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Meeting gathers North Slope education, borough leaders

February 3rd 10:27 am | Hannah Heimbuch Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

The leaders of two North Slope public service organizations will meet Wednesday Feb. 8 to discuss future goals and funding for area schools.

The North Slope Borough Assembly and the North Slope Borough School Board of Education will gather at 10 at the borough building in Barrow.

Along with the usual discussion of budgets and curriculum, the group will cover ongoing projects and partnerships aimed at enriching education in the Arctic. This includes the school district's relationships with Ilisagvik College and the Tuzzy Consortium Library, along with the Uqautchim Uglua program.

A dynamic collaboration between the two governing bodies has been going on for about seven years, said School Board president Debby Edwardson, and the connection is mutually beneficial.

"Our concern is the education of our kids. It's natural that we get together and talk about that," Edwardson said. "(The borough) has always been a very generous supporter. They provide a good chunk of our funding and it's important that we meet."

The North Slope Borough School District received some $32 million in funding from the borough this year, constituting about half of its total funding. The remaining funds come from state and federal sources.

The Uqautchim Uglua project is one of the promising programs Edwardson said she looks forward to working with the Borough on.

"It's a two-fold project — it will create a lab school in Barrow for early childhood that will train teachers, and create more local teachers," Edwardson said. "The other part is language, and it's to create language immersion daycare both in Barrow and in the villages."

Ilisagvik started the program with $1.5 million in grant funding. The teacher training aspect will offer opportunities for working students and village students to earn an Inupiaq Early Learning associate's degree, and will be steeped in Inupiaq ways and language. It also offers the option to articulate that associate's degree with a four-year teaching degree.

"(The program) is developed from an Inupiat prospective outward, rather than from a Western perspective," Edwardson said.

Uqautchim Uglua kicked off on Jan. 20 with an initial gathering of northern residents who have dedicated their lives to preserving and studying the Inupiaq language.

The collaboration brought together the area's Inupiaq-speaking teachers, including those who've retired, to take a careful look at the program, Edwardson said.

The board and assembly will also discuss updates on the Inupiaq Learning Framework at Wednesday's meeting. On the agenda are dual-credit opportunities for high school students, accountability concerns and partnership opportunities with the Borough Wildlife Department.

Acting assembly president George Agnasagga of Wainwright was voted into the president seat just Tuesday morning, and is just now starting to explore that role. He has filled seats on the assembly a number of times before. Agnasagga said he will be at the Wednesday meeting to take part in the discussion with the school board, and looks forward to his involvement in it.

"It's always a pleasure serving on the assembly," he said.

 

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