September 2020
Aarigaa,
Congratulations to the whaling crews in the North Slope for all the wonderful harvest thus far! We are so very grateful for the gifts from the ocean, as well as for the gifts from the nuna, the tuttu, asriat, nigliqs, and aiviq. My staff and I are amazed by the amount of sharing and the wealth of Science and Math that occurs during the harvests. Our students are fortunate to be living in the midst of such amazing harvests, even in the midst of the global pandemic.
We started school on August 27, 2020, and have been blessed with bringing in all our staff without event. We have hired over 40 employees, many teachers and counselors. We are happy to have a new HR Director and new M&O Director to add to our team! The principals and staff are to be strongly recognized for their hard work and dedication in their preparation for school in the midst of this pandemic. Each site has established a COVID Response Team and have been very active in seeking community input into their site plans. We have already had instances where the response teams met in response to COVID cases. We appreciate any and all recommendations from the community as we seek to meet the needs of all our students during these challenging times.
We started our student activities season off with Cross-Country and had our first virtual meet on Saturday, Sept. 12th. Students from across the district ran at their sites and the times were sent in to Utqiagvik. We will have two more meets and send six students to the state meet in Palmer in early October. It is uncertain how we will have volleyball and basketball, as many districts have shut their sports programs down in the midst of the pandemic.
On our district website, we have a Covid19 button that gives information on pieces of Covid that we have responded to. We also have each site’s Covid Plan on the site. We are open to any and all recommendations that parents/guardians have for us. We have a button called Parent Toolbox, at the request of our board members, to give parents/guardians resources they can use to support their child’s education in the midst of the pandemic.
The new charter school, Qargi Academy, is up and running, and we are excited to see the long-term effect this will have on our district. It is currently for 9-12th grade and will be focused on assisting students graduate whom have not succeeded in the normal high school setting. We look forward to watching it grow and succeed! It is based on our Inupiaq history, language, and culture and the teachers will focus on the subsistence activities in our region, as well as partnering with an on-line piece for the academics.
My incredible team of directors, principals, teachers and staff have been working long hours in response to the needs of the students on the North Slope and their communities. We want to thank them for their hard work and dedication, as well as the community partners whom have stepped up and assisted in the COVID response teams with the school leaders. We are all looking forward to having all out students back in school in a normal fashion, but until then we will continue to focus first on safety, social-emotional learning and targeted instruction.
“TOGETHER WE CAN”
Respectfully,
Pauline Siqupsiraq Harvey
North Slope Borough School District Superintendent