Juneau Schools

Juneau School District’s high school graduation rate went up after the first year of consolidating schools.

Superintendent Frank Hauser said at a Juneau Chamber of Commerce lunch Thursday that more than 96% of Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé students graduated in four years last school year. 

The increase followed the first school year after the district consolidated its two high schools. The year before the consolidation, the rate was 93.8% at Juneau-Douglas and 90.44% at the former Thunder Mountain High School.

The rate for HomeBRIDGE, the district’s homeschool program, increased by 5.95% to 75%. And 4.24% more students at Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School graduated in four years, placing the rate at 65.22%.

Hauser did not provide the district’s overall graduation rate at Wednesday’s presentation. According to the district’s annual reports on indicators of success, that number has stayed at or above 80% since 2016.

Juneau School District Superintendent Frank Hauser is resigning.

In an announcement on the district’s app on Friday, Hauser said he will resign at the end of June next year.

“It has been my honor to lead the district during this time,” Hauser wrote. “But after several years of long days, late nights and weekends working, I have decided it’s time to make a change.”

Hauser was unavailable for comment on Friday.

Outgoing Juneau school board member Emil Mackey said he is grateful for Hauser’s dedication to the district and the state’s children.

“The Juneau School Board has been very fortunate to have such a competent and dedicated leader like Superintendent Hauser to guide us through the largest fiscal crisis that this district’s ever faced,” Mackey said.

He said he hopes the board will be able to find another candidate with similar qualifications.

The district hired Hauser in 2023, following the departure of former Superintendent Bridget Weiss. Hauser led the district through a $9.7 million budget shortfall that led to closing and consolidating its middle and high schools.

Hauser has also been a strong advocate for districts across the state against the Department of Education and Early Development’s proposed changes that would have limited how much funding municipalities could give to schools.

Hauser said in his letter he doesn’t have career plans following his resignation but looks forward to being able to make it to dinner with his family more often. 

Preliminary results are in for Juneau’s 2025 municipal election. 

They show that most residents don’t want to implement a new seasonal sales tax system in Juneau next year, but are in favor of the two measures that aim to reduce the tax burden on individual residents.

According to the results shared by the city, 3,534 people voted no on Proposition 3 while 2,514 people voted yes — a 1,020-vote difference. 

Proponents say the change would take advantage of 1.7 million cruise passengers that come to town each summer, while giving year-round residents a break during the winter. Opponents say the system won’t actually save residents money in the long run. 

Meanwhile, early results show both Propositions 1 and 2 passing. Both were put on the ballot by an advocacy group called the Affordable Juneau Coalition.

Proposition 1 seeks to cap the rate the city uses to determine how much residents pay in property taxes each year. Results show yes votes are leading by less than 100 votes. 

Proposition 2 would exempt essential food and residential utilities from local sales tax. Votes in favor of the proposition led handily, with 4,173 people voting yes, while 1,867 people voting no.

District 2 Assembly candidate Nano Brooks narrowly outpaces incumbent Wade Bryson for his seat on the Assembly. Brooks is leading by a mere three votes. 

Incumbent Assembly members Greg Smith and Ella Adkison ran unopposed for their seats. Smith is seeking his third, three-year term on the Assembly, while Adkison is seeking her first full term. She was originally elected to the Assembly in 2023 to fill the remaining two years in the term of a member who resigned. 

Steve Whitney, Melissa Cullum and Jeremy “JJJ” Johnson are leading in the race for the three open seats on the Juneau Board of Education. Write-in candidate and current board president Deedie Sorensen trails behind all four candidates on the ballot by nearly 1,000 votes. 

Voter turnout as of Tuesday’s results was just under 22%. However, things could change significantly. The tally shared on Tuesday only includes ballots that were mailed in or dropped off before Election Day. That means there could be thousands of votes left to be counted. 

The results shared Tuesday night are subject to change —  more updated preliminary results will be shared by the city in the coming weeks. Results won’t be certified by election officials until Oct. 21. 

Find the latest election news at ktoo.org/elections.

