The state Drama, Debate and Forensics championships will be a little emptier this year thanks to the state of Alaska’s efforts to “right-size” the state-run boarding school.
Mt. Edgecumbe High School typically sends about 30 students and chaperones to compete and cheer one another on for the late-February tournament in Anchorage. But, that delegation will be far smaller this year after state officials stepped in to tackle a $1.6 million deficit. That “right-sizing” effort has included cutting just about everything from travel to electives to support for live-in volunteers.
“We had to narrow that to who was competing in the state meet, and we had to narrow it down to the competitors,” Department of Education Commissioner Deena Bishop told the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, “So, instead of the over $50,000 ask, we asked Could you reconsider the students who should really be there?”
The cut is just one of many examples of rapid change at the Sitka boarding school, which primarily serves Alaska Native students from rural communities throughout the state, after Bishop took a more hands-on role in overseeing it last year. And while she’s largely framed it as a well-meaning effort to live within the budget — calling the changes with the debate team an example of not eliminating opportunities, but reducing them — the changes have also coincided with a mass exodus of students since the start of the year, as well as the departure of many longtime staffers…