The Juneau School Board voted Thursday to reconsider the school closure plan it approved last month.
The approved model puts seventh and eighth grades at Thunder Mountain High School and high school grades at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. At the end of a more than four hour meeting Thursday night, board member Amber Frommherz proposed amending the plan.
In an interview, she said the board should take the time to consider putting 7th through 12th grade at both campuses.
“We’re in a time crunch, but I think the community of Juneau deserves one more chance to see if there’s something else that could work better for the entire community,” she said.
The board voted 4-3 to reconsider the closure plan at Tuesday’s meeting.
Frommherz and members Will Muldoon, Britteny Cioni-Haywood and David Noon voted yes, while board president Deedie Sorensen and members Elizabeth Siddon and Emil Mackey voted no.
“We made the hard decision,” Siddon said. “I know there are people not happy about it. There’s going to be more people unhappy if we change direction right now.
Siddon also questioned how Frommherz could provide accompanying budget information for a different model on short notice.
“You’re asking us, your colleagues, to trust a budget you develop by yourself between now and Tuesday versus the budget developed by our superintendent and director of admin services?” she asked.
If the amendment vote fails on Tuesday, Muldoon said the original model will still stand.
Several important deadlines are quickly approaching. Gov. Mike Dunleavy has until Thursday to sign or veto the Legislature’s education bill, which would give millions of state dollars to the Juneau School District.
The school board plans to approve next year’s budget by Friday so they can send it to the city well before their April 5 deadline.
“The reason we are targeting March 15 is because it’s a very complex document, and any transposition, typographical errors will have pretty major impacts,” Muldoon said. “And the likelihood of those errors increases substantially the closer we get to that April 5 date.”
District Human Resources Director Lyle Melkerson urged board members to pass a budget as soon as possible. The district has to send out layoff notices to teachers by May 15.
“By that time, people will have likely made decisions for their future,” Melkerson said. “The hiring season for teachers in the state of Alaska begins in January. They’ll be looking to move on. We could wait until May 15. I would recommend not doing that because I would like to be able to staff our buildings in the fall.”
The board has a work session and regular meeting scheduled for Tuesday. At the work session, they’re set to discuss logistics of the board-approved reorganization plan, plus a “final summary of non-board-adopted models.” The regular meeting agenda includes the adoption of next year’s budget.
The regular meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé auditorium and on Zoom.
