Students in the Kupreanof Island village of Kake will resume in-person learning for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

The Kake City School Board announced this week that the district will adopt a mixture of in-person and remote learning starting February 8, barring any new active cases in the community. Students who want to remain fully remote still have the option. 

Kake City School District Superintendent Rich Catahay says the teachers are excited to have students back in the building, participating in hands-on activities.

“We look forward to seeing our students back in classes, looking at those huge smiles and the conversations that we have,” he said. “There’s nothing like in-person learning.”

Catahay said a recent survey of local parents showed that two out of three preferred a return to in-person learning. He says a number of factors influenced the board’s decision, including availability of semi-monthly testing for staff and students through Kake’s Tribe, the Organized Village of Kake, and widespread vaccinations. Nearly 60 percent of adults in Kake have received their first dose, according to data from SEARHC and the U.S. Census.

“With the vaccine and the screening and just being smart about COVID at this time, we hope that we would limit the number of cases in town, a lot less than the possibility that we had back then before the vaccine,” he said.

Kake has reported 27 cases of the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, but hasn’t reported a new case since December. If an active case is reported, Kake will return to remote learning for 14 days in accordance with the district’s smart start plan.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Around 100 students started remote classes in Kake on Monday (8-31-20). The school will remain fully remote until the community sees no confirmed coronavirus cases for two weeks straight. The small, Kupreanof Island community has reported 16 total cases in the last three weeks, according to data from SEARHC. KCAW’s Erin McKinstry spoke with Kake City School District Superintendent Rich Catahay about the school’s plan to balance educational needs and community health and safety concerns.

KCAW: It sounds like you’re going to be starting in the red zone, the high-risk zone, so that’s fully remote. 

RC: Yeah, it’s very unfortunate to tell you the truth. We would rather see our students come into our buildings again and to have in-person education and to deliver instruction that way. But with our COVID situation right now, we are in red. So having to be in a small community, we are making sure that even with one case in the community, we are…to ensure that we have a good way to deliver education and to keep the community safe.

KCAW: Yeah. So starting out being fully remote, what will that look like? What sort of platform will you be using? What will, generally, the students’ days look like?

RC: So, we had this back in March. Our staff had really stepped up, and they’ve done a wonderful job in delivering a remote education. We were very successful, even though we haven’t done it before. But again, like everything else, there’s some areas that we can improve on. So, now that we are in red, and we are in the same situation where we were in March. But in a different way. A little more experienced. We have other things that we could look into to ensure that we deliver remote learning in a little more of an intentional way. And so our students will have a little more of a quality education even though it’s remote learning.

KCAW: Yeah, so will students be tuning in over Zoom or Google Meet or how will that look?

RC: So, it’s a combination–blended learning. Where we have Zoom, we are very conscious of the fact that some age groups would require just a limited time in Zoom. And then in-between that, we would also send work home. 

KCAW: Have there been concerns at all about students who may not have internet access or the appropriate technology to be able to tune in remotely? Is that something the district has been dealing with at all?

RC: Oh, yes. That’s something that we’re working on, and we hope to get some funding from OVK, our tribal organization here, or from the city to ensure that those kids have internet access. And we want to ensure that they have access to the same education as everybody else.

KCAW: So, this is more about the green and yellow zones, which at the start you won’t be operating in, but I was looking through the plan and just noticed that the schedules for kids can be really kind of complicated. I just wondered how you’ve talked about helping parents and students keep track of when they need to be at the school and where they need to be and all of that because it’s a lot of different schedules.

RC: Oh, yeah that’s the hard part. And it takes a lot of coordinating and collaboration with our parents. And we will continue to work on that piece as well just in case. So that we would hopefully slide right in to green or yellow to ensure that the students are…their education is not interrupted.

Kake City School District’s full Smart Start Plan can be found here. A list of plans from around the state can be found here. Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

Students in Kake have been writing personal essays for Raven Radio. This writer wanted to show how he slowly inhabited the life of a criminal, when faced with tough family circumstances. (Emily Kwong/KCAW photo)

The following personal essay was written by a student in Kake, as part of a special project between the Kake City School media class and Raven Radio.

Due to the sensitive nature of the material, this student has chosen to remain anonymous. Prior to moving to Alaska, his family lost everything in a house fire. They became homeless and they moved to Anchorage when the writer was seven-years-old. For the next two years, he lived in and out of homeless shelters. And shortly after they moved into a stable home, he began stealing. 

I’m a student at Kake City Schools. I love science, math, and chess. And this is the story of me growing up.

When I was young, I was obsessed with materialistic things. Mainly because growing up, I never had crap. By the age of 10, I was walking into grocery stores and taking anything I desired for the price of nothing. At first, it was for food. My family was poor and sometimes we didn’t have food in the cupboards. So, I went out and got my own food to feed myself and family.

But even when we became stable again, the stealing didn’t go away. My habits became worse.

