Six community members are competing for four seats on the school board this year. They all sat down with reporter Lizzy Hahn to talk more about why they want to run.
Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. A playlist of these profiles, as they are posted, can be found here.
Lizzy Hahn: Do you want to explain why you chose to run this year?
Kevin Shove: Well, I’ve been on the board now for a couple terms and I enjoy the work and been, you know, working with the legislature and on getting adequate funding for the schools and livable wages for teachers. So I’d like to continue doing that. I have a little rapport with a few of the reps, so I’d like to continue with that. I enjoy doing the work, the curriculum and just everything goes along with it.
How many terms have you served on the school board?
I think two, two terms. I can’t remember. I think I was appointed. No, two terms. This is the third term. Yeah, the first term was a two year, I think, and this last one was a three year. I don’t know. Everything runs together, though.
Then you mentioned that you have two children currently attending the school here in the Haines Borough. Was this a decision, them being in school, like did that factor into your decision to run again this year?
No, that was why I ran in the beginning, because I had thought about that. If I ever have kids and they get in school, I’d probably like to run on the school board. So I ran when George, I think he was in third grade, something like that. I think COVID hit and seemed like at the time the thing to do. And then there were never enough candidates for seats usually. This year, there’s more candidates for the seats. That’s the second time I think I’ve seen that. So that was another factor is like, well, they need people to run. So I did that. The kids being in school was part of it.
Then what are some of the biggest challenges you see for the Haines Borough School District right now? You mentioned funding earlier.
Yeah, I think the State of Alaska is really, the whole state has issues with school funding, and you can get in the weeds with that. But the BSA hasn’t been raised since 2016, I think. I can’t remember. I think it’s 16 now. As everybody knows, there’s been quite a bit of inflation since then. So I would think that the base allocation for students, that should be increased along with inflation proofing it in the future. But you’re working with the legislature, so there’s a lot of back and forth. I think, we get a new governor in there and things might change a little.
Let’s dive into education funding a little bit more. This is something that pretty much everyone has mentioned so far in these interviews. The big topic around it is who should fund education and at what level? Where do you think that that lies?
Well, the state. It’s in the constitution. It’s their obligation and they need to pony up. I mean, it’s the state’s obligation to fund the schools. However they do it, that’s up to them to pass law or bill or whatever they need to accomplish that. I think it was, oh, it was 10 years ago, I don’t remember. It was one of the, I can’t remember the names, but one of the reps, they put a, you know, if they had done an endowment, this endowment they had proposed years ago, it would be at the point now where it could fund the schools. And they’re talking about that. When we went [to Juneau] last year, they’re talking about some sort of endowment or some for school funding. They’re working on it, but the state needs to figure that out and adequately fund the schools. When I first moved here, schools, teachers were flocking here to work in Alaska because the pay was good, experience. Now it’s the other way around. Teachers are leaving because there’s no proper retirement and the pay isn’t livable. They have some work out of them. And it’s up to us to advocate for that.
My next question kind of focuses on AI. Do you use AI? If so, how? And how do you think students should either learn to use AI or not learn to use it in the classroom?
Well, I do not use AI. I have no need for it. I know a lot of people are loving it, but I can form my own paragraphs and I can write my own letters. I think the kids really need to focus on learning just reading, writing, and arithmetic. I mean, you get to high school, maybe they should incorporate that in there, to some of the learning, as an aid, an assistant. I don’t know. I think teacher face-to-face learning, instruction with the teacher going around. Just case in point, my son, they do video sometimes in school, for math he was doing. He’d never get it on the video. But when the teacher would show it on the board and explain it to him, he’d get it. So I just think that’s crucial is the interaction, human interaction. I think there’s a place for it, but I don’t think it needs to be like the end of all, ‘oh God, AI, let’s jump in and everybody uses AI for everything’ or whatever. No, I don’t, I don’t agree with that at all.
Then you mentioned this a little bit earlier with funding, but teacher retention has been an issue pretty much in the whole state. How do you hope to address it, address this so that teachers potentially stay longer or want to come to Haines?
