2023 Juneau Municipal Election
If the school district were to consolidate schools and close certain campuses, what factors do you think district leaders should consider?
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- What do you think is the most important issue facing Juneau right now?
- School Board
- What makes you a good candidate for the Juneau school board?
- What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the Juneau School District right now?
- If the school district were to consolidate schools and close certain campuses, what factors do you think district leaders should consider?
- How do you think the district should handle communicating with parents during emergencies?
- Do you think transgender students should be allowed to use bathrooms and play on sports teams that match their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth?
School Board
David Noon
Candidate for School Board
I’m not entirely convinced that closing facilities and consolidating them will have the benefits that are often promised. We considered this, for example, at the university level a couple of years ago when we faced extinction-level budgetary vetoes from the governor’s office. There were conversations about shutting down certain campuses or closing off certain facilities, and the numbers never added up. So I think there’s allure to the idea that simply closing facilities and shifting students around will have some kind of benefit, but those facilities have to be maintained. There are costs associated with them even if they were empty.
Britteny Cioni-Haywood
Candidate for School Board
I think consolidation and closing of schools seems very straightforward, but when you really dig into the math, it becomes much less so. It becomes complex pretty quickly. In looking at closing a school, you then have to figure out where those students are going to go. Is that going to increase class size? What are you going to do with that facility? There are still fixed costs that have to be maintained until you can dispose of that asset. There’s other complications – do you have enough room to have enough classes in another school? I’m sure there are a hundred other things that I haven’t even thought about in that question, but looking at that math, when you really start digging in, I think, gets really complex really fast.
Paige Sipniewski
Candidate for School Board
I definitely think consolidations of schools is on the table. Factors that need to be considered are how can this be spread evenly among the districts, and not overwhelming folks and not cutting people jobs. I know people leave – could that job just be eliminated just like the State of Alaska has eliminated jobs by people leaving? They seem to be very admin-heavy in some schools. Can those be, not eliminated, but when someone leaves, can duties be absorbed by somebody else?