Administrators say staffing reductions at Mt. Edgecumbe High School won’t be as deep as initially anticipated, as they work to cover a seven-digit gap in funding for the fiscal year 2026 budget.
The boarding school, which serves students from across Alaska, entered the budget process with a $1.8 million deficit, Principal Miranda Bacha told staff in an email last week, and as a result had to make cuts no matter what.
“Deputy Commissioner (of Education, Karen) Morrison presented a budget that includes both a Base Student Allocation (BSA) increase and a rise in the student activity fee. However, to balance the overall budget, it also requires reductions in staffing,” Bacha wrote.
The Alaska Department of Education is working with Mt. Edgecumbe staff on the budget, which is based on a $680 increase in state per-student funding.
The per-student funding isn't known at present. The Legislature passed a bill with a $700 BSA increase but Gov. Dunleavy hasn't signed it. At present the BSA is $5,960, and has not been increased significantly since 2016.
The largest component in the current $11.2 million budget is $4.5 million for residential operations, followed by $2 million for instruction. The school’s enrollment this year was 415, and is expected to be 400 next year.
MEHS currently has about 23 classroom teachers and another seven such as counselors, a librarian, a principal and a dean, Bacha noted, with 9.5 of those positions were added since 2016.
“During COVID, several temporary positions were added with the plan of keeping them while the extra COVID money was there to fund them and with the hope additional funding would be found to pay for them when the COVID money ran out,” Bacha wrote.
Earlier this spring, MEHS Superintendent Suzzuk Huntington presented a budget to the state that would cut the teaching staff by half, but the school has since backed off from that plan. In late April, Huntington announced her resignation, effective June 30.
“I honestly don't know what it's going to look like next year yet,” Matt Hunter, president of the school's Teachers’ Education Association, told the Sentinel Thursday. “Our principal has a plan and says it will work, but we don't know yet what the classes will look like, and how many sections and class sizes there will be, and who's going to teach what yet. So it's still an unknown, and there's some anxiety from that.”
Bacha said in her email that limited funding will lead to a loss of some course options for students.
“The current budget includes funding for 18 classroom teachers next year,” Bacha wrote. “While this requires a reduction in the number of course sections, we are working to maintain a broad range of electives so students can still access diverse learning opportunities. We are actively exploring grant opportunities and monitoring any potential increases to the BSA. However, we cannot commit to adding positions until the budget is finalized. If additional funding becomes available, adding teaching staff will be a top priority.”
Combined factors such as teacher salary increases, dorm and cafeteria contracts, and utility costs have added strain to the budget, the principal said. As the numbers of anticipated cuts shifted, Bacha provided clarification at a school advisory board meeting last month.
“I know there's been a lot of numbers that have come out regarding staff cuts, but regarding just classroom teachers, we are looking at about five,” Bacha told the board. “So the other ones are support staff and other positions on the academic side, but classroom teachers, there are five at this time.”
Asked by board chair Travis Vaughan how many teachers would be fired under the current budget, Bacha replied, “zero.”
“It's not a layoff, it's actually we're not going to fill five positions… We have given out all contracts to teachers that we can offer – contracts that we can afford in our budget. And so they have all been given out to teachers… What we're talking about with layoffs are non-instructional staff,” Bacha continued.
Deputy Commissioner of Education Karen Morrison, who was present at the teleconference board meeting, said in the current budget, the school no longer is planning to lay off lots of staff.
“We're not talking about a sizable number of layoffs, and the people who may be receiving a layoff notice have been talked to last week, is my understanding.”
In her email to staff last week, Bacha confirmed that those who will no longer be employed have already been informed.
“Staff were informed about a week and a half ago that two academic-side positions and two to three residential-side positions would be eliminated. It's important to note that while it appears several positions are being lost, the impact on academic staffing is limited to two positions,” she wrote.
Matt Hunter said, “we have a really good teaching team coming back… Deputy Commissioner Karen Morrison has been actively seeking grants that the school may qualify for, and if any of those come through, we should see additional teachers. But (there is) a lot of uncertainty right now. It's the same thing other schools have been dealing with for years, it’s just happening all at once for Mt. Edgecumbe.”
He was unsure what staffing levels would look like in the coming year. Some pink slips have already gone out, and other positions will be left empty following retirements.
“By state law, the school has to issue notices of non-retention by the last day of school. And that's a state requirement. We have five people retiring. There are a few folks who have resigned to seek employment elsewhere in Alaska and out of state… There's at least three people who really wanted to stay who were told they can't come back,” Hunter said. Those terminations, he added, were due to finances, not poor performance on the job.
“We've got fantastic students, and as long as the students come back, we're going to have a good school year next year… We have a really good teaching team coming back, and we're looking forward to working with our students next year,” he said.
