The Ketchikan Gateway Borough School Board has two new members. Steven Thomas and Paul Robbins Jr. were appointed to fill the vacant seats at the board’s meeting on Wednesday night. The seats have been open since Board President Michelle O’Brien and member Keenan Sanderson abruptly resigned last month.
Seven people applied for the open seats. The board interviewed them all at the meeting. Other candidates included Sharon Montgomery, Melissa Reed, Lindsey Johnson, Nicole Linn, and Spring Barry.
Thomas said he was a teacher for nearly two decades and spent seven of those years in Ketchikan teaching vocational skills. He said one of his biggest concern for the school district was the loss of technical education programs.
“This is what hurts when budgets get cut. The first thing they say is we’ve got to cut vocational programs – music, art, all this kind of stuff,” Thomas said. “If it wasn’t for vocational programs, I would have never graduated from high school. If it wasn’t for music programs, there’s a lot of kids that I know that would never graduate. “
“And I think we need to keep looking at that 70-75% that isn’t going to go to college. We’ve got to show them ways to be successful,” he said during the interview.
Paul Robbins Jr. handles public affairs for the U.S. Forest Service in the Tongass National Forest. He served just under four years on the school board during Covid and is the parent of a student in the district. Robbins said as a communications professional, he can help the board address what he called their “messaging problem.”
“There are communication issues, communication concerns from the public, coming from the board and the district,” Robbins told the board.
The board went into a brief executive session after the seven interviews. When they came out, they narrowed the candidates down to three: Robbins, Thomas, and Lindsay Johnson. After the second round of votes, Robbins and Thomas were sworn in by school district superintendent Michael Robbins – no relation to Paul.
