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Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Monday lifted a statewide executive branch hiring freeze, removing restrictions on managers who had been required since May 2025 to obtain special permission before hiring new state employees. 

The governor’s decision was revealed without fanfare in a new administrative order that took effect Monday.

This week’s order also repealed a freeze on new state regulations and on state employee travel. Both of those restrictions, and the hiring freeze, had been imposed by the same administrative order last year. 

At the time, Dunleavy cited concerns over state spending, and his actions were similar to ones he took during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Both moves mimicked action by former Gov. Bill Walker during a mid-2010s slump in state oil revenue.

Since Dunleavy’s 2025 order, the state’s fiscal situation has improved because of the Iran war. Alaska North Slope oil is worth significantly more than it was last year, and the state has now had consecutive fiscal years with a budget surplus.

Jeff Turner, the governor’s communications director, said on Tuesday that no one from the administration was available to speak about the repeal of the freeze order. 

While state agencies have been able to continue working amid the regulation freeze, it has nonetheless had various effects on operations.

On Tuesday, for example, the Regulatory Commission of Alaska announced that it was unable to allow the state’s electric utilities to buy more home-produced solar power. 

The commission said it had requested a waiver of the regulations freeze in order to proceed but did not receive it, and thus utilities cannot buy as much solar power as they desired.

The hiring freeze has coincided with a general decline in the number of people employed by the state. In August, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the state had 23,500 workers. That’s down from 24,800 in April 2025, the month before the hiring freeze. 

Doug Carson is the lead business agent for the Alaska State Employees Association, Alaska’s largest union for state workers.

“Hiring freezes … they’re a lot more PR stunts than they have any actual dramatic impact in terms of hiring,” he said by phone. 

“It doesn’t stop hiring completely, but the one serious impact I think it has is it affects recruitment and retention. People are less inclined to apply for state jobs because they see a hiring freeze is on,” he said.

Carson said he also believes that a hiring freeze encourages state agencies to outsource jobs to private contractors. One example: The state’s Division of Public Assistance, which is working through a large backlog of applications and has continued to contract out much of the work to a company in Massachusetts.

“We think that money belongs in state, in Alaskans’ pockets,” Carson said.

Heidi Drygas, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO, said that while she sees the lifting of the hiring freeze as “a step in the right direction,” it doesn’t fix pre-existing problems in state agencies.

“Things were already pretty bad and pretty rough from department to department in terms of vacancy rates and burnout and just general working conditions, and the freeze just made it worse,” she said.

“It’s going to be for the next administration to deal with, just like a whole host of problems that this administration is leaving for the next governor,” Drygas said.

The post Gov. Dunleavy lifts freeze on state government hiring, new regulations and worker travel appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Six community members are competing for four seats on the school board this year. They all sat down with reporter Lizzy Hahn to talk more about why they want to run. 

Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. A playlist of these profiles, as they are posted, can be found here.

Lizzy Hahn: Do you want to tell me why you chose to run for school board this year?

Jenn Walsh: Well, initially I chose to run for school board because I read an article in the newspaper that said that there were four open seats and zero candidates. And I thought, ‘oh, well, I can help.’ So that was really what started me thinking about that. I care about the school. I care about the impact it has on the future of Haines. I have three kids. My youngest is not even old enough to be at the big school yet. She’s still at Head Start. So I have 14 more years of having children in the school. I serve on a number of boards and I’ve worked with the school even before I had kids, I’ve worked with the school. So it’s something I’m personally passionate about. Also, I’m an educator. So I teach for Alaska Pre-Hospital Education Consortium and I have for the last three years. And I’m actually an educator and I have a board. So an interesting shift of positions there. But I know how directly our board affects us. So it was exciting to consider being a part of the school at that level, at a place where I could make a real difference in policy. That’s why I decided – I mean, it was kind of a long answer – but those were all sort of the thought processes that went into, ‘oh, I do wanna do this, I can do this.’

Yeah, sometimes it’s not as easy as, ‘oh, the spot’s open,’ there’s a bunch of buildup that leads to it. How old are your students who are in the school currently? Are they in elementary school?

Yes, yes, I have two children in elementary school. My daughter is a kindergartner and my son is a fourth grader. He’s actually homeschooling through the school but he goes to the school for lunch and recess and PE and music and art. 

What are some of the biggest challenges that you see for the Haines School District and how would you hope to address them if elected? 

