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The Wrangell Public School District held a virtual town hall meeting on Thursday, July 16, where school officials answered submitted questions from families regarding the SMART Start reopening plan for the upcoming school year. The nearly two hour long meeting at one point had 72 participants. Board President Aaron Angerman, who moderated the town hall meeting, asked school officials the submitted questions from the public. Although a plan for how the school district will operate under COVID-19...
"Concern" is a common theme in the COVID-19 pandemic. People are concerned about their health, their jobs, getting their kids back into school, and the economic prospects of their community, among other things. Wrangell resident Kassee Schlotzhauer wants to help ensure that getting enough to eat is not one such concern, through Wrangell's Subsistence Giving Project. "My family and me, we like to subsistence hunt, fish, gather for our family for the winters," she said. "This last year I started...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met Tuesday evening for a special meeting, to consider CARES Act funding for the school district. Wrangell, and many other communities, recently received special funds through the CARES Act to help respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wrangell has used these funds, or plans to use them, for items like the purchase of a new ambulance, to cover wages for first responders, and to help pay for an alternate isolation site, among other planned expenses. As the Wrangell...
Declarations of candidacy for Wrangell's election will be opening in the near future. A July 9 Facebook post on the city's page listed open positions interested candidates may consider. The position of mayor will be up for grabs this year, a two-year term. There are also three seats open on the borough assembly. Two seats are for three-year terms, while another one is for a two-year unexpired term. There is one spot available on the Wrangell School Board, for a three-year term. Lastly, there...
Members of the Policy Committee for the Wrangell School District met last Thursday afternoon to discuss various policies for school board consideration. Among several items on the agenda were two policies covering the topics of professional boundaries between staff and students, and freedom of speech amongst the student body. Board Policy 5141.42, Professional Boundaries of Staff with Students, as it reads, is meant to protect children from inappropriate conduct by staff, volunteers, and other...
The Wrangell Public School District will be hosting an online town hall meeting to discuss the reopening plan for fall 2020, tonight at 6 p.m.. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster said that a meeting was tentatively set for July 16 during a policy committee meeting on July 9. The date was confirmed in an email from Kim Powell, with the school district, on July 13. The school district hosted a series of meetings between school staff, administration, and community members on the SMART Start reopening....
The Wrangell School District held another SMART Start meeting last Wednesday, June 24, to continue discussing ways the district can safely reopen and operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Department of Education has come out with recommendations to determine what constitutes different risk levels for operation in Wrangell, according to the meeting's notes, so the group of school board members, district faculty and staff, and parents mostly concentrated their discussion around the possible...
Wrangell School District staff, school board members, and parents have been holding weekly meetings to discuss the safe reopening of Wrangell schools, under the new Smart Start outline provided by the state. The group held their second meeting Wednesday, June 17, to try and look at some of the bigger questions surrounding getting kids back into school during the COVID-19 pandemic. Superintendent Debbe Lancaster explained, back in a May 18 school board meeting, that Smart Start is meant to be a...
The Wrangell School Board met Monday, June 15, to accept a collaboration agreement with the Sealaska Heritage Institute. They also approved of some budget revisions. According to the collaboration agreement, in the meeting's agenda packet, Sealaska has received an Alaska Native Education Program grant, from the Department of Education. The purpose of this grant is to support a three-year project to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in several Southeast...
In the last Wrangell School Board meeting, on May 18, several members of the public voiced concerns with how things were running in the school district. Among them were concerns that the technology department was being cut at a bad time, as well as wider concerns that the district has a hostile work environment. The Wrangell Sentinel reached out to Superintendent Debbe Lancaster to seek a response to these concerns. Lancaster said that, after discussing the matter with School Board President...
June 3, 1920 Charlie Olson made a trip to Woronofski Island on Monday, taking with him a party of young picnickers. They took their lunch and spent the afternoon, indulging in target practice on the beach and climbing the mountain. On their return in the evening they were invited to the Coulter home where the day was finished off properly with a dancing party. Those who made up the party were: Misses Margaret Bronson, Irene Coulter, Helen Hofstad, Lillian Kelly and June Elliot; Messrs. John Coulter, Colonel Mason, Harry McCormack, Leonard...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly met this week to begin their workshopping of Wrangell's budget for FY 2021. This first round of workshops looked at various city departments that are funded through the Enterprise Funds which includes the harbor, light and power, sanitation, wastewater, and water departments. There were two workshops over the past week, on May 19 and May 21. According to the meeting's agenda packet for May 19, there were several things for the assembly to keep in mind when looking...
The Wrangell School Board met via web conference last Monday, May 18 and heard of several unethical and potentially illegal things happening in the district. Another person said the district had a hostile work environment. David Macri was one of the speakers that evening. Macri was the district's former secondary school principal, before his resignation and being put on administrative leave in March of this year. Macri spoke in the meeting to say that there were several problems in the school...