Well, you got to address the pay issue, the funding, and then also their retirement. To get them to stay, they have to have something to stay for. Right now they don’t have any type of retirement that I think beneficial for teachers. If they’re not paying into social security, then they should have the state. They had a bill out. There was a bill to fix that. I think it was a pretty decent, a good bill and, but it got, I believe, shelved for now, like a lot of education bills. They need to fix that because everybody, if you want a long-term, if you want people to look at a long-term investment, they have to see, okay, well, if I worked there for so many years, I’m going to accumulate, they can do the numbers and I say, well, ‘I’ll have this in my retirement and I can afford it.’ I mean, we’ve had, I mean, I won’t mention names, one person went, left and went back to where they came from so they could finish out their career there and get the retirement because they weren’t able to do it here. So those two things I think are key to getting teachers to stay are the wages and retirement. I think the state itself and everything is an attracting place for people. A lot of people come up here, especially with the way things are down south, cities and there are so many people and you see that. But if you can’t live, you won’t be able to make it.
Other people also mentioned housing as a part of this fold.
There’s an issue in Haines with that. The place that we could use, there’s affordable, I mean, condos type, apartments, whatever, a building, we have enough, we have some stuff around town, but that is an issue for when teachers come up here, finding a place and they do a good job at the school, getting them into, they have a couple of people that help out with rentals they have and to get teachers and it was right next door.
They rent a lot to the school, that house next to my house. I believe this year, but no, there wasn’t any teachers, they found their other places. So I think that all the new ones that came had found a place where, stay and live and because his was still open. It is an issue if you want to stay long-term, I think that I’ve seen now a few houses up for sale around town. I mean that kind of ebbs and flows.
Since you have served two terms on the school board, do you feel like you have a rhythm? And if you were elected this year, are there any goals that you want to strive for? Particularly, like looking a year from now or three years from now, what do you hope to have accomplished?
Well, we’re updating the curriculum and going through that. That’s one thing I hope we want to finish up. Like I said, going in to, I’m on the legislative committee and I enjoy that, going down to Juneau on the fly-ins and speaking with the legislatures and advocating. Before I get out of it, I’d like to see the fund, the BSA, increased by law and the funding adequate for the schools. That’s one of my biggest goals. Cause I think the Haines school does a pretty good job with the kids, as long as you’re, the parents are involved and you apply yourself, you’re going to get an education. A lot of it is the parents need to be involved with your kid in order for that to happen. Cause the teacher is not raising your kid, there’s things to be done at home also to help with the education. But I think those two things, the legislative committee and, and updating the curriculum, which we’ve been doing and it’s been going well.
When you go to Juneau, what are some of the discussions that you’re having with legislature members?
I think a lot of the legislatures are on board now with increasing the funding. It’s a matter of getting it across the governor’s desk. I mean, in the first few times we went down there when Roy was here, it was like trying to get them to realize that, ‘yeah, we got a problem.’ And then now I think they realize it with some of the schools falling down and, if people have been paying attention, there’s been some issues up North with schools, I mean, just pretty bad. Now they know that. This year, with the windfall of the oil profits, they’ve allocated a lot of that money or some of that money, not a lot of, some of the money to go to the capital, getting the projects and fix a lot of the issues with the schools. We were on 31, 32, I think, on the list. Actually I think that’s where it ended. We had the two, our locker room and roof that were on the list for years have gotten funded. They know they need to, to invest in the schools, and the legislature knows it now. It’s just a matter of figuring out how much and getting it done. They’re working on that part right now, at least the infrastructure, they’re putting some money into the buildings before they have to start building new schools.
You mentioned the curriculum: how does the school board look at the curriculum? Is it updating it or?
Committee and they look at different curriculums that are out there now and they get input from teachers, parents. They’ll form a committee and then they’ll look at and see how it works and the teachers like it and pick the best one, what’s the best one for the kids. I think right now they’re doing science, but the math was updated and, and in the reading, we were seeing the results on the reading, I believe now that some of the increased in some of the scores and stuff. So I think that it’s good thing to do. You’ve got to look at that every, obviously every so often or every so many years and, and get up with the times I suppose you say.
