The Ketchikan School Board will vote on adding a new teaching position at Houghtaling Elementary School at its Wednesday night meeting.
At the last School Board meeting, Houghtaling’s principal and a teacher told the board that due to last-minute enrollments, the two second-grade classrooms were at 28 students each. After the meeting, administration took steps to add a new classroom, and hired a substitute to fill in for the first couple weeks of school.
Now, the board will decide whether to approve $90,000 to establish the third second-grade teaching position at Houghtaling. Each second-grade classrooms now has fewer than 20 students.
The last-minute enrollments prompted some debate among Board members about whether there should be caps on school enrollment. Policies that could be changed to regulate that are on the agenda for the board to discuss at Wednesday’s meeting.
The board also will vote on three resolutions to submit to the Association of Alaska School Boards for its legislative lobbying. They ask the Legislature to provide hold-harmless intensive-needs funding, ask the state to apply for exemptions to federal regulations on snacks sold at fundraising events, and establish a funding pool to help pay for student travel to state-level competitions.
The board also will consider spending $31,000 for earthquake-sensor equipment for the new Digital Teaching Academy.
The board will discuss a 63-page General Safety, Security and Emergency Preparedness Assessment that Safe Havens International conducted for the Ketchikan School District. In the assessment, Safe Havens recommends many upgrades and changes to how the school district handles security.
The School Board meeting is at 6 p.m. in the White Cliff building. Public comment will be heard at the start and end of the meeting.