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 start by just telling me why you chose to run this year.
Michael Wald: I chose to run for school board this year because the school is both literally and figuratively the center of our community. I’d like to be able to contribute to the good work that’s happening at the school and advocate on both the state level and the community level for funding the school adequately.
Your second son, Nolan, just graduated. How does it feel to have two Haines graduates in your household?
We moved to Haines when our kids were little. At the time, Haines had great childcare opportunities for families with young kids. It was part of why we moved from the interior to Haines and we saw both of our boys go through their entire schooling career at the Haines school. There’s room for improvement at our school for sure and we could increase the academic rigor and hold our students to a higher standard but my kids and their peers are succeeding in different endeavors around the state and around the country. My younger son is enrolled in university and feels prepared for that. I’m proud of both of them and grateful to the staff of the school for particularly giving them the personalized attention that our school is so good at delivering.
You mentioned some improvements: what do you think could shift within the school itself to prepare students better? Do you think students are prepared well enough for school?
There’s always room for improvement in any institution. I think that kind of the fundamental challenge that’s facing the district right now is that the state and to a lesser extent, the federal government have abdicated their responsibilities or their constitutional obligations to adequately fund education. So, because of that, we don’t have the ability to pay staff what we would like to pay staff. We don’t have the ability to retain educators at the rate that we have in the past and that we would like to in the future. I think it’s a big lift there. There have been some really important political changes and a real intentional effort on the part of the state to shift the burden, the responsibility for education, from the state to municipalities and so hopefully we can continue to advocate, not only for our district, but for district statewide and change that perspective in Juneau. Hopefully the federal government will continue to support education. We’re a title one school and we’re very reliant on federal funds and so hopefully those federal funds will continue to support us, but the district needs more money. I think part of the job of the school board is to advocate for that on a state, federal, and a local level so that the community understands where the property tax money is going and how it’s being used and hopefully feels good about our contributions to the district.
You actually touched on my next question there, which is school funding, which is now becoming such a common topic at, like you said, at our state level, local level, even around the country. How do you think that you could best respond to funding as a school board member? What avenues do you see as being potential funding sources?
I’m hopeful that with a change in governor, there will be, you know, the legislature has been by and large supportive of trying to increase funding to levels that are not generous, but that are probably adequate, and I would like to see the legislature really reframe things and prioritize education. So, that funding is in fact you know reliable and generous. I mean, that’s the word I think we should be going for. But the governor has been an impediment in that process and hopefully whoever our new governor is will be sympathetic and supportive and an advocate for our students. As a school board member, I think one thing we can continue to do is to be clear about what our legislative priorities are, continue to send school board members to Juneau, continue to support Superintendent Boron in her statewide efforts and in her time in Juneau lobbying for our district and other districts. But I think the other thing that we as a school board can do a better job on is educating the public in Haines, so that like I said earlier, so that people feel good about the way that their property tax money is being spent. We’re asking a lot of the borough and we’re grateful for the borough support. But if the state continues to violate the Constitution, frankly, and not adequately support education, we’re going to have to ask the community for more support so that our students are prepared for the future. So that our students are safe and so that our students are academically challenged and so that they have opportunities to do sports and to travel and all the other things that our school is so good at.
How many terms have you served on the school board already?
I started mid-term because there was a vacancy. I completed a part of a term and then I’ve had two full terms since then. I think I’ve been on the school board for eight years and should I be reelected, this would be my fourth term.
Since you have been a school board member before, do you feel like, since you have this time put in, you know what issues you want to directly address like the funding issues, with your new term if elected?
For sure, and seeing people enter the school board, it’s easier to see other people’s trajectory than your own, of course, I’m seeing other people enter the school board. I think for all of us, it takes a number of years to understand how the district functions, how funding functions, how the sort of chain of command within the school, sort of what is a superintendent, you know what, what is a principal, you know, I’m just, it takes a while to understand the institution. I think that I know that for myself. The first two years of my tenure on the school board where I didn’t really say much at school board meetings. I was there to learn and listen and try to understand how things were functioning. It’s a long onboarding process for school board members to become really effective. I think the board benefits from having some long term school board members on there and we’re lucky right now that there are a number of long term school board members and I’m grateful for that. We work really well together.
Do you hope to see new school board members enter?
