Members of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District Board of Education meet with members of Ketchikan Indian Community’s Tribal Council during a government-to-government consultation at the Cape Fox Lodge on Wednesday. From left: School Board Clerk Kerry Watson, School Board Members Bridget Mattson, Paul Robbins Jr., Diane Gubatayao and Doug Gregg, School Board President Kim Hodne, Tribal Council President Gloria Burns, Tribal Council Executive Assistants Crystal Mann and Aaron Burns, Tribal Council Members Lloyd Ruaro, Trixie Bennett, Melissa Johnson and Chas Edwardson. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Ketchikan’s school board and representatives from the local tribal government met Wednesday to share a meal and discuss improving education for the community’s students.

Among the top priorities for Ketchikan Indian Community’s Tribal Council was addressing disproportionate educational outcomes for Alaska Native students.

Alaska Native students’ graduation rates and test scores have lagged significantly behind the district average on a consistent basis. As of the 2018-2019 school year — the most recent year for which data is available — 63% of Native students graduate within four years. That’s 18 percentage points less than the district-wide average of 81%. Test scores show a similar gap in Alaska Native student achievement in Ketchikan.

Tribal Council President Gloria Burns acknowledged that not every student will graduate high school. She said some will find success in a trade, for example — but “there has to be a plan to make sure that there’s a 100% success rate, because there’s not a 100% success rate yet. But there will be.” Burns said. “That’s the mindset that we’re that we’re looking to be in.”

One potential solution the Tribal Council shared was to better integrate Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian culture into daily curriculum that goes beyond performance art and crafts.

“When we’re talking about culture, we aren’t talking about song and dance — although song and dance is great, and all the kids love it — and we’re not necessarily talking about the food and medicine — which is great, and it’s integral to our spiritual and social [and] all of our needs,” Burns said. “But there are traditional values that we have as Indigenous people.”

She referenced the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s Southeast Traditional Tribal Values, which Ketchikan Indian Community has adopted — values like patience, environmental stewardship and holding each other up.

“And one of them is humor, and what that looks like,” she said. “We just want to see those embodied in our district.”

She pointed to the Tongass School of Arts and Sciences, a public charter elementary school within the district, as an example for other schools to follow.

School Board Member Diane Gubatayao said she, too, wanted to see cultural education woven seamlessly into classwork — she suggested integrating some Sealaska Heritage Institute materials into the elementary school reading curriculum and discussing the oftentimes tragic history of colonization.

“As the parent of Native children, I don’t want just tag-on classes, I guess is how I’d put it,” she said. “I really hope that we integrate the culture into our curriculum in a meaningful way that will be for perpetuity.”

School Board Member Paul Robbins Jr. said success for all students was a laudable goal, and agreed that there’s work to be done. But he said there’s only so much the district can do.

“There’s so much about the dropout rates, that has to do with the family situation at home, and socioeconomic situation for parents that we just can’t affect,” Robbins said.

Some Tribal Council members voiced their agreement, saying some families struggle with things like drug addiction or homelessness. Burns suggested one part of the solution could be for tribal members to volunteer to serve as adult mentors — or “aunties,” as she put it — for struggling Native students.

Much of the meeting focused on funding: how the district could better consult with the tribe on how federal education funds are spent on things like teachers’ aides, early childhood education and school lunches.

“We have to figure out what the most meaningful way for us to have the input back and forth to create measurable outcomes for all of our kids looks like,” Burns said.

She asked the board to consider taking free training from the National Indian Education Association to better understand the rules for tribal consultation instituted under the Obama-era Every Student Succeeds Act.

Though public notice requirements prohibited the school board from taking immediate action on the tribe’s suggestions, President Kim Hodne said the tribe’s input had not fallen on deaf ears.

“From here, we will be better in the next quarter. And we will be better after that, in direction and training,” Hodne said.

Interim Ketchikan superintendent Melissa Johnson attended the meeting, but as an elected member of the Tribal Council. She said the district was piloting a new evaluation program to ensure teachers follow Alaska’s state cultural standards.

Burns said that while the discussion centered on how to help Native students succeed, integrating Southeast tribal values into education would help all students better understand their home.

“I just like to repeat with Liz Medicine Crow always says: What’s good for a Native child is good for every child,” Burns said.

Tribal officials say they plan to issue a letter with their suggestions for the school district later this month.