I think some of the biggest challenges that our school faces is going to be based on funding. I mean, I work for the borough. I don’t know if you know that, but I’ve worked for the borough for the last 15 years. So I’m a firefighter EMT and I have spent a lot of time over the last 15 years, I guess, dealing with the borough budget. So I understand, I guess, the limitations of a budget. I also am well-versed enough in the budget to know what percentage of our budget is going to the school, which, I mean, it’s almost half of the general fund. It’s kind of huge. It’s like almost $3 million. I know that the cost of living, I mean, I live here, the cost of living has really increased and the state funding for our schools hasn’t [increased] at the same rate. So I think that budget challenges, which then really leads to our enrollment, that leads to like this whole bigger question that I feel like town has really been spending a lot of time talking about. Is this a place that’s possible for young families to live? You know, around the childcare issues or the preschool closing. I think the budget is gonna be probably a big part of what the school board is dealing with. I think that it, yes, goes hand-in-hand with enrollment. It also goes hand-in-hand with recruitment and retention. My kids now have been at the big school for the last five years. It’s always incredible to read the newspaper about ‘here’s our new teachers this year.’ And it’s not one, it’s like a spread. So I think the school board has done some big work in the recruitment and retention world with increasing teacher pay. That was a really big problem borough wide, just our employees making less than similar size cities in Southeast Alaska. I think that they just had union negotiations so I think they got another 5% increase and maybe it’s gonna be four and then three over the next two years. But I think that’s really gonna help that problem of the recruitment and retention of teachers. But I think that that is another big issue. I personally feel motivated to be part of the board because when Darwin Feakes was the vocational education teacher, he was also an ETT, an Emergency Trauma Technician Instructor. And there were a lot of students at the Haines School who went through the ETT program, which really falls squarely into pre-hospital education. But since he left, we don’t have that space filled. I think being an advocate for voc-ed is something that I will be very interested in. Over the last, I don’t know, a few years, I have been more involved in the school in terms of safety meetings and like with the Haines Borough Police and working on their emergency action plan and then how that directly reflects on the Haines Volunteer Fire Department’s emergency action plan. Being a part of those conversations is important, but I feel like being on the school board will just involve me at that much higher of a level. So I guess in summary, the issues I feel like we’re facing, the budget, without a real deep dive into that, I’m not sure exactly what I’m gonna do. I don’t know what I’m gonna be able to do for that. I think that I am excited to work on the voc-ed aspects and continue working on the safety aspects. I think that’s important. 

You mentioned the preschool closure. Did that impact you personally? Like your daughter in Head Start, was she in the preschool or?

No, my kids have gone to Head Start at least for the last handful of years. So that did not directly affect me. It does directly affect me for summer programming.

How so?

Well, because the Chilkat Valley Preschool oftentimes offered a summer program for the kids who aren’t quite old enough to be involved in a lot of the summer camps. So they’re not old enough to do that and they’re still too young to be left home alone.

You brought up funding, which was actually gonna be my next question. This is a common topic right now. At what level should schools be funded? Do you think that this is a statewide funding issue, borough funding issue, federal funding issue? How do you think that you could respond to it as a school board member and help either bring in more funding from the higher entities or not?

Well, I mean, right now I believe that the borough is funding the school at its max capacity. Like I don’t actually believe it’s allowed to fund the school anymore. If the school is still operating in a deficit, then there’s obviously an issue. I guess you could probably argue that there is an issue with how current funding is being allocated or the amount of state and federal funding that is being allocated. I know that other communities in Southeast Alaska do a variety, I guess, of taxing. But aside from what you would pay into the general fund, like aside from a mill rate type thing, I think Sitka has a marijuana tax that they use to fund their, I think maybe their extracurricular activities. I don’t know currently enough about what the specific school funding is versus what the state is giving and where in that process we can be effective, whether if that’s at like a lobbying type level or a more local community level. And I think that a lot of that information could be gathered also. I mean, when you think about people who are applying to the jobs in Haines, if it is a problem of our wage and our cost of living, but looking closely at that, I mean, we’re not gonna change, I don’t think probably without another union round of negotiations, I don’t think we’re gonna be changing those wages. But it would take probably a more specific look into where money is currently going to be able to really specifically answer that. And I don’t have more specific look at that.

Something else that you mentioned earlier on with some of the challenges is teacher turnover. There’s been a lot of turnover in Alaska as a whole in the education field.

Even in my company.

How do you hope to address this large issue here locally? Some others mentioned that it is kind of a multi-tiered process of the cost of living being so high and housing being an issue and wages being low. What do you think about how to potentially retain teachers?

Well, I know that at a couple of the student advisory committee meetings, it was brought up that when we do bring new people into this community, we as a school community need to make a concerted effort at integrating them into the community. And I think that that is also seen in the Haines Volunteer Fire Department. The more that we integrate new members, the more likely they are to develop a community and develop it quicker so that they’re more inclined to stay. I mean, obviously I love this community. I’m vested in this community. I wanna be here and I do wanna share it. And because I am so integrated into the community, I think that even in terms of the fire department, I don’t do as good of a job as I could and should in the integration of new members and helping them feel welcome. I think that the school could do that. I think that the school could do that during the onboarding process of new instructors and then continually throughout so that even outside of their school community, they can develop a community within Haines that’s larger. I think that if Haines is a place for them and they’ve already decided that in their heart, then I think that what would help keep them here would be a concerted push toward helping them develop their community here. And I think we could do that with activities or dinners or things that Haines is good at.

