Sterling Elementary speaks out against proposed closure

Krystal Duval, a kindergarten teacher at Sterling Elementary School, doesn’t know whether she’ll see her students next year. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District’s Board of Education has listed her school for closure in the preliminary budget for the coming year, but hasn’t made a final decision — and might not until July.

“I would prefer for you to say that Sterling Elementary is going to close so that I can have an opportunity to say goodbye to my kindergarteners,” she told the board Monday. “Right now, your plan does not provide me that opportunity.”

The board has said school closures will be subject to a vote of the body. Though the closure of Sterling Elementary is described in the budget scenario the district advanced last month, they have yet to take formal action on the move and no such vote is scheduled.

The board doesn’t meet again until after the end of the school year — until after Duval’s students have left for the summer uncertain whether they’ll be back.

Sterling Elementary was included in a list of nine schools that could be closed this year in February, as the district has grappled over recent months with a $17 million deficit and flat funding from the state. In March it was retained on that list when six of the other schools were removed from closure consideration this year. It wasn’t added as a cut in any of the district’s possible budget scenarios until April 22. At that point, the school district had hosted a community meeting with Nikolaevsk School — which they voted unanimously to close this week — and had heard public comment from Nikolaevsk families at multiple board meetings in March and April.

Prior to Sterling’s being added for closure consideration on April 22, members of the board and district leadership had said Sterling’s closure shouldn’t come before the district understands how it will play into the consolidation of Soldotna schools currently being explored as part of the 2022 school maintenance bond — where a new solution is being sought as a proposed reconstruction of Soldotna Elementary School has been called unaffordable.

Contractor MCG Explore Design was awarded a contract in December to complete a consolidation design for Soldotna’s schools by an April deadline. The Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor’s office on Tuesday confirmed that the deadline was extended to June 30 to give the contractor more time to communicate with several Soldotna schools as it compiles its recommendation. The contractor was asked to create a plan to renovate existing facilities to house students across six schools in the city, and the board has previously said Sterling and Tustumena Elementary may ultimately play into that plan.

“Before we move on with these two, Sterling and Tustumena, we have to have a better idea of the complete package,” KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland said March 3.

Because Sterling hasn’t been seriously discussed as a closure prospect until the last two weeks, Duval said her school hasn’t been given the “proper process.” She was among roughly 30 people who waved signs and protested on behalf of Sterling on Saturday morning at a busy Soldotna intersection.

“This has blindsided our school and our community,” she said during the protest. “Sterling is important, and if you close the school it’s going to be a major loss to our community and also to the school district.”

That argument carried weight with board member Kelley Cizek, who multiple times Monday said she agreed the district had “skipped a step here.”

“We cannot do this move at this time, because we would not have the integrity of affording them the process,” she said.

No other members of the board voiced support for Cizek’s effort to remove the school from closure consideration. At this point, Board President Zen Kelly said, cuts will not be reversed without making a new cut in its place.

Currently, Sterling Elementary has an enrollment of 115 with a capacity of 270 students.

Students at the school, per the closure scenarios presented to the board, would be sent to Redoubt Elementary School if their school were closed. Duval said that means they’ll be bussing past Soldotna Elementary School, and students in areas like Mackey Lake that are closer to Sterling and instead be placed in a school with students from the Funny River area much farther from their own homes. Play dates will be logistically challenging, and the travel times may push students into homeschool, possibly outside of the district.

To lose Sterling Elementary would be to lose a place important to its community and important to the wider district, she said.

“This is a place where the school is not just a place where you learn,” she said. “Sterling Elementary has become so many people’s family.”

Duval was among many who took that testimony to the board during their meeting Monday.

Emma Wood, a Sterling sixth grader, said her school is an “amazing community” rooted in empathy and kindness.

Wilder Koecher, also a sixth grader at the school, said Sterling is charitable and brings his community together.

Jeff Jicha, a Sterling grandparent, compared closing a school to cutting off a limb. As a quadruple amputee, he said, he knows it’s difficult to balance without a leg.

Sterling Principal Elizabeth Kvamme said her school offers one of the few remaining elementary music programs, has clubs important to its students like robotics and Native Youth Olympics and in the sixth grade affords its students leadership training and responsibility. Her students, if consolidated into smaller schools, might lose some of those opportunities.

“I urge you to please value Sterling Elementary,” she said. “We are a school on the rise.”

Rep. Bill Elam, R-Nikiski, also spoke during the meeting. He said Sterling Elementary is important to its community and that he would support keeping the school open.

Board Vice President Jason Tauriainen said the board had communicated clearly what it needed from Elam and the Alaska Legislature. Per-student funding from the state that had kept up with inflation would be $1,808 greater than the current $5,960. The district had asked for a $1,000 increase this year — a level of funding at which district budget scenarios say Sterling Elementary would not be considered for closure. Elam voted against a bill with that increase on March 12, April 11 and April 22 before later supporting a smaller increase of $700.

“If you were unclear, the $1,000 was the minimum to get us through without big cuts — that didn’t happen,” he said.

A full recording of the meeting will be available at the KPBSD BoardDocs website.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.