The post Ketchikan’s tribe and school board discuss improving education for community’s students appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board meets in closed session in the Ketchikan High School library earlier this year. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

In a somewhat unusual move, a divided Ketchikan school board voted to reopen applications for a vacant seat Wednesday. Just one person applied to fill the seat left by former school board member Sonya Skan, who resigned earlier this month.

Board Member Paul Robbins Jr. said he’d like to see a larger pool of applicants to pick from.

“I believe we should open it back up, and then convene at the end of the special meeting on June 3 in order to meet the intent of our policy and get the largest possible number of candidates,” Robbins said.

But school board President Kim Hodne said it’s not all that unusual for the board to consider a single candidate for a vacant seat. Hodne pointed out that Robbins himself was the only applicant for a vacancy last year and was appointed to the board without an interview. (Robbins was later elected to a three-year term.)

“I don’t like us moving the goalposts. It was advertised,  it was advertised correctly, it was advertised with the precedence of the two weeks, it was there for everyone and anyone to apply for the position. At the end of the day, Mr. Shaw was the only one that applied,” Hodne said.

Two members of the public wrote in to urge the board not to appoint the lone applicant, Trevor Shaw. Shaw served on the school board from 2013 until 2018, when he resigned, facing a citizen recall. Shaw said in his application that he’d learned from prior mistakes he’d made as a board member.

Hodne acknowledged a certain level of community “angst” over Shaw’s nomination, but said he didn’t support reopening applications to satisfy what he described as “keyboard commandos.”

But Hodne was overruled. The board ultimately voted 4-2 to reopen applications for the seat. Hodne and Board Member Diane Gubatayao, who said reopening applications was unfair to Shaw, voted no.

Robbins encouraged community members to apply, saying “it’s not difficult” to be a board member. He encouraged prospective applicants to ask themselves two questions:

“One is, ‘Can I sacrifice a few evenings a month?’ If that answer is yes, move on to No. 2: ‘Can I make decisions securely based on the information I’m provided from the staff, from the teachers and from the public, and not from my own agenda or from whatever special interest group that I care to represent?’” Robbins said. “If to those two questions, you can say yes, you are going to be a successful board member, and you probably should be here.”

Any registered voter within the Ketchikan Gateway Borough is eligible to join the board. The school board plans to interview candidates at a special meeting at 6 p.m. on June 3 in Ketchikan’s Borough Assembly chambers.

Applications for the vacant school board seat are available at the school district’s website, KGBSD.org, or by contacting the school board clerk at 247-2142 or by email at kerry.watson@k21schools.org. Applications close at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 1.

The post Ketchikan school board reopens applications for vacant seat appeared first on KRBD.

The Ketchikan School District seal on display at the superintendent’s office. (KRBD file photo by Leila Kheiry)

Ketchikan’s departing superintendent will receive more than $80,000 for resigning. Ketchikan’s school board ratified the lump sum payment — equal to 130 days of pay and benefits — at its regular meeting Wednesday. The board also approved a budget for next school year and discussed the search for an interim superintendent.

The stated purpose of an $80,624 payment to departing Ketchikan Superintendent Beth Lougee remains unanswered. School Board President Kim Hodne called the agreement to a vote quickly and without comment.

“It’s been moved and seconded for the Board of Education to approve a separation agreement with Ms. Beth Lougee,” Hodne said. “Discussion? Seeing none, please call the roll.”

And that was that.

Lougee’s tenure since her promotion to lead as superintendent in 2018 has not been without controversy. Ketchikan’s tribe said it had no confidence in her ability to lead the district following reports that she under-equipped Native cultural faculty.

In the days leading up to and after the vote, the school board president has not returned calls, messages or emails asking what the money was for. None of the board have been willing to discuss the issue. One board member referred the question to Ketchikan’s borough attorney, who did not respond to inquiries.

There’s no language in the superintendent’s contract mandating a severance payment upon her resignation. She would be eligible to cash out as many as 35 days of annual leave, but that’s well short of the 130 days’ pay that the board approved.

And the decision to pay the embattled superintendent more than $80,000 comes as Ketchikan’s borough continues to reckon with an ongoing education fund deficit that threatens to drain reserves. Her last day was Friday.

In other business Wednesday, the school board approved a $41.5 million budget for next school year. It’s about $120,000 – a fraction of a percent – higher than the spending plan the board green-lit earlier this month.

The updated budget includes funding for an unfilled world language teacher position that had originally been slated to be cut, plus an administrative assistant for the district’s cultural coordinator.