I have noticed that in Haines as well. In my few months here, it is a lot of community engagement, slowly just becoming integrated. Like, ‘oh, come over to dinner at my house.’

And that could be done initially at a school level, right? With school board members, other teachers, families, and then it could expand from there, yeah. And I think a lot of members of the community all have the thing that they’re passionate about here, whether it’s art or outdoor activities, but I guess helping to link the people who are new to town with what their passion is and what is appealing to Haines for themselves, I feel like that would be beneficial in retention.

Shifting topics slightly, AI is starting to be such a large part of our world, if we want to or not. Do you use AI? If so, how? And how do you think students should learn to use it in school? Should they learn to use it in school? What do you think about AI?

Okay, what do I think about AI? I use AI, absolutely. And you asked me, how do I use AI? One of the things that I love using AI for the most is creating patient scenarios for my EMT students. So it is incredible that I can put in a patient, say I want to have an elderly female patient who has a three-day history of slight fever and increased urination. Please develop a scenario based around the EMTs needing to find out that she has a UTI and sepsis. And it will just give you stacked vitals over every five minutes. It will say vitals with and without appropriate interventions. And it really helps a lot of my scenario development so that I can spend more time on things like moulaging a patient or creating a physical scenario that’s more realistic for the students. So that’s one of the ways that I use AI. What was the rest of the question?

How do you think students should use it? Should they learn to use it in schools?

I feel like critical thinking is a skill that is, as a parent of a nine-year-old, I feel like this is something that we are constantly working on. Even in some of my son’s activities, like for his own schoolwork, I’m like, ‘whoa, man, if you could put that into ChatGPT, that’d be real easy.’ But I feel like it needs to be used thoughtfully. I feel like if a student was gonna be, I mean, I can only use my son in this example because I worked with him in this, and he had to make a Venn diagram about similarities and differences and where things were the same. I made him do the entire assignment by using research and a standard Google search. And I had him create his Venn diagram. And then I said, okay, great. Now put your assignment into ChatGPT. Is there anything that you think you should add? Is there anything that you should take away? Was there another point made? So yeah, I think you have to continue to teach critical thinking, but you can’t discount it as a tool. Yeah, and I guess in another thing, it is hard to organize thoughts. It is hard to organize any thoughts, not even just like a simple Venn diagram, but to write a paper. And I feel that these are fundamental skills that you can’t ChatGPT through the process of learning how to do it. So I think it’s really important that students understand the tool and they. I think it’s important that we don’t take away their opportunities to learn the underlying skills, like a straight Google search or going to the library or asking qualified references. In my EMT class, one of the assignments that the students have to make is that they have to do a drug card for every medication that an EMT basic is allowed to give, and there are 10, they have to make a flashcard, a straight up flashcard. And they have to be able to write on the front the name of the drug, and then on the back, nine different things about the drug, the class of the medication, indications, contraindications, potential adverse side effects, dose. I make all of my students handwrite them. And because handwriting is one of these other things that I feel like is important and we need to work on, but there’s also an element of learning within that. And so I know that they could put that into ChatGPT and their drug cards would get spit out, which is why I make them handwrite them. At the very least, if they use ChatGPT to create them, at least they had to write them and then they had that extra step of learning that was in there. I don’t know. Did that answer the whole question? Your questions have a lot of parts, and then when I get started in the beginning, I’m like, did I answer the end part?

The EMT classes, are those taught at the high school level, middle school, or just like EMT classes for all who want to take them?

That’s a really good question. I actually worked with the school a few years ago, with two high school students who wanted to take an EMT class, but it wasn’t being offered at the school anymore. So they actually took it through Alaska Pre-Hospital Education Consortium, and I was their instructor. And they did the entire class during their last semester of high school. At the end of the class, EMT students have to attend a 40-hour skills practical session on top of all of the hours that they’ve spent going through 41 chapters in the book. So two Haines high school students did take that class, and we have one Haines high school student who’s in that class right now. He’s actually in Juneau this week taking his final practical assessment. I’m very excited for him. I’ve been checking in with him via text pretty frequently, maybe annoyingly frequently, just to see that he’s doing okay. He is actually not going to be 18 for another, I don’t know, six months. So he actually can’t take his certification exam until he’s 18, but he will be finished with all of the work and ready to take that test. He was actually an ETT student that was taught by Darwin, when Darwin was the voc-ed teacher at the Haines school. So you have to be 18 to be certified. You can take the class before that, but the class that I teach is just for students really all around the state. It is hard to live in a small community and take an EMT class. It’s really hard. I had to travel outside of Haines to move beyond my EMT-1 level. So the company that I work for offers not only an EMT class, but an AEMT class, an advanced EMT class. So that’s just really being offered to a lot of the more remote places in Alaska. I feel pretty passionate about it.

