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By the narrowest of margins, 21-19, the House on the last night of the legislative session passed a bill implementing a statewide approach to how school districts intervene when students have difficulty reading. The session’s original reading legislation had been blocked in the House, opposed by several rural lawmakers and Democrats, but the Senate merged it into another education bill on the next-to-the-last day of session, forcing the House to accept or reject the entire package. The reading intervention bill was a priority of Gov. Mike D...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for the following positions for the 2022-2023 school year. All positions are open until filled. Elementary Teacher: This is a full-time teaching position in Grades K-5 (placement to be determined). This position requires an Alaska teaching certificate with an appropriate endorsement in elementary education. Secondary (Grades 6-12) Special Education Teacher: This is a full-time teaching position in Grades 6-12 Special Education. The position requires an Alaska teaching certificate wit...
The assembly on May 10 unanimously approved $1.617 million as the borough contribution to the school budget for the 2022-2023 academic year, more than $300,000 higher than this year's local funding level and at the maximum allowed under state law. Everyone who spoke at the assembly meeting called on the assembly to appropriate more money for schools. Schools Superintendent Bill Burr, School Board President David Wilson, teacher Tasha Morse, parent Kaelene Harrison and first grade teacher and...
The borough and Wrangell schools could receive about $4.5 million in state funds, and individuals could receive a fall dividend at least more than double the amount of last year’s payment as the Legislature is in the final day of its regular session on Wednesday. High oil prices — $50 per barrel above a year ago — have added billions to state revenues and made it easier for legislators to add money to the budget for schools, local public works projects and the annual Permanent Fund dividend. The Legislature faces a midnight Wednesday adjou...
May 18, 1922 Judge Charles E. Bunnell, president of the Alaska Agricultural College and School of Mines, arrived on the Jefferson on Saturday and called on Miss Rees, school superintendent. He also met members of the school board and Parent-Teacher Association. Judge Bunnel is full of enthusiasm for the opening of the farthest north college in the world and is anxious to get the institution launched just outside of Fairbanks. He is confident of its future and its ability to compete for students on an equal plane with similar institutions in...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for multiple positions. All positions are open until filled. Custodian: This is a full-time, year-round classified position with benefits earning $15.45 to $23.39/hour DOE, 7.5 hours per day, working at Wrangell High School. Job duties include but are not limited to keeping our school complex clean and assisting with setting up rooms for classes, large presentations, and business meetings as needed; and assisting with minor repairs. A High School Diploma or equivalent is desired....
Anyone who wants to get a pizza midweek at the Marine Bar or a steak or burger at the Elks Lodge knows that worker shortages have forced employers to reduce their days and cut back on offerings. “This worker shortage is real, and it’s not going away anytime soon,” Dan Robinson, research chief at the Alaska Department of Labor, told legislators last month. “For nine years in a row, more people have left the state than have come here,” he told the Senate Finance Committee. The population has been stable as births have outpaced deaths, but the y...
Probably nothing is more important to the community than its school. Not just for educating students, but as a point of pride and center of activities, and a source of future workers needed to keep the town in business. Good schools also are an attraction to bring new families to town, and to keep them here. It’s a cliché, but good schools cost money. “Doing more with less” is not a sustainable education plan, and the risk of losing more programs from an already limited school district operation is an admission of defeat, not hope, for future s...
In a two-page letter to the community, Schools Superintendent Bill Burr on Friday cautioned that ongoing staffing shortages, particularly aides and substitute teachers, could push the schools into considering a move to distance learning in lieu of in-person instruction. “As we have had a number of unfilled positions over the last month, we need to continue looking at the need to move toward distance learning,” he wrote in his letter Friday. “We have worked very hard to keep our schools open during (COVID) mitigation and adversity, but without o...
Just as other communities, Wrangell is enduring a springtime bloom of COVID-19 cases. As of April 20, the state health department reported 79 new cases in the community in the past 30 days. Most of those were reported to the state in late March and early April, with new infections declining in the past week. The spread of the highly infectious disease is of particular concern at the schools. “We have had an increase in COVID and other illnesses during the past month and the schools have been struggling to find ways to stay open,” Sup...
The borough assembly has started work on its budget for the fiscal year that will start July 1 and will need to decide on a school district request for more funding in addition to paying higher fuel and property insurance costs and spending on necessary maintenance of public facilities. Revenues are up, however, with more money coming in from sales taxes and federal payments in lieu of property taxes on national forest lands. Borough staff and assembly members started their budget review during a work session April 20. The borough’s annual c...
School board members voted unanimously on April 18 to adopt the district’s budget for the 2022-23 school year, which is balanced on the assumption of $432,000 in additional state and borough funding. The school district submitted a letter along with the adopted $5 million budget to the borough, requesting an additional $292,000 on top of the $1.3 million the borough has paid the district in past annual appropriations. The district also is counting on an additional $140,000 in state funding for next year. The borough funds its local c...
The school board on April 18 voted to hire a former Alaskan as the new principal for Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle school. Robert Burkhart will begin as principal for the secondary schools on Aug. 8. He applied for the position after another candidate was chosen and had withdrawn her application. The district received more than 30 applications for the position, which is a one-year contract. It will be paid with federal funds from an American Rescue Plan Act grant. The school board approved the contract for a new principal at...
