The Alaska Board of Education is supporting a recommendation by the state education commissioner to form an ad-hoc committee to address student well-being at Mt. Edgecumbe High School.

At its meeting on Jan. 23, board members backed the idea of initiating the ad-hoc committee process after hearing in public testimony that nearly 100 Mt. Edgecumbe students — 25 percent of the student body — have dis-enrolled from the state-operated boarding school since the academic year began in August. 

State board members will be presented with a formal proposal to establish the ad hoc committee regarding MEHS operations at an upcoming meeting. “If a majority vote in favor is cast, the (state board) will task DEED with establishing the committee,” a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development said today.

Mt. Edgecumbe High School is operated directly by the state department of education, which is known as DEED; the state Board of Education heads DEED. 

Except for a few students from Sitka who can live at home, MEHS students are housed in campus dormitories during the school year. The students come from around the state, mostly from rural Native villages.

The 99 students who have departed MEHS so far this year were among the 409 registered at the start of the school year, MEHS Superintendent David Langford reported today. 

MEHS Advisory Board member Tanya Kitka of Kodiak, a 2002 MEHS alumna and a parent of former students, said in public testimony to the state board last Thursday that uncertainties and new restrictions that students are experiencing in dormitory life caused the large number of student withdrawals.

“The current problems that I see are not just simply a result of funding reduction, or a lack thereof, but more indicative of problems with leadership, operational decisions that have been made, and a lack of oversight and accountability,” Kitka said. “I don’t think the current administration is taking matters seriously.”

“I’m asking the state Board of Education, as the effective governing body for Mt. Edgecumbe, to step in,” Kitka said. “Our school has been a model of success for decades, and its legacy is currently under attack, as mismanagement of our school is threatening that model of success.”

Sen. Bert Stedman spoke to issues at MEHS during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Monday, and state lawmakers are set to hear an update on the situation Feb. 11 from Langford and Dr. Deena Bishop, who is the state education commissioner. Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Council members are also working with MEHS leaders to address student well-being.

Advisory Board members, parents of students, former staff members and other stakeholders, including a school clinician, have been outspoken for months about issues with students’ safety, morale, dorm life, cafeteria food options, recreational options, school communications, a lack of security staff and other staffing issues, and the high rate of student withdrawals this year. 

Complaints and concerns were raised last academic year, and were renewed in an MEHS Advisory Board meeting on Oct. 9, and again at a state board meeting on Dec. 4 and at a MEHS Advisory Board meeting on Dec. 11. All of the meetings have been held over Zoom. 

Bishop, the state education commissioner, gave a presentation at the Dec. 11 Advisory Board meeting. The Advisory Board, composed of current and former parents and students, is charged by the state board to give guidance to MEHS administrators and participate in some of DEED’s decision-making processes for the school. 

During the Dec. 11 meeting, Bishop heard seven people testify that a mental health crisis was unfolding at the state-operated boarding school.

Bishop had previously heard concerns from seven people who gave pubic testimony about MEHS at the beginning of a state board meeting on Dec. 4. 

At that meeting a medical clinician at the school spoke of her concerns about student safety. The speaker, a nurse-practitioner who has worked with MEHS students for 14 years, said that eight students were admitted to the hospital for suicidal ideation in a 15-day period in November, and four of the eight had intentionally overdosed on medication. 

MEHS parents told the state board on Dec. 4 that they felt the superintendent was misleading in his presentation of inaccurate enrollment data in a monthly conference call to parents on Dec. 3.

Langford was hired as superintendent last July, succeeding Suzzuk Huntington, who started in that position in the fall of 2022. Langford taught at Edgecumbe in the 1980s and early 1990s.

When he took the job at Edgecumbe last year, Langford continued as superintendent of the Chatham School District, which covers four communities in Southeast Alaska, including Klukwan.

During the Dec. 4 state board meeting, Kitka asked why the MEHS Advisory Board was not involved in the hiring process for Langford, since that is one of the explicit duties of the board. Kitka asked that hiring for the position be re-opened. 

Multiple people who spoke at the Dec. 4 state board meeting asked the board to form an ad-hoc committee to work on addressing issues at the school. 

Also at the meeting, state education board chair Sally Stockhausen asked Bishop and other education department staff “to gather some more information regarding the concerns that we heard (about MEHS) today, as well as more information regarding the ad-hoc committee, and to come back to us at our January (22) meeting.”

Bishop brought back the requested information as part of her verbal commissioner’s report to the board at the Jan. 22 meeting, which was held over Zoom.

She spoke for about ten minutes, focusing on funding challenges Edgecumbe is facing, a cutback in student recreational opportunities following the staffing changes, and concerns with the new dormitory and food contractor, NANA Corp.

Bishop said much of the change this year is due to reduced funding following years of budgets inflated by the infusion of about $5 million in COVID-19 funds that could be spent at the school’s discretion. 

Bishop said she believes there are two sides to the concerns raised about school operations. 

“With many of the concerns, like a lot of things, people sit in different places, so they see it in different ways, and you know, if something’s presented here, you look into it, and somewhere in the middle is where we find out. … There’s no blame, there’s no anything,” Bishop said. 

“I do want to share with you that things got tougher,” Bishop said. “Like, you know, they operate in loco parentis (in the place of a parent). They take care of those kids. That means, like, I’m your parent when your parent isn’t here. The dorm, you know, of the comments, yes, the dorm did get more strict.”

“Feedback is what it is, just take it, and we move it forward, and we look to see where we can make some changes,” Bishop said, before recommending that the state board form an ad-hoc committee. 

She requested that the committee operate on a clear timeline and focus on improving MEHS and student experiences there.

“The committee objectives, I hope, would be an academic focus,” Bishop said. “That’s what we’re here for first, as well as the quality of students’ experiences in the dorm, when they’re away from their parents. … Teachers will be involved, administration will be involved, parents will be involved.”

Board members expressed their support for the idea of forming an ad-hoc committee, and board chair Stockhausen asked for student safety to be a topic for the committee.

“Something that we have heard both at the advisory board level and then also public comment (to the state board), a common thread has been student safety, and I know that could fall under student experience, but I think it’s been enough that it should probably be its own category,” Stockhausen said.

Bishop said she would add student safety as a separate category. 

Bishop said that she needed to consult with the department’s legal advisors, as she did not know whether the Board needed to provide meeting notice and vote on an action item to form the ad-hoc committee.

Board members discussed the idea of holding a special meeting if a majority vote were needed to start the process.

Alaska Department of Education and Early Development personnel confirmed today that the Board will hold a vote during an upcoming meeting on the proposal to task DEED with establishing the ad hoc committee.

Responding to a question from the Sentinel regarding the ad-hoc committee process, Langford said in an email today that he will speak directly to the State Board of Education during its March 10-11 meeting in Juneau. He also said he and Bishop will speak before the Alaska Senate Education Committee on February 11.

Rep. Rebecca Himschoot’s office said MEHS operations will be discussed at a House Education Committee meeting on Feb. 11.

Himschoot’s staff noted that there will not be public testimony on the topic, as no bill has been introduced. 

Last Wednesday, Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Council members voted 9-0 to pass a resolution requesting that the state education department “create an ad hoc committee on student safety” at MEHS, citing the concerns brought up in staff and public testimony since the start of the school year;

With students “being far from home, there is a great need to advocate for and act in the best interest of students’ social-emotional needs,” the STA resolution states. 

STA Tribal Council members held a Health and Human Services Committee meeting at noon today with leaders from MEHS and representatives from NANA to discuss ways that STA could support students at school.  

• This story originally appeared in the Daily Sitka Sentinel.