Is there anything else that you would like to see introduced into the school system? One candidate mentioned dual credit classes for students. Is that something that you’re thinking about or just like improving the curriculum?
Well, no, there’s, I mean, I’m sure that’d be something and we’d go, there’s other things they’re doing.
Like right now they started this program in Southeast where the kids can sign up and they go for a week to learn on trades, early childhood, whatever boat ship, Ketchikan, Juneau, another one there, and they have three or four they’re doing a year. They cut one back but you could sign up. I’m talking to my son about it. You go for a week and see if that’s something you’re going to like and do these trade. Cause there’s a big demand. That’s what I’d like to see more interest in investment in the trades, which we are doing. It’s something that’s being pushed in state now too. The dual credit classes, right now they can take classes, I think, and there’s a lot of things they can do, they just have to go to their counselor or their teacher and find out what there is. Cause there’s a lot of things that aren’t utilized. I think too, out there for the kids, you just have to go find, you know, go look and ask what’s out there. But yeah, I think that for me, I’d like to see a lot more in trades because being, you know, the blue collar field, you could see plumbers, others, they’re all needed out there and they’re good wages, minimal schooling. You don’t have to go to college for 10 years, a couple of two-year school and then you go out in the field and you make some good money. I do one of them on the side, refrigeration, it wears me out, but I don’t make no money off it, but I fix stuff. It’s a handy skill to have.
Do you think that more vocational classes need to be taught here or does that look like more outside programs that kids travel to?
Yeah, more program. You need a lot of funding, and right now I mean, we’re trying not to cut things. I know we want to add things, but it’s not going to happen until something changes and the borough has increased their funding to the school up to the cap almost. So they’re invested in it, which has helped us out a lot as far as, I’ve been in the teacher contract negotiations for the last two times in this last time, we gave them a raise obviously. We want to give them a raise because the pay was low and we got it up, but we’re still, I don’t know, the bottom three quarters of the state maybe, in pay, something like that. Some of them are higher, but the ones that are, we’re paying the teachers higher now on these fiscal cliffs too, we have our budgets, I think we do a pretty good job of the budget actually. You know, a lot of schools are in need right now and, and if you look at a lot of them, we’re paying the teachers higher salaries and they need to make the money to go to college and earn these degrees. So, you want to get a wage to match that but without the funding, it’s hard to do that. I think here in the, I’ve got a good outlook on that.
I think that in the next couple of years, we’re going to get some increases and it’ll change as long as they manage the money right in the state. Good luck.
Looking at the next three years, if you were elected, what would a successful term look like for you?
Well, I think that in the three years, that would be having that funding solidified. I think it could be done in the next three years. For me is also the kids, the scores, increasing our scores and we have a high graduation rate and like to increase that to, it’d be a hundred percent is our goal. The successful term for me would be like the increase in those scores and, and in the tests that kids do and the funding, securing more funding and there are more opportunities with these, the vocational and stuff that’s coming out now, I think that’s key. I would think with more in this program, new program they started, if that kind of takes off and hopefully –it’s a federal funded program, so it’s no cost to the schools or the state there, the kids sign up they go – so hopefully that can continue. I think key for me is I’ve been working on the funding for a while, so I keep going back to that. The kids do, they need to succeed and set them up for success.
Those were all the questions that I had written down. Is there anything else that you want to mention that I maybe didn’t ask about?
I enjoy working with the folks on the board, everybody, we all look at every issue and do what’s best for the school and the kids. I’m sure anybody new on the board would also look at it that way because we don’t, I don’t think anybody in there looks at this side or that side or anything. It’s what’s best for our school and for our kids. Everybody works well together. I like that about being on the school board. I enjoy working with everybody. Maybe that’s all we add that, I like everybody there. When you watch the borough assembly meetings, you can tell it’s not so cohesive, but anyway, I do enjoy it. So I would, I appreciate anybody’s vote and everybody’s vote, and I’ll continue to do my best.
Kevin Shove, thank you so much for joining me in the studio today.
Thank you for having me.