For this student who is going to, when he turns 18, get the certificate: what level of care or help can he provide? Is this like you’re driving the ambulance around or at what level does that get you to?

An EMT basic level, like I said, you can administer 10 medications and a lot of them are pretty life-saving. I mean, intramuscular injections of epinephrine for anaphylaxis, acetaminophen, nebulized albuterol treatments for people who have COPD or asthma. You’ll be certified to operate at the level of EMT, so emergency medical technician basic, and it’s a national certification. You can turn it into the state of Alaska and for $25 they’ll give you the state of Alaska EMT certification, but you can do that in all the states, which is the neat part about taking a national level course. So basic life support is really the foundation of everything we do on an ambulance call. So there’s a lot of interventions that an EMT can do. And driving comes with its own set of training. So you can be certified to help care for, treat and save patients, but maybe not necessarily drive yet.

My last question that I have for you: what does a successful term look like if you were to be elected either a year from now or three years from now? What do you hope to have accomplished in your time if you were elected?

I think that I would feel like it was successful as I did get, and all of this is to say that like, I also understand what it is to hire or vote or elect somebody onto a school board who’s new to the school board. There’s gonna be a big learning curve. So I think what I can expect from the first year is gonna be different than what I can expect by the third year. I think in the first year, there’s gonna be a lot of learning that takes place. There’s gonna be a lot of listening. Again though, I do feel like that’s where being an EMT and being on the ambulance crew for the last 15 years, I mean, it’s our whole job is to go in, gather information, listen to a story, put it together with the things that you’ve learned and make a decision regardless of if there even is a perfect answer. And so I think that my goal for the first year will be to be up to speed on the current policies, on the procedures. And I don’t know, is it too lofty of a goal to hope that we could have ETT training back in the school within the next year? Does that sound too lofty? I guess I would have to talk to the board as a whole to know that. Then over the next three years, I would really hope to see, yeah, good policies surrounding voc-ed. I do feel passionate about some outdoor programming. And to understand the budget enough to be able to affect positive change so that we don’t operate in a deficit, to be able to do something and to be able to help.

I think that a willingness to ask questions and an ability to listen to different sides of opinions and change my own opinions when I don’t have enough data will be something that I bring to the board. I think that without being in there and knowing what is possible, it does feel lofty to make a goal if I don’t want a school board member to think, well, that’s not gonna be possible. But I’d really like to be able to see where we’re at so that we don’t have to cut any programs and so that we continue to offer the students all of the opportunities. Feels like a generic answer, but that feels like an honest answer.

The post Watch: An interview with Jenn Walsh, candidate for school board appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Six community members are competing for four seats on the school board this year. They all sat down with reporter Lizzy Hahn to talk more about why they want to run. 

Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. A playlist of these profiles, as they are posted, can be found here.

Lizzy Hahn: Do you want to start by just telling me why you chose to run this year.

Michael Wald: I chose to run for school board this year because the school is both literally and figuratively the center of our community. I’d like to be able to contribute to the good work that’s happening at the school and advocate on both the state level and the community level for funding the school adequately.

Your second son, Nolan, just graduated. How does it feel to have two Haines graduates in your household?

We moved to Haines when our kids were little. At the time, Haines had great childcare opportunities for families with young kids. It was part of why we moved from the interior to Haines and we saw both of our boys go through their entire schooling career at the Haines school. There’s room for improvement at our school for sure and we could increase the academic rigor and hold our students to a higher standard but my kids and their peers are succeeding in different endeavors around the state and around the country. My younger son is enrolled in university and feels prepared for that. I’m proud of both of them and grateful to the staff of the school for particularly giving them the personalized attention that our school is so good at delivering.

You mentioned some improvements: what do you think could shift within the school itself to prepare students better? Do you think students are prepared well enough for school?

There’s always room for improvement in any institution. I think that kind of the fundamental challenge that’s facing the district right now is that the state and to a lesser extent, the federal government have abdicated their responsibilities or their constitutional obligations to adequately fund education. So, because of that, we don’t have the ability to pay staff what we would like to pay staff. We don’t have the ability to retain educators at the rate that we have in the past and that we would like to in the future. I think it’s a big lift there. There have been some really important political changes and a real intentional effort on the part of the state to shift the burden, the responsibility for education, from the state to municipalities and so hopefully we can continue to advocate, not only for our district, but for district statewide and change that perspective in Juneau. Hopefully the federal government will continue to support education. We’re a title one school and we’re very reliant on federal funds and so hopefully those federal funds will continue to support us, but the district needs more money. I think part of the job of the school board is to advocate for that on a state, federal, and a local level so that the community understands where the property tax money is going and how it’s being used and hopefully feels good about our contributions to the district.

