Budget cuts will impact Nome schools

Nome Public Schools Superintendent Jamie Burgess delivered the annual State of the Schools address to the Nome Common Council’s work session on Monday, November 10.
In her report, Burgess emphasized how a reduction of funding from the city and the state will soon impact staffing, maintenance and special education support.
Council members Adam Lust, Kohren Green and Scot Henderson attended, as well as Mayor Ken Hughes and City Manager Lee Smith.
Earlier this year, the City of Nome voted on a $2.7 million contribution to the school district, down from $3.2 million from last fiscal year. The school district has a $18.5 million budget.
The reductions have made an impact on the schools. While schools did receive a one-time funding increase to the Base Student Allocation from the state legislature, the increase only covered roughly 30 percent of the need. Burgess said in her report that there are increased transportation, food service, special education and maintenance costs.
Burgess said that to balance their budget, NPS had to pull money out of their apartment fund. The apartment fund is meant to pay for a new teacher housing project and to upgrade the current apartments.
Council member Scot Henderson asked if housing was still a critical need. 
“It’s a critical need,” confirmed Burgess. “My dorms are full. They were full last year. They’re full this year.”
Another loss of funding relates to the Extensions program, or homeschooling program. Nome Public Schools has 35 Extensions students, an increase that is tied to the pandemic, when they reached their all-time high of 60 students. Before 2020, extension enrollment hovered around 15 to 20 students. Extensions students are funded at a lower amount than students who attend the regular brick and mortar schools. 
Henderson asked what the specific difference in funding was. Brick and mortar students are funded differently than correspondence students. Genevieve Hollins, the Chief Financial Officer for NPS, said that a regular brick and mortar student brings in about $18,000 for the district and an extensions student brings in about a third of that, at around $6,000.
Nome schools continue to see a higher amount of special education students. While those students receive higher levels of funding from the state, a lot of that funding goes to providing those students with the specific services those kids need.  
Anvil City Science Academy has seen in an increase in students with Individual Education Plans and intensive needs students. Despite that, ACSA only has a half-time special education teacher and a full time paraprofessional.
“These are students whose needs are such that they may need more support in terms of a paraprofessional working with them, they may need support in terms of equipment or anything else that they need to be able to access the curriculum and continue to learn,” said Burgess.
Additionally, NPS faces some major maintenance projects that need to be completed.
“We’re concerned because our capital fund is dwindling and we’re not able to replenish it like we would like to,” she said.
Nome Elementary School’s roof and grounds need major work. Windows at the elementary school and district office need replacing. One of the boilers at Nome-Beltz needs to be replaced, and there are other plumbing and electrical concerns on campus. Additionally, the fleet of school district vehicles is aging. A project to install safety doors at the Nome-Beltz campus has stalled.
Burgess said that one of the challenges the district faces with homeschool students is that they have lower graduation rates. 
“Some of them, unfortunately, really do struggle with not having that teacher every day providing the instruction and providing the support,” she said.
Every school in the Nome School District is on an improvement plan. “We’ve decided that all of our schools have room to improve, whether they are low enough that the state wants to put a label on them,” she said.
Burgess also discussed the successes at the three schools in Nome. Nome Elementary School has a new principal who has implemented a lot of cultural celebrations and education. “We are continuing to see some improvements when it comes to reading achievement, because that has been significant focus for quite some time,” said Burgess.
Anvil City Science Academy also has a new principal, and the transition has been smooth. Nome-Beltz Middle High School has a very stable administration and continues to work on improving behavior outcomes. “We are seeing some improvement in reducing the number of overall out of school suspension and the number of just referrals to the office,” said Burgess.
Burgess council members to attend the school board meetings while the board develops their budget for next year.
Council members continued to discuss the funding until the regular meeting began at 7 p.m.
Council member Adam Lust said that it seems like NPS contracts out a lot of jobs to outside entities. He wondered if it might save money for positions to be satisfied by city employees or people from Nome, and not outside contractors.
“I’ll just say it seems like we’re hollowing out,” he said. “We’ve hollowed this place out in an essence where everything’s subcontracted out.”
Genevieve Hollins, who is a contracted employee, said that NPS has made an effort to hire locally, and reduce costs, but it doesn’t always work out. “For some of the positions that are outsourced, it’s hard to find anybody, or we did not find anybody in person,” she said.
The school board meets the second Tuesday of every month at 5:30 p.m. in the elementary school library.