the Anchorage community has counted on will stay in the toolbox.

The shut down affects summer school for elementary and middle school students primarily but also limits summer school for high-schoolers to credit-recovery classes.

The Anchorage School District’s iSchool online classes will remain available however. The accelerated classes online cover a myriad of classes from health to economics to forensic science and beyond. Although, in order to partake of these classes, the student needs to have a computer and Internet acccess, although there is help available for students who lack these resources. iSchool classes cost $100 a course.

In response to the announcement that summer school will be seriously curtailed this year, Representative Les Gara released a statement.

He pointed out that House Democratic Legislators offered legislation as well as amendments to reverse the cuts that caused the closures, but that those offerings were defeated on party lines.

“Yesterday’s announcement that summer school was cancelled is a hit to students who deserve or need the opportunity to continue learning throughout the year, but it was not unexpected. Many of us fought to reverse the four-year trend of teacher, staff, and education cuts, but so far, the Legislature and governor have not listened. They’re asking schools to do more, then forcing them to cut the people and opportunities students need to succeed.”

The Anchorage School District suffered a $20 million shortfall leading to the summer cut-backs.