Teachers union leaders asked the board to maintain funding for small classes brought on by COVID-19. Valerie Brooks is vice president of the Ketchikan Education Association and holds a Ph.D in education and says she’s studied the issue.

“We appreciate the possibility that we’ve been able to experience and engage in this year with with smaller class sizes,” Brooks said. “Really, sizes of students-to-teacher ratio that research for many years has borne out as beneficial for time on task, for students’ self esteem, for access to instruction and discovery.”

The district’s business manager said pandemic relief funds would indeed allow the district to keep the student-to-teacher ratio low for the next two years. Hodne, the board president, said it was an opportunity for the district to experiment with additional funding for educators.

“We’ve got two years to really make the district shine and prove the class sizes and the numbers — that this is what we need, this is how it should be,” Hodne said. “Then, two years from now — good luck on that board — but that can be their fight, because we will have proof in the results.”

The board also set a meeting for Tuesday to weigh a decision about who should fill the superintendent’s role on an interim basis. That’s after Board Clerk-Treasurer Bridget Mattson raised concerns about a three-board member committee Hodne convened to discuss candidates for the interim job without the approval of the full board.

“We really need to be open, we need to engage our stakeholders, even for an interim, we should have a hiring process. We have a hiring process in our district now, which we didn’t, but we have one now — we’ve developed it,” Mattson said.

She says the district has agreements in place requiring input from the local teachers’ union and tribal government. She says the school board needs to honor that and conduct its business transparently.

“We’re supposed to have all of this as part of our hiring process for our admin, and for us to subvert that as a non-board-policy functioning board and decide something in an executive session is — I can’t support that,” Mattson said.

Hodne defended the decision to convene the committee, saying the decision is time-sensitive.

Other board members like Paul Robbins, Jr expressed support for a more open and deliberate hiring process.

“If our process is not great, then it doesn’t matter who we pick, that person will be poisoned,” Robbins said. “I think that’s already happened in previous hirings, and it will happen again, if the public doesn’t think that we did exactly the right process doesn’t matter who we pick, they will not support and like that superintendent.”

The board appointed the school district’s business manager as acting superintendent until an interim replacement is determined. They’ll meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday in Ketchikan’s White Cliff Building to discuss who should be appointed interim superintendent.

The post School board green-lights $80,000 payment for resigning Ketchikan superintendent, discusses replacement appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board meets in closed session in the Ketchikan High School library in March. (Eric Stone/KRBD)

Ketchikan’s school board is set to finalize the terms of its embattled superintendent’s departure on Wednesday. Outgoing superintendent Beth Lougee is set to receive more than $80,000 for stepping down nearly a year early.

Superintendent Beth Lougee’s contract doesn’t expire until February 2022. But earlier this month, Ketchikan’s school board announced earlier this month that Lougee would leave at the end of April.

The resignation follows a rocky tenure. Alaska Native tribal leaders said they’d lost confidence in her leadership. And then the tragedy struck when Lougee’s husband died after contracting COVID-19.

The head of the local teachers union says she’s been a polarizing figure.

“Our membership has had very split opinions on Ms. Lougee’s leadership through the past few years, which is true with most leaders, but probably especially during a trying year, like this year has been,” Ketchikan Education Association President Gara Williams said via phone.

“We really feel she’s experienced a great tragedy and the loss of her husband and then her own health due to contracting COVID. And regardless of any personal opinions, I think all of our members just have sympathy to her personal life and wish that she has a full recovery and condolences for her loss,” she continued.

Terms of her contract require mutual consent and 30 days’ notice to break her contract. She’s leaving with 15 days’ notice. Terms negotiated with the school board add 130 days’ pay and benefits after she leaves.

Her critics, like Gloria Burns, tribal council president of Ketchikan Indian Community, say they don’t understand why she’ll be paid more than $80,000 for resigning early.

“I don’t believe somebody who’s done the kind of damage that she’s done to our district should be getting that amount of money,” Burns said in a phone interview.

She says that during Lougee’s tenure, relations between the school district and the Alaska Native community and other people of color “disintegrated.” One high-profile example involved a cultural educator who was assigned an office without  furniture.

Lougee has also come under fire for a shakeup in school administrators over the summer of 2020. Gloria Burns again:

“Look at the complete turnover of the administrative staff under her,” she said. “So many amazing and brilliant teachers and minds that have left her district.”

