Editor’s Note: A model of this story first appeared in Mile Markersa twice month-to-month e-newsletter from Open Campus concerning the position of schools in rural America. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to obtain future editions in your inbox.
Jeff Alexander was settling into retired life, after three many years as a instructor, principal, and superintendent in Arkansas — that’s, till a pal known as with a novel alternative.
He took the digital interview on a Wednesday in January of 2023, and obtained his letter of intent that afternoon.
He hopped on a aircraft that Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, he stepped off of it … and onto a snowmobile that escorted him to his new home.
The very subsequent morning, he was working with college students in Kotzebue, Alaska, the start of a semester that would come with him instructing social research, studying, and bodily schooling at varied occasions.
“It was a little bit of a culture shock,” Alexander chuckles.
The 3,000-person city is the seat of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District, a district charged with instructing roughly 2,000 Okay-12 college students throughout an arctic land mass the scale of the state of Indiana.
To say the district is distant is an understatement. Educators should go by aircraft or, in the summertime, by boat, to succeed in 11 faculties in villages outdoors of Kotzebue, the place enrollments vary from roughly 50 to 250 college students.
Their greatest problem? “Keeping teachers coming up here,” says Alexander, who notes that the 140-employee district is presently seven or eight licensed academics wanting the place it want to be.
After ending his first semester of instructing final spring, Alexander took an open position as Director of Human Resources for the district, the place practically 82% of all college students are American Indian & Alaska Native.
In this interview, edited and condensed for readability, the longtime educator discusses the realities of attracting educators to a neighborhood as rural as northwest Alaska.
Nick Fouriezos: What’s day by day life right here in northwest Alaska?
Jeff Alexander: I used to be attracted to come back right here due to the journey of going to Alaska. But as soon as I obtained up right here, and visited among the small communities right here — like Selawik, which had round 225 college students final 12 months — I actually cherished the sensation that that is extra like a household than a neighborhood.
Locals in locations like Selawik need you to take part. Ninety p.c of every part that goes on in Selawik goes via the varsity, so in case you attend as a instructor, it makes an actual impression on the folks there.
People will feed you, and I’m speaking about every kind of various meals that I by no means had tried earlier than: caribou soup, moose burgers.
I wasn’t a giant fan of whale — it tasted the best way you suppose it will: principally fats. I appreciated the seal although. They dip the meat right into a particular oil and that was actually good.
We additionally inform potential college students that they’ll see no less than two dogsledding occasions come via Selawik and another villages, and the scholars actually love placing up posters and taking part in that.
What are you doing to handle your instructing scarcity?
We have all our courses coated, due to long-term subs proper now, however you don’t get the identical high quality from them as with a licensed instructor.
We additionally preserve an inventory of licensed academics who’re prepared to come back for no less than a nine-week interval. We fly them up right here and provides them a roundtrip ticket to return home. Some keep longer, so long as an entire 12 months.
In the meantime, we’ll attempt to get our subsequent batch via teams like Alaska Teacher Placement (ATP) or the Handshake jobs platform, the place we host digital recruitment occasions each 10 weeks or so for anyone who may be concerned about instructing proper after faculty.
I began in June with Handshake, and we’ve in all probability employed no less than 8 academics via it. We need to enhance it as much as 20 for this subsequent faculty 12 months.
How do wage and dwelling prices play a job in your recruiting problem?
Our common is only a hair over $61,000 for a model new instructor with no expertise, and round $109,000 for any person who’s topped out on their expertise.
Plenty of the West Coast states are very near the identical salaries that we’re, so we’re not being as aggressive as we must be.
Housing right here may be very tough to seek out, particularly in Kotzebue.
We give all our academics a $500/month hire stipend, and once we rent a brand new instructor, we give them sponsored housing for a 12 months, so essentially the most they’ll pay in utilities, hire, and every part else is between $600 to $1,000 a month.
It’s a continuing battle making an attempt to maintain academics: You’ll lose a couple of inside a couple of weeks of them arriving, and usually a couple of over the Christmas break too.
How do your college students pursue postsecondary certificates or levels regionally?
We’re particularly supporting college students who’re concerned about going into schooling or technical fields, like welding or nursing, into our Star of the Northwest constitution faculty that’s linked to the Alaska Technical College in Kotzebue.
We have a university dorm and a highschool dorm, so we’ll have 12, 15, as much as 30 district college students there at a time doing completely different courses.
We home them right here whereas they deal with no matter vocational-techincal courses they want, whereas doing most of their basic courses on-line in their very own neighborhood.
What are among the highlights to your academics?
Our academics in Selawik do a fall camp and a spring camp with the scholars. They keep in a single day for a few days, and can take the scholars looking or fishing.
It’s lots of enjoyable — speak about connecting with college students as a instructor!
On these journeys, the scholars usually develop into academics themselves, as a result of they’re so aware of subsistence life, they usually love instructing us about it.
That was in all probability one of the best teacher-student bonding expertise I’ve had in my 30-some-odd years in schooling.
It’s a key factor to become involved in the neighborhood. And if a instructor will do this, I feel they’ll wind up staying, I actually do.
More Rural Higher Ed News
Rural ed initiative wins funding in Texas.The Collegiate Edu-Nation Rural HOPE Projectspearheaded by West Texas A&M University, earned a $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to assist rural college students earn bachelor’s levels whereas staying of their hometowns.
From faculty to college-going charity. Jon Marcus writes in the Hechinger Report about how the now-closed Chatfield College is changing its property right into a nonprofit to assist native college students pursue larger schooling.
- “It’s among a fast-growing number of closed colleges in rural America, stripping communities of nearby higher education options to which young people can aspire and eventually go. In this case, however, something unusual has happened: The assets left by the defunct college are being used to help at least some local students continue their educations past high school.”
Bridging the Divide. In a conference from April 10-12the University of Chicago Institute of Politics will convene college students from throughout the nation to discover the foundation causes of, and develop options to, urban-rural polarization.
This article first appeared in Mile Markersa twice month-to-month e-newsletter from Open Campus concerning the position of schools in rural America. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered to your inbox.
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