Rural Alaska

In fading regions, Stony River among rural schools struggling to survive

STONY RIVER -- A remote island village where two rivers and two Native cultures come together now sits on the cusp of another major crossroads. The community's school may be shuttered next month due to shrinking enrollment -- a dilemma that's become all too common in rural Alaska and one that has lawmakers rethinking education in the Bush.

Stony River villagers fear a shutdown of their two-classroom Gusty Michael School, where students as young as 5 are racing to raise funds for what may be their final field trip. Shuttering the school, with an enrollment of just nine, could accelerate the village's demise as families leave town and services shrivel.

The Stony River residents need look no farther than the two nearby villages of Lime Village and Red Devil to see how a school closing can gut a community. But the Yup'ik and Athabascan villages in the sparsely populated upper Kuskokwim River region aren't alone.

While some rural areas have grown as the state's overall population increased, others have shrunk as families left for cities seeking jobs, education or cheaper energy. More than 25 village schools have steadily shut down the last 13 years, following passage of a law that cut off state funding to programs with fewer than 10 students.

Regional boarding schools?

The drumbeat of dying schools is another hard fact of life in rural Alaska, where numerous districts without taxing authority struggle to teach clusters of students scattered across huge distances. Without state help, the districts often cannot afford costs that include massive electric bills and barging or flying in fuel for winter heat, the only option in communities without highways to the outside world.

One intriguing solution making the rounds lately involves a new twist on an old idea: Creating hi-tech regional boarding schools for high school students. Lower-grade schools could remain open in villages, and the boarding school students could spend part of the school year at home, attending classes digitally.

The system must change because tiny Bush schools often don't have the resources to adequately help their oldest students, who are almost always Alaska Natives, according to Jerry Covey, a former state Education commissioner who promotes the boarding school idea in a new report.

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The state simply hasn't lived up to its promise, made in the 1970s, of providing high-quality educational opportunities for all the state's communities, he said.

Districts located off Alaska's road system commonly graduate no more than half their students, a percentage well below urban schools. They typically have the lowest test scores. And they're a big part of the reason Natives are far less likely than whites to qualify for the state's performance scholarships for college and other post-secondary courses.

The low scores don't indicate of a lack of student or teacher ability, said Covey, a former superintendent in Northwest Alaska. Isolated schools with just a few students only offer basic courses. Teacher turnover is higher, too, because districts often can't pay enough to keep skilled educators year after year.

Decision due in May

Change has already come to the Kuspuk School District along the Kuskokwim River. The board closed the school in Red Devil in fall 2009, after enrollment dipped below 10. Now, board members are weighing whether Stony River, 25 miles east, will be next. This year, enrollment dropped as low as six students, and now stands at nine after a family of home-schooled students re-enrolled. It could rise to 10 if next fall, if a pre-kindergarten child stays in the school and no other students move away.

The board is trying to determine who will stay or go. If familes and students continue to leave, as some already have, options include closing the school or paying an estimated $400,000-plus to replace state funding, said Superintendent Brad Allen.

The board's decision will be announced in May, giving parents time to send their kids to another village or prepare to home-school them. Also driving the timeline are shipping seasons: Freight companies need their orders soon because river barges don't have long to deliver heating fuel to villages along the upper Kuskokwim River before water levels fall and the ice closes in. If the school stays open, it will need fuel.

Residents are torn. Located on the edge of Athabascan and Yup'ik country, Stony River began as a trading post serving miners in the 1930s, but families didn't settle their until years later. The first Census count in 1960 was also the highest, with 75 residents, according to state figures. Major mining activity ceased long ago, though the huge Donlin Gold prospect more than 50 miles to the northwest has revived hopes. So far, though, it hasn't been enough to keep people around.

Lure of Aniak downriver

Census counters recorded 61 people in 2000. Today, 34 live on the island splitting the Kuskowkim River, near the confluence with the smaller Stony River. A few houses sit empty because elders have died or young people have left.

The blue washateria has shut down -- its operation was too costly -- so people get their drinking and bathing water from the school or the river, hauling it in big plastic jugs gallons at a time. The log-cabin Russian Orthodox church has services only when officials visit, so the faithful often worship icons in shrines hanging on their walls. And the mail plane that once arrived daily now visits weekly, and only when the weather's good.

Residents worry those losses will be just the beginning if the school shuts. "People would definitely have to move," said tribal president Mary Willis, sitting at a small kitchen table at home as her eighth-grade daughter, Elizabeth, flipped beef steaks that sizzled on a stove.

Elizabeth wants to move down the Kuskokwim River to attend high school in Aniak 100 miles west. The village of 550 has basketball and volleyball at school – plus more classes. Her older brother, Ryan, a senior, has already made the move. He shoots hoops for the Aniak Halfbreeds, the fourth-place team at at the smallest-schools state championship last spring. Ryan lives in that village with their dad, a school district maintenance worker for several Kuspuk district schools.

Elizabeth and her mom might join them, but they're staying in the village for now because Elizabeth's umma -- the Yup'ik word for grandmother -- is living between Stony River and Anchorage, where she's being treated for cancer.

Not all the villagers can relocate, so families may have to send children away or home-school them, Mary Willis said. "I worry about the other families, because they don't have anything else they can fall back on."

Kevin Gusty grades the runway and runs the power plant. One of his sons just started college after graduating alone from the Stony River school last year. The other, Brad, moved downriver to spend his senior year taking high school classes in Aniak, where he lives with another family and also plays basketball.

Seeing Lower 48

Brad and others at the Stony River school raised money last year and took a 10-day field trip to Southern California. They sold pizzas to fund the trip and ran a small store in the gym -- the only store in the village. Also, they took in anonymous donations after dashing off fundraising letters published by news sites.

It was the first time many of the kids had ever been outside the village. They saw colleges, museums and malls, becoming local media darlings and the subject of a documentary film. The trip was life-changing and inspiring, said Brad. After graduating from Aniak, he'll return to Santa Barbara, Calif., to start community college this fall. He never dreamed he could attend college there, but a California family who saw the kids' story offered to help. After the Stony River students made their big trip, after originally thinking they couldn't, anything seems possible now, Brad said.

Brad's father said he can't describe the elation of seeing his kids going to college, even if it means they could move away forever. No one from his family has ever graduated college, Kevin Gusty said, but he wants his kids to have option he never had growing up in the village. "I love all my babies; I want them to have the best in life," he said.

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But if the school closes, he can't bear the thought of sending more children away, so he might home-school the rest of them if he has to. The oldest still at home, Nacole Gusty, is in ninth grade.

He jokes that he'd hate to lose his volunteer labor force. They split wood in the winter and build fish wheels to scoop up salmon every summer. But with a more earnest look, he says he'd miss their presence. "I just love our time together. I can't picture sending the kids to another village," he said.

Contact Alex DeMarban at alex(at)alaskadispatch.com

Alex DeMarban

Alex DeMarban is a longtime Alaska journalist who covers business, the oil and gas industries and general assignments. Reach him at 907-257-4317 or alex@adn.com.

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