The Klukwan School’s parent district, the Chatham School District, is sharing its newest superintendent with a state-run boarding school as of July 1.
David Langford will explore options to share services and costs between the state-run high school on Japonski Island near Sitka, and the rural school district that encompasses Klukwan, Angoon, Gustavus and Tenakee Springs.
Langford was first offered the top administrative job in the Chatham School District in March. But he has a history teaching at Mt. Edgecumbe as one of the first to be hired when the state reopened the school in 1985. He taught there until 1992.
“I started checking in (about) what has been happening and they were in desperate need of some new management,” Langford said.
When the former superintendent of Mt. Edgecumbe resigned in April, the high school was facing a $1.8 million budget shortfall and the prospect of cutting half of its teaching staff.
Langford said he started talking to lawmakers and education commissioner Deena Bishop—whose department administers the boarding school; eventually the idea that he could run both surfaced.
He said he spoke to the Chatham School Board, which agreed to allow him to take on the role. The Alaska Board of Education appointed Langford as the new superintendent of Mt. Edgecumbe High School as well.
“I’m getting paid through Mt. Edgecumbe, so I was able to reduce my salary in the Chatham district,” he said. “So that was an interesting board meeting. They said ‘Wow, we’ve never had a superintendent come in and ask to reduce their salary.’”
Both districts are facing financial difficulties that Langford blamed, at least in part, on the state.
“I believe that a lot of people don’t understand the whole funding cycle. This year, the big fight with the legislature and the governor about getting $700 in [per-student funding]? It sounds like ‘Oh isn’t it great?’ But, in actuality, it’s only $20 more per student this year than it was last year,” he said.
So while districts can plan better because that per-student funding amount has been raised permanently, he said it doesn’t make up for more than a decade without an increase in the funding formula.
“Districts have just been steadily dealing with cost of living increases and COVID and if you understand anything about school budgets, one of the very few ways that you can significantly cut expenses is through staff. Unfortunately that’s what districts have to do is cut staff,” he said.
While he has a goal of deepening partnership between the two districts, right now Langford said the schools operate very differently.
“I have two large screens in my office, one screen is for Mt. Edgecumbe and one screen is for Chatham. Two sets of emails and two phones and two computers,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll start in-service training at Mt. Edgecumbe for two days, then I fly to Angoon for two days for their in-service, then I fly to Klukwan at the end of next week and the following week I’ll be in Gustavus.”
Langford is on a three-year contract at both schools and will live in Sitka while managing the districts. But he said the reality is that he spends most of his day on the phone or in video meetings, so his physical location is less important.
One of the biggest differences in running the district and the boarding school is that because the boarding school is operated by the state, there’s a lot of red tape involved in getting anything done.
“Not only do I have the same problems I have to deal with, but then getting it through the state’s system is probably no better than it was 30 years ago,” he said.
Langford said he plans to take at least a year to see what opportunities for collaboration there could be between Chatham and Edgecumbe, but is specifically interested in learning if the two institutions could share staff, or whether Edgecumbe could become part of the Chatham School District permanently.
“I’m doing some joint training with the principals from Chatham and the principals from Mt. Edgecumbe,” he said. “I could see in the future having joint in-service training for both districts, so we’re making good use of funds there.”
And, when it comes to the Klukwan School specifically, Langford has a few ideas for operations. The first, that Klukwan students could potentially choose to attend Mt. Edgecumbe High School once they graduate from the eighth grade.
He’s also considering the idea of using Mt. Edgecumbe’s aquatic facility for training for Klukwan students.
“Maybe we just put all the kids and staff on the ferry and bring them [down] for a week’s worth of intensive swimming lessons and water safety lessons,” he said.
Garland Kennedy of the Daily Sitka Sentinel contributed to this reporting.