Allen wants more community input at school board level

If she wins a second term as school board member, Angela Allen said she wants to go after specific grants, encourage homeschooling parents to enroll their children in the public school system, and open the doors for communication between parents and the school board.

She is up against fellow incumbent Brittani Robbins and newcomer Dan Powers. The seats will go to the two candidates with the most votes in the Oct. 1 municipal election. Terms will run through 2027.

Allen moved to Wrangell for her senior year of high school in 1998 and never looked back. Currently, she has two kids in the school district - a senior and a third grader. Her eldest son graduated from Wrangell High School in 2023.

After graduation, Allen began working in Wrangell's health care sector. She currently works for SEARHC in several capacities, including as a clinical assistant, referral care coordinator and as a technician.

Allen has been on the school board since 2021.

She said that if money was not an issue for the school district, she would expand the number of professional teacher aides, as well as the STEM options available to students.

Already, Wrangell has a strong relationship with T3 (Teaching Through Technology,) a STEM-oriented student learning program out of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Allen said she would push to expand similar offerings.

In a second term, she also hopes to see greater input from the community.

"People with concerns should come to meetings and send letters to the school board," Allen said. "It's a lot better than (airing concerns on) Facebook."

She hopes to build "deep relationships" with not just teachers, but with parents and students too.

"The best way to do that is listening," Allen said. She wants the district's School Advisory Committees to present the board with a regular newsletter informing them of community concerns, though the committees' access to the board has been limited in recent years.

As for finding solutions to the district's ongoing funding woes, Allen thinks that identifying and seeking targeted grants is the best way to fund district projects. While she voted against the district accepting a federal grant to purchase an electric bus on Sept. 9, she cited these types of specific grants as a good way to bring outside funding into the district.

Allen also wants to encourage parents who currently homeschool their children to instead enroll them in the public school system. Doing so would help boost state funding, which is calculated every year on the number of students enrolled in each district, as well as other factors.

One money-saving solution that has been discussed among school board members is consolidating the three schools into two. Allen is wary of this idea, and said the "age gap would not be appropriate."