The recent removal of textbooks, library books, art supplies and furniture from Mosquito Lake School won’t diminish the likelihood of the school reopening in a few years, if enrollment reaches 10 students, Haines Borough school board President Anne Marie Palmieri said this week.
“If there are 10 students who want to attend Mosquito Lake School for the 2015-16 school year, it would not be difficult to restock the school with library books, textbooks, art supplies and anything else we moved to town or is needed for a fully functioning school,” Palmieri said.
“If Mosquito Lake opens in 2015-16, we would need to restock. I don’t see that as a game-changing issue,” she said.
Palmieri said she understood that large furniture items and kitchen equipment remain at the school. Some furniture has been moved to town for the second-grade classroom. It was unclear this week whether student desks remained at the school, and some of the materials from the school have since been claimed by teachers at Haines School.
Former teacher Kathy Holmes is among supporters of the rural school who were concerned about the removal of teaching materials there.
“I was hoping the school district would just mothball it, so a teacher could just step right in if the enrollment got back in place,” Holmes said. “It’s a shame. I was hoping they could keep everything the way it was, at least for a couple of years.”
Holmes said removal of materials would make mobilization more difficult. “It would be harder to get it going, but not impossible. If they had two or three families more in the area, that’s all it would take.”
The state of Alaska provides a separate pot of money for schools with 10 or more students. The district closed the school this year when the number of students dropped to just six students in December, with no outlook for an increase in the coming year.
Holmes, who taught at the school seven years prior to 2013, said the facility is “beloved” by the community and during her tenure was also used for community aerobics and yoga, and for meetings of the upper highway fire department, electric utility and road maintenance service areas.
“I tried to keep it open for anyone who would use it because it’s a public building. I’d try to facilitate that,” Holmes said.
School board president Palmieri said borough manager David Sosa a few months ago raised concerns about liability with materials left in the building. “For example, if there was a fire and school property burned or somebody was using the building and tripped over a desk, who would the liability be with? If it’s not going to be used as a school, they wanted that flexibility.”
Sosa could not be reached this week but borough facilities manager Carlos Jimenez said he believed the borough and school recently signed a “hold-harmless” agreement that would protect the borough if district items were damaged.
The borough will take over management of the building July 1.
“I’m fine with material being left in the school,” Jimenez said. “We don’t have any plans for the building that I’m aware of.”
A school district task force that in March said the school should close for the coming school year said it should reopen “as soon as it is feasible to do so” and that the borough should facilitate the opening by maintaining the school and its grounds.
Closing the school “will make access to high-quality education more challenging” for upper valley youths, the district-appointed group said.