The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s first charter high school program will welcome students this fall. That’s after school board members signed off Monday on adding ninth and 10th grades to Kenai’s Aurora Borealis Charter School.
Monday’s approval came less than three months after the board killed a similar request from Aurora Borealis. Last year, the school proposed a plan to add ninth through 12th grades over a period of multiple years. But that plan required displacing another school from the building, which the board was reluctant to do.
By adding two grades instead of four, Aurora Borealis Principal Cody McCanna says they can use existing classrooms and avoid displacing other students. The revised application does not address plans to add 11th or 12th grades.
“We're not asking for anything that's not already in our current charter for a facility,” he said. “We still follow that out. So we’d just be currently using the same space that we're using right now, with no changes at this point.”
Usually, the school board reviews charter school proposals in the fall. But because this is an amendment to an existing charter – rather than an application for an entirely new charter – the request can be considered now.
During a work session earlier in the day, south peninsula representative Ash-Lee Waddell identified a variety of technical errors that made the amendment inconsistent or noncompliant with state law. She unsuccessfully proposed sending the application back to the board’s charter school committee for review.
Those errors were corrected before the board’s regular meeting later that evening, according to Assistant Superintendent Kari Dendurent, who oversees district charter schools.
“With Mr. Holland’s support, district leadership does support moving this action item forward,” Dendurent said.
Approval of Aurora Borealis Charter School’s expansion is the latest step forward for charter schools in the district. School board members recently signed off on a new charter school in the Russian Old Believer community of Nikolaevsk. And a charter school run by the Kenaitze Indian Tribe opened its doors last fall.
Charter schools are public schools, but they operate slightly differently. They’re governed by a committee of parents and teachers who, among other things, pick the school’s curriculum and have hiring power over the school’s principal. Aurora Borealis Charter offers what it calls a classical education model, with instruction in Latin and logic as well as traditional academics.
On Monday, Aurora Borealis parents, students and employees asked the board to let the school add high school grades.
Sixth-grader William Elam says he wants to continue going to school with his friends.
“Many of my current friends live in different high school zones, which means we would be split up – some going to SoHi, some going to Kenai and others Nikiski High,” he said. “If we were able to have our own high school, the relationships we formed as 5- and 6-year-olds can continue up and through our teen years.”
Richard Derkevorkian is an Aurora Borealis Charter School parent and former Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly member. He says there’s a relationship between the district’s difficult financial situation and student outmigration that could be helped by adding a charter high school program.
“If KPBSD does not offer a charter high school option, my children will join the students who left,” he said. “I don't want that outcome, and I don't think this board should either. Approving Aurora's high school charter amendment is not a threat to the district. It has an opportunity to retain students, stabilize enrollment and keep families invested in the KPBSD.”
Bill Severson teaches fourth grade at Aurora Borealis. He’s the school’s most senior employee and has been there since it opened in the late 1990s.
“For our students, we believe that carrying our program through high school will give them the greatest benefit toward their future,” he said. “If we are granted a high school by you, the board, we believe we can continue working with our students effectively, thereby continuing mentorship and helping them reach their lifetime dreams and goals.”
Board members ultimately voted 7-2 in favor of letting Aurora Borealis add ninth and 10th grades. The vote was met with cheers and applause from the audience.
After the vote, school board president Jason Tauriainen was one of multiple board members who said advocacy for Aurora Borealis should not come with the disparagement of other district schools. Some who testified expressed concerns about the education environments at other district schools.
“I think you're a great school,” he said. “I really respect what you do. But I do want people to remember those kinds of things when they talk about our other schools and what happens there – that there's other challenges that take place there, and we have some amazing, hard-working teachers that are in those buildings, working through those challenges every day.”
School board Vice President Tim Daugharty agreed and criticized the tenor of public comments leading up to the vote.
“I, too, am kind of taken aback about the last half hour,” he said. “I don't know exactly what happened there, but I spent over 30 years in a middle school, and my primary role was preventing bullying. I kind of felt there might have been some of that going on and that was a discouragement for me, because there was really – there was no way that wasn't going to pass.”
With the board’s approval in hand, Aurora Borealis plans to enroll its first ninth- and 10th-graders later this year. For the upcoming year, enrollment preference will be given to prior Aurora Borealis students.
The first day of the 2026-2027 school year is Aug. 19.
