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The school district is requesting $1.75 million from the borough for the 2024-2025 school year budget, an increase from the $1.6 million contribution of the past two years. Even with the increase, the budget will draw down more than half of the school district’s reserves to balance revenues with expenses. The uncertainty of any increase in state funding is adding to the budget stress at Wrangell schools and districts across the state. The state funding formula has increased little more than a few dollars in the past seven years. The annual b...
The chamber of commerce at its annual awards dinner last weekend honored several members of the community for their service, including the fire department and emergency medical services crew, municipal electric line crew and borough employees for their response to the deadly Nov. 20 landslide that hit Wrangell. “Nowhere was the ‘I can help’ spirit more evident than in November of last year when a tragic landslide befell our community. For weeks, volunteers and first responders showed just what an amazing place Wrangell is,” said Carolin...
Hundreds of high schoolers across Alaska participated in an organized walkout April 4 in protest of the Legislature’s recent failure to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of an education funding bill. The bill would have included a historic increase in state money for public education. Outside Eagle River High School in the Anchorage School District, more than 100 students stood outside in the blustering snow for nearly a whole class period chanting “Fund our education!” and “Save our arts, save our sports!” Similar protests — all organized...
An experienced Fairbanks educator who has dreamed of moving to Southeast for years will finally achieve his goal when he starts work in August as the new secondary school principal in Wrangell. Greg Clark will be the new principal for the high school and middle school. He was among 16 applicants and chosen from three finalists. The school board approved the contract and Schools Superintendent Bill Burr hired Clark on March 18. He will replace Jackie Hanson, who is leaving at the end of the...
The Alaska Marine Highway System’s ongoing crew shortage has eased up for entry-level steward positions but remains a significant problem in the wheelhouse and for engineers, likely keeping the Kennicott out of service again this summer. As of March 8, the state ferry system was short almost 50 crew of what it would need to put its full operational fleet to sea this summer, which means keeping the Kennicott tied to the dock, Craig Tornga, the system’s marine director, reported to a state Senate budget subcommittee on March 19. That is abo...
The 6-month-old Wrangell Athletic Club has raised more than $10,000 toward its mission of paying for student travel to state competition, with plans to raise a lot more. Meanwhile, the school district has advanced more than $40,000 for student travel to state competition in the 2023-2024 school year. The school board last year appropriated $46,000 to cover a deficit in the travel account for the 2022-2023 school year, with the cautionary advice that it did not plan to repeat the spending this year — and would look to the new fundraising g...
The district’s electric school bus, originally scheduled to arrive in late spring through the federal Clean School Bus program, has been delayed until March 2025 due to a backlog of orders at the bus manufacturer, which could be too late for the terms of the grant’s fall deadline. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr explained the reasons for the delay at a school board meeting on March 18. The delay could pose a problem, as the grant deadline requires the bus to be on the job by October. Burr doesn’t know yet whether the grant can be salvaged. “We...
Almost half of the students enrolled at the school district are counted as Alaska Native. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr confirmed that out of a total of 270 students enrolled in the district, 122 are registered as Alaska Native, while 13 are American Indian. “We’re 50% or really close,” he said. “Some of those might be mixed, depending on which parent filled it out.” Burr added that while Kim Powell, the district’s administrative assistant, had told him that the ratio has always been around that percentage, statistics from the state and f...
Alaska lawmakers fell one vote short Monday in an attempt to override the governor’s veto of a comprehensive school funding bill, which included a permanent increase in the state funding formula for K-12 education and which could have provided an additional $440,000 for the Wrangell school district. The additional funds would have covered about two-thirds of the deficit in the Wrangell district’s draft budget, reducing the amount of money it will need to pull out of reserves for the 2024-2025 school year. The vote in a joint session of the Hous...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy sank to a new low last week when he vetoed a bipartisan, long-needed comprehensive education funding package that had passed the House and Senate by a combined 56-3 vote. Yet he reached for new heights in explaining his low decision to deny school districts their first meaningful increase in state funding since 2017. More specifically, he boarded the Starship Enterprise, which is as much a stage prop as are his reasons for vetoing the bill. At a March 15 press conference to explain his veto, Dunleavy called the state’s p...
South Anchorage high school teacher Logan Pitney said his colleagues are making exit strategies to flee their bad financial prospects in Alaska. He called Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s teacher retention bonus plan a “Band-Aid on an arterial bleed.” Juneau Superintendent Franks Hauser called the governor’s charter school policy change proposal a “statewide solution without a statewide problem.” They were among dozens of teachers and school administrators who rejected Dunleavy’s education policy proposals at recent legislative hearings in Juneau. There’s...
March 13, 1924 Work will begin about the first of the month on a third story for the Wrangell Hotel. E. G. W. Morris will have charge of the work. In addition to the work of adding a third story, there will be many improvements throughout the entire building. Hot and cold running water will be supplied in all rooms. Twelve or 15 baths will be distributed over the building. When the third story is completed the Wrangell Hotel will have 76 rooms. The Wrangell Hotel, when the addition is completed, will be ahead of the town, but there is little...
STATE PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE will be in Wrangell on Thursday, March 14. Immunizations, birth control and STD screening, well-child exams for kids up to age 6, TB screening and medication, Narcan kits and medication disposal bags will be offered. The Public Health Center is in the Kadin Building, 215 Front St. Call 907-723-4611 to make an appointment in advance so the nurse knows what immunizations to bring. PUBLIC TESTIMONY will be accepted on the state budget 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday March 14, at the Legislative Information Office. The House Finance...
