Rebecca Hylton first moved to Haines 28 years ago to work as a seasonal employee at Chilkat Guides. She wasn’t planning to stay and make the community a permanent home, but she said she fell in love with the way of life here.
Hylton, who is in the running for one of the three open seats on the school board, said she stayed for about a decade. Toward the end of that time she started working in Skagway on and off, and finally moved there for the economic opportunity it offered. She stayed there for 15 years, worked in a series of tourism-related jobs and was also elected to the Skagway Borough Assembly.
But ultimately, the lure of the lifestyle in Haines – and a job as the borough’s tourism director – drew her back.
“I kind of wanted a little bit more for my son, more of the real Alaska experience,” she said.
A lot of that experience happens in the schools.
“The high school kids can learn how to process a moose when it’s donated,” she said. She pointed toward career and technical education classes, like welding, that have been offered in the past, too.
“He’s a more hands-on person. As he grows, I can see that that’s his path,” Hylton said. “And I really wanted to expose him more.”
Hylton, who got back to town in 2023, said she knew right away that she’d run for office or find some way to be involved in helping to guide the community.
“I have a long history of volunteering and I feel like this is just kind of like the upper level of volunteering,” she said. “You know, I’m a big picture thinker and I really just want to be involved in my child’s education. I want to be involved in this community.”
One of the first things she’d like to tackle if she gets onto the board is recruitment and retention of staff.
“You know, my son befriended the last assistant principal’s child, and they moved. They made it one season here and they moved, you know?” she said. “Whatever I could do to help with that, that’s the kind of role I’d like to assist with.”
Hylton, who grew up in Oregon, has a degree in early childhood education from Portland Community College. She said that means she understands how to support teachers in the classroom, but it also means she’d like to see the district potentially expand in that area.
“I have a co-worker who has some very young children and I know that preschool here is a real big struggle,” she said. “So I would like to go down that route and just explore – if that’s a possibility – that somehow we can put that under the school umbrella.”
It’s something she started looking into while she was in Skagway and Hylton said she’d like to start the conversation here.
“The struggle is real. And, you know, with early childhood education, the sooner you can support that child and its network, its family, the better off the community and the world is going to be.”
Hylton said she is also interested in seeing the expansion of Tlingít language education in the Haines school – either through creating a more permanent space for the school’s current teacher or partnering with the Klukwan School and Chatham School District to expand that opportunity.
“I mean, I think about it, I feel like I was forced in high school to take Spanish and it really wasn’t something I wanted to do,” she said. “And then we have a community where that is what, 20% Tlingít? Why wouldn’t we have Tlingít language in the school and do all we can to support it?
This year, the school board voted to join the Coalition for Education Equity – a nonprofit group that has been vocal all year about its plans to sue the state for inadequately funding public schools.
Hylton said she is not afraid of the challenge of joining the board at a time when local districts and the state are fighting about how best to fund education.
“I’m all in for a fight,” she said. “I think this is as good a cause as any to put the gloves on and to get in there.”
She also has questions about how the Haines district approaches funding.
“I’ve always found it really interesting how the Haines school board doesn’t ask the assembly for funding to the cap,” she said. “I would like to know more about that because Skagway always funds its district to the cap. There’s some big questions here, and I have a lot of work to do. But I’m not afraid of work. Ok? I’m going to roll my sleeves up and I’m going to get in there and I’m going do my best.”