Big sibling programs, dual enrollment with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and budgets were discussed in Wednesday night’s Nome School Board meeting.
The awards and presentations portion led the meeting, with a strong showing of Nome’s Iñupiaq language opportunities for students. Josie Bourdon and Annie Conger brought two different groups of students up to demonstrate their Iñupiaq language skills. Annie says the group coming to the Iñupiaq language club has been especially successful. “We’ve been, (on) average, 15 to 20 students throughout the fall. Of course, swimming takes on, different activities take over… but these three are taking Iñupiaq with much gusto.”
As a part of her report, student representative Megan Contreras brought to the forefront a big sibling program for Nome-Beltz high schoolers and Nome Junior High students. As Nome-Beltz high school principal Jon Berkley says: “The student council actually came in and made a pitch with a written proposal and made a pitch to junior high staff at one of the junior high staff meetings. So, there was about seven or eight members of the student council; (they) came in, outlined the goal of the big brothers/big sisters program, outlined some ideas of activities, such as lunch (and) possibly game night.”
With official approval from the junior high teachers, planning will commence. Once the high schoolers get officially paired up with their junior high counterpart, they will meet once a week, either at lunch or another meeting.
Superintendent Shawn Arnold started his report by highlighting 18 Nome-Beltz high school students that have qualified as proficient in the English Accu-placer test.“It’s a big deal,” says Arnold; “the Accu-placer is the assessment that students around the state of Alaska take when they go to any of the UA campuses: Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau. And 60% of the students don’t meet the proficiency requirement of that assessment. We’ve had 18 students — juniors and seniors — qualify.”
40 students total took the assessment, leaving Nome-Beltz’s passing rate at 45%. That’s 5% higher than average for schools in the state.
In preparation for college, students can also be dual-enrolled in English 111 at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks Northwest Campus for both high school and college credit. Student representative Contreras added that the college will only take 10 of the students who qualify.
The meeting ended with the approval of three budget actions. The fiscal year 2016 audit was approved, the fiscal year 2017 budget was revised, and the fiscal year 2018 budget calendar was approved. The next school board meeting is Tuesday, January 10th, 5:30 pm at the Nome Elementary School Library.
