Sorted by date Results 451 - 475 of 801
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday evening, Aug. 25. During this meeting, they reviewed an FY 2019 audit of the borough. This item was postponed from their meeting on Aug. 11, to wait for a representative from the auditing firm to be available to answer questions. According to the agenda packet, the fund balance for the city's governmental funds sits at $53.65 million, and approximately $54.31 million in the enterprise funds. Of these, unrestricted funds sit at about $9.16 million and $5....
The Wrangell School Board held a special meeting Monday, Aug. 24, to discuss recent travel and purchases made by the superintendent and school staff. Last week, Superintendent Debbe Lancaster and three other members of the school district traveled to Juneau for a shopping trip. This was to acquire some key items related to reopening the schools and COVID-19 mitigation, she said. There were several reasons this was a topic of discussion for the board, among them being a lack of communication...
For several years, the Wrangell School District has had its transportation needs met by the Etolin Bus Company. However, earlier this year company owner Greg McCormack announced his plans to retire. He sold his bus company to John Taylor, who took over the bus company and plans to keep it running. Now under the name Taylor Transportation, the company is preparing to serve the school district in its upcoming school year. "We bought it the day before COVID," John said, further clarifying that the...
The Wrangell School Board met Monday evening, Aug. 17. During the meeting, the board adopted a mandate requiring face masks be worn on district property. According to the mandate, masks must be worn while indoors, before entering buildings, before entering or leaving enclosed personal work areas, when walking to or from one's vehicle, or in other cases when social distancing of 6 feet cannot be maintained. There are some exceptions to the mandate. Masks will not be necessary, when social...
August 19, 1920 Ted Sterling, the popular purser on the Hazel B, says that in all the time he has been on the Stikine River, he has never seen game so plentiful as at the present time. It is customary to see three or four bears on each trip up and down the river, but on the trip down last Tuesday 14 bears were sighted along the river bank within a few hours travel. August 17, 1945 As soon as peace was announced on Tuesday thanksgiving services were held at the local Catholic church, the Rev. M. Hoch, officiating. The Rosary and other devotions...
With a SMART Start plan in place, and a beginning to the year scheduled for Sept. 8, the Wrangell School District is now working to decide what risk level they should operate at for the upcoming school year. While the SMART Start plan on the district's website lists "medium risk" as the starting level for next year, a recent announcement by Superintendent Debbe Lancaster made the public aware this might not be the case. "The district will determine whether the schools will open at a medium or...
Last week, four people died in a car wreck in Petersburg. Among them were two Wrangellites, Siguard and Helen Decker, 21-years-old and 19-years-old. Their deaths shook the community, which has come together in a variety of ways to express their grief and support for the Decker family. A GoFundMe page was put together by the United Fishermen of Alaska, to raise money in their memory. As of Tuesday morning, Aug. 4, $161,273 has been raised. "The initial $10,000 in funds raised will go towards...
The Wrangell Public School District recently published their SMART Start plan for next year. These are the guidelines the schools will be following to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 spreading amongst the student body and school staff. The plans differ school-to-school, and can also change depending on the level of risk of COVID-19. Stikine Middle School and Wrangell High School will begin the year at "medium risk," according to the plan. This will have a regular seven-period day Monday through...
With the resignation of David Macri late last school year, and a brief run by Jack Carney as interim principal, Wrangell's secondary schools were left without a principal. The position is now filled, however. This next school year, local teacher Bob Davis will serve as the assistant principal/lead teacher of Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle School. Davis has served as a teacher in the Wrangell School District since 1994, he said. He has taught English and history over the years mostly in...
The Wrangell Public School District held a virtual town hall meeting on Thursday, July 16, where school officials answered submitted questions from families regarding the SMART Start reopening plan for the upcoming school year. The nearly two hour long meeting at one point had 72 participants. Board President Aaron Angerman, who moderated the town hall meeting, asked school officials the submitted questions from the public. Although a plan for how the school district will operate under COVID-19...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday evening for a special meeting, to consider CARES Act funding for the school district. Wrangell, and many other communities, recently received special funds through the CARES Act to help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wrangell has used these funds, or plans to use them, for items like the purchase of a new ambulance, to cover wages for first responders, and to help pay for an alternate isolation site, among other planned expenses. As the Wrangell...
Members of the Policy Committee for the Wrangell School District met last Thursday afternoon to discuss various policies for school board consideration. Among several items on the agenda were two policies covering the topics of professional boundaries between staff and students, and freedom of speech amongst the student body. Board Policy 5141.42, Professional Boundaries of Staff with Students, as it reads, is meant to protect children from inappropriate conduct by staff, volunteers, and other...