May 20, 1920 The Wrangell School Board has decided to increase the faculty to six teachers next year. Four of them have already been elected. They are as follows: Miss May Crosno, principal: Miss Ann O’Connor, Miss J. O’Connor, and Miss Jessica Don Carlos. The board has decided upon a ten month’s term. There will be 38 weeks of actual teaching, with one week of vacation at Christmas and another at Easter. It is reported that the committee appointed by the council to confer with the school board have decided to report favorably on the build...
May signals the end of the school year for the Wrangell School District. For 25 students, this May signals the end of their high school careers. The COVID-19 pandemic has created several challenges and changes this year. Three students of the class of 2020 shared their opinions on this closing chapter of their lives. In general, all three students agree that the pandemic is a disappointing way to end high school, but they are understanding of the situation and grateful to the community for...
The Wrangell Borough Assembly held a special meeting Thursday, April 16, to consider their local contribution to the Wrangell School District's budget. According to the meeting's agenda packet, the city can provide the district anywhere between $583,830 and about $1.6 million. The district's current budget for FY 2021, which was adopted on March 19, has revenues set at about $5.68 million and expenditures at about $6.08 million. The school district was requesting the same contribution as the...
The Wrangell School Board met last Monday evening, April 20, via web conference. The first item on the agenda was a temporary suspension of the policy requiring that the school board hold in-person meetings. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is safer to hold all meetings via phone or web conference. With this out of the way, the board got down to the business of accepting a contract for school psychology services. The contract is with SERRC, the Southeast Regional Resource Center. This contract...
With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, many events and traditions in the Wrangell community have been cancelled. The Wrangell School District has closed its doors for the remainder of the academic year, hosting classes virtually. While this rather unique school year is drawing to a close, school staff are working to make sure the graduating class has a memorable end to their high school careers. Jack Carney, interim principal for Wrangell's secondary schools, said that plans are in the works for a...
April 1, 1920 E.A. Rasmussen, president of the Bank of Alaska returned home from a business trip to the States having gone east as far as New York where he saw a number of the stockholders of his institution. Mr. Rasmussen had a rather exciting time on the steamer voyage. While his ship was in Wrangell he took advantage of the opportunity thus afforded of visiting the Bank of Alaska’s branch at the port, and while in the bank the Princess pulled out and left him. The Spokane being in port and Northbound he went aboard, and as the Mary was c...
March 18, 1920 A depredation was committed Sunday night when some miscreant tore down the Poodle Dog Cafe’s sign and also capsized the pails containing small trees in front of the building. If the depredator is apprehended he will learn that such acts committed on either public or private property is an expensive pastime in Wrangell. March 16, 1945 In line with the recently announced policy of planning a more efficient hospital, the board has authorized alterations at Bishop Rowe General hospital to make the institution more compact and e...
With the ongoing spread of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, many communities across the nation are doing their best to be prepared. This is also true in Alaska. There are only a few confirmed cases of the virus in Anchorage and Fairbanks as of March 17. All across the state, however, communities are taking precautionary measures to keep the virus from spreading further. In Wrangell, many events and facilities have been postponed for the sake of caution. "As a preventative measure to...
The Wrangell School board held a somewhat unique meeting Monday evening, March 16. Due to concerns about the coronavirus, though there have been no confirmed cases in Southeast Alaska as of this date, the board limited attendance to the meeting to a maximum of 10 people. Others interested in attending could sit in nearby rooms and watch the proceedings via livestream. Other than the limitation on how many people could be in the room, the meeting went on much like any other. During this meeting,...
Members of the Wrangell Borough Assembly and the Wrangell School District met Tuesday evening, March 10, to hold a work session on the district's newest budget. Both the borough and school district are going through their budget season. As the district is part of the borough, the borough regularly makes a contribution to the budget, and said budget comes before the borough for approval before being sent up to the state; both parties regularly collaborate on the project. This upcoming budget for...
Wrangell School District's policy committee met last Thursday afternoon, March 5, to review policies regarding the district's budget practices and disposal procedures. On the budget policy, many of the items reviewed in the workshop were in regards to simple formatting of the policy. The policy outlines, in short, that the superintendent is expected to prepare a budget plan for the school board in a timely manner during budget season, and that school staff and the public shall have...
The Wrangell School Board held a work session Monday night to discuss next year's budget. The district is currently undergoing its budget season, looking at the financial year for 2021. The current draft of the FY 2021 budget has the school district operating at a loss. Total revenues are estimated at a little less than $5.7 million, while expenses are around $6.5 million. The largest costs for the district include $2.7 million for "instruction,'' about $831,000 for "operations and maintenance...
