The Haines Borough School District’s newest special education teacher is leaving mid-year after her work permit was denied.

District officials say they will no longer be pursuing applicants who need visas to work as it has gotten more difficult to get them approved.

Stacey Spencer, who was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, first came to the U.S. in 2001.

She said she first came to the country for college, attending Tuskegee University in Alabama and Grambling State University in Louisiana, before she moved to Houston to teach. She said this summer that when she turned 50, she wanted to experience something new, so she moved to Alaska. She taught last year in Nome.

Spencer was reluctant to share many details about her specific legal status and situation, but said much of her life is now uncertain, including how soon she must leave the country and where she will go.

“I was given the impression that this visa thing was going to work out,” Spencer said. “The district tried their best.”

The Haines Borough School District is relatively new at recruiting teachers requiring visas to work in the Chilkat Valley. Schools Superintendent Lilly Boron said the district has only ever had three teachers who needed visas, and she believes it’s the first time a teacher’s visa has been denied.

She said the district has been working the past several months, “going through the processes of appeal and petition” to retain Spencer.

Boron has been vocal about the district’s hiring problems since she took over as superintendent in 2025. Haines and many other rural school districts across America are struggling to fill teacher vacancies.

In some cases, rural Alaska school districts have relied almost solely on foreign teaching staff or hired immigration lawyers to help with the paperwork.

Over the past year, Boron said, the paperwork has gotten more difficult to navigate. “There are so many levels of bureaucracy to it and without a whole lot of success at this point.”

The process is further complicated by the Trump administration’s proposed $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers.

At this point, Boron said the district will not recruit or hire anyone needing a visa to work. “We just don’t have the financial resources to be able to do that.”

She is unsure whether the school district will be able to replace Spencer this year.

“Special education teachers are hard to find,” Boron said. “There are so many open positions around the state. They’re in such high demand.”

She said the district is considering a combination of contracted services and paraeducators to fill the gap.

But she said it will affect the students.

“The students are sad and understandably so,” she said. “There’s relationship building there that is so important to our students, so when there’s turnover, that absence is felt. Spencer was just great for our students.”

Boron said having teachers and students in the school district from other countries enriches everyone’s lives.

“It’s a leap of faith to leave your country and to come and leave an environment that you’re comfortable with. I don’t take that lightly … it’s a gift to find somebody who is committed to kids,” she said. “It breaks my heart that we can’t keep her.”

Many in the community found out about Spencer’s sudden departure through a post on the Haines Glacier Bears’ Facebook page, which included photos of her saying goodbye to high school students.