The school board welcomed a special guest with good news — and an oversized novelty check — to their meeting on Aug. 11. Chrystie Salesky is the Sitnasuak Foundation’s program coordinator.
“On behalf of Sitnasuak Native Corporation, for the ninth year, I’d like to present a $100,000 check for the JROTC program,” said Salesky.
The donation was cause for celebration after the board’s previous meeting left the program in funding limbo. For the past eight years, Nome Public Schools has relied on Sitnasuak’s contributions to fund most of the JROTC program at Nome-Beltz Jr/Sr High School.
But with costs increasing to $150,000 dollars, the district could not afford to maintain the program this year without Sitnasuak’s support, which was still up in the air. Now — with the donation confirmed — JROTC will continue, with the district making up the $50,000 dollar difference.
After thanking Sitnasuak, the school board dove into a busy agenda, approving a handful of policy updates and discussing the need for a new strategic plan. But the meeting circled back to big announcements during the report from Superintendent Shawn Arnold.
“I received a deployment tasking to go to the Middle East,” said Arnold. “I can’t really say where exactly or the exact dates, but it would be in July [2016]. It would be a six-month deployment.”
Arnold has served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve for over 20 years and completed three combat tours. Although he’s set to retire from the reserve next fall, a deployment could still take him away for part of the next school year.
Arnold’s tasking comes at a coincidental time. Months ago, he nominated the school board for the Patriot Award. It’s an honor from the U.S. Department of Defense, recognizing civilian employers for supporting employees’ military commitments. The board won the award. But now members are discussing whether to reach out to the reserve with their concerns about losing Arnold to deployment.
“I don’t know if it’s possible to ask,” said Board President Betsy Brennan. “We just got this Patriot Award, and then we say ‘We really support our superintendent in the reserve, but we don’t want him to go anywhere.’”
Brennan said the board will consider asking the reserve if they can move ahead without deploying Arnold. The superintendent also says there’s still enough time that another reserve airman could take his place.
The meeting wrapped up with the board approving the contract for Madelyn Alvanna-Stimpfle — a new early childhood education teacher for Kawerak Head Start — and extending an open invitation to Community Night for members of the Nome community.
The event — on Monday, Aug. 17 at Old St. Joe’s — is dedicated to reviewing results from the School Climate and Connectedness Survey and hearing public feedback on the district’s community engagement. The school board will also review the survey results two days later during a special work session.