Lougee has not responded substantively to the allegations, saying only that the accusations “hurt.” In her resignation letter, she said she was looking for some time off to focus on her wellbeing. She did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

The $80,000 in severance does not appear in her regular contract. The only language about extra pay would be up to a year’s salary — $145,000 — if the school board dismissed her without cause.

A mutually agreed departure — as this appears to be — has no language about extra payments.

So why is the board offering $80,624 to Lougee? None of the school board’s members would answer questions on Tuesday.

It’s not the first time the Ketchikan’s school board has offered a golden parachute to a superintendent. Ketchikan’s school board authorized a $53,000 severance to Lougee’s predecessor, Bob Boyle, who also left under a cloud of controversy in 2018.

It’s been difficult to assess Lougee’s recent performance in the eyes of the board. The school board has refused to release the outcome of its now-stalled evaluation of its superintendent. School Board President Kim Hodne announced it was complete at the end of March.

“The evaluation process is concluded from the board’s side. They will be issuing, of course, the evaluation to the superintendent,” Hodne said at the time.

That never happened. And the district denied KRBD’s public records request for a copy. But under the terms of the agreement now being considered, it stipulates Lougee’s evaluation remains incomplete. It also states neither the board nor the outgoing superintendent will disparage each other in public.

Ketchikan’s school board meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Borough Assembly chambers in the White Cliff Building. The full agenda is available online. Members of the public can weigh in at the beginning of the meeting. The meeting is broadcast on local cable channels and live-streamed at the borough’s website.

The post School board set to finalize $80,624 payout to departing Ketchikan superintendent Wednesday appeared first on KRBD.

The head of Ketchikan’s school district turned in her resignation Friday afternoon. Tribal leaders have been calling on the district to replace Superintendent Beth Lougee in recent months.

It’s been a turbulent year for Ketchikan Superintendent of Schools Beth Lougee.

Ketchikan’s outgoing superintendent, Beth Lougee. (Photo courtesy Beth Lougee)

Last summer as schools grasped out to reopen amid the pandemic, Ketchikan’s school board overruled her reopening advice after several tense town halls and hours of testimony. It eventually forced the district to resume full in-person instruction in September.

Later that winter she was roundly criticized by tribal members and parents in the district who said she’d given short shrift to Alaska Native education. Then there was personal tragedy: she and her husband both contracted COVID-19 in over the winter. Her husband did not recover.

“With my husband passing away in January, and then, with my own health scare, it was just — it just feels like it’s time for me to focus on my own wellbeing and take the year off and kind of refocus,” Lougee said in an interview Monday.

Ketchikan Indian Community’s elected Tribal Council late last year expressed “no confidence” in Lougee. The tribe says it had never made such a call before. But a publicly circulated photo of an Alaska Native cultural educator sitting on the floor because she had not been issued furniture caused anger from parents and other community members.

Lougee declined to say what role her critics played in her leaving more than a month before the end of the school year.

“Again, I — you know, the focus was on me, and I have no further comment on that,” Lougee said.

The superintendent submitted her letter of resignation to the school board on Friday. (Courtesy of Lougee)

School Board President Kim Hodne says it’s not yet clear who will take over next month. He says he intends to bring the question to the full board.

“We’re not going to make snap, jump decisions just to make a decision. This is going to be a thoughtful process. By the end of the week — we have until May 1 to make that decision. So I want this to be a good decision, and one that’s understood by the board and agreed by the board. And we’ll go forward in that respect,” Hodne said in an interview.

The school board is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. Thursday for a work session on next year’s school district budget. There’s a regular meeting scheduled for the following Wednesday, April 28.

Lougee took over as interim superintendent after the prior top administrator, Bob Boyle, resigned in the wake of a sex abuse scandal a that saw district teacher arrested  and contentious negotiations with the local teachers’ union.

Lougee had previously served as the district’s curriculum director after relocating from New Mexico, where she faced formal labor complaints. Lougee has denied the allegations.

After Ketchikan’s school board spent months debating whether to launch a wider superintendent search, the board gave Lougee a two-year contract in 2020. Her annual salary was set at $145,000.

Lougee says she plans to remain in the Ketchikan area until at least August, at which point she’ll assume care of her grandchildren in Wyoming while their mother is deployed overseas with the military.

Hodne, the school board president, says he’d like to see the next superintendent be someone already living in Ketchikan.

