Officials weigh changes to alternative schools

WASILLA — Mat-Su Borough School District officials are considering possible changes to two alternative high schools, but haven’t yet decided what changes they will make — if any.

Between them, Valley Pathways and Burchell High School serve about 500 students. With budgets tight — the school system likely faces a $9-million operating deficit next year, depending on how state and local government budgets are allocated — officials have started thinking about possible ways to increase efficiencies among all Valley high schools, said superintendent Deena Paramo.

“The goal in the total conversation was to ask questions about how do our programs respond to kids’ needs and where we can serve kids best, given the circumstances,” she said.

The conversation is system-wide, Paramo said, and not designed to single out one particular school.

“It never was a Valley Pathways conversation,” she said. “It was an all-schools conversation.”

Among the alternative school changes officials have discussed: limiting attendance to the alternative schools to upper-grade students or changing the criteria for admission to make it more specific for incoming freshmen, Paramo said.

“I can’t imagine zero freshmen, but what we want to do is do a better job at servicing the freshmen we have,” she said. “We want to eliminate the dropouts.”

Officials have always seen the alternative schools as targeting older students, some of whom struggle with the rigor of traditional education for a variety of issues, Paramo said. For example, a 20-year-old high school student raising a family would likely attend alternative school.

Principals admit students to Valley Pathways and Burchell based on an application and interview process.

Paramo said some aspects of the discussion have indeed centered on Valley Pathways, where attendance has been falling. Officials constructed the school’s building to hold a maximum of 300 students, with the potential for up to 350 students in the event of high enrollment. Actual enrollment for the school this year is 206, with a daily attendance rate of about 120 students, Paramo said.

As a result, school system officials are considering adding a “school-within-a-school,” or a program that will draw students from other schools to attend Valley Pathways from other schools.

For example, Mat-Su Career and Technical High School draws students from other schools to attend a Certified Nursing Assistant course. Burchell also doesn’t have the space for a welding program, so Burchell students seeking advanced technical education courses attend welding classes at some of the district’s other high schools. That specialization is a good thing, Paramo said.

“We can’t do everything at every school,” she said.

Word of possible changes at Valley Pathways sparked some concern among current students and parents, said Max Miller, a senior at the school. He and some friends, including Valley Pathways alumni, plan on attending the Wednesday, March 23 school board meeting in support of the school they love. Persistent Facebook posts about the issue have led him to believe school system officials could be changing Valley Pathways into a more traditional school.

Those same rumors have prompted Paramo to consider making a statement about the alternative high schools at Wednesday’ meeting, although no agenda item specifically addresses potential changes to the school.

Miller said he’s hoping school board members and school officials can reassure students that programs at Valley Pathways will remain unchanged.

“The people of the Pathways program are open to change, but we view ourselves as a family, not just a simple school,” he wrote in an email to the Frontiersman. “This is where the fear and so-called ‘aggression’ has arisen. The students are afraid that the family we’ve worked to hard to build will be torn apart by rules, and by something that … is still unknown. In short, if the board is to calm our nerves, we’re going to need answers.”

The school board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Mat-Su Borough School District central office, located at 501 North Gulkana Street in Palmer.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated which high school hosted the Certified Nursing Assistant program.