You actually touched on my next question there, which is school funding, which is now becoming such a common topic at, like you said, at our state level, local level, even around the country. How do you think that you could best respond to funding as a school board member? What avenues do you see as being potential funding sources?

I’m hopeful that with a change in governor, there will be, you know, the legislature has been by and large supportive of trying to increase funding to levels that are not generous, but that are probably adequate, and I would like to see the legislature really reframe things and prioritize education. So, that funding is in fact you know reliable and generous. I mean, that’s the word I think we should be going for. But the governor has been an impediment in that process and hopefully whoever our new governor is will be sympathetic and supportive and an advocate for our students. As a school board member, I think one thing we can continue to do is to be clear about what our legislative priorities are, continue to send school board members to Juneau, continue to support Superintendent Boron in her statewide efforts and in her time in Juneau lobbying for our district and other districts. But I think the other thing that we as a school board can do a better job on is educating the public in Haines, so that like I said earlier, so that people feel good about the way that their property tax money is being spent. We’re asking a lot of the borough and we’re grateful for the borough support. But if the state continues to violate the Constitution, frankly, and not adequately support education, we’re going to have to ask the community for more support so that our students are prepared for the future. So that our students are safe and so that our students are academically challenged and so that they have opportunities to do sports and to travel and all the other things that our school is so good at.

How many terms have you served on the school board already?

I started mid-term because there was a vacancy. I completed a part of a term and then I’ve had two full terms since then. I think I’ve been on the school board for eight years and should I be reelected, this would be my fourth term.

Since you have been a school board member before, do you feel like, since you have this time put in, you know what issues you want to directly address like the funding issues, with your new term if elected?

For sure, and seeing people enter the school board, it’s easier to see other people’s trajectory than your own, of course, I’m seeing other people enter the school board. I think for all of us, it takes a number of years to understand how the district functions, how funding functions, how the sort of chain of command within the school, sort of what is a superintendent, you know what, what is a principal, you know, I’m just, it takes a while to understand the institution. I think that I know that for myself. The first two years of my tenure on the school board where I didn’t really say much at school board meetings. I was there to learn and listen and try to understand how things were functioning. It’s a long onboarding process for school board members to become really effective. I think the board benefits from having some long term school board members on there and we’re lucky right now that there are a number of long term school board members and I’m grateful for that. We work really well together.

Do you hope to see new school board members enter?

There will certainly be new school board members, we have four vacancies. There will be new school board members. It’s great to have fresh perspectives. It’s great to have people who are learning the institution asking good questions at school board members and forcing those of us that have been there for a while to reevaluate and to articulate why things are done the way they are. And yes, it’s great to have a good balance of seasoned school board members – people who have been there for a number of years – and some new school board members and looking at, sort of the math of this election, there’s no way for it to not be that. 

What are some of the biggest – and you’ve touched on a few points already being funding and working on the curriculum. What are some of the biggest challenges you see for the Haines School District as a whole, and how would you address them with a new term, if you were elected.

We have heard from the student body very directly and from the staff very directly, that teacher retention and teacher turnover is the single biggest issue that’s on people’s minds. The issue of teacher retention directly affects, sort of social emotional well being of students and it directly affects academic challenge and performance. Because like a school board member, it takes a while to learn an institution and it takes a while to learn, so if we can keep staff for a number of years, then after a year or two their energy is being better spent and more focused on our students. The issues of funding and the issues of teacher retention are of course tied together and so what we can do to get some more funding and make sure that any gains we have in the budget are directed towards our staff. I think that’s really the highest priority. One of the challenges in running a school is that, you know, there’s a lot of people in that building and every day there’s something to react to, there’s issues to be resolved and there’s personalities and there’s just a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. So one thing that we can do as a school board is, because we’re not there on a daily basis and we’re not sort of caught up in those details, is that we can keep an eye on those bigger issues. The supervisory issues and the funding issues and the long term trajectory.

Kind of changing gears now: AI use. AI is being used very heavily in our modern world. Do you use AI? If so, how and how do you think students should learn to use it. Should they learn to use it? Do you think that AI should be either used or not used in classrooms?

I have spent a lot of my career in education teaching outdoor and we run a wilderness guide service that is that is aimed at natural history education, but I’m not a classroom teacher and I think one of the tricks and being on the school board is remembering what our job is: our job is to supervise the superintendent and to approve curriculum sort of writ large and I think it’s important for school board members to sort of confine themselves to that and to acknowledge that I’m not an educator and that I’m not well informed enough about the appropriate role of AI in elementary education, which I assume would be different than its role in high school education. I guess really what I’m trying to say is, I don’t think I’m qualified to answer the question of how we should be using or not using AI in the classroom. I think that as a school board member, we should be focused on getting adequate funding for the school so that we can hire staff that really know the answers to these questions and enough staff that they have the time to stay up on developments in education and really be focused on their students. As a school board member, I think part of our job is to support Superintendent Boron and our principal so that there’s good policy and that there’s good support for teachers so that they can do their job in the classroom.

