Alaska Native Cultural Charter School, located at Anchorage's Bettye Davis East High, is raising money in hopes of one day building a space of its own. Until then, supporters hope the charter school can move into an elementary set to close next year.
over the school’s closure, and what it might mean for the majority of students who rely on certain services and free meals at their school. Acuna said the charter school is looking at its options, but it’s tough to find facilities that suit the school’s needs and would require a lot of money for repurposing, which is why Acuna said Abbott Loop is the best option.
When a school district has excess building capacity, they can offer it to charter schools, but aren’t required to under state statute, said Jim Anderson, the district’s chief operating officer. “When a charter school gets a charter approved with the school board, they do it knowing that they’re responsible for finding a facility,” Anderson said. However, as the district began looking at elementary school closures earlier in the school year, Anderson said it made to sense to see if a vacant building would be acceptable for the cultural charter school. “As soon as we realized that we were going to recommend closing facilities this year, we knew ANCCS was at the top of the list to recommend a repurpose, because they’re on the second floor of East High School and it’s not optimal,” Anderson said.District officials had initially recommended Wonder Park Elementary’s building as a place for the charter school to move, but board members ultimately opted to keep that elementary school open in December. So now, the only vacant building in the district would be Abbott Loop, which means it’s currently the only option. The move to Abbott Loop would likely be temporary while the school continues to fundraise for its own building in the long term. Board president Margo Bellamy said she is highly focused on the families and students of Abbott Loop and their transition to other schools, which she said will be both tough and emotional. Bellamy said her vote to close Abbott Loop was influenced by the school’s low enrollment and potential for more student success at a larger school, as well as the expensive repairs the building needed. She said moving the Native charter school to East was always meant to be temporary and that renovations to the Abbott Loop building, if the charter school were to move in, shouldn’t be a district expense. Bellamy also said she wanted to make sure the school didn’t end up in the same situation that it did in its previous location.Board member Carl Jacobs said the elementary school’s closure presents a unique opportunity for the board to help support the charter school in the short term while the cultural school pursues a long-term goal of building its own space. “I think that if we can avoid a demolition, if there’s a viable use for the building, at least in the short term, that’s a conversation that’s worth having,” Jacobs said.Elizabeth Hancock, middle school language arts teacher at Alaska Native Cultural Charter School, speaks to her students on January 13, 2023. A cultural teacher, an English language learning teacher and a speech teacher use hallway space and portable dividers as offices in the school. One teacher props up an umbrella to keep the balls students play with from bouncing into her during gym class, said principal Sheila Sweetsir. Sometimes there are three or four staff members working at nearby library shelves in the entryway because they don’t have a space to work, Sweetsir said. Teachers warm their food up in Sweetsir’s office and then sit at a table near the entrance to the school. There’s no real private space for staff.East High principal Ron Brown said the elementary school in their building has had minimal impact — the high school had to stop using 12 classrooms, “which means that our teachers and students are a little bit more cramped up here, if you will, but we do operate on two different schedules so we rarely see each other.” The high school assigned a liaison to work and communicate with the charter school, which has worked out well, he said.Alaska Native Cultural Charter School students play on their area outside Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School on January 13, 2023. A sign is posted in a stairwell intending to keep Bettye Davis East High School students from the Alaska Native Cultural Charter School area of the building on January 12, 2023. who said she was speaking as a parent and founding Academic Policy Committee member, and who also works as an English language arts teacher at the school — said some families left the school because of safety concerns, from the busy parking lot to being exposed to high school students. “It’s just a completely different population,” Hancock said. “It’s a completely different lifestyle because the age difference is so great between the elementary kids and the high school kids.”Those who stayed do so because the education the school offers is unavailable elsewhere in Anchorage, Hancock said. “That cultural piece that is always missing from neighborhood schools is what our charter is geared for,” Hancock said. “That cultural piece that we can give our families and our students outweighs the fact that ANCCS is located in a high school. Families are willing to make that sacrifice because the mission of our school is that important to Native families.” Hancock’s son, Matthew, a third grader at the school, said the school’s playground doesn’t have the usual trappings. It’s now located in a courtyard outside of East, without a jungle gym or swings. There isn’t anything to climb on, Matthew said. Their old school used to have a spider-web-style rope to climb on, and a pole for sliding down.Elizabeth Hancock, middle school language arts teacher at Alaska Native Cultural Charter School, leads a class on January 13, 2023. Even with the disappointing environment at East, Michael Patterson said his first grade son has grown a lot at the school. “Even the lack of buildings, the lack of space, physical space, just with the tools and the space that the staff have been given, I think they have done a phenomenal job,” Patterson said.“We really value the school’s mission, and I want to make sure, as a parent, that staff and students are given the proper tools and have the appropriate building to really unleash that mission,” he said.Morgan Krakow is a general assignment reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. She is a 2019 graduate of the University of Oregon and spent the summer of 2019 as a reporting intern on the general assignment desk of The Washington Post. Contact her at mkrakow@adn.com.
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