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Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi High School teacher Electra Gardinier talked to students during a recent mock election in her fourth period U.S. Government class. She had spent the week explaining the different candidates and propositions. Now the students – most of whom are too young to vote – were casting their votes on sample ballots.

“So you have a ballot in front of you, and it looks like what I have in my hand, and on that ballot, it is asking us to vote on Proposition One, Two and Three,” Gardinier told the class. “We just talked about those propositions. It also asks you to vote for your Assembly member and school board members.”

Gardinier tallied up the votes in the school board race after class.

“For the last candidate, it looks like we would not be able to come to a consensus. Oh, no. Jeremy — J. J. J. So J. J. J., Steve Whitney and Jenny Thomas,” she said.

Students also approved all three ballot propositions in this year’s election. 

Gardinier said students that attend Yaaḵoosgé do so because they have been unsuccessful in some part of their education. She said that makes it really important for her to give her students a voice in this class.

“Sometimes that can mean that we have a population that already feels marginalized, academically, let alone how they’re feeling in other aspects of their life,” she said. “And so a lot of times, I fear that that creates this apathetic mentality of like, ‘nothing ever gets better for me. It doesn’t matter how I think. Nobody cares what my views are.’”

Gardinier said she wants students to feel engaged and heard, while also understanding what they are voting on.

“When I’m teaching, I try not to put anything above a sixth grade level. And it’s fascinating to me that a ballot is absolutely written at a level beyond that,” she said. “So I mean, I have kids who are not going to understand what they’re voting for, and that is something that I’m trying to combat.”

How did government students’ votes stack up over at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé?

Eighty students voted in that mock election. They “elected” Jenny Thomas, Melissa Cullum and Steve Whitney to the school board.

For the Juneau Assembly, Nano Brooks eked out a narrow victory over Wade Bryson by one vote in the only contested race. 

As for the ballot propositions, the students approved the first two questions, but narrowly voted down the proposed seasonal sales tax. 

At least one student at JDHS will actually be able to vote this year. 

Samuel Lagerquist filled out his ballot ahead of Election Day. He said the structure of the class helped him learn more about the different candidates and ballot propositions. He said he also learned about how his peers are thinking.

“In this class, I was kind of presented with some different perspectives that I didn’t really think about, mainly concerning the first two ballot measures,” Lagerquist said. “It also offered a really good place to, like, kind of stay updated, and motivated me to stay updated into the actual news.”

Lagerquist said he feels it’s important to vote in a local election, even when statewide and national elections often see larger turnouts.

“The sales tax or ballot initiative ones are gonna have a more, like, day-to-day, actual, real effect on me. And so I think that, honestly, it’s probably more important than, like, your national elections, even though, you know, those are really important,” Lagerquist said.

While he doesn’t plan to be in the state for college, Lagerquist said he plans on voting absentee in next year’s Alaska election, when the governor and two congressional seats will be up for grabs.

Amy Lloyd teaches government at JDHS. She said the results for the mock election were a bit unexpected.

“I thought it was going to be 70/30 and it was more like 50/50 which shows me that they understand the value of their vote, and even if they didn’t say anything in the conversation, they voted how they wanted to vote,” Lloyd said. “So that was pretty cool.”

 She said it’s a big responsibility to teach students about the government. 

“We are living in America, we’ve got to understand the government,” she said. “It’s really exciting to teach a class that is so obviously in their best interest to know and learn and pay attention to.”

Real ballots in Juneau’s by-mail election must be returned by 8 p.m. Tuesday. Initial results are expected later in the evening.

Davin Savikko wears a lot of hats at Kax̲dig̲oowu Héen Elementary School. In addition to teaching integrated arts, he also works as the school’s librarian. And the library looks really, really different this year.

On Wednesday, Savikko walked around and pointed out handmade signs marking different sections and genres, from “spooky stories” to historical fiction and staff picks. Sunshine streamed through stained glass windows, lighting up the “everybody books” section of the library. Picture books filled cubby-like shelves on top, with books filed in a traditional manner on lower shelves. 

