Principals at some of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s smallest schools are calling on the district to increase the number of teachers able to serve their students. A committee tasked with addressing the needs of small schools convened Monday to discuss the request and potential paths forward.
Principals representing seven small K-12 schools — Razdolna, Voznesenka, Kachemak Selo, Tebughna, Nanwalek, Cooper Landing and Hope — outlined how they would benefit from a lower student-teacher ratio in a joint letter addressed to board members. KPBSD defines small schools as those with less than 200 students.
The letter says more equitable education opportunities for students, enhanced staff well-being and stronger community relationships are among the benefits of having more staff. That’s in addition to more individualized learning for students, more diverse expertise among staff and better recruitment and retention of employees.
On Monday, committee member Virginia Morgan said she has firsthand experience with the unique challenges of small schools. For 17 years, her husband taught at Cooper Landing’s K-12 school, where her children also graduated. She told committee members the district could be doing more to help rural staff tap into its larger network of resources.
“When you have new teachers coming into some of these new administrators and teachers coming in to some of these small schools across the water especially, but even on the road system, they don’t know,” Morgan said. “They don’t have that built-in support network.”
Morgan and committee chair Patti Truesdell said it’s not uncommon for high school students in rural communities to take classes at other schools in the district. It’s a way to still access classes not offered at their local school.
“They tend to leave when they get to ninth grade because they’re trying to get the classes that they need,” Truesdell said.
Concerns about staffing levels at KPBSD’s small schools aren’t new. In 2022, those concerns, in part, prompted the school board to create the committee that met Monday.
The number of employees assigned to a specific school is determined by the district’s staffing formula. That formula uses school enrollment to calculate how many of each type of employee should be assigned to high, middle, elementary, small elementary and small schools.
Sometimes, the formula determines a school doesn’t have enough students for a full-time employee. So, they’ll share, say, a principal with another small school. Or, a principal will double up as a teacher for part of the day.
Some of the committee’s discussion focused on ways to better incorporate outside voices into the discussion. The committee format precluded the principals who sent the letter from speaking in Monday’s meeting.
“We are board members that don’t have the expertise that a cross section of our communities would,” she said. “That's where I’ve been frustrated with this committee, but still like we’re missing important pieces.”
The board of education’s next meetings are scheduled for Sept. 9 in Seward. Materials from Monday’s meetings can be accessed on the school district’s online document hub.
