Daily Sitka Sentinel

Co-Assistants Moving On to New Ventures

By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer

After five years as the Sitka School District’s co-assistant superintendents, Sarah Ferrency and her husband Phil Burdick will leave their shared position on June 30.

“It’s an expectation that when a superintendent transitions, they would allow the new superintendent to place their own assistant superintendent,” Superintendent Mary Wegner said today.

Wegner, who has been superintendent for six years, is leaving to take a position with the University of Alaska at the end of her current contract June 30. Long-time Alaskan educator and former Sitka superintendent John Holst will fill in while the School Board conducts a search for a permanent superintendent.

Both Ferrency and Burdick said their decision to move on is not related to the shuffling of school district principals that Wegner announced last week.

Burdick said that he has accepted a job teaching English at Pacific High School, and Ferrency said she is looking for jobs outside of the district.

“I’m staying in education. We’re going to keep doing the work we have always done, which is work for the marginalized families and students of Sitka,” Ferrency said.

“I’m going back to my roots,” Burdick said. After finishing his degree at the University of Alaska Southeast, he began teaching at Pacific High 24 years ago.

“I have been working with students and families from Pacific High School since 1996,” he said. “I’ve taught students of students. And for me being able to go back to Pacific High is very comfortable and at the same time it’s fulfilling.”

Phil Burdick and Sarah Ferrency are pictured in 2015. (Sentinel file photo)

Ferrency’s career took a similar track. She began work at PHS in 2000.

“Pacific High is the school that really made me want to be a teacher,” Ferrency said. The husband-wife team worked together at Pacific High starting in 2003, becoming co-principals in 2010, when they were named co-assistant superintendents.  

Both highlighted their work in promoting equity in Sitka schools as a major aspect of their careers.

“I have been just humbled and honored to work with the staff of the Sitka School District,” Burdick said. “The teachers who have integrated culturally responsive teaching and the staff who have day in and day out dedicated themselves (to that).”

Looking back on the couple’s work as assistant superintendents, Wegner said “their passion for equity and closing the achievement gap has been instrumental to the accomplishments we’ve been able to achieve. I thank them for their service to our district. We could not have done the work that we have done, built the relationships with our partners, without them.”

School Board president Elias Erickson said that “we recognize the expertise and passion our assistant superintendents bring to Sitka schools, and thank them for their years of dedication and service.”

Wegner announced Friday that four of Sitka’s seven principals and assistant principals are being transferred to other positions in a move to close the district’s achievement gap.

Wegner said the personnel shifts will be discussed at closed meetings on Wednesday. The meetings will involve Wegner, Holst, and individual school principals, who may bring a representative if they so desire.