Do you use AI personally? Is that something that is in your world at all?

It’s becoming hard to avoid. I mean, you use AI when you do a Google search now whether you consent to that or not. I don’t spend a lot of time seeking out AI and and in my professional world, there’s not enough data about any of the things that are important to me for AI to produce relevant results. So it’s not a big part of anything that I do professionally.

Looking at if you were to be elected. What does a successful term look like for you, either a year from now, or three years from now?

The primary role of the school board is to supervise and support the superintendent. That’s what the statute says. I think that the definition of a successful term as a school board member is to have a superintendent who is able to do his or her job and move the school forward in the way that the community would like to see it. And so I’ll just leave it there.

Bouncing back to teacher turnover. Is it a funding issue with teachers or housing or are they all connected?

As a school board member, there’s not a whole lot that I can do about the larger community context of a housing shortage. What I can do is advocate for funding so that teachers are financially able to participate in the housing market. So yeah, teacher retention is a funding issue, I can’t remember where we are on the ranking within the state, within the 52 districts that we have, but we’re not at the top. The cost of living here is very high. To move that teacher pay scale up so that people can live in our community and people can stay in our community. It’s a great community. People want to be here. People love working at our school. Again, we hear teachers say, ‘this was the most rewarding part of my career as an educator, but I have to leave Haines because retirement is better in this other district’ or because they just can’t make it work financially and that’s heartbreaking. The district puts a lot of time and energy and love into onboarding and training and welcoming new teachers and it’s heartbreaking when they leave, particularly if they’re leaving because they just can’t make it work financially. That’s a failure on the part of the State of Alaska and something that I hope that we can rectify statewide and locally.

Is there anything else you would like to mention about the election or school board. Anything else that I haven’t asked you would like to bring up?

I hope everybody will vote. Every single person in the borough who’s eligible: just vote. I don’t care who you vote for. Just get out there and make your voice heard.

Thank you so much for sitting down and taking the time to talk to me today, Michael.

See you, Lizzy. Thank you so much.

The post Watch: An interview with Michael Wald, candidate for school board appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

Six community members are competing for four seats on the school board this year. They all sat down with reporter Lizzy Hahn to talk more about why they want to run. 

Editor’s note: This year the Chilkat Valley News partnered with KHNS on its election coverage in addition to hosting two candidate forums. A playlist of these profiles, as they are posted, can be found here.

Lizzy Hahn: Do you want to explain why you chose to run this year?

Kevin Shove: Well, I’ve been on the board now for a couple terms and I enjoy the work and been, you know, working with the legislature and on getting adequate funding for the schools and livable wages for teachers. So I’d like to continue doing that. I have a little rapport with a few of the reps, so I’d like to continue with that. I enjoy doing the work, the curriculum and just everything goes along with it.

How many terms have you served on the school board?

I think two, two terms. I can’t remember. I think I was appointed. No, two terms. This is the third term. Yeah, the first term was a two year, I think, and this last one was a three year. I don’t know. Everything runs together, though.

Then you mentioned that you have two children currently attending the school here in the Haines Borough. Was this a decision, them being in school, like did that factor into your decision to run again this year?

No, that was why I ran in the beginning, because I had thought about that. If I ever have kids and they get in school, I’d probably like to run on the school board. So I ran when George, I think he was in third grade, something like that. I think COVID hit and seemed like at the time the thing to do. And then there were never enough candidates for seats usually. This year, there’s more candidates for the seats. That’s the second time I think I’ve seen that. So that was another factor is like, well, they need people to run. So I did that. The kids being in school was part of it.

Then what are some of the biggest challenges you see for the Haines Borough School District right now? You mentioned funding earlier.

Yeah, I think the State of Alaska is really, the whole state has issues with school funding, and you can get in the weeds with that. But the BSA hasn’t been raised since 2016, I think. I can’t remember. I think it’s 16 now. As everybody knows, there’s been quite a bit of inflation since then. So I would think that the base allocation for students, that should be increased along with inflation proofing it in the future. But you’re working with the legislature, so there’s a lot of back and forth. I think, we get a new governor in there and things might change a little.

Let’s dive into education funding a little bit more. This is something that pretty much everyone has mentioned so far in these interviews. The big topic around it is who should fund education and at what level? Where do you think that that lies?

Well, the state. It’s in the constitution. It’s their obligation and they need to pony up. I mean, it’s the state’s obligation to fund the schools. However they do it, that’s up to them to pass law or bill or whatever they need to accomplish that. I think it was, oh, it was 10 years ago, I don’t remember. It was one of the, I can’t remember the names, but one of the reps, they put a, you know, if they had done an endowment, this endowment they had proposed years ago, it would be at the point now where it could fund the schools. And they’re talking about that. When we went [to Juneau] last year, they’re talking about some sort of endowment or some for school funding. They’re working on it, but the state needs to figure that out and adequately fund the schools. When I first moved here, schools, teachers were flocking here to work in Alaska because the pay was good, experience. Now it’s the other way around. Teachers are leaving because there’s no proper retirement and the pay isn’t livable. They have some work out of them. And it’s up to us to advocate for that.

