It’s time for Page Two: News that might not make the front page on Thursday October 16, 2025.
Hybrid course enrollment at Mat-Su Central School has increased by 28 percent over the past year due to the rapid growth of the new Mat-Su Hybrid Learning Academy.
Hybrid classes combine classroom instruction, independent study at home, and online coursework. Each course must include one-third of its instruction in person, one-third at home and one-third through an online platform such as Google Classroom or Canvas.
This model qualifies the program as a brick-and-mortar school under state guidelines — a classification that plays a key role in education funding.
In 2024, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District requested that the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development formally divide Mat-Su Central into two separate schools.
Each school now works under a specific school funding code — one for the Mat-Su Central home-based school and another for the new Mat-Su Hybrid Learning Academy. Both schools remain within the Mat-Su Central school site, but they are tracked and funded differently.
According to School District Communications Director John Notestine, the new Hybrid Learning Academy formalizes a model Mat-Su Central has offered informally for more than 15 years — in-person classes designed for homeschool students.
The new structure also helps the district generate revenue as it faces a long-term decline in state funding.
Under Alaska’s complicated school funding formula, each hybrid class a student takes counts as 0.25 of a full-time student. If a student takes two hybrid courses, they are counted as 0.5 for funding purposes. This allows the district to receive proportional funding for partially enrolled students while still supporting homeschool instruction.
Hybrid classes are free to all Mat-Su Central students. And while most students currently come from Mat-Su Central, these classes are open to any student in the district.
Notestine said students may take up to three hybrid classes per semester without changing their enrollment status. After that, they are reclassified as full-time brick-and-mortar students and become ineligible for the homeschool allotment. Homeschool students receive $2,600 per year at the elementary level and $3,000 at the secondary level.
Currently, students taking Learning Academy hybrid classes remain enrolled as Mat-Su homeschoolers because none have taken four or more hybrid classes in a semester.
Most hybrid courses are taught by Mat-Su Central’s certified teachers. Others — such as welding — are held after school at neighboring high schools, including Colony, Palmer and Houston.
To meet growing demand, nine additional teachers from across the district now lead evening and off-site hybrid courses.
This story is part one of a two-part series. Next Thursday, part two will explore course sharing and reverse course sharing — how students access classes across Mat-Su schools.
The Mat-Su Sentinel is holding a Flip the Script Election Connection Night tonight at 6 p.m. at the Palmer Depot. It’s free.
Page Two articles are written by Emily Forstner and Lee Henrikson. If you have an idea for a Page 2 topic, please email us at page2@radiofreepalmer.org.
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That’s it for today and the news on Page Two on Thursday October 16, 2025.