But a new plan being crafted by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department envisions Marine Park as a town square or village green. The planning process kicked off yesterday (Wednesday) with a meeting at the park to gather public input. Casey Kelly was there and has this report.
The Juneau School Board last night (Tuesday) delayed action on an update of the district’s search and seizure and student privacy policies.
District Spokeswoman Kristen Bartlett says the board wants to undertake a more thorough review of the proposed changes, which would clarify how school officials handle searches of student belongings, as well as details regarding consent and parental notification.
One notable change from current policy: Student vehicles parked on school grounds would be subject to the same search regulations as lockers, desks, backpacks and other student possessions.
Courts have given districts a lot of leeway to search student belongings on school grounds in order to protect the health, safety or welfare of the school community.
The update would make clear that any search more intrusive than a simple pat down is to be handled by law enforcement, which must obtain a search warrant.
Current policy says, if possible, parents or guardians should be notified before a search. The update adds that if it’s not possible, they should be notified as soon as possible after the search occurs. It also says parents should be informed of the district’s search and seizure and privacy policies annually, at the beginning of the school year.
Bartlett says the school board will revisit the proposed changes in September.
In other news, Bartlett says board members will wait until after this fall’s city election before deciding what to do about a possible vacancy on the board.
The vacancy would occur if no one steps forward to run a write-in campaign. That’s because only one candidate – Board President Sally Saddler – filed to run for two open seats during the just concluded candidate-filing period.
Official write-in candidates must file a letter of intent with the city clerk’s office at least five days before Election Day, or September 29th.
If no one steps forward to run a write-in campaign, the board will have 30 days after Election Day – October 4th – to fill the vacancy. The person selected will serve until next year’s regular election.
Juneau’s weather may resemble October this week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t imagine a nice sunny stroll on the downtown waterfront.
City officials want to hear from the public about future development at Marine Park. CBJ Parks and Landscape Superintendent George Schaaf says there’s no specific plan right now, but several ideas were outlined in the 2004 Long Range Waterfront Plan.
“How it describes Marine Park is as a village green or a town square, basically a cultural gateway to Juneau,” says Schaaf. “So, we’re looking at pretty much everything. What types of landscape do we want? What kind of hardscape? What types of programs do we see the area being used for in the future, and what construction or what kind of planning do we need to do to best accommodate that?”
The city’s Parks and Recreation and Engineering Departments will host a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at Marine Park to get public input.
Schaaf says some improvements, including an extension of the downtown seawalk to the park, could take place in the next few years. Others will be longer term projects. All ideas are welcome.
“We really want to try to get a feel for what’s important to the community, what they value about the place, and what they think we could do better,” Schaaf says.
Wednesday’s meeting will be held under the covered area at Marine Park from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Schaaf says it’s separate from, but dovetails with tonight’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting to consider a possible move of the Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial to Marine Park. That meeting starts at 6 p.m. in City Hall Assembly Chambers.
The public can weigh in on a possible move of the Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial to Marine Park at a meeting of Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee tomorrow night (Tuesday).
The memorial’s board of directors has asked the city’s Docks and Harbors Department to leave the monument where it is near Taku Smokeries, and not to build a planned cruise ship dock in front of it. But if the dock project goes forward, the memorial board says its preferred location is Marine Park.
Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee Chair Jeff Wilson says Marine Park is “the people’s park” and he wants to hear from the public about the proposed move.
“I just want to get some input from the users of that park of what they want to see in that park and whether the fishermen’s memorial really is the best place to be in Marine Park,” Wilson says.
He says the PRAC will likely make a recommendation to the Docks and Harbors Board at the end of the meeting. Docks and Harbors will use the input to decide whether the memorial should move, and take it to the CBJ Assembly for approval.
At last week’s assembly meeting, Assemblyman Johan Dybdahl expressed frustration at the assembly’s lack of involvement to this point.
“You know, I would have like to hear from all those people who have people on that memorial, and I don’t believe most of them support moving it at all,” Dybdahl said. “So, I was hoping that there would be sometime that the assembly would be able to weigh in and become a part of the decision process.”
The assembly approved the dock expansion project without considering its impact on the memorial or the annual Blessing of the Fleet held there. The project budget includes up to 2-million dollars for the potential move. The actual cost isn’t known until a site is chosen.
Tomorrow night’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee meeting starts at 6 p.m. in City Hall Assembly Chambers.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game on Friday relocated a family of black bears that had been frequenting downtown Juneau this summer.
Wildlife biologist Ryan Scott says the department had been looking for the sow and three yearlings for a couple months. He says they finally caught up with them just south on the Baranof Hotel on the hillside behind Gastineau Avenue.
“These guys have been extremely active in the South Franklin, Gastineau Avenue area. And they’ve been around for a long time, and they just didn’t seem to be getting any better,” says Scott. “And we had actually decided awhile ago to remove them, but as you can imagine, with four bears it’s a little bit complex and we were waiting for the right time, and the right place, and the right personnel and the whole nine yards, and it all came together.”
Scott says the bears were tranquilized and relocated off the road system. The sow was about 180 pounds, and the yearlings – all males – were between 80 and 90 pounds each. He says it’s unusual, but not unheard of for a female to hang onto her cubs for that long.
Scott says food in the form of human trash was probably attracting the bears to the area. He says this has been a pretty busy bear year.
“We have a lot of bears that seem to be in neighborhoods and urban settings. On top of that we have what appears to be a large crop of yearling bears, and again those are the ones that typically find themselves in weird predicaments. So, it’s definitely kept us busy,” Scott says.
He says most people do a good job of keeping their garbage in secure containers so as not to attract bears. But with a couple more months left before they go into hibernation, he says Friday’s trapping and relocation is a good reminder to everyone to be bear aware.
Five of Juneau’s 14 schools made Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act last year, down from six in 2009-2010.
Auke Bay and Glacier Valley elementary schools, Juneau Douglas High School, the Community Charter School and Johnson Youth Center achieved academic targets in each of 31 different categories to meet AYP. Three schools – Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School, Mendenhall River Community School, and Gastineau Elementary – missed in just one category. And three more schools missed only two. Thunder Mountain High School missed three categories in its third year in operation.
For the first time in three years academic and graduation standards increased under No Child Left Behind, but Juneau School District Superintendent Glen Gelbrich says test scores show more students meeting the law’s targets.
“District-wide we met 95 percent of those standards. That’s up from last year, which was 94, and up from the year before, which was 93. So, even with the higher bar, we’re meeting more of the individual requirements than we were before. When you aggregate it all into the AYP formula it doesn’t add up,” Gelbrich says.
The standards will go up again this year. The goal of No Child Left Behind is to have 100 percent of students proficient in language arts and math testing by the 2013-2014 school year.
The law breaks students into nine different subgroups, including ethnic and socioeconomic status as well as students with disabilities. Gelbrich says that aspect promotes targeted improvements.
“It encourages you and you really need to do the drilling down in order to address what some of that criteria is,” says Gelbrich. “I would argue that, I’m not sure we need the law in order to do that. We want to know about each student, where is he or she in relation to where we want them to be.”
The district will host its second annual “School Summit” on Thursday August 25th at Thunder Mountain to share the AYP results with the community.
The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development released statewide results Friday. About 46 percent of Alaska schools met adequate yearly progress last year, a 14 percent decline from the previous year.
The Obama administration recently announced it would allow states to opt out of the Bush-era law’s requirements starting this fall. State officials say they’ll review the waiver requirements when they’re announced, and decide whether Alaska will opt out.