My next question kind of focuses on AI. Do you use AI? If so, how? And how do you think students should either learn to use AI or not learn to use it in the classroom?

Well, I do not use AI. I have no need for it. I know a lot of people are loving it, but I can form my own paragraphs and I can write my own letters. I think the kids really need to focus on learning just reading, writing, and arithmetic. I mean, you get to high school, maybe they should incorporate that in there,  to some of the learning, as an aid, an assistant. I don’t know. I think teacher face-to-face learning, instruction with the teacher going around. Just case in point, my son, they do video sometimes in school, for math he was doing. He’d never get it on the video. But when the teacher would show it on the board and explain it to him, he’d get it. So I just think that’s crucial is the interaction, human interaction. I think there’s a place for it, but I don’t think it needs to be like the end of all, ‘oh God, AI, let’s jump in and everybody uses AI for everything’ or whatever. No, I don’t, I don’t agree with that at all.

Then you mentioned this a little bit earlier with funding, but teacher retention has been an issue pretty much in the whole state. How do you hope to address it, address this so that teachers potentially stay longer or want to come to Haines?

Well, you got to address the pay issue, the funding, and then also their retirement. To get them to stay, they have to have something to stay for. Right now they don’t have any type of retirement that I think beneficial for teachers. If they’re not paying into social security, then they should have the state. They had a bill out. There was a bill to fix that. I think it was a pretty decent, a good bill and, but it got, I believe, shelved for now, like a lot of education bills. They need to fix that because everybody, if you want a long-term, if you want people to look at a long-term investment, they have to see, okay, well, if I worked there for so many years, I’m going to accumulate, they can do the numbers and I say, well, ‘I’ll have this in my retirement and I can afford it.’ I mean, we’ve had, I mean, I won’t mention names, one person went, left and went back to where they came from so they could finish out their career there and get the retirement because they weren’t able to do it here. So those two things I think are key to getting teachers to stay are the wages and retirement. I think the state itself and everything is an attracting place for people. A lot of people come up here, especially with the way things are down south, cities and there are so many people and you see that. But if you can’t live, you won’t be able to make it.

Other people also mentioned housing as a part of this fold.

There’s an issue in Haines with that. The place that we could use, there’s affordable, I mean, condos type, apartments, whatever, a building, we have enough, we have some stuff around town, but that is an issue for when teachers come up here, finding a place and they do a good job at the school, getting them into, they have a couple of people that help out with rentals they have and to get teachers and it was right next door.

They rent a lot to the school, that house next to my house. I believe this year, but no, there wasn’t any teachers, they found their other places. So I think that all the new ones that came had found a place where, stay and live and because his was still open. It is an issue if you want to stay long-term, I think that I’ve seen now a few houses up for sale around town. I mean that kind of ebbs and flows.

Since you have served two terms on the school board, do you feel like you have a rhythm? And if you were elected this year, are there any goals that you want to strive for? Particularly, like looking a year from now or three years from now, what do you hope to have accomplished?

Well, we’re updating the curriculum and going through that. That’s one thing I hope we want to finish up. Like I said, going in to, I’m on the legislative committee and I enjoy that, going down to Juneau on the fly-ins and speaking with the legislatures and advocating. Before I get out of it, I’d like to see the fund, the BSA, increased by law and the funding adequate for the schools. That’s one of my biggest goals. Cause I think the Haines school does a pretty good job with the kids, as long as you’re, the parents are involved and you apply yourself, you’re going to get an education. A lot of it is the parents need to be involved with your kid in order for that to happen. Cause the teacher is not raising your kid, there’s things to be done at home also to help with the education. But I think those two things, the legislative committee and, and updating the curriculum, which we’ve been doing and it’s been going well.

When you go to Juneau, what are some of the discussions that you’re having with legislature members?

I think a lot of the legislatures are on board now with increasing the funding. It’s a matter of getting it across the governor’s desk. I mean, in the first few times we went down there when Roy was here, it was like trying to get them to realize that, ‘yeah, we got a problem.’ And then now I think they realize it with some of the schools falling down and, if people have been paying attention, there’s been some issues up North with schools, I mean, just pretty bad. Now they know that. This year, with the windfall of the oil profits, they’ve allocated a lot of that money or some of that money, not a lot of, some of the money to go to the capital, getting the projects and fix a lot of the issues with the schools. We were on 31, 32, I think, on the list. Actually I think that’s where it ended. We had the two, our locker room and roof that were on the list for years have gotten funded. They know they need to, to invest in the schools, and the legislature knows it now. It’s just a matter of figuring out how much and getting it done. They’re working on that part right now, at least the infrastructure, they’re putting some money into the buildings before they have to start building new schools. 

