The school district will implement a “trial run” of online Spanish language classes next spring.

According to Schools Superintendent Joshua Garrett, the district will pay Austin, Texas-based Proximity Learning to deliver face-to-face virtual learning for five days with students who want to take Spanish as an elective.

The short trial run will be used to evaluate the student experience with the online teaching platform, he said.

“If we want to prepare our students for college in any part of the country, we need to offer things like a foreign language class,” Garrett said. “I don’t have an exact number of students who want to take Spanish at this time, but my understanding is that there is anywhere from 10 to 15 students who are currently interested.”

During budget-tightening efforts last year, the school board decided not to offer a 2025-2026 contract to Odile Meister. She had taught high school Spanish and served as the K-12 migrant education teacher, and also worked as a reading and math intervention specialist at Evergreen Elementary School.

Meister’s Spanish class was the only in-person foreign language class in the district.

At the time, then-Superintendent Bill Burr said the school would explore the possibility of an online foreign language class.

“I was unaware that Bill had said that,” Garrett said during a Dec. 16 interview. “I guess that’s one of those things where they say ‘great minds think alike.’”

Garrett said he started to look into the possibility of an online Spanish class in November.

“We’re going to see how this goes, and if it’s successful we may be able to expand our course offerings via this method in the future,” he said.

Proximity Learning is described as a technology company that provides live, virtual instruction to K-12 school districts throughout the country.

According to the company’s website, students receive instruction online in a classroom with a local facilitator to help manage technology and student behavior during the class.

Garrett said the cost of the program, if used throughout a full school year, would be approximately $10,000. The trial run will cost less.

“This is a good option, and I think some good things can come from this,” Garrett said. “We would also like to have someone to teach the Tlingit language. Hopefully we can do that soon as well.”

The district previously had a Tlingit language teacher, Ken Hoyt, but he resigned at the beginning of the school year.