X’atshaawditee Tammi Meissner loved her year as the school district’s part-time activities director. She is a big fan of sports and all student activities.

But the 50-hour workweeks did not work so well with her full-time job. Her resignation from the school contract was effective last month, and the district is looking for a replacement.

Meissner was the fifth different activities director since the start of the 2021-2022 school year. The turnover meant that records were less than well organized, and that was part of the reason for her heavy work load the past year.

“There was no paperwork that said, ‘This is what you do,’ she said last week. “I got us all organized into a Google drive.”

She also worked with high school principal Greg Clark to redo the student activities handbook, among other things “that haven’t been done for several years.” Updating the handbook will help ensure that the rules for student participation and travel are handled consistently, she said.

Meissner, who left the job at the end of June, said she will help with the transition after the district gets a new director under contract.

The work starts soon, she said, with the cross-country season opening for practice on July 30. The sports calendar will run through track and field next May.

And it’s not just sports. “Nobody had run Artfest here,” she said of the four-day event in April that gathered students from across Southeast in Wrangell for the first time since 2015.

She worked evenings and weekends as activities director, not just booking travel, arranging events, checking on funding and student eligibility, but also “picking up people and ferrying them around.”

With a full-time job as the community navigator for the Central Council of the Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, “I can’t take that much time off.”

She said a job share, where two people spilt the contract pay and the work, might succeed. “It’s definitely not a part-time job … you have to love sports.”

Meissner grew up in Wrangell and played middle and high school sports. “In high school, the opportunities expanded significantly, and I proudly participated in the varsity cross-country team, varsity basketball team and track team,” she said in an interview last year.

Though she averaged 50 hours a week as activities director — “I pushed myself” — she expects that with the improved records and organizational plan, someone could work three-quarters time during the school year and manage the responsibilities.

The contract position pays $10,000 a year.

The district’s job notice describes the work as: “Organizes and administers the district’s program of interscholastic athletics and extracurricular activities including development and support of school ‘spirit.’ … The successful applicant should expect to work some evenings and weekends to support the activities program as needed and is expected to travel to regional events and meetings.”