The Wrangell school district is proposing to draw down about half of its reserves to balance the upcoming year’s budget, and Schools Superintendent Bill Burr warns that the solution is not sustainable for the long term. The school board at its Feb. 26 meeting reviewed with district business manager Kristy Andrew the first draft of the budget for the 2024-2025 school year. The budget shows general fund revenues of approximately $5.2 million — of which about 60% is from the state foundation funding formula — and expenses of more than $5.8 milli...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued an ultimatum to state legislators on Tuesday, saying he will veto a multipart education funding bill unless lawmakers pass separate legislation that contains his education priorities. Speaking from his office in Anchorage, the governor said lawmakers have two weeks to reconsider his proposals for the state to fund teacher bonuses and also set up a path through the state for new charter schools to bypass the local approval process, two items that were voted down during legislative debates over the education bill. If...
Alicia Armstrong's senior project is unique in that it could change the timing of future senior projects, which are a requirement to graduate from Wrangell High School. She wants to make the concept more structured and planned so that students can start preparing for it in their junior year. "The idea would be to meet with the counselor that first semester of junior year to go over the expectations of what a senior project is ... what it looks like," Armstrong said. "And then, you would then...
Feb. 7, 1924 Wrangell’s Town Team triumphed over their rivals, the American Legion, in a fast and rough game at the rink on Tuesday night, 25-12. The basketball game was played as a benefit for the high school team which was leaving the next day for Seattle. Nearly a hundred dollars was garnered from the game. Speed once more won out over brawn when the two teams met. The floor work of Scribner, the 230-pound fairy, Totts Lewis and Mickey Prescott was too much for the big men on the Legion team. The first half of the game was close and e...
Robb Arnold has withdrawn his candidacy to represent Ketchikan, Wrangell and Metlakatla in the state House. Arnold wrote in a statement to the Ketchikan Daily News on Thursday, Feb. 1, that he had ended his campaign. Under state law, Arnold could not continue in his job as a chief purser for the Alaska Marine Highway System and run for state office for the same time. It appears he was unaware of the law when he announced for the Legislature in December to challenge incumbent Rep. Dan Ortiz in District 1. Alaska statute says that, with some...
Jan. 31, 1924 Arrangements have been made whereby the Wilson & Sylvester Mill Co. sawmill is to become a lumber manufacturing plant on a large scale. The present mill will resume operations next week, and at the same time work will begin on the installation of new and modern machinery in addition to that already in operation. Within a year the Wrangell mill will have a capacity of 100,000 board feet daily. New people have become financially interested in the mill, and as an indication that big things are not only planned but will be carried...
The Wrangell school district will have to do without federal pandemic-era grants for the next school year, creating a sizable gap in revenues and requiring spending cuts and/or pulling money out of savings to balance the budget. At a work session Jan. 15, the school board reviewed with district business manager Kristy Andrew a draft budget for the 2024-2025 school year. The district has been using the federal aid to cover the salaries of its two school principals, but this is the last year that money is available. “With the exhaustion of our CO...
Pick your cliché: Push comes to shove; between a rock and a hard place; money is tight; living within your means; don’t spend more than you can afford. Children need a quality education to succeed in life. Just because the cliches flow easily, don’t expect the answers to be as easy. The school district is in its last year of federal pandemic relief aid, which it has used to cover the salaries and benefits of Wrangell’s two school principals. That means district officials and the school board will have to absorb those expenses into an already ti...
The Alaska Legislature failed on Jan. 18 to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of $87 million in one-time additional state funding for the 2024-2025 school year. The vote was 33-26 and did not fall along party or political caucus lines. Forty-five votes were needed to override. The failed override capped days of legislative maneuvering and months of unsuccessful lobbying by public-education advocates. Attention now switches to a bill that would permanently increase the state’s funding formula for public schools. Unable to agree last year on...
Since Artha DeRuyter arrived in town three years ago with her husband, clinical psychologist and current school board member John DeRuyter, she has provided flowers and floral arrangements for residents from their floating home in the harbor, in addition to selling her wares at other venues like the monthly community market at the Nolan Center, prompting her to name her blooming business OnTheWater Floral. Originally hailing from Fairbanks, DeRuyter has been involved with flowers, whether as a...
Juneau school administrators are facing a severe budget shortfall partly related to flat state funding and declining enrollment. But much of the crisis comes from accounting errors that “drastically” undercounted staffing costs. The city’s school board learned Jan. 9 that the district is projected to be $7.6 million in deficit for the current fiscal year and carrying over a $1.9 million shortfall from the prior fiscal year. The combined $9.5 million deficit equates to roughly 10% of the district’s total budget, and it’s expected to keep ball...
It’s been eight years since the state last increased its per-student funding formula for public schools — a 0.5% nudge that year — and years of stagnant funding have caught up with districts statewide, including Wrangell. “We have to count on funding this year,” Schools Superintendent Bill Burr said. An increase in the state formula “is essential to us.” The state’s K-12 foundation funding covers almost 60% of the Wrangell district’s $5.3 million operating budget for the 2023-2024 school year, with borough funds filling about 30% and mostly fe...