Newly cleaned flooring, new paint and new faces will be among the changes students see as they return to school on Aug. 24. However, there will be plenty going on that students don’t really notice.
School district staff are working hard to prepare for the coming educational year, whether it be in updating their certifications, preparing the classrooms or focusing on all the little details to ensure a successful year for kids.
Online registration will begin Aug. 11 on the school district website, while in-person registration will be held Aug. 14 for all schools from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m. at the Evergreen Elementary School gym.
Much work has been done and is still being done, said Schools Superintendent Bill Burr, to get the buildings ready.
“Because the custodians have been cleaning, they’ve been doing carpets, they’ve been resurfacing flooring, most of the classrooms are shoved to the walls and we’re not letting people (teachers) back in yet,” he said.
While most of those teachers are returning, there are a few new members in the district staff. Most notably, Jackie Hanson will start as principal for Wrangell High School and Stikine Middle School; Tony Anzalone is the new IT director for the district; though Madison Blackburn taught last year, she is moving from being a student-teacher to teaching pre-kindergarten students this year; and Ryan Hayes will be the new math teacher for the high school, replacing Donna Massin who retired.
Erik Scheib, who recently moved to Wrangell with his family, has been hired as the activities director, and Kyle Lewis was hired as a custodian for the high school and middle school, having previously worked at City Market. Burr said the district is actively looking for a temporary secretary to fill in at the high school while Marsha Ballou is out on maternity leave.
Last year, Holly Padilla was the long-term substitute for the migrant education program. This year, she’ll be adding job duties as reading interventionist for the newly enacted Alaska Reads Act and overseeing the Title 1A program for low-income students.
“It all sort of flows together,” Burr said about Padilla’s position. “But that’s a full-time position where we’ve combined other roles to make it work.”
One thing that’s a big change for the school, Burr said, is implementation of the Reads Act.
“From the student side, it’s not going to be a big change,” he said. “From the school side, even after a year of trying to figure out what’s going to happen, (the state) didn’t actually make the decisions that these are actually the recommendations or regulations’ until late April.”
All elementary school teachers are required by the state to take courses to become state-certified for teaching reading. Those certifications are only valid in Alaska.
A new English curriculum based on the Reads Act will be implemented in the 2024-2025 school year.
The district is also implementing a new math curriculum called “Math and Me” at the elementary level and “Big Ideas Math” at the high school and middle school level.
“Hayes has been using ‘Big Ideas’ in Petersburg for the last number of years, so his transition will be a little easier because he’s comfortable with it,” Burr said.
One change for the new year that many might not notice doesn’t even exist in the physical world. A virtual update will be happening for the district’s website as a new web host will be used. The district is going with a new company to save money. The information will be moved over to the new host and the look of the website will be updated. That change should happen sometime in September.
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