The Wrangell Public School District will be hosting an online town hall meeting to discuss the reopening plan for fall 2020, tonight at 6 p.m.. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster said that a meeting was tentatively set for July 16 during a policy committee meeting on July 9. The date was confirmed in an email from Kim Powell, with the school district, on July 13. The school district hosted a series of meetings between school staff, administration, and community members on the SMART Start reopening....
The Wrangell School District held another SMART Start meeting last Wednesday, June 24, to continue discussing ways the district can safely reopen and operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Education has come out with recommendations to determine what constitutes different risk levels for operation in Wrangell, according to the meeting's notes, so the group of school board members, district faculty and staff, and parents mostly concentrated their discussion around the possible...
Matt Gore has been with the Wrangell School District since 2011, and has been the technology director since 2015. In his time as technology director, Gore said he has worked to give the school district faster and more reliable internet access, to put better technology in students' hands, and help the district use all the tools they had available. It is time for him to move on, however. Gore has left his Wrangell position to take a new job with the Southeast Island School District, on Prince of...
Wrangell School District staff, school board members, and parents have been holding weekly meetings to discuss the safe reopening of Wrangell schools, under the new Smart Start outline provided by the state. The group held their second meeting Wednesday, June 17, to try and look at some of the bigger questions surrounding getting kids back into school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster explained, back in a May 18 school board meeting, that Smart Start is meant to be a...
The Wrangell School Board met Monday, June 15, to accept a collaboration agreement with the Sealaska Heritage Institute. They also approved of some budget revisions. According to the collaboration agreement, in the meeting's agenda packet, Sealaska has received an Alaska Native Education Program grant, from the Department of Education. The purpose of this grant is to support a three-year project to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in several Southeast...
June 17, 1920 The Diamond C extended its hospitality to twenty of the younger set last Sunday whom they took to Big Bay and for a cruise around Woronofski Island. At Big Bay a bountiful picnic dinner was served aboard the boat. Arriving home, the party was invited to the Hofstad home where a delightful evening was spent. June 15, 1945 Alaska Metals and Power Company have just completed a water power and electric power plant at Mill Creek about ten miles from Wrangell on the back channel. The company also has a complete Corlie saw mill,...
After several years with the Wrangell Public School District, Wrangell resident Drew Larrabee will be leaving town to take a new position as K-12 principal in Tok. Larrabee and his family first moved to Wrangell eight years ago, he said. He has been the fabrication teacher for Wrangell High School for the past eight years. Larrabee said that he and his family are going to miss the Wrangell community and school district a lot, but this move is meant to help him advance his career goals. "I had...
In the last Wrangell School Board meeting, on May 18, several members of the public voiced concerns with how things were running in the school district. Among them were concerns that the technology department was being cut at a bad time, as well as wider concerns that the district has a hostile work environment. The Wrangell Sentinel reached out to Superintendent Debbe Lancaster to seek a response to these concerns. Lancaster said that, after discussing the matter with School Board President...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met this week to begin their workshopping of Wrangell's budget for FY 2021. This first round of workshops looked at various city departments that are funded through the Enterprise Funds which includes the harbor, light and power, sanitation, wastewater, and water departments. There were two workshops over the past week, on May 19 and May 21. According to the meeting's agenda packet for May 19, there were several things for the assembly to keep in mind when looking...
Though it lacked the in-person fanfare of a typical graduation, the Wrangell High School Class of 2020 officially graduated last Friday evening, May 15. A small graduation ceremony was held on May 12, with seniors receiving their diplomas. A video stream was shown publicly on the 15th including slideshows of students, speeches from the faculty and student body. A parade through town was also organized after the video aired, where people could drive by the homes of the graduating students to...
Graduating students of Wrangell High School, school staff, and other community members came together via web conference last week for senior awards night. During the web conference, graduating seniors were informed of scholarships they had won. "I'm excited to see who wins the awards today, and I want to remind you guys that even if you haven't applied for any scholarships yet there's still millions of dollars out there," Interim Principal Jack Carney said. "So if you don't win anything tonight...
The Wrangell School Board met via web conference last Monday, May 18 and heard of several unethical and potentially illegal things happening in the district. Another person said the district had a hostile work environment. David Macri was one of the speakers that evening. Macri was the district's former secondary school principal, before his resignation and being put on administrative leave in March of this year. Macri spoke in the meeting to say that there were several problems in the school...
May signals the end of the school year for the Wrangell School District. For 25 students, this May signals the end of their high school careers. The COVID-19 pandemic has created several challenges and changes this year. Three students of the class of 2020 shared their opinions on this closing chapter of their lives. In general, all three students agree that the pandemic is a disappointing way to end high school, but they are understanding of the situation and grateful to the community for...
