The Haines Borough school board Tuesday approved new, matching funding for student travel to state competitions, and one year’s unpaid leave for veteran high school science teacher Mark Fontenot.
The board also:
∙ approved spending about $57,000 for minor capital projects from its “880 fund,” money outside its operating budget the district sets aside for maintenance projects;
∙ heard a report on a citizen effort to keep alive the student spelling bee; and,
∙ set a meeting for Wednesday to address concerns about staffing the district’s homeschool program.
District policy is to pay $100 per student for sports and activity travel to state competitions.Following an appeal Tuesday by music students, the board approved a new policy that includes that amount and provides a one-to-one match of up to $2,000 per team or activity for state events sanctioned by the Alaska Student Activities Association.
Music teacher Kristy Totten said students have raised $4,164 toward the $5,626 cost of a trip to the state music festival in Anchorage through various fundraisers, but the program may need to raise an additional $9,000 for travel to other competitive festivals in the region and Outside.
Up to seven all-state students will fly to Anchorage, Totten said. She said she wouldn’t consider driving because of winter road hazards. Board member Lisa Schwartz said additional school support for state events was warranted because not all activities are equal in fundraising potential. Basketball is so popular those teams have no problem raising money for state competitions, she said.
Others who testified said when only one or two students qualify for state, the difficulty of raising travel money may be daunting enough to discourage participation. Supporters also noted that music is a credited class at the school.
Science teacher Fontenot, who has taught at the school more than 20 years, sought unpaid leave for a year to travel with his family. Fontenot said he wasn’t “burned out” and that he “loved” his job, but he also told the board he’d still go if his request wasn’t granted. “I’ll leave regardless, but I don’t feel like I’m done here. I’m not through with my teaching career. My goal would be to teach for some more years here.”
Board member Sarah Swinton said the offer was a good one for the district. “I’d rather see Mr. Fontenot gone one year than to see him gone forever. My feeling is we lose him for nine months, but we keep him for many, many more months.”
Member Sara Chapell said not all sabbaticals have to be for professional development for them to be important. Time off to recharge and spend time with one’s family can be just as important, she said. “I hope Mark will stick around long enough to teach my kids in high school.”
Fontenot, who was granted a semester-long leave for travel seven years ago, told the board he was “thrilled” and “surprised” by its decision, which was unanimous. “Knowing I can come back is huge. I don’t feel like I’ve been set adrift… I’ll be back.”
Cheryl Stickler, principal for grades K-5, told the board she received two requests from parents to reinstitute the spelling bee. A poll of students in grades 4-8 showed 29 of 99 students interested in participating in a bee. She said that museum director Helen Alten and resident Lorrie Dudzik have volunteered to facilitate a bee, and the school recently registered with the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
“The bee is going to look differently this year because we have community members leading it. That’s powerful in and of itself. I think that’s a piece of what makes our community so rich, that community members come in and say, ‘I want to help. Here’s what I can do.’ So we’re in the process of making that handoff,” Stickler said.
Concerning homeschool, board members questioned whether recent staffing changes were enough to bolster the program, which doesn’t attract as many local families as programs based elsewhere in the state.
Board chair Anne Marie Palmieri said there’s a perception among some homeschool parents that the district’s program had “inconsistencies.” “They said if you make your program more robust, if you build it up, we’ll try it. That’s what we heard (from parents) and that’s what we want. We want our program to be above par.”
Teacher Lisa Andriesen, who along with principal Stickler helps manage the school’s program, described recruiting families away from other districts’ programs as difficult. “Cheryl and I have thought a lot about what we can do to get people to switch over from another (homeschool) program. We came to the conclusion that if we make our (homeschool parents) happy, and that gets out, that might convince them.”
Homeschool parents are invited to next week’s committee meeting about homeschooling, set for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the high school social studies room.
“Our intention was to put more resources into the homeschool,” Palmieri said. “If that’s not happening, we need to look at why that’s not happening and how we can make that happen.”
The district has 13 students enrolled in its homeschool program, of an estimated total of 60-70 homeschool students in the Chilkat Valley.
The $57,000 for projects approved at the meeting is based on rough cost estimates, including for creating a storage area in the school cafeteria; fixing the school’s handicap-accessible front door; improvements to the elementary school stage and acoustics; two new scoreboards, including controls, for Karl Ward Gymnasium; floor and lighting improvements to the weight room; skirting for an outdoors, covered play area; and extension of the school intercom system.
Also on Tuesday, the board agreed to put an additional $110,000 identified in the budget toward the recent high school air-handling system project. The extra money was identified by district auditors and results from payments the district received from Alaska Power and Telephone for a $225,000 overbilling discovered in 2012. Those payments weren’t incorporated into recent budgets.
As the money was intended to be spent last year, the auditors recommended it be spent on a capital project that carried into this year, said board chair Palmieri.
The board also approved sending superintendent Ginger Jewell to two national conferences: The National Conference on Education, Feb. 26-28 in San Diego, and the International Society for Technology in Education conference June 28-July 1 in Philadelphia.
The conferences will cost about $1,000 total for registration, plus travel and other expenses, Jewell said.