Mt. Edgecumbe High School is cutting staff for the second year in a row amid ongoing budget and enrollment issues. While last year’s position cuts were mostly refilled at the end of the summer, administrators say they’ll only re-hire for the cut positions this year if more students enroll.
The state-run boarding school in Sitka serves students from across the state — the majority of whom are Alaska Native from rural communities without local high schools.
News of deteriorating facilities and an exodus of roughly a quarter of its students over the past year prompted state legislators to visit the campus in February and hold hearings to question school leadership.
In an alumni advisory board meeting on April 23, Superintendent David Langford, who was hired last summer, said that new student applications have slowed to a trickle.
“Right now, we’re at 37% below where we are normally at this time for new applications coming in,” Langford said. “So yeah, that’s lower than what it has been before, and that’s what’s driving us to look at alternative budget projections.”
The administration has drafted two budget scenarios for the upcoming school year. One is based on near-full enrollment at 375 students. The other is a more conservative estimate at 275 students.
In response to dwindling enrollment, Langford said the school has cut several positions, and he’s not sure how many they’ll be able to refill.
Langford said as of now, six teachers won’t be returning: two are retiring, one is moving, and three non-tenured teachers were given the option to either resign or be “non-retained” — which means they’re not being offered a contract for next year. Non-retention can often be seen as a mark on a teacher’s record. If a teacher gets a non-retention letter, they have to disclose that when applying for future teaching positions.
“It’s important to note that nobody’s getting fired,” Langford said. “That’s a whole different category, which means we don’t want you to ever teach anywhere again, basically. And we’re not doing that to anybody.”
In an interview with KCAW, Langford said if enrollment exceeds their projections, they may look at hiring all six positions back.
“We live off of enrollment, and that’s how we get funding,” he said. “So if we don’t have students coming in, we can’t fund teachers.”
Matt Hunter, president of the union representing teachers (Teacher’s Education Association – Mt. Edgecumbe), said a non-retention can happen for any non-tenured teacher for any reason. He said the cuts that happened last spring and the upcoming cuts for next school year are strictly budgetary.
“This year’s reductions came from some budget issues that we ran into last year,” Hunter said. “We had some overspending, and were relying on COVID funds that had expired and weren’t there any longer. That’s why we had such big cuts between last year and this year. And looking forward, in order to budget wisely, you have to look at how many applications you have and how many kids you’re likely to have, or you’ll promise a job to someone, and then find out in August you can’t afford it, which would be terrible.”
Hunter said when families hear bad news about the school, enrollment goes down, but recent news coverage of Mt. Edgecumbe’s challenges only tells part of the story.
“We have students who are some of the most genuine, kind people I’ve ever met, and we have good stuff happening in our classrooms. We offer some really neat classes,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a good school next year. We’re still going to have good teachers. We’re going to have wonderful students. We just need people to come.”
Langford said the biggest priority moving forward is rebuilding enrollment by showcasing how special Mt. Edgecumbe is.
“Yes, we might have fewer students next year than normal, and that would be a rebuilding year to build back culture and pride and all the kinds of things that maybe we’re lacking this year,” he said.
Mt. Edgecumbe lets out on May 8 for the summer break, and reconvenes in late August. Langford said despite current enrollment numbers, he’s optimistic about the year to come.