You mentioned the curriculum: how does the school board look at the curriculum? Is it updating it or?

Committee and they look at different curriculums that are out there now and they get input from teachers, parents. They’ll form a committee and then they’ll look at and see how it works and the teachers like it and pick the best one, what’s the best one for the kids. I think right now they’re doing science, but the math was updated and, and in the reading, we were seeing the results on the reading, I believe now that some of the increased in some of the scores and stuff. So I think that it’s good thing to do. You’ve got to look at that every, obviously every so often or every so many years and, and get up with the times I suppose you say.

Is there anything else that you would like to see introduced into the school system? One candidate mentioned dual credit classes for students. Is that something that you’re thinking about or just like improving the curriculum?

Well, no, there’s, I mean, I’m sure that’d be something and we’d go, there’s other things they’re doing.

Like right now they started this  program in Southeast where the kids can sign up and they go for a week to learn on trades, early childhood, whatever boat ship, Ketchikan, Juneau, another one there, and they have three or four they’re doing a year. They cut one back but you could sign up. I’m talking to my son about it. You go for a week and see if that’s something you’re going to like and do these trade. Cause there’s a big demand. That’s what I’d like to see more interest in investment in the trades, which we are doing. It’s something that’s being pushed in state now too. The dual credit classes, right now they can take classes, I think, and there’s a lot of things they can do, they just have to go to their counselor or their teacher and find out what there is. Cause there’s a lot of things that aren’t utilized. I think too, out there for the kids, you just have to go find, you know, go look and ask what’s out there. But yeah, I think that for me, I’d like to see a lot more in trades because being, you know, the blue collar field, you could see plumbers, others, they’re all needed out there and they’re good wages, minimal schooling. You don’t have to go to college for 10 years, a couple of two-year school and then you go out in the field and you make some good money. I do one of them on the side, refrigeration, it wears me out, but I don’t make no money off it, but I fix stuff. It’s a handy skill to have.

Do you think that more vocational classes need to be taught here or does that look like more outside programs that kids travel to?

Yeah, more program. You need a lot of funding, and right now I mean, we’re trying not to cut things. I know we want to add things, but it’s not going to happen until something changes and the borough has increased their funding to the school up to the cap almost. So they’re invested in it, which has helped us out a lot as far as, I’ve been in the teacher contract negotiations for the last two times in this last time, we gave them a raise obviously. We want to give them a raise because the pay was low and we got it up, but we’re still, I don’t know, the bottom three quarters of the state maybe, in pay, something like that. Some of them are higher, but the ones that are, we’re paying the teachers higher now on these fiscal cliffs too, we have our budgets, I think we do a pretty good job of the budget actually. You know, a lot of schools are in need right now and, and if you look at a lot of them, we’re paying the teachers higher salaries and they need to make the money to go to college and earn these degrees. So, you want to get a wage to match that but without the funding, it’s hard to do that. I think here in the, I’ve got a good outlook on that.

I think that in the next couple of years, we’re going to get some increases and it’ll change as long as they manage the money right in the state. Good luck.

Looking at the next three years, if you were elected, what would a successful term look like for you?

Well, I think that in the three years, that would be having that funding solidified. I think it could be done in the next three years. For me is also the kids, the scores, increasing our scores and we have a high graduation rate and like to increase that to, it’d be a hundred percent is our goal. The successful term for me would be like the increase in those scores and, and in the tests that kids do and the funding, securing more funding and there are more opportunities with these, the vocational and stuff that’s coming out now, I think that’s key. I would think with more in this program, new program they started, if that kind of takes off and hopefully –it’s a federal funded program, so it’s no cost to the schools or the state there, the kids sign up they go – so hopefully that can continue. I think key for me is I’ve been working on the funding for a while, so I keep going back to that. The kids do, they need to succeed and set them up for success.

Those were all the questions that I had written down. Is there anything else that you want to mention that I maybe didn’t ask about?

I enjoy working with the folks on the board, everybody, we all look at every issue and do what’s best for the school and the kids. I’m sure anybody new on the board would also look at it that way because we don’t, I don’t think anybody in there looks at this side or that side or anything. It’s what’s best for our school and for our kids. Everybody works well together. I like that about being on the school board. I enjoy working with everybody. Maybe that’s all we add that, I like everybody there. When you watch the borough assembly meetings, you can tell it’s not so cohesive, but anyway, I do enjoy it. So I would, I appreciate anybody’s vote and everybody’s vote, and I’ll continue to do my best.

Kevin Shove, thank you so much for joining me in the studio today. 

Thank you for having me.

The post Watch: An interview with Kevin Shove, candidate for school board appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.