The unanticipated resignation of Haines School’s assistant principal last month has led the school district to distribute duties among existing staff.
Haines Borough School District superintendent Roy Getchell told the school board Tuesday that the district wasn’t able to fill the assistant principal position before the school year with a candidate that met standards. He called the proposal to spread responsibilities among staff a “one-time band-aid.”
“I want to make it really clear: This is not what I wanted. It’s not what anybody wanted. My hope was that we would have an assistant principal on day one, and we expected that,” Getchell said.
Under the plan, which was approved Tuesday by the school board, the district will hire a part-time office assistant and will compensate current staff to take on additional responsibilities.
The assistant principal position costs about $120,000 per year including salary and benefits, and the school district would spend $60,000 up front on its new plan, leaving a cushion if additional help is needed later in the year.
A third of those funds would be used to hire the office assistant, and the remaining $40,000 would be divided into stipends for staff covering for the assistant principal. Those staff members include principal Lilly Boron, administrative assistants Ashley Sage and Tiana Perry-Traudt, accountant Judy Erekson and a yet-to-be-named test coordinator and on-call licensed administrator.
“Lilly Boron is going to be heavily impacted,” Getchell said at the Tuesday meeting. “These (additional tasks) are after-hours phone calls, additional student support needs after school, different meetings she’s going to need to attend after hours” and more, Getchell said.
Schools across the state have struggled to hire faculty and administrators in recent years due to an ongoing labor shortage. The school district advertised for the assistant principal position but Getchell said the pool of candidates was “incredibly, incredibly thin.” He said he felt the best way to maintain the district’s standards was to wait for the right candidate.
“None of this is ideal. It’s not what I asked for. But I hope that you’ll find this has been well thought out. It’s not perfect. But hopefully it’s fair,” Getchell told the school board Tuesday.
The plan to distribute tasks to staff instead of hiring for the position is strictly a one-year solution, he said.
In other news, the school board voted to adopt a school safety app, called SchoolGuard, that lets staff members trigger lockdowns in case of an emergency.
“Right now our procedure requires somebody to go to the intercom, and you hope that there’s nobody blocking that or making that difficult,” Getchell said. “We’ve had conversations about putting panic buttons in the building … but until that happens, this (app) would give any staff member in any part of the campus an ability to trigger a lockdown.”
The app also shows a map that lets users see where the emergency is located, potentially helpful information for determining whether to stay in place or evacuate. And it automatically calls 911, Getchell said.
The tool costs $2,000 the first year and $1,000 each subsequent year. Skagway began using it last month.