Michele Stuart Morgan

What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau school board?

I think I’m a good candidate. I’ve been a parent in the school district. I have worked for the school district. I was a paraprofessional for five years, and I’ve been a Juneau resident for 34 years. And I’ve seen a lot of things happening in the school and I’ve been pretty involved as a parent, and then also as just a community member.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the Juneau School District right now?

That’s the million-dollar question, or however millions it is. Probably the budget and getting the information through to the community. Also, our community shrinking, older people are staying, and younger people are moving. So it’s all connected – the school district, with housing, with everything else that’s going on. But I think right now, as we all can say, is the budget and then all the changes that that’s going to cause that’s going to trickle down to your commute on how long it takes you to get your kid to school in the morning.

Last year, the district had to solve an abrupt multimillion-dollar deficit in a matter of months. Not all residents were happy with the decisions made and it prompted a recall effort this election for two of its current members. Moving forward, what role does each school board member play in ensuring that the district remains on firm financial footing?

Well, I think one would be understanding how the calculations are done. I do know that they have a new finance system. So the first thing I would like to do is get trained on that as if I was a person working there, understanding how that works, understanding how we receive our funding. Also understanding how we can get our BSA raised, you know, get more money from the legislature. I think those are some really big things that could have alleviated that and something that everyone wants to look at going forward.

The school board voted to consolidate Juneau’s high schools and middle schools this past winter. And, with the uncertainty about education funding in the state and the district’s declining enrollment, do you think more school consolidation will be necessary in the future? If so, how will you tackle that situation?

I don’t have a crystal ball for that one. Hopefully, we can go forward and address some of those things now, so that if it does happen, they won’t be a surprise. I think that’s about looking forward. I know, since I was a kid, school districts always had money crunches. I remember doing bake sales as a kid, you know, with my mom, my grandmother. So I think just being more informed, looking at things so that we don’t get that big surprise. And we can get more community feedback, and we can get things ironed out a little quicker than we did this time.

With hundreds of more students at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé this year, issues with the lack of parking have been a hot topic. What more could the district be doing to mitigate that?

I’ve heard a lot of this from a lot of parents already. I had three sons who went to JDHS before we had Thunder Mountain. And I think there’s a lot of parking that can be utilized across the street at the UAS [University of Alaska] building. I know that we did that before. I know that people were very unhappy how it got surprised to them on the first day of school. You know, they issued tickets. They did retract those but along with everything else that’s going, I think just really communicate to people what’s happening. And look at some of those parking spaces across the way, because the kids that were going to Thunder Mountain were used to having their own cars and driving and not having a problem. So that would be how I would do it, to just kind of look around that area and see how we can expand the parking for the students.

Is student achievement where it should be in Juneau? What can the district do to improve reading and math scores as students grapple with major shifts in their school environments?

Well, they just published some of the reads [Alaska Reads Act] data, and some of our schools did really well. Other schools, they’re still kind of struggling. We’re still getting through COVID. I taught reading at Gastineau elementary school [Sayéik: Gastineau Community School], during COVID, so I know that there’s still a little whiplash from that happening.

Also getting our students used to coming back into the classroom. You’re like, ‘Well, that was three years ago,’ it’s still happening. It takes a lot to get those things ironed out. I think that our teachers, they do a great job. I know the reads [Alaska Reads Act] program, I’ve done some of that testing with some of the students, and that’s at least showing us what’s happening. And, knowing what’s happening would allow us to address it later on and I think that’s a good program to keep in our schools.