FIFTH OPENING – The Sitka seine boats Hukilau and Rose Lee pump herring aboard this afternoon at the end of Deep Inlet during the fifth opening in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery. The opening was being held in two locations beginning at 11 a.m. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
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Sentinel Staff Writer
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Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
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At 2:10 p.m. a man e [ ... ]
Big Rigs Sought
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Sentinel Sports Editor
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In the language of the Gwich’in people of northeastern Alaska, [ ... ]
Police Blotter
Sitka police received the following calls by 8 a.m. today:
March 25
At 7:48 a.m. a calle [ ... ]
Vietnam-Era Vets
Invited to Lunch,
Commemoration
American Legion Post 13 will host a luncheon 1-3 p.m. [ ... ]
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Sentinel Staff Writer
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Playing through the afternoon Sunday, City League volleyball teams faced off [ ... ]
Daily Sitka Sentinel
Grant to Help Sitka Students with Transitions
By ABIGAIL BLISS
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Sitka School District has a new funding source in its arsenal for the upcoming academic year.
With funds from a U.S. Department of Education Promise Neighborhoods grant, the Alaska Association of School Boards has selected Sitka to receive support from a Supporting Transitions and Educational Promise Southeast Alaska (STEPS) grant.
As one of six communities in the region selected to benefit from the grant, Sitka will receive $1,890,484 across five years, ranging from about $270,000 to $408,000 annually, superintendent Mary Wegner told the Sentinel. The STEPS funding, the district’s only new grant funding for the upcoming year, will expire in 2022.
The grant will pay for four new positions: Grant Director; Cultural Specialist with Early Childhood Focus; Family and Community Connectedness Project Coordinator; and part-time Postsecondary Project Coordinator.
Emily Ferry, AASB’s STEPS Coordinator, hopes that the grant will provide each child in the communities affected the opportunity to succeed by offering additional support at pivotal moments throughout childhood, such as the start of kindergarten and the end of high school.
“The over-arching goal is to improve outcomes for kids in Southeast Alaska,” she said. “We know that some of the kids are graduating and are doing really well, and some are not... Our end goal is that all kids have equal opportunity to succeed. That takes a holistic effect, and it starts at the very beginning of life.”
Wegner described the STEPS grant as a “collective impact” grant that incorporates and benefits members of the broader community. Its implementation hinges on a long list of community partners, including Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Sitkans Against Family Violence, and SEARHC, all part of the grant from the outset.
“It’s different than collaborating,” Wegner said. “You’re co-creating together.”
Ferry emphasized the importance of a collective effort, which is often challenging to coordinate.
“We have a lot of resources here in Southeast Alaska, and a lot of educators and nonprofits and tribes that are working really hard, but sometimes we are not working as well together as we can,” she said.
Ferry said the grant is highly competitive. More than 800 entities have applied for the U.S. Department of Education Promise Neighborhoods grant since its creation more than a decade ago, and only 48 have received funding. This is the first time any entity in Alaska has received the grant, and one of the few examples of a rural recipient. Ferry said most entities benefited resemble a more traditional version of a neighborhood – ten square blocks in a city, for example.
She believes one of the reasons Southeast Alaska stood out from the applicant pool is its strong networks of community partners.
“What worked in our favor (was) both that there’s a need and that we do have strong buy-ins from our partners,” she said. “People have to be willing to roll up their sleeves... put down our egos.”
The partners will work together to achieve identified solutions in four key focus areas, relying on the cultivation and application of data to support a “cradle to career” continuum.
In the early childhood category, the solutions are “asset building,” reading programs, kindergarten readiness, childcare support, and parent engagement.
In the kindergarten through high school category, the solutions include after-school programming, project-based learning, cultural integration, and summer programs and employment.
In the post-secondary category, the solutions include college experience, summer programs, and a vocational track.
In the fourth and final category, “prevent & engage,” the grant aims to address obesity, employability, and family support in the broader community.
Wegner said the STEPS grant supports the Sitka School Board’s two goals: “close the achievement gap for each demographic” and “improve the positive response rates on the School Climate and Connectedness Survey in the areas of respectful climate, school safety, student involvement, and parent involvement.”
It’s particularly advantageous for one of the board’s two strategies to achieve those goals, culturally-responsive education, Wegner said. The other main strategy is a multi-tiered support strategy that provides three layers of instruction or intervention to meet varying student needs.
“We’re not adding new things,” Wegner said. “We’re just adding resources to extend the impact of the work we’re been doing.”
She said each of the grant recipients will be held accountable by the same 13 metrics. Here in Sitka, she said, educators conducted a gap analysis to identity the current state of the district, the ideal state, and how to get there.
One gap the grant will not fill, however, is the one left by the recent loss of the 21st Century Grant, which provided $317,079 a year for after-school and summer programs for 40 kids at Baranof Elementary, 60 at Keet Gooshi Heen Elementary, 60 at Blatchley Middle School and 15 at Pacific High School.
After-school programing is “one area” of the STEPS grant, Wegner said, but far from its main focus.
“It’s not a solution to fix the gap,” she said.
It is, instead, a boost for the board’s current agenda.
“It will take what we’re already doing and allow us to truly implement it in meaningful ways,” Wegner said.
The other communities benefiting from the grant are Juneau, Klukwan, Angoon, Hydaburg, and Hoonah.
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20 YEARS AGO
March 2004
Matthew C. Hunter of Sitka recently returned from Cuba as part of a St. Olaf College International and Off-Campus Studies program. Hunter, a junior physics major at St. Olaf College, is the son of Robert and Kim Hunter of Sitka.
50 YEARS AGO
March 1974
Eighth graders have returned from a visit to Juneau to see the Legislature. They had worked for it since Christmas vacation ... Clarice Johnson’s idea of a “White Elephant” sales was chosen as the best money-maker; Joe Roth won the political cartoon assignment; highest government test scorers were Ken Armstrong, Joanna Hearn, Linda Montgomery, Lisa Henry, Calvin Taylor and David Licari .....