Category: School Story

‘Delta Elementary School Honored for Second Time as a National Blue Ribbon School’ by Principal Milt Hooton

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Principal Milt Hooton and DES students

This year, Delta Elementary School (DES) in Delta Junction, Alaska was honored as a National Blue Ribbon School for the second time. This was a very special honor for us because of the effort we put in over the last few years to not allow our school to simply survive the challenges the pandemic presented, but to thrive. It was a hard earned and well deserved recognition of the blood, sweat, and tears we all shed under some very difficult circumstances. Continue reading ‘Delta Elementary School Honored for Second Time as a National Blue Ribbon School’ by Principal Milt Hooton

Denali Elementary Named 2022-23 ESEA Distinguished School by Principal Becky Zaverl

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“We come to school every day to learn, take responsibility for our actions and treat everyone with love, kindness, and respect.”

Denali Elementary was recently named ESEA Distinguished School for 2022-23 and we are so excited about it!  We have 300 students preK through 5th grade & are located in Fairbanks, the 2nd largest city in Alaska.  Our school is located right in the downtown area so the majority of our students are within a mile and walk to school, even when it’s 25 below zero! Our student population is very diverse. We have 27% of our students who are 2 or more races, 15% Alaskan Native, 30% caucasion, 15% hispanic, 6% african american, 4% asian and 3% pacific islander. About 60% of our students receive free or reduced lunches. 

We have a motto here at Denali, “We come to school every day to learn, take responsibility for our actions and treat everyone with love, kindness, and respect”. This motto of spreading love, kindness and respect was given to us from an Alaskan native Artist and carver, Bert Ryan in the late 1990s, who, alongside our students, carved our very own totem pole which stands in our playground today.

Continue reading Denali Elementary Named 2022-23 ESEA Distinguished School by Principal Becky Zaverl

‘Culture, Collaboration and Creativity!’ by Shelli Franckowiak, 2022 Alaska Elementary Art Teacher of the Year

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To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, 4th and 5th grade artists at Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School in Wasilla, AK created a 160 foot long alfombra de aserrin (sawdust carpet) on our school’s front sidewalk.

Sawdust Carpets (Alfombras de Aserrin) are one or more layers of colored sawdust laid on the ground as decoration. Sawdust carpets are traditionally created in Mexico and Guatemala and are used as part of Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebration, welcoming Good Friday and Easter processions of religious icons carried through the streets. Although sawdust carpets take days to design and create, it takes only minutes for them to be happily and reverently destroyed by the shuffling feet of participants in religious processions. Continue reading ‘Culture, Collaboration and Creativity!’ by Shelli Franckowiak, 2022 Alaska Elementary Art Teacher of the Year

On Surviving and Thriving in the Online Classroom by Billeen Carlson

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In the Spring of 2020 my students stopped coming to school. The Kenai Peninsula extended Spring Break while my colleagues and I scrambled to figure out how we were going to reproduce the learning that had been going on in our classrooms for children that were now at home, often unsupervised.

I will admit, I was rather smug. I assumed that my technology-rich Nikolaevsk classroom trained my students for this. My class of 5th-12th grade social studies and language arts students were already prepared to do their learning online. They knew how to navigate Google Classroom and Canvas and PowerSchool. All of them could compose and post videos reflecting on the learning they had gained by engaging with online learning materials.  Continue reading On Surviving and Thriving in the Online Classroom by Billeen Carlson

‘KPBSD Students Swap Valuable Stories with International Peers’ by Kim Leslie + Students

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This spring I worked with the Global Nomads Group (GNG) to bring my KPBSD Distance Education science students an opportunity: The option to participate in a short video-based online course with other teenagers from around the world. As GNG describes it, “youth dig into issues they are passionate about, share their stories, and explore the stories of their global peers at their own pace.” Our students focused on the topics of Ocean Health and Sports, and ultimately created action plans to benefit their local and global communities. They lit up when many of their stories were added to the global repository for their international peers to learn from too!   Continue reading ‘KPBSD Students Swap Valuable Stories with International Peers’ by Kim Leslie + Students

‘US News & World Report Recognizes Alaskan Middle Schools’ by the Staff at ACSA

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Annually U.S News and World Report releases rankings for the best high schools in the country. This past October, the publication released its first rankings of public middle schools in each state, with 62 Alaska middle schools receiving recognition.

Unlike the high school list, there aren’t national rankings for middle school. The rankings for this list are done by state, based on academic performance in math, reading, and language arts state assessments. Continue reading ‘US News & World Report Recognizes Alaskan Middle Schools’ by the Staff at ACSA

‘The Our Alaskan Schools Blog Turns Three!’ by the Staff at ASDN

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It’s hard to believe it, but the Our Alaskan Schools Blog turns three this month! In 2021, we featured 25 stories of schools and classrooms around the state. Here are some of the highlights of the stories we featured this past year.

Continue reading ‘The Our Alaskan Schools Blog Turns Three!’ by the Staff at ASDN

‘Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month’ by Principal Jennifer Schmidt-Hutchins

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In September and October of each school year, Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School students and staff research, study, and present the history, culture, and contributions of our ancestors from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. President Lyndon B. Johnson introduced this observation in 1968. It was expanded to a 30-day period by President Ronald Reagan starting September 15th and concluding October 15th.

Fronteras Charter School students celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month each year in September and October.

Continue reading ‘Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School Celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month’ by Principal Jennifer Schmidt-Hutchins

‘King Cove School Supports Community Through 8.2 Earthquake’ by Principal Paul Barker

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For the most part, life in King Cove is very peaceful. It’s a calm, good hearted community ground in deep family ties and traditions, an outdoor lifestyle, and culturally rich values. Being the principal of our small school of 70 students is largely the same. Our students are pleasant and hard working, the staff is professional, caring, and dedicated to student success, and the building and surrounding land it sits on is national park status beautiful. The City of King Cove is home to Peter Pan Seafoods, one of the largest by volume fish processing facilities in the state.

King Cove School is part of the Aleutians East Borough School District

Continue reading ‘King Cove School Supports Community Through 8.2 Earthquake’ by Principal Paul Barker

‘Denali Borough School District Celebrations of Learning’ by DBSD Students, Teachers, and Administrators

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This spring in Denali Borough School District, we collectively engaged in supporting our students to share their learning through a specific student-engaged assessment strategy called Celebrations of Learning. Celebrations of Learning invite students to publicly engage and assess their learning experiences through reflection. We saw enhanced student engagement when our students were able to reflect on and take the lead of their work. Taking ownership of these experiences encouraged insight, self-assessment, and complex learning, and was especially nurtured when our students wondered about their learning publicly with others. Making learning public became an authentic purpose that empowered and motivated our students to care about the quality of their work.

Celebrations of Learning is a community event that nurtures classroom-based learning experiences that ensure that students are fully empowered in the process of understanding themselves as learners. Students presented high-quality products and performances that were often modeled after real-world formats and intended for audiences beyond the classroom. The ultimate intent of Celebrations of Learning was to invite students to reflect on and articulate what they have learned, questions they answered, research they conducted, and areas of strength and struggle in order to understand and take ownership of their own growth as learners.

                  Eric Filardi, Principal, Anderson School

Continue reading ‘Denali Borough School District Celebrations of Learning’ by DBSD Students, Teachers, and Administrators