“We’d love to see someone from within the community step up and fill this position,” Hodne said. “But having said that, of course, it’s going to be open. There may be somebody out there that just strikes everybody, hey, this is a great fit for us. We will go through the due process.”

Hodne pledged that the search would be open and transparent. He says he’d like to see a public meet-and-greet with the top two or three candidates.

And he noted that Ketchikan’s tribal government has a formal role to play.

“We have an MOU — memorandum of understanding — (that) was signed with KIC a year or so before I came on the board, and they actually are, through that MOU, a part of — they have a seat at the table, if you will, in that process,” Hodne said.

That agreement gives the tribe a fifth of the seats on district hiring committees, which recommend top candidates to the school board, who will ultimately offer the position to the final candidate.

Beth Lougee, who was first hired by the district in 2017, offered some parting advice to her successor:

“Be patient and just continue to work closely with the school board and really, really focus on what’s best for students,” Lougee said.

Hodne says he wishes the departing superintendent well and hopes she finds time to relax.

The post ‘Time for me to focus on my own wellbeing’: Ketchikan superintendent of schools submits resignation appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan High School. (KRBD file photo)

Ketchikan’s school board is set to consider whether to extend its partial closure of secondary schools on Wednesday.

Most Ketchikan middle and high school students have been learning in a combination of in-class and virtual settings since early this month. Ketchikan’s emergency operations center raised the local pandemic risk level to “high” on Feb. 4, and the board has voted weekly to keep the schools partially closed.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the local risk level remains high. That means local pandemic response officials continue to recommend that the district’s middle and high schools remain at half-capacity.

At the board’s last meeting, two school board members, including board president Kim Hodne, voted to bring students back full-time. That was despite the recommendations of pandemic response officials and the acting superintendent to continue scaled back in-person learning.

While school capacity is not listed as a voting item on the meeting’s agenda, Hodne told KRBD that board members would offer their opinions on whether to bring the schools back to full capacity after the school board received an update from emergency officials. Hodne clarified late Monday that the board would not hold a formal vote on the matter.

As of now, secondary students are slated to return to full-capacity classrooms on Monday.

In other business, the board is scheduled to hear ways to improve graduation rates. A presentation from a group that includes principals and other district officials recommends targeted interventions to prevent students from falling behind during the pandemic.

Other recommendations include expanding the resources available for homeschool students as enrollment grows. The district’s Fast Track homeschool saw its four-year graduation rate drop by more than half last school year.

Ketchikan’s school board meets virtually at 6 p.m. Wednesday. Members of the public have a chance to weigh in at the beginning of the meeting, but they must sign up in advance by emailing Kerry.Watson@k21schools.org or calling the school board clerk at 247-2142 by a 1 p.m. Wednesday deadline. The meeting is broadcast on local cable channels and live-streamed at the borough’s website.

Correction: An earlier version of this story cited comments from school board President Kim Hodne saying the board would vote on whether to extend the partial closure. After this story was published, Hodne clarified that the board would informally express their opinion, but would not vote.  

The post Ketchikan school board to consider dialing back pandemic restrictions Wednesday appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board met virtually Thursday to consider bringing students back to full-capacity classrooms.  (Screenshot: Eric Stone/KRBD)

Most of Ketchikan’s secondary school classrooms will remain half-full for another week as the area’s pandemic risk level remains elevated. But some school board members pushed to fully reopen schools despite emergency officials’ advice.

Back in July, a 5-2 majority of Ketchikan’s school board voted to bring students back at 100% capacity five days a week. The vote followed months of contentious debate and hours of public testimony from parents, teachers, community members and pandemic response officials.

Here’s board member Paul Robbins, Jr. speaking at that July 29 meeting:

“Madam President, I motion that we vote to adopt the Smart Start plan as a contingency for the 2020-2021 school year and that the school year begin under the minimal risk scenario,” he said.

Basically what that meant was that instruction would be 100% in-person — no Zoom, no distance learning. But classrooms could be scaled back if COVID-19 cases spiked.

That’s been the plan. And it was reaffirmed by four school board members who won new terms in October’s local elections: if Ketchikan’s emergency operations center, or EOC, said students should be sent home, they’d be sent home.

Here’s Kim Hodne, currently the school board president, speaking at a KRBD forum in September.

“Well, it would be ignorant to ignore a suggestion from our local emergency operations center if they’re giving us a recommendation and they’re basing it – which I know that they would – on what is happening in Ketchikan,” he said at the time. All six candidates pledged to follow the EOC’s recommendations.

