Relocating the Newtok school into a temporary building at Mertarvik will be delayed until fall 2019.
The problem is a lack of housing, the Lower Kuskokwim School District administration told the school board Saturday.
The district had hoped they would be able to make the move this summer, but now it looks to be over a year away.
Assistant Superintendent Carlton Kuhns said housing for families won’t be available this fall either, so the kids would not be at Mertarvik to be taught.
“It is going to happen. There is vertical construction happening over there,” Kuhns said. “Managing the funding sources the Tribal Council has got to be incredibly difficult.”
Three or four different federal and state agencies are providing those funds.
Superintendent Dan Walker also told the school board that he’s concerned about teachers getting stranded without housing at the new village site.
Walker told the Board that the district’s lobbyist has been in touch with both Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta legislative representatives and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, who told him that they aim to have $400,000 budgeted specifically for teacher housing.
The district is trying to get one of the retrofitted military barracks being barged in from Anchorage for village housing set aside for teacher housing at Mertarvik, Walker said, but that won’t happen until 2019.
The district also is seeking funds from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation.
