The Wrangell School Board met last Thursday, Nov. 15 to discuss various policy updates and to hear reports from various board members and staff about a school health and wellbeing summit in Anchorage, which was held this past September. The conference covered the topics of health, safety, and wellness in Alaskan schools, and brought together educators, board members, and policy makers from across the state. Some of the attendees took the opportunity to share some of their thoughts on what was covered in the conference.
Josh Blatchley, maintenance director for Wrangell’s schools, spoke first. While the topic of school maintenance was discussed during the summit, Blatchley said he paid a lot of attention to discussions about school safety. As maintenance director, he said he believed there were several areas where safety could be increased in the classroom. Some suggestions he had to increase security in Wrangell’s schools included additional security cameras inside of school buildings, and not just outside.
A security concern he pointed out was the number of doors in the schools. In the elementary school, he said there were about 340 doors or locks in total.
“Another thing that they talked about quite a bit was the mental health of the students, or people that cause unsafe situations, and trying to be proactive or preventative in those instances,” Blatchley said.
Board member Dave Wilson also attended the summit. He said that he was very interested in a student panel at the summit that talked about what students were wanting in their schools. The student panel, he said, mentioned that students want better substitute teachers, first of all. He also said that the ongoing drug epidemic across Alaska is very concerning to them, as well. Students on the panel said that what they really want is teachers who will take their side and stand up for them. Too many teachers, according to the panel, only watch out for themselves or for other teachers.
“I’m grateful that I don’t think we have that problem here,” Wilson said, before adding that it was something to be aware of as it was a point of concern in other schools.
Another topic of interest for the school district is their index score. The index score is a new system released across Alaska to provide information on how well a school district is performing, and to reveal areas of improvement. Various aspects of the school, from attendance and graduation rates, to math and reading proficiency, are graded. Evergreen Elementary, for example, received a grade of 68.07 percent. The middle school and high school received grades of 59.63 and 59.67 percent.
Annya Ritchie, school board member, asked Superintendent Debbe Lancaster what these scores meant, and what was being done to see the scores increase. Lancaster went into some detail about how the grading system worked, and said that the data of these scores was still being analyzed, so no feasible goals for the future have been set at present. However, she added, the primary focus of the schools, as always, is to see students excel academically. A better idea of what the index scores mean, and where the school system can improve, will be determined at a later date.
The board also approved of first and second readings of various district policies, ranging from maintenance of criminal records to tax sheltered annuities. One that raised a lot of discussion was the second reading of a policy regarding student and staff safety. The policy, in summary, states that school staff must report a student they witness committing a crime to police and to school administration.
Questions were raised by Ritchie and Aaron Angerman about the wording of certain sections of the policy. They wanted to know if the policy said whether the school administration or the police had to be notified first, and whether or not the policy pertained only to crimes that affected the safety of other students. After discussion, it was agreed that the policy was not yet ready for approval, and was tabled for a third reading at the next school board meeting.
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