But when the board met Thursday, Hodne said he wasn’t convinced that schools should remain half-empty.

He argued that existing precautions were enough to slow the spread even with full classrooms.

“We have many protocols in place, distancing and masking, and all of that. And if all those protocols are in place, and it works, then 50-50 really is no different than 100%,” Hodne said Thursday.

Board member Diane Gubatayao said she agreed.

But cases have been climbing, including within the school district: three people at Schoenbar Middle School have tested positive in recent days, as have another three at Ketchikan High School, the acting superintendent told KRBD late Thursday.

That led the board majority to say they should play it safe. Secondary school would remain at half capacity.

Board member Paul Robbins Jr. was among the majority who argued for sticking with the district’s established plan.

“You know, we put a ton of work months and months and months of work into this Smart Start plan, which factored in the testimony of countless parents, the testimony of countless teachers, and the testimony of countless experts,” Robbins said Thursday.

The board voted 5-2 to keep Schoenbar Middle School, Ketchikan High School and Revilla Junior-Senior High School at reduced capacity through Feb. 26. Gubatayao and Hodne were opposed.

Speaking after the meeting, School board President Kim Hodne says the school district has broad autonomy to make its own public health decisions.

“We are not tied directly to the EOC’s risk levels, and we all know that. But we have followed them to this point. And I believe now, six months later, after having said that, with more information, changing of circumstances, it was, in my opinion, now it’s the right way to go,” Hodne said.

The school board is slated to reconsider whether to bring students back to classrooms at noon Thursday, Feb. 25. It’ll be broadcast on cable channels and streamed on the borough’s website.

The post Secondary schools in Ketchikan to remain half-full for at least another week appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan’s school board has postponed a meeting to evaluate the head of the school district. Superintendent Beth Lougee is facing criticism from Alaska Native leaders in Ketchikan. Critics say she hasn’t provided Indigenous staff members with the resources to do their jobs.

The board was scheduled to convene for a second session to evaluate Lougee Tuesday. But school board president Kim Hodne says not everyone could make it.

“We couldn’t make the meeting come together and work as it needs to this evening with everyone in attendance, so we shifted it tentatively to next Thursday, Jan. 7,” Hodne told KRBD Tuesday.

Hodne confirmed that the superintendent was unable to physically attend the meeting but would not share why.  Lougee did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarification. A school district assistant said by phone that Lougee was out of the office through Jan. 4.

Hodne says the board made a last-minute decision to postpone its meeting on Monday.

“We had to make fast, hard decisions late yesterday afternoon,” Hodne said.

He says the board and superintendent mutually agreed on the new date.

The routine evaluation got started Dec. 10. That’s when the board heard community members say that Lougee didn’t support Alaska Native teachers and staff. Hodne announced after a lengthy closed-door session that the board would conduct a community survey before completing the superintendent’s evaluation. Lougee hasn’t responded publicly to the allegations.

Hodne says the delay means the board will continue to collect responses to the anonymous 18-question survey about Lougee’s performance. It’ll close at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 5.

Though most of the meeting will likely take place behind closed doors, Hodne says the board will take public comment in open session. Public portions of the meeting will be live-streamed on local cable channels and at the Ketchikan Gateway Borough’s website. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. Jan. 7 in Ketchikan’s Borough Assembly chambers.

Click here to access the school board’s community survey, or find it on the homepage at KGBSD.org.

The post School board pushes back meeting to evaluate Ketchikan superintendent to Jan. 7 appeared first on KRBD.

Ketchikan High School. (KRBD file photo)

Critics of Ketchikan’s school superintendent say she’s given short-shrift to Alaska Native educators and students. The school board says they are looking into the allegations as they continue to assess her future with the district.

Beth Lougee has been on the job for nearly two years. As the top administrator she’s in charge of Ketchikan’s elementary, middle and high schools.

She’s currently undergoing a routine evaluation as she enters her second full year.

But at a Dec. 10 school board meeting at the High School library, a Ketchikan tribal leader urged the school board to scrutinize the superintendent’s treatment of the district’s Alaska Native staff.

“There has to be a change to the systemic racism that occurs in certain sections of our district,” said Gloria Burns. She’s an elected member of Ketchikan Indian Community’s Tribal Council, but said she wasn’t speaking for the tribe.

