Kodiak Island Borough School District updates handbooks, educational standards

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

The Kodiak Island Borough School District is working on creating consistency in all its schools.

It’s in the process of reviewing its student handbook.

Superintendent Larry LeDoux said at a recent school board meeting that they want borough schools to be able to refer to one document.

He said the school district hasn’t updated its handbook for a while.

“They’ve evolved through the years. They don’t necessarily always fit our needs in terms of some of the changing technology. Cyber bullying. As an example, some of the terroristic threats that go on in schools today. So, we really want to take a look at it so we have high expectations and we can talk about the consequences for poor choices and how we can make sure that we’re teaching those expectations to kids.”

LeDoux said the district also recently completed a review of its science, math, and English curriculums.

“This was a time to sit down and compare [the evolution of our standards] to the state standards, and that’s very important because the Performance Evaluation for Alaska’s Schools (PEAKS) is based on state standards and our standards are close enough to the national standards if you will that we can ensure that any kind of … testing that we do is gonna be consistent with what we’re teaching kids.”

He said those standards form the foundation of what they do, and they want to help teachers work well with the community and become better in their positions.