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In May, Chugach Optional Elementary will celebrate its 50th anniversary as an elementary school in Anchorage. This is a special opportunity for every member of the Chugach family, past and present, to celebrate its accomplishments.
In the 1940s, Chugach Elementary was the only elementary school in Anchorage. Students came from as far away as Rabbit Creek to attend. But as more schools were built in the 1950s and 1960s, the school building was slated for closure and demolition. A group of dedicated parents, many of them educators, including Caroline Wohlforth, Una Tuck and Barbara Goldberg, saw this as an opportunity to implement a groundbreaking form of education that data showed to be more effective than traditional methods. Rather than focusing on rote memorization, these parents envisioned a program that respected children as individuals and where creativity, responsibility and problem-solving were a central part of project-based learning. Rather than receiving grades, the children would self-evaluate and call their teachers by their first names. In 1973, they launched a pilot optional program at Chugach Elementary.
This school paved the way for other alternative educational programs in Anchorage. Stellar Secondary School opened in 1974 and more alternative programs followed citywide, including programs at Susitna, Bowman and Chinook elementary schools and Polaris K-12. In 1980, Chugach Elementary was converted to an all-optional school.
Chugach’s ideals were once considered radical. Today they are mainstream. Chugach has more structure now than it did for its early graduating classes, but students still have more independence in their individual research, give frequent presentations and spend time working with their “kindy” or primary learning buddies. The Chugach philosophy holds that education and family life cannot be separated. Chugach’s classes are called “family groups,” a title that sounds odd at first to new attendees. The collaboration between children, the focus on the “whole child” and the classroom parents helping with anything from math problems to building a cardboard boat for the races at a local pool makes “family” the only way to describe it.
Like many schools, Chugach continues to instill pride in our community. Parents are heavily involved, encouraged to participate in class and volunteer their time to help teachers prepare materials and to coordinate events. Community traditions, such as our “kindy bread” and parent-led mini courses, run as strong as the school’s commitment to learning. Chugach has remained dedicated to its progressive ideals, adapting over the years but always with the goal of doing what’s best for students. Although she was speaking about her own sixth-grade graduation, former student Genevieve Beck left a note in Chugach’s voluminous scrapbooks, declaring: “I will miss you Chugach, but remember, the past is a guidepost, not a hitching post.”
On Friday, May 10, Chugach will celebrate this 50th anniversary of alternative education in Anchorage by hosting a family reunion. The Chugach Community Assembly invites all members of the Chugach community, past and present, to join us. For information on this celebration, please visit the reunion website at https://sites.google.com/view/chugachoptional50th.
Kara Sorbel, Jennifer Flanagan, Joey Caterinichio, Juliana Shields, Joseph Blaeuer, Leslie Boyd, Erika Green and Elizabeth Serrano are parent members and officers of the Chugach Assembly and Chugach Educational Corp., Chugach Optional Elementary’s parent, staff, and student association and elected board.
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