“It was really cool to get these new bins like you see at the public library that are accessible for young kids,” he said. “Before it was just, everything looked spines out and it was just really overcrowded.”

The school closed temporarily in 2022 after flooding from burst pipes. While students could go back to the school a couple months later, the library needed more repairs.  Instead of bookshelves, books sat in cardboard boxes that Savikko dug through as needed.

 The school received the final insurance reimbursement earlier this year. About $94,000 went toward buying materials for the library, according to meeting minutes from an April Facilities Committee meeting.

Between waiting on insurance payouts and getting supplies, it took more than three years to reopen the library.

“Imagine, like, three years of dread just looking at these boxes and knowing, like, you don’t really have the power to do anything with them,” Savikko said. “I didn’t have the shelving, we didn’t have the insurance money, etc, and so now it’s just so freeing to have this really beautiful space that I am really proud of. “

Shortly after the flood, Savikko turned half of the library into an integrated arts classroom. Students learn different art skills and connect it with what they’re learning in classes. Savikko said it’s built as a fluid space where students can come and go. But there was a bit of confusion when the library first opened. He said many students didn’t know how a library worked.

“They’ll be like, ‘how much does this book cost?’ You know, and things like that. And so it’s like, ‘Ah, well, the library books are for free. You get to check out books,’” he said. “So I’m really excited to give them this opportunity that they deserve.”

Savikko said the library can support classroom teachers by being a space for students to explore their interests. Since the Alaska Reads Act passed in 2023, Savikko said teachers have more focused skills to teach. While teachers can still build in more flexible time in their days, Savikko said the library is a place that’s well suited to support students on that front.

“The kids want two things. They want a choice in their education, and they want to have a voice in their education. 

Principal Katie Koski said it was a community effort in the school to get the library back together. The previous principal helped to work out the insurance settlement. In the meantime, teachers kept classroom libraries, and students would also go to the Mendenhall Valley Public Library nearby with their class. Koski said she’s excited to see what students can do in the new space.

“The library, in many ways, can be like the heart of a school,” she said.

And now, that heart is beating again.

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Deedie Sorensen did not plan on running for another term. But earlier this week, rumors circulated that she would run as a write-in candidate. Sorensen said on a call with KTOO Monday that she hadn’t heard the rumors. She also said she didn’t plan to run.

“Apparently, I was the only person that hadn’t heard the rumor that you called me about,” she said during a phone interview Wednesday.

Two days later, things had changed. Sorensen said people reached out to encourage her to run.

“The message I got on Monday was – from way too many people – was that they wanted another choice,” she said.

Sorensen filed with the city to run as a write-in candidate Wednesday. She’s now the fifth candidate vying to fill three seats on the board. This would be her third term if elected. 

Sorensen’s tenure coincided with a tumultuous period for the Juneau School District. She spent her first term largely working through the COVID-19 pandemic. She also served as board president when the district decided to close and consolidate Juneau schools to fill a $9.7 million budget deficit. She survived a recall effort following the consolidation last year.

Sorensen said she thinks the district is making progress since the consolidation. If elected, she said she’s interested in following the academic performance of sixth graders, who were lumped in with elementary school instead of middle school after the closures. 

She said the candidate forum hosted by KTOO and the League of Women Voters of Juneau last week influenced her decision.

“The overall message to me, for some of the candidates, was not an overwhelming desire to promote public education,” she said.

She said that commitment is necessary to serve on the school board.

“You need to be a real advocate for (the) best public education and for, you know, all the students,” Sorensen said.

Sorensen worked as a teacher for the district for more than 35 years.

This isn’t the first time someone has filed to be a write-in candidate for the school board in recent memory. Former school board member Will Muldoon ran a successful write-in campaign for his first term in 2021.

Sorensen is the only write-in candidate so far this year. As of Thursday morning, no one else has filed as a write-in candidate for the school board and Juneau Assembly races, according to the city clerk’s office. The city mailed ballots to registered voters on Sept. 19. Juneau voters have until Oct. 7 to return them.