Our high school teachers have worked hard and accomplished a great deal in the last two years. They developed academies, set up their classrooms, adjusted to new schedules and buildings, all the while planning for the years ahead. Staff reported small learning communities contributed to their best success in knowing their students’ academic/personal strengths and weakness. The community involvement and parents supporting two high schools is impressive. Working to have two similar size high school populations, developing programs that appeal to students, and offering a more personalized education and positive relationships with all students is our goal and our challenge.

Reading is the basis of learning in all content areas, including math. Success in learning to read is based in large part on developing language and literacy-related skills very early in life. The district is working to locate more preschools within our buildings, making literacy education available to more children and building important relationships with families. Access to quality medical, dental care and nutrition is a must. Children cannot learn if they have a toothache, are hungry or feel unsafe. These are larger issues the community and state must work to solve, in partnership with the schools.

Improving instruction will help all students. Examining successes each school has and duplicating those that made positive change will lead to further improvements.  For example, Mendenhall River made AYP this year. In particular their special education students have made gains through improved literacy programs. Funding special education mentors for new special education teachers and increased pay for para-educators, which keeps a consistent staff working with students will help performance. I will follow the Local Action Team, working to increase the graduation success for Alaska Native students, recommendations, in particular, providing increased training to staff to address racial discrimination.

It takes a community wide effort to counteract negative behaviors such as bullying, racism and sexual harassment; what we see in our schools is a reflection of how we treat each other in the broader community. As a Board member I will focus on continued staff training. It is essential to build skills and sensitivity to counteract these negative behaviors, giving all school staff tools to effectively deal with these issues.

The board adopted the Drug Testing Task Force’s 10 recommendations at our last meeting (listed on school district Web site). I believe this is a community problem and it will take each one of us to address this issue. Of the recommendations, my priorities are to work with the Assembly on filing the gap in treatment and intervention programs, including inpatient and outpatient treatment based in Juneau; improving our Suspicion-Based Drug Testing Policy, and delivering a prevention/educational K-12 program. The mandatory random drug testing program is a strategy to keep students safe.