“I’m here as an auntie, as a person who is deeply invested in this community,” she said.

She says the school district hired a cultural coordinator but didn’t supply the woman with as much as a desk or chair. A photograph of Teresa Varnell sitting on the floor working on her laptop has circulated widely.

“My auntie, April Churchill, worked in this district as an employee of KIC, and she often went into classrooms with no resources. And when I saw Teresa sitting on the floor, the way my aunt had 20 years ago, I said, the hell with that. There is no excuse,” she said.

She said a KIC-funded art teacher often found herself assigned to rooms without running water. And she said the district had declined cultural training opportunities that would’ve been grant-funded.

So far, Lougee has declined KRBD’s requests for an interview.

Burns wasn’t the only community Native leader to complain about the district’s treatment of its cultural coordinator. Here’s KIC tribal member Sharyl Yeisley, who has children in the district.

“Without offices, proper desks, proper material, and a proper setting to do their jobs, I can’t imagine how they would feel,” Yeisley said.

Yeisley said she’s of Aleut descent and recalled how her people were relocated to a camp in the Ward Cove area during World War II.

“I can imagine in some ways they might feel like my family did, being isolated and separated from other people and watching their peers and their coworkers have things that they don’t have,” she said.

Ketchikan High School teacher Kevin Johnson also addressed the school board about Lougee’s leadership style. He says she’s rudely dismissive of her subordinates.

“Have you ever walked in a hallway, stood in the hallway with your — with the top leader, whom you’re serving under, or whom you’re working under, and them walk by you and act like you don’t exist? Because I want you to see this face. And I want you to know that Ms. Lougee has done that to me. And I did not appreciate it. And it was utterly unprofessional,” Johnson said.

A half-dozen people testified at the meeting, including one written comment read aloud by the school board clerk.

Only one came to Lougee’s defense. School district psychologist Derek Meister said it was clear there were some concerns to be addressed. But he said that given the circumstances, he was confident in her leadership.

“I think she does a damn good job. I think she works harder than any other staff in this district,” Meister said. “I think she puts the hours that any of us who put extra hours in — she puts those numbers to shame with how often she’s in trying to make plans and help us through this insane time in our history, this 2020 year.”

And after a more than three-hour closed-door session, Ketchikan’s school board announced they’d need more time. Board president Kim Hodne told KRBD that everyone who spoke up or wrote letters has been heard.

“And those issues are being addressed in a very definite fashion, and I believe all will be pleased with the outcome that we’re working to,” Hodne said.

Hodne said the school board plans to meet again before Christmas and finalize its evaluation of its superintendent early next month.

Beth Lougee was promoted to interim superintendent in 2018 after her predecessor Robert Boyle resigned amidst controversy. Lougee and her husband David both faced formal complaints at a school district in New Mexico in 2017. But she told KRBD earlier this year that the charges were unfounded.

The post Critics say Ketchikan superintendent shortchanges Alaska Native educators and students appeared first on KRBD.

The Ketchikan School District seal is on display at the superintendent’s office. (KRBD photo by Leila Kheiry)

Two local government bodies will now recognize Ketchikan’s original inhabitants before each public meeting. That’s after the local school board voted Wednesday to join the Ketchikan City Council in reading what’s known as a “land acknowledgment” before getting down to business.

Board Member Diane Gubatayao brought the proposal forward.

“We’re surrounded — so much of our history and culture right here in Ketchikan are part of the Indigenous traditions and customs, and I think it’s appropriate that we honor that all our schools, and where we meet, and our community is on traditional native land,” Gubatayao said

Starting next month, the school board will read the following statement before each meeting: “The Board of Education would like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional first people of this land, the Tongass Tlingit people.”

Board Member Sonya Skan said the statement is intended to recognize all of Ketchikan’s Indigenous people.

“When we acknowledge the people of this land, we’re acknowledging all of the people of this land, that are the Tlingit, the Haida and the Tsimshian people that have traveled this land for thousands and thousands of years,” Skan said.

Skan is the director of education and training for Ketchikan’s federally-recognized tribe.

Skan and Gubatayao thanked former Alaska Native Brotherhood Grand President Richard Jackson and Tlingit elder Willard Jackson for providing guidance in crafting the statement.

Board President Kim Hodne said that he hoped the move was the start of a lasting tradition. The vote was unanimous.

The post School board votes to recognize Ketchikan’s Indigenous people at start of meetings appeared first on KRBD.