Tongass Tiny Home finds a home in Juneau
Posted by Erin McKinstry, KCAW | May 7, 2021
The Tongass Tiny Home project was a collaboration between the Sitka Conservation Society and Sitka High School. (Photo by Amelia Milling/SCS)
The Tongass Tiny Home project, a six-year collaboration between the Sitka Conservation Society and Sitka High School, has finally come to an end. The student-built tiny house was sold to a buyer in Juneau this spring. As part of KCAW’s Building Solutions series about affordable housing, Sitka Conservation Society’s Chandler O’Connell spoke with KCAW’s Erin McKinstry about lessons learned and the possibilities tiny homes hold for Sitka.
Posted by Robert Woolsey, KCAW | Apr 15, 2021
Sitka Community Schools has scaled back during the pandemic, but it previously has had a large menu of activities not just for kids. “Is it community, or is it schools?” interim superintendent John Holst asked the school board.
The budget for the Community Schools program in Sitka will likely be zeroed out next year, while the school