April 20, 1922 Messrs. Hansen and Lystad arrived here from Seattle recently and will enter the mild-curing seafood business. They will be located where the Ripley Fish Co. formerly had its station, and they will also have a scow near Shakes Island where the shrimp cannery was recently in operation. This firm will ship salmon and trout. Both members of the firm are old-timers in Alaska, and are by no means new in the fish business. Wrangell welcomes this new firm and there is every reason to believe that their venture will be a success. April...
A full house at the Nolan Center listened as the chamber of commerce honored Mia Wiederspohn as Wrangell’s youth leader of the year, Barbara Neyman as educator of the year, and Sarah Merritt as citizen of the year. The chamber presentation described Merritt, who has worked at the legislative information office in town since 1996, as “an outstanding citizen … understated, kind, solution focused, and devoted to the democratic process.” Merritt said she returned to Juneau after earning a degree in political science in South Dakota, later decidin...
In a special session last Saturday, the school board approved the contract for a new elementary school principal. Board members unanimously accepted the contract for Ann Hilburn as Evergreen Elementary School principal beginning the 2022-23 school year. Hilburn is in her first year as the special education teacher at the high school and middle school, having moved to Wrangell from Mississippi last fall. Hilburn was part of an applicant pool of more than 30 people, which was narrowed down to eight to 10 applicants. Schools Superintendent Bill...
The state budget plan adopted by the House last weekend includes an additional $143,000 in one-time funding for Wrangell schools, almost a 5% boost from a state aid formula that has not changed in five years. The district has been relying heavily on federal pandemic relief money and reserves to fill budget holes the past couple of years, and plans to do the same for the 2022-2023 school year. District officials acknowledge it’s not a sustainable financial plan. State funding to school districts is based on a per-student formula, and Wrangell h...
Tribal members can apply for a fourth distribution of federal pandemic relief funds administered by the Wrangell Cooperative Association. This round of financial aid is limited to $2,000 per household. The application period closes May 16. Tribal members can select to receive the assistance for utilities, groceries, heating fuel or gasoline, or a combination of any of the four choices in increments of $500, $1,000 or $2,000 if the applicant prefers that the aid go all to one category. Previous rounds were limited to covering utility bills or...
Senior James Shilts cares about his school so much that it became the focus of his senior project. Shilts and wrestling teammate Rowen Wiederspohn grappled with the idea of beautifying part of Wrangell High School to satisfy a graduation requirement. "I was at a wrestling meet in the afternoon (last fall). I was walking outside, and I noticed the benches and how bad they were looking," Shilts said. "The next day, I went and talked to (assistant principal Bob) Davis to see if it was a good...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for multiple positions in the 2022-2023 school year. All positions are open until filled. K-12 Special Education teacher: This is a full-time teaching position in Grades K-12 Special Education. The position requires an Alaska teaching certificate with appropriate endorsements in Special Education or documentation of enrollment in a program to achieve an appropriate endorsement. Secondary Language Arts Teacher: This is a full-time teaching position in Grades 6-12 English/Language...
Wrangell schools need substitute teachers, and they’re looking anywhere and everywhere. The substitute drought has been a problem for a few years, but it’s been made worse by COVID-19 and a lack of people willing to work. “Currently, we have 16 substitutes on the list, which means three or four are available on any given day,” said Kimberly Powell, administrative assistant for the school district. “We could use 10 more.” Powell said in the past they have had 25 substitutes on the call list, making it easier to cover for any staff — from teac...
March 30, 1922 The best news in Wrangell in a long time came this week in the form of a letter from the Federal Power Commission, indicating a willingness to grant an exclusive permit to the town of Wrangell for the purpose of water power development on Mill Creek. The town council has been working very hard on this proposition for several months. Through their efforts B.F. Heintzelman, special representative of the Federal Power Commission, recently came to Wrangell to go into the matter with the council personally. Several special meetings of...
Wrangell schools are not short of dedicated staff, engaged students or supportive parents. But what the district is short of — and getting shorter — are students and funding. That is a bad combination, putting stress on the schools as management puts together a budget for the 2022-2023 school year, and creating a serious long-term problem that needs the full attention of the school board, borough assembly and, most importantly, the community. The Wrangell School District has been losing students for the past 25 years, dropping from more tha...
It only takes a fraction of a second for a school, health care center, municipality or others to be the victim of a cyberattack. It could take months or even years to recover, if at all. Brittani Robbins, executive director of the chamber of commerce, and Matt Gore, an educational technology leader and former IT director for the borough and Wrangell School District, are working together to educate Alaska communities about the threats to cybersecurity and how to mitigate them. They are also advocating for strategic partnerships to develop disast...
HELP WANTED Wrangell Public Schools is accepting applications for a long-term Substitute Elementary School Teacher. This position is anticipated to begin Aug. 22 and run through Nov. 23, 2022. An Alaska Type A Teaching Certificate with the appropriate endorsements is required. Contact the district office at 907-874-2347 for more information. It is the Wrangell Public School District’s policy to not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, national origin, sex or disability. WANTED Looking for galvanized planters in good condition, and W...
