As charter schools remain the buzziest topic in Alaska education, the Kenaitze Indian Tribe is considering founding one of its own.
Every household in the central peninsula area received a postcard in the past couple weeks, inviting them to weigh in on the tribe’s plan to propose a charter school. Thursday evening, a couple dozen people are at the tribe’s two-year-old educational campus in North Kenai to share their perspectives.
“We definitely already know that it is going to have a very strong cultural language lens,” said Teresa Smith, the tribe’s education administrator.
She said the school would serve students in grades K-2, with plans to expand to older grades in the future. The tribe hopes to submit a letter of intent by the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s August 1 deadline, and submit a full proposal by October 1. But at this point, they’re just gathering community input.
“We know that to have a successful application, we have to show that we have a number of folks that are interested and will put themselves in the lottery and sign up,” Smith said.
In Alaska, charters are public schools that have to seek approval from their local school district, then the state. If approved, Kenaitze’s charter would open for the 2025-26 school year. The school would most likely be based in the education campus building. That’s an advantage other charter applications in the district haven’t had; some have faltered because of their inability to find a location.
The campus currently houses the tribe’s head start and early learning programs for children up to age five. Smith said the upstairs area of the building is already outfitted with classrooms, which serves the tribe’s afterschool program. The space already has a commercial kitchen, playground, gym and other school amenities; tonight’s meeting is happening in a dining area, which would become the cafeteria.
Smith said the tribe already has a good relationship with the school district through its Indigenous education programs in public schools. At Thursday’s meeting, Kyle McFall, the principal of Kenai Alternative High School, is working as a consultant to the tribe in its charter efforts.
“Tonight is really just the first night of getting together with the community and seeing what you guys are thinking,” McFall said. “Obviously the goal is to try and begin the application for a charter school for Kenaitze and the community, but we’re really early in that process, so we really just wanna start with you guys, and the community. What are you thinking about? What would you like to see in a school?”
School Board Member Patti Truesdell and a few other district administrators were also in attendance.
For the first part of the meeting, attendees had the opportunity to share their thoughts on comment cards, and respond to prompts on posters around the room. Those prompts include ‘Curriculum Ideas’ ‘School Culture/Discipline Model’ and ‘Logistics: Transportation/Facility’. Common themes in responses include Indigenous values, integration of elders into the classroom and traditional or land-based learning.
At one table, a group of tribal members said they’re excited about the possibility of a school imbued with Dena’ina values and language — because for so long, those were discouraged in public schools.
“Growing up in the regular borough school district, I never learned anything about my culture. And this would be something great,” said Susanne Barbour, whose two kids are currently a part of the tribe’s early learning and head start programs.
She said if the charter were up and running in a year-and-a-half, she would enroll them.
“I’ve tried to get them really immersed back into our culture, because it’s tradition that was lost,” Barbour said.
After the feedback period, Smith, McFall and district officials took questions. Audience members asked how Dena’ina pedagogy will be preserved in the school, and how hiring of staff will work.
“The employees of this school would be employees of the school district,” Soldotna Elementary School Principal Austin Stevenson explained. “So all of their hiring practices, negotiated agreements, labor agreements, contracts, compensation, would all be consistent with what the teachers in the school district get.”
Even though they would be district employees, he said, curriculum would be set by the academic policy committee, a group of parents who make choices about pedagogy. There was an option to sign up for that committee at the meeting.
McFall concluded the evening by telling attendees the tribe will synthesize all of the feedback they received, then send out a community interest survey to gauge potential enrollment numbers. The survey should come out by mid-April.