There will certainly be new school board members, we have four vacancies. There will be new school board members. It’s great to have fresh perspectives. It’s great to have people who are learning the institution asking good questions at school board members and forcing those of us that have been there for a while to reevaluate and to articulate why things are done the way they are. And yes, it’s great to have a good balance of seasoned school board members – people who have been there for a number of years – and some new school board members and looking at, sort of the math of this election, there’s no way for it to not be that.
What are some of the biggest – and you’ve touched on a few points already being funding and working on the curriculum. What are some of the biggest challenges you see for the Haines School District as a whole, and how would you address them with a new term, if you were elected.
We have heard from the student body very directly and from the staff very directly, that teacher retention and teacher turnover is the single biggest issue that’s on people’s minds. The issue of teacher retention directly affects, sort of social emotional well being of students and it directly affects academic challenge and performance. Because like a school board member, it takes a while to learn an institution and it takes a while to learn, so if we can keep staff for a number of years, then after a year or two their energy is being better spent and more focused on our students. The issues of funding and the issues of teacher retention are of course tied together and so what we can do to get some more funding and make sure that any gains we have in the budget are directed towards our staff. I think that’s really the highest priority. One of the challenges in running a school is that, you know, there’s a lot of people in that building and every day there’s something to react to, there’s issues to be resolved and there’s personalities and there’s just a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. So one thing that we can do as a school board is, because we’re not there on a daily basis and we’re not sort of caught up in those details, is that we can keep an eye on those bigger issues. The supervisory issues and the funding issues and the long term trajectory.
Kind of changing gears now: AI use. AI is being used very heavily in our modern world. Do you use AI? If so, how and how do you think students should learn to use it. Should they learn to use it? Do you think that AI should be either used or not used in classrooms?
I have spent a lot of my career in education teaching outdoor and we run a wilderness guide service that is that is aimed at natural history education, but I’m not a classroom teacher and I think one of the tricks and being on the school board is remembering what our job is: our job is to supervise the superintendent and to approve curriculum sort of writ large and I think it’s important for school board members to sort of confine themselves to that and to acknowledge that I’m not an educator and that I’m not well informed enough about the appropriate role of AI in elementary education, which I assume would be different than its role in high school education. I guess really what I’m trying to say is, I don’t think I’m qualified to answer the question of how we should be using or not using AI in the classroom. I think that as a school board member, we should be focused on getting adequate funding for the school so that we can hire staff that really know the answers to these questions and enough staff that they have the time to stay up on developments in education and really be focused on their students. As a school board member, I think part of our job is to support Superintendent Boron and our principal so that there’s good policy and that there’s good support for teachers so that they can do their job in the classroom.
Do you use AI personally? Is that something that is in your world at all?
It’s becoming hard to avoid. I mean, you use AI when you do a Google search now whether you consent to that or not. I don’t spend a lot of time seeking out AI and and in my professional world, there’s not enough data about any of the things that are important to me for AI to produce relevant results. So it’s not a big part of anything that I do professionally.
Looking at if you were to be elected. What does a successful term look like for you, either a year from now, or three years from now?
The primary role of the school board is to supervise and support the superintendent. That’s what the statute says. I think that the definition of a successful term as a school board member is to have a superintendent who is able to do his or her job and move the school forward in the way that the community would like to see it. And so I’ll just leave it there.
Bouncing back to teacher turnover. Is it a funding issue with teachers or housing or are they all connected?
As a school board member, there’s not a whole lot that I can do about the larger community context of a housing shortage. What I can do is advocate for funding so that teachers are financially able to participate in the housing market. So yeah, teacher retention is a funding issue, I can’t remember where we are on the ranking within the state, within the 52 districts that we have, but we’re not at the top. The cost of living here is very high. To move that teacher pay scale up so that people can live in our community and people can stay in our community. It’s a great community. People want to be here. People love working at our school. Again, we hear teachers say, ‘this was the most rewarding part of my career as an educator, but I have to leave Haines because retirement is better in this other district’ or because they just can’t make it work financially and that’s heartbreaking. The district puts a lot of time and energy and love into onboarding and training and welcoming new teachers and it’s heartbreaking when they leave, particularly if they’re leaving because they just can’t make it work financially. That’s a failure on the part of the State of Alaska and something that I hope that we can rectify statewide and locally.
Is there anything else you would like to mention about the election or school board. Anything else that I haven’t asked you would like to bring up?
I hope everybody will vote. Every single person in the borough who’s eligible: just vote. I don’t care who you vote for. Just get out there and make your voice heard.
Thank you so much for sitting down and taking the time to talk to me today, Michael.
See you, Lizzy. Thank you so much.