Every time I walked into a store, I felt like I had to steal something or else it was a missed opportunity. It didn’t really matter who I was with. I would do it with my mom around, my father, brothers…it didn’t matter. My subtle habits became my addiction and the pathway through my life darkened.

Listen to this student’s essay, in his own words:

Downloadable audio.

I began stealing from friends and family. I would steal money, drugs, anything I could profit from. Stealing was the easiest thing that I’ve done.

I was never caught until I was 13. By then, I was following people, watching them type in the PIN to their debit card. Soon after, I would pickpocket their wallet or steal their handbag out of their purse and go take out their limit from the ATM. I was never caught for doing that though. But what I did get caught doing was stealing food from cars. I tried to walk out and someone came and stopped me. This was the first time that I had been caught and luckily it was for only something trivial.

When I was a freshman, I was stealing hundreds of dollars of clothes at the mall every weekend. I made money by stealing designer clothes, cologne, and accessories and selling them for a fraction of the price. I was just a young kid, born into a poor family, and I thought the only way out was to do it on my own. This was the only thing I knew how to do.

My first encounter with the police is when I was stealing from a Sephora at a JC Penny Mall. I already had merchandise from several other stores in my bag when I was caught. I was walking out when three women walked out with me and grabbed me by the arms. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. They told me not to struggle because I was flipping out for a moment.

After I realized what this was, I complied with them and walked with them, until we got downstairs. I felt like I could break free from their grip and so I tried to break free. They just held me while I was struggling. After a while, a big dude ran up and tackled me to the floor and then got me in handcuffs me. Since I tried to run, they could’ve technically charged me with strong arm robbery. But I was only 14 so they decided not to. Instead, I was assigned a parole officer and this was our first encounter.

After a while, I just went back to stealing. But instead of it being from stores, I stole from people. I would wait in the locker rooms during gym, at school, carefully scanning someone with valuables on them. Then, I would do one of three things: I would figure out their pin, or pick their lock, or just hope the leave their stuff unlocked. I’ve gotten thousands of dollars of items from doing this my freshman year. I stole everything from iPhones and “Beats by Dre” headphones to True Religion pants to Gucci belts. I also stole from my band room while our band class was playing for a football game. On one occasion, I stole four phones and $700 in cash.

My sophomore year came around and that’s when I wanted to step it up. I wanted to start doing organized crime. I plotted robbing a store that I thought had a perfect location. But then I later found out it was my friend’s aunt’s store.

Before I was able to go rob a store, I decided to go rob someone who was messing with my girlfriend. I told her to instruct him to go to the park near her house, but instead of her showing up, I would. I went with two friends, one just recorded while the other helped me kick his ass. I didn’t fight him as much as I expected because I expended all my time during the 90-second robbery just trying to get his phone. That was our main target because it had information that we didn’t want to leak.

Once we got near the park, we had our bandanas on and our hoodies up and we were ready to roll. We were across the field of the park when we saw him sit down under a canopy. I didn’t hesitate to start walking towards him. As I got closer, my stomach got a little nervous, but I didn’t really care at this point. He noticed us walking towards him as we got near him. His eyes hesitated for a second and he asked us, “What’s up?” I walked up to him and said, “What’s up?” and then immediately decked him in the face.

He was shocked and he began to try to defend himself. He shoved me back like he was trying to wrestle me. I grabbed onto his phone. We were wrestling around. He began to scream bloody murder for help. All the while, my friend was putting work on his body and face. He told us not to take his phone and that he had money instead. We didn’t respond nor take the money. After another 20 seconds of wrestling him, I finally got ahold of his phone.

I was completely and utterly exhausted. At that moment, I was reminded how out of shape I was. We got up and I saw his “Beats by Dre” headphones, so I grabbed them also. We barely got away. We hid in the woods and worked our way through a neighborhood, with the police and neighbors looking for us. An hour later, our driver finally came and we made it out safe.

But one month later, my past finally caught up to me. I was arrested in school and this was the beginning of my epiphany.

Some people come out of jail and come out not learning a single thing. But every day I was there felt like a day in my life, wasted with some people who were not like me. I definitely saw a difference between them and myself. That was my epiphany.

Juvenile facilities were easy compared to jail or prison, and juvy was complete hell for me in so many different ways. I learned a lot from that day. I haven’t stolen anything from anyone since the day I was admitted to the juvenile center. I decided that I had to make a change. I was ready for a new life.

This student’s media teacher is Jordana Grant in Kake. With production help from Emily Kwong.

Simon Friday is a junior at Kake City School District. (Jordana Grant/KCAW Photo)

The following personal essay was written by a student in Kake, as part of a special project between the Kake City School media class and Raven Radio. 

Hello, my name is Simon Friday and I’m a junior at Kake High School. Addiction — without a doubt — is bad. Well actually, it depends on what you’re addicted to. If you’re addicted to making others happy or addicted to a sport, it’s not so bad. In fact that could be good because you’d be helping society.

