The first day of school for the Juneau School District is just around the corner — classes kick off on Thursday.
Superintendent Frank Hauser sat down with KTOO to chat about the start of the new year with the consolidation plan in place, the stability of the district moving forward and what students can expect.
Listen:
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Clarise Larson: The school board voted to consolidate Juneau’s high schools and middle schools this past winter. This means many students will be walking into new schools and social environments on Thursday which will likely be pretty different from last school year.
How prepared is the district for these changes, and do you expect a smooth transition?
Frank Hauser: One of the things that we focused on a lot this summer is, of course, the move and making sure that the move took place. And, we’ve got all of our buildings ready to go, everyone has moved in. So, that is one piece that is not a concern at all.
And I mean, it’s a small community — the students all know each other, whether it’s sports, whether it’s different activities, whether it was when they were in elementary school or they were at the same middle school. And so one of the things I’ve heard a lot of is that at least the students are going to be together with their friends, and they know each other because they are so closely connected because this is such a tight-knit community. So I think a lot of our students are excited to be able to be in school with their friends.
Clarise Larson: The Juneau School Board voted back in May to slightly change the start times for some grade levels. Why did they do that, and what impact will this have on both parents and students traveling to classes each day?
Frank Hauser: One of the main reasons why I felt strongly about this as well was, especially when the winter comes and it’s a little snowy, sometimes there were some tight turnarounds for some of our students.
With the consolidation, making sure that we had 45 minutes between elementary to middle school, middle school to high school, provided enough opportunity and time for all the buses to get around, to pick up the students and drop them off in time, not necessarily in time for school to start, but in time for students to be able to have access to breakfast.
And be able to have a good start to the day and not feel like they’re coming in and feeling rushed. So that was one of the reasons why we’re looking at the school start time and starting a little bit later for middle school and high school.
Clarise Larson: With a lot more students heading to Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé this year, how will the district mitigate parking issues that may arise?
Frank Hauser: There’s a couple of things that we’ve got in place that I’m actually excited to talk about. One thing is, we actually have buses going from Thunder Mountain to JD every day in the morning and after school is out – it can double as an activities bus at the end of the day too.
And so students who might not want to park down downtown by JD can actually park at Thunder Mountain and catch one of the buses that come straight down to the Juneau Douglas and the campus here.
Another thing we’ve been doing is working closely with the city and Capital Transit, which is great. They have a reduced-price student ticket, and students can use capital transit as much as they want. And so those stops will either stop close to the schools, or you can kind of stop at one of the stations to be able to have access. So we’re working with and trying to communicate that information out to make sure that they know that we’re really trying to support students — especially if they’re worried about parking — making sure that they have a means to get to downtown without that being a concern.
Clarise Larson: This July, the school board voted to add back a few dozen positions to the district that were previously cut because of a lack of funding.
They were able to do that because the governor signed this year’s state budget, which included a one-time funding boost of about $5.2 million to the Juneau School District. What kind of positions were added back, and how will it help as students start the new school year?
Frank Hauser: The add-back really will help out in a lot of different ways. One, it added back some much-needed staff, certificated staff, and some of our teachers. But it also helped provide additional support for our paraeducators, it brought back some office staff, and so all those pieces are essential to students being able to learn. And so the board was able to add back a maintenance position, IT, it brought some teachers back, paraeducators — they brought in just some additional supports.
Clarise Larson: With the drastic measures the school board had to take to address budget shortfalls last school year, along with the continuing unknowns about education funding in the state, do you anticipate more tough decisions in the coming school year?
Frank Hauser: That’s a good question. I mean, really it comes down to, after years of deficit spending, I really think now the district is in and is repositioned on firm financial footing with the promise of increased academic opportunities and support for students through the consolidation process.
But I also think it’s important to remember that this extra funding that provided some of those add-backs, is one-time funding. So as we start looking at the next school year, we are thinking about and looking at and making sure that we’re responsive to our student’s needs, but also staying within the budget.
So I think the district is positioned to be more responsive, but at the same time being able to provide those opportunities for our students and really expanding out and not having to reduce more because of those costs. The consolidation really made it possible to put us on firm financial footing.
Clarise Larson: Well, thanks so much for speaking with me today, Frank.
Frank Hauser: No Clarise, thank you, I really appreciate it.