HOW ADVOCATES FOR SCHOOL TRUST LANDS (ASTL) CAME TO BE

Why ASTL was started:   Three women decided that the school beneficiaries of 45 million acres and tens of billions of dollars held in permanent school funds should have a voice.  They had worked to reform the mismanaged school trust lands and funds in Utah. Their research disclosed decades of abuse of the school lands and funds including loaning the School Fund to the state and never paying the debts back, sweetheart deals, sales to state agencies way below market value, capturing school lands in state and national parks with no payments, using trust dollars for needs other than schools, and the list goes on and on. There needed to be strong voices to enforce states to honor their fiduciary duty to schools. Funds were going to state boards of education instead of schools, the real beneficiary named in their statehood act and constitution. Schools were being ripped off.

1785:   No one knew the 1785 Congress had created real trusts for schools when granting over one hundred million acres to states at statehood. Public schools across the West needed advocates to ensure states were acting with undivided loyalty to public schools. Can you believe that today most states call these school lands “State Lands” and act like they own them. Only Idaho, Minnesota, and Utah call them by other names like endowment lands in Idaho, state trust lands in Minnesota, and school and institutional trust lands in Utah.

1999:  Margaret Bird, an economist with the Utah State Office of Education, and Karen Rupp, then Vice President of the Utah PTA, decided to do something about that. Both had full-time jobs and even more full-time families. They decided they would never have more time, but the job needed to be done. The Children’s Land Alliance Supporting Schools, or “CLASS,” was created. Organizing education leaders in 20 mostly Western states was a huge job so they invited the new Utah PTA Legislative Vice-President Paula Plant to join them.  They drove to South Dakota to meet with the Western States Land Commissioners who managed the 45 million school acres. The Land Commissioners were divided about a beneficiary organization---some wanted to make CLASS a subcommittee of their organization; others welcomed the voices of beneficiaries of the trusts they managed. The CLASS organizers decided that a strong independent organization of state school board associations, state PTAs, NEA state affiliates, and other supporters of public education was needed to assure the best interest of schools was foremost.

2001:   From the beginning, CLASS has been an organization of volunteers who have advocated for the beneficiaries of trust lands and funds, mostly as partners with the Land Commissioners, but when necessary as opponents. The first annual CLASS conference was held on a shoestring in 2001 with representatives of 10 states at Ruby’s Inn in southern Utah. They found funds for organizations to come. Bylaws were adopted, and a Board of Directors was elected with one member from each of the major education groups, some at-large positions, and producers of the revenue from the land. CLASS received federal 501(c)3 non-profit status in 2002, and two Congressional earmarks to meet the growing demand for services by member organizations in 16 states. 

2016:   The Board of Directors changed the organization’s name to Advocates for School Trust Lands (ASTL), to better describe the job being done. ASTL continues to research, inform, and support its beneficiary members as they advocate for schools in their own states and with their land commissioners and legislators