But if you’re addicted to something harmful, that’s when it becomes a problem. Addicted to something like alcohol. Now, alcohol has been around for a hell of a long time and will probably be around long after we’re all gone. And it hasn’t always been bad. In early England, beer was actually safer to drink than water because the water was so polluted. So beer was actually the safer choice back then, which is kinda weird to think about.  But nowadays it’s not.

Listen to Simon’s essay, in his own words:

Downloadable audio.

Nowadays, millions of people every day drink until they are senseless. They drink alcohol until they can’t remember what they did the night before. And they continue to do it no matter how crappy they feel the next day. Which honestly is something that does not sound like a good time. Not to me anyways.

Now some of these people have responsibilities that they choose to ignore. Whether it be their job, their family, their kids, or even something as simple as a job interview that they have to make the next day.

Now I’m not saying all people who drink are bad people. No. That’s not it at all. Because I have some friends who drink and they’re still really good people. But it’s because they are still responsible. They understand that there are things bigger than one night of drinking. But then you have people who just drink every night because they want to or because they feel they need to. Drinking to escape something that they feel is looming over them. Running from reality. And you can see this all over the world.

And then, when they come back to the real world, they’ve dug themselves a hole so deep it feels impossible to climb out of. So what do they do? They go right back to the bottle. Right back to the club or the bar or even right back to their own living room, to get away from their problems.

And this may not seem like a bad idea to some. But if you fall into this pattern it could easily lead to depression. That’s when you feel trapped. Like you have nowhere to go. And from there, it could very easily to depression, which is something much more serious. Depression is something that could lead to harmful and dangerous things. Things like loss of appetite, lack of drive to do anything, loss of interest in your passions, and worst of all suicide. All because that bottle hooked you. All because you couldn’t put that bottle down, come back to your own life, and take care of your problems.

But still I can understand it, because lots of people feel alone when they’re not. Lots of us feel that the things we face are things that no one else will help with, or wants to help with. That’s just not the case. In reality, there is always someone around who lives and cares about your well-being. I’m not saying that quitting is easy, but it’s never going to get done unless you try. Because if you’re willing to stop drinking, you’re going to have to come to that decision on your own. No one is going to make it for you. And if you show people that you’re willing to try, they will support you.

So instead of reaching for that bottle, reach for the phone. And call someone. Tell them you need help. Don’t afraid to reach out to your friends or your family. You do not have to be controlled by your drinking.

Simon’s media teacher is Jordana Grant in Kake. With production help from Emily Kwong.

Jonah Davis s a junior at Kake City School District and a skilled gamer. (Jordana Grant/KCAW Photo)

The following personal essay was written by a student in Kake, as part of a special project between the Kake City School media class and Raven Radio.

Hello, my name is Jonah Davis and I’m in 11th grade at the Kake City School District.

When I was, oh about six years old, I got my first gaming system, a Game Boy Advance. I never brought it with me a lot of places because my Mom wouldn’t really let me. I think I had about three games for it, which were King Kong, Spyro, and some other Pokemon game. Ever since then I’ve been playing games.

Why? Well, games always just gave me something to do every time I was bored, parents were in an argument, I had no one to hang out with, or just when I was having a bad day. My mom’s fiancé gave me his PS2 or, PlayStation 2, along with one of his games, which was called Jak 3. That was the first game I ever completely beat. Even my sister played it with me every once in awhile.

Listen to Jonah’s essay, in his own words:

Downloadable audio.

After getting tons of games for my PS2 I decided it was time to move on. I really wanted to get a PS3 and so with my birthday money and money I had saved up in the past, I got one. And that’s when I really fell in love with RPG games. Role playing games. This is due to a game I got called Skyrim, which is my favorite game of all time. I’ve beaten it like four times, and let me tell you, that’s a really big game.

Once I got tons of games for my PS3, I decided it was time to get another new console. The new playstation, which is a PS4. A PS4 has very good graphics, better controllers, and a better look for the console. I haven’t quite stocked up on games for it yet and I don’t plan on getting rid of it anytime soon anyway, considering the fact that Sony just came out with one of the coolest ideas for a video game console, I think.

It’s something called the PlayStation VR. VR means “virtual reality.” It’s kind of like a pair of goggles with a headset on and some handheld joysticks that you use to control your character. It feels like you’re uh actually in the world because the VR covers your whole field of vision, so that all you see is the game’s world. So with that now, I’ll be hanging with my PS4 for awhile.

I really like games because I just like the fact that you can be a character in a medieval, modern, or even futuristic world and then you have all these options on what you want to do and what you want to be. It’s almost like a place where I can do stuff I can’t actually do in the real world. That’s pretty much it, I’ve been playing games pretty much all my life and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Heck I might even pursue a career in video game design.

Jonah’s media teacher is Jordana Grant in Kake. With production help from Emily Kwong.