Juneau Schools

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Students used hammers to stamp different shapes into pieces of leather in the last moments of a maker space class at Thunder Mountain Middle School. Shortly afterward, another class filed in and got to work. Student Nia Paw learned how to dye a leather wallet from her classmates. She put on latex gloves and poured out thick, dark dye to make the wallet brown.

“We have dye and, like, some sort of cloth, and we have to rub it in, in like, a circular motion,” she said.

This isn’t a typical class – it’s part of the Juneau School District’s summer school program to get students ready for middle school.

Around 40 to 50 incoming seventh graders spent three weeks at Thunder Mountain Middle School in July as part of a transition program. Students from across the district navigated a larger building, juggled a class schedule and hit a major milestone – learning how to open lockers.

Paw, who went to Sayéik: Gastineau Community School in Douglas, said she liked meeting new people from outside of her school. But it wasn’t all fun and games.

“I think the only downside is the amount of stairs,” Paw said.

Working alongside her is Xander Thaler, who went to Sítʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ – Glacier Valley Elementary School on the other side of Juneau. He said he feels ready.

“I’m excited I get to have the opportunity to finally go to middle school after waiting six years,” Thaler said.

He said summer school also introduced him to many other students from around the district.

“I like the socializing that I’ve done,” he said. “I feel like I’ve made new friends. I feel like I’ve met new people, and also I can get comfortable to the people I meet next year.”

His mom, Casey Locklear, said she was glad Thaler and his twin brother got to do the program, and wants them to pay that forward when the school year starts.

“If they saw somebody that did seem lost or they didn’t know where to go, what to do, to make sure to help them, so that we could expand the knowledge of the program itself, and help their friends,” Locklear said.

Lexi Razor is the principal of summer school this year. She spends the school year teaching math at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. Razor said students from all backgrounds do the program, and that it’s good to see them become more comfortable on the large campus.

“There’s a range of kids here,” she said. “There’s kids here that don’t typically like school or go to school, and so getting them here to kind of learn the environment is going to be helpful. And then we also have kids in the program that like school and are good at school, but they’re also building some confidence.”

These programs don’t just help students. Mae DelCastillo is a parent of an incoming seventh grader. She said the program puts her at ease as it prepares her daughter for middle school.

“As a mom, it really did give me so much comfort because she’s just now mentally prepared and just excited to start middle school,” she said.

Her daughter Lucena said she’s the only person from her group of friends at Auke Bay Elementary School to do the program. She said she’s excited to show her friends how things work when the school year begins.

“My friends are gonna be like, ‘I’m so scared,’ she said. “And I’m like, ‘You’re not gonna be scared, because I’m gonna be like, right there.’” 

Seventh graders do have another chance to familiarize themselves with the middle school. The district will offer a tour on Wednesday, Aug. 13 in the evening, one day before the official start of the school year.

Registration for after-school child care in the Juneau School District opened last Friday, but the information the district provided to families did not line up with the actual application process. The district will cease to operate the Relationships and Leadership Learning for Youth program, known as RALLY. It will be operated by Auke Lake Preschool beginning in September.

The district announced that registration for RALLY would begin Aug. 1 on Auke Lake Preschool’s website. But enrollment information and registration links for RALLY weren’t available then and are still not active as of Monday afternoon.

Auke Lake Preschool’s co-owner Derik Swanson said in an email to KTOO that families should instead submit a preschool application that is available on its website with a note that it is for RALLY. He said to add a first and second choice for site preference to the application as well.

Lauren Sanzone has been sending her children to RALLY since 2022 and tried to register this week. She said it’s stressful but they want to continue using RALLY for afterschool care. She’s also working on a backup plan for child care.

“I am fortunate that I have a good paying job and I have the privilege of being able to pay for childcare, but I also don’t have confidence that I could even find an alternative at any price that would provide consistent afterschool care for my kids,” she said.

The district said RALLY will run at Auke Bay Elementary School, Harborview Elementary School and Sítʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ – Glacier Valley Elementary School. The district said in a frequently asked questions page that Auke Lake Preschool will maintain the same monthly cost as the district.

The district-run summer child care program is scheduled to end this Friday, but the district will continue to provide transitional care for children enrolled in Auke Lake’s program until the end of the month. The district has not provided details on the transitional care.

The new RALLY program is expected to officially open Sept. 1.

Contract negotiations between the Juneau School District and the Juneau Education Association stalled Thursday when both sides declared an impasse. This comes as the district and the teacher’s union enter their sixth month of negotiations.

In a joint press release, the district and union cited state education funding uncertainty as one of the obstacles in negotiations.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed more than $50 million in state education funding this year. The Alaska Legislature is scheduled to meet in a special session this Saturday to vote on overriding the veto. 

The district is also waiting to see how a proposed state regulation change for municipal funding contributions and a federal disparity test appeal will impact its budget.

District and union representatives could not be reached Monday for comment.

Negotiations began in February this year. The district’s initial proposal included a 2.5% salary increase for the contract’s first year and a 1.5% increase in the second year on top of raises for more work experience and training.

The district is also proposing an additional 1% retirement plan match and flat funding for health insurance contributions. Teachers have several options for health insurance plans, including a free employer-compensated option.

JEA’s proposal includes a 10% raise in salaries for both years and for the district to cover 85% of health insurance premiums. The district estimates JEA’s proposal would cost nearly $28 million more than its version.

The district and union will now enter mediation. Both parties also declared an impasse during the previous bargaining cycle in 2022, which lasted more than a year.

