The Juneau School District Board of Education unanimously accepted nearly $120,000 in grant funding for one of its alternative schools Wednesday. The money will help fund several positions at Montessori Borealis, including a paraeducator and positions to support elementary literacy and middle school programs.
SouthEast Alaska Friends of Montessori, or SEAFOM, is a Juneau nonprofit that regularly funds additional staffing and training needs for Montessori Borealis, the district’s public Montessori school.
Montessori schools have a different structure than traditional schools and are usually private schools. Cecil McNutt is the president of the nonprofit. He says it takes more work to make sure the program can still run under the school district’s requirements for public schools.
“That’s why we’re working with the school district so hard to make sure that we got good staffing, and they hired qualified teachers and … and the community gets the proper teachings for Montessori experience,” he said.
The grant normally funds a few support positions and training, but it’s been significantly higher since last year to fill staffing gaps.
SEAFOM granted the district more than $130,000 last year, which included a full-time teacher. This year, McNutt said the school still needed to spend more than usual to meet its staffing needs.
“The school district and the principal came to us and said, ‘We would like you to fund a full-time para position that could help out the part-time teacher,” he said.
The district allows organizations like SEAFOM and parent teacher associations to make this type of donation for any of the district’s schools.
But at the Juneau Board of Education meeting last week, the grant raised questions about equity.
Board member Amber Frommherz raised the concern, saying she appreciates the efforts to fund the school’s program but worries that not everyone has the same resources available.
“That does not mean that all schools could have site councils capable of doing something like this,” she said.
Funding for the additional position at Montessori Borealis comes as the district faces more than 90 open positions at the beginning of the school year. Montesorri Borealis Principal John Paul said in an email the school has one open paraeducator position for its preschool program. The school is in the process of interviewing a candidate for that position.
Amber Frommherz serves on KTOO’s Board of Directors.
