The Kodiak Island Borough School District is in a tough situation.
Facing an $8 million budget deficit, the district’s Board of Education is trying to find ways to fill the gap. It’s had flat funding from the state for years, aside from one-time boosts that are hard to budget for. Now the crunch has led to the most contentious suggestion yet – closing an elementary school.
At a school board meeting last week, staff recommended closing one of two elementary schools: North Star or Peterson.
“If a school like Peterson – all the way out where we are – closes, we lose that completely,” Crissy Skelly, a Coast Guard spouse, said at the meeting. “We don’t have another school right down the road.”
She was one of dozens of parents who came to the town hall to ask the board not to close their kids’ schools. The district’s superintendent, Cyndy Mika, wrote in a letter issued before the town hall that said Peterson — the closest school to the Coast Guard base — was “not a viable option for closure.”
She cited transportation costs, bus ride lengths, and the significant growth projected for the base over the next decade.
That leaves North Star Elementary.
At the town hall, North Star teachers said they were shocked by the superintendent’s letter.
“I’m not standing here for myself. I’m standing as a representative for all staff at North Star,” Danielle Specht, a special education teacher at the school said.
“As a staff, we chose not to rally the troops and speak up for North Star at the last borough meeting," Specht said. "But please don’t interpret our silence as indifference. We love our school and of course we don’t want it to close. We just, as a collective, did not feel like it was appropriate to say ‘you don’t close North Star,’ when to us, that also means ‘but close them instead.”
And some staff said they were appalled at how they learned about the recommendation. Victoria Christiansen said she was frustrated that the district did not prepare employees before sending the letter out.
“We did not feel supported, and it was a really crummy feeling,” she said. “I ask that next time we put something like that goes out, first it goes to staff so we’re not side-blinded by parents blowing up our phones – and mine on my watch – while trying to remain stoic, calm, strong in front of students.”
But the superintendent's recommendation to close North Star does not mean that other schools are safe. School board members can still write their own plan.
And closing a school isn’t the only contentious proposal. District officials are also looking at a reorganization plan known as “stratification.” That would put most kindergarten through second grade students in a separate facility from most third-through-fifth graders. Peterson a few miles south, however, would likely stay as a K-5 program.
District officials say stratification could further save money by needing fewer teachers while helping teachers at similar grade levels collaborate more.
But critics at the town hall said it would be a burden for parents with multiple kids in school, who would have to drive to more than one building for drop-off and pick-up.
KIBSD Board of Education Vice President Jim Pryor used to be a teacher. He said the town hall helped him to understand those concerns.
“I’m kind of under the feeling here that the closing of a school and the stratification should be two issues,” Pryor said. “Even though I see the advantage of stratification as being a teacher, that would be exciting to me. But It may be too much for the community to take at this point.”
But he said he needs to see more numbers before asking to separate stratification from the superintendent’s recommendation to close North Star.
The clock is ticking, though. The board has a public budget retreat on Jan. 16. It’s expected to make its decision on which school to close and about stratification at its meeting on Jan. 20.
Both the budget retreat on the 16th and the meeting on the 20th will be broadcast on KMXT.