Longtime Juneau School District board member and board president Deedie Sorensen says she is no longer planning to run for reelection. She’s been known as a longstanding advocate and voice for teachers during her six-year tenure.

Sorensen says she will finish out her current term but plans to step down after this October’s municipal election for personal reasons. Earlier this year, Sorensen told KTOO she did plan to run for reelection.

“I’ve given a lot of years to public education in Juneau, and it’s been extremely stressful and I would actually like to retire,” she said. 

Sorensen is 74 years old and a retired elementary school teacher who taught in Juneau for more than 35 years. She holds a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education. During her career, she was an active member of the Juneau Education Association and served as a staff member on many district committees. 

Juneau voters first elected Sorensen to the board in 2019. She was then reelected for a second term in 2022. While on the board, she helped the district navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and the consolidation of Juneau’s high schools and middle schools. 

Sorensen and fellow board member Emil Mackey were the subjects of a recall attempt in last year’s election. The effort was led by a group of residents who wanted to remove them in part due to their votes in favor of the consolidation. But election results showed that most voters were against removing the pair and both held their seats. 

“I really appreciate the community support last year,” she said. “That was absolutely one of the highlights of the whole thing was the community support during the recall.”

Sorensen said she stands by the decisions the board made during the pandemic and the consolidation process. She said a lot of the difficult issues the school board faces could be solved if the state and federal government adequately funded districts. She described the current state of public education in Alaska as walking on the edge of a cliff that’s eroding under your feet.  

“I feel like the last seven years have been, at the state level, have been an assault on public education,” she said. 

She said state and federal moves to shrink government funding for education undermine the basis for a well-informed public.

Sorensen’s is one of two school board seats that will be open this election. There’s also an opportunity to serve a partial term following former school board member Will Muldoon’s abrupt resignation this spring. 

As of Thursday afternoon, the city clerk’s office has not certified any candidates for those seats. The deadline to file for a seat in this election is Monday, July 28, at 4:30 p.m.

Updated correction: Emil Mackey no longer plans to run for school board.  

The Juneau School District Board of Education accepted a $145,000 grant from a Juneau philanthropic foundation Monday.

The money from the Juneau Community Foundation will maintain a counselor position at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé for another year and go toward professional development for counselors.

The grant money is the last piece in the funding puzzle that allows the district to keep counseling services at the same level as last year at the middle and high school. 

Grant funding for three positions ended earlier this year. The board originally budgeted to retain two of them. The new grant takes care of the last position.

This is the third position the board added this month as the district gears up for the next school year that starts Aug. 15.

The district approved adding a librarian and administrative assistant to handle homeschool registration last week after receiving more state funding than it originally anticipated.

But funding remains uncertain on a state and federal level. 

The federal government has blocked more than $400,000 the district planned on using for English language learners, professional development and enrichment education.

The district also estimates a proposed state regulation change from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development could cost it at least $8 million in local funding and services.

A windfall of state education money means the Juneau School District Board of Education can pay off debt and hire new positions. But looming funding uncertainties on a state and federal level could mean future cuts.

The board had $994,688 extra to work with after legislators boosted state education funding, even after Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto. At a meeting Tuesday, members opted to put most of it toward the district’s transportation and food service deficits, as well as a new school librarian and a registrar for the district’s homeschool program.

Board member Amber Frommherz said they have to really consider what’s necessary.

“Everything right now is a moving target and … we are all trying to budget for a moving target with disappearing pots of money,” she said.

Last week, the federal Department of Education blocked millions in grants for Alaska schools. The district is supposed to receive $419,694 of funding for those programs.

That money pays for a high school computer science class, as well as support for English language learners, professional development and four staff members. District officials say they could reassign some staff members, but the board set aside $80,000 to keep the programs’ administrator if the blocked funding doesn’t come through.

Board member Emil Mackey said the district shouldn’t count on the frozen federal dollars.

“I regard them as gone until proven otherwise, because that is the stated intent of this administration, and it’s the stated policy of the Supreme Court to allow that to happen,” he said.

There’s state funding uncertainty, too. A proposed regulation change from the state Department of Education and Early Development could cost the district $8 million in funding, as well as services provided by the City and Borough of Juneau.

Several board members like Mackey were in favor of closing the deficit in transportation and food service.

“This is an intergenerational deficit that if we don’t address each single year, we pass it on to the next group of students,” Mackey said. “It will compound, and eventually there will be a day where this becomes an oppressive amount.”

Mackey said he would only approve the deficits, but later voted to approve the homeschool and federal grant administrators.

The district also approved adding an administrator to act as a registrar for the growing number of homeschool students. State data shows HomeBRIDGE had 224 students in October last school year, and 164 were in high school.

Board member Steve Whitney supported the position because it would support students who he said really need it.

“I just think it’s worthy that for that number of students we have. It sounds to me like this is understaffed and and especially relative to other schools, especially if you compare the amount of services students are getting,” he said. “So I think that is justified to add back in.”

The Dzantik’i Heeni campus, which houses three schools, will also be getting a librarian. Member Elizabeth Siddon said the students need it, even with funding uncertainties.

“These are hard conversations and frustrating conversations, and there’s a lot of, like … theoretical crises happening all around us,” she said. “But when I think about those students at that Dzantik’i Heeni campus, you know, walking to school August 15, they deserve a library.”

The board funded the positions, but the district still needs to recruit and hire staff to fill them.

These additions took up most of the additional revenue the district received. The board chose not to continue the long-running universal free breakfast service, and did not add staff to support teaching math and reading at elementary schools.

The school year begins Aug. 15.

Editor’s note: Amber Frommherz is a member of KTOO’s board.