Last fall, a group of alumni and a handful of former and current staff raised concerns about conditions at Mt. Edgecumbe High School. They said a high number of students were being treated for suicidal ideation, and staffing and budget cuts meant less access to mental health services. They said enrollment was dropping precipitously.
A group of lawmakers visited the school in February, and found the facilities warranted additional scrutiny, with leaks, exposed wires, and a rat living in the gymnasium that students named Tiptoes.
Superintendent David Langford told the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development on March 10 that 104 students have left the school as of March. That’s about 25% percent higher than normal. While he said there are a lot of reasons students leave, he attributed the deteriorating facilities and longtime funding cuts.
“This is a problem decades in the making of funding not coming through, projects not being managed, maintenance not being up kept, and funding being cut. I think six, seven years ago, we had seven maintenance people, and today we have one-and-a-half,” Langford said. “And keeping up with a campus that size, with one and a half people, they do an amazing job, but they just can’t do everything that needs to be done. So it is a funding issue for Mt. Edgecumbe.”
Langford gave similar remarks in February to the House and Senate Education committees alongside Education Commissioner Deena Bishop. They highlighted the improvements they’ve made, like replacing dorm room furniture and upgrading bathrooms, and maintenance needs they’re working to address, including replacing the roof and ventilation system for the boys dorm in May.
“Those photographs were pretty deplorable and saddening to see, because that isn’t the Edgecumbe that I remember, so I’m glad that a lot of those are being addressed,” said board member Pamela Dupras, a Mt. Edgecumbe alumni.
Langford was hired as superintendent last year after already accepting a job overseeing the Chatham School District. The state board approved his appointment and Chatham agreed to him taking on the second job. Then, last month, Mt. Edgecumbe’s alumni advisory board voted 4-3 to recommend the state reopen the hiring process, this time with input from the board and other stakeholders.
Dupras said that the board had received feedback about reopening the position, but also had received positive input on the progress officials made addressing issues at the school.
“Because we have been receiving emails, and the emails ask for recall, for the superintendent, and the second part of that was the [ad hoc] committee” she said. “What I’m hearing is we are getting a lot of input from the community, [and] a lot of things are being addressed. So what are the continued issues, if these things are being addressed, that you are facing?”
Commissioner Bishop said much of the recent feedback about the school has been positive, and a lot of the issues that remain are “adult issues.”
As concerns come in we go and address them,” Bishop said. “Anyone who works in a school, I don’t want to offend them, but myself included, a lot of school issues are adult issues, and not children issues. And I would say a lot of these concerns were more about adults than they were students, and what they were were receiving. So I do believe that, you know, that we’re moving forward with sorting out the adult issues and moving forward in the right direction for kids.”
She said while some advisory board members were interested in reopening the superintendent hire and being involved in the hiring process, she believed it would be a “critical error.” She said Langford was the right fit given his background in business and history with the school, and said she didn’t include the advisory board in the process because the hire had to happen quickly.
“There was a reason why David was selected to be able to bring Mt. Edgecumbe, pairing what had been done on the cultural side, bringing that strength back, to the management side and other leadership, is a need there,” Bishop said. “I did exercise what I can. Folks that know me know when there’s time to hire, we do engage a larger group. But this was critical. School needed to be opened.”
While the state’s board of education did not signal any plans to reopen hiring for the school’s top position, it did move forward with one of the advisory committee’s recommendations– the formation of an ad hoc committee for the school. The temporary committee will be comprised of students, staff, alumni, and other stakeholders who will spend the spring and summer gathering information on the school, and will return to the Board of Education next fall with its findings and recommendations. The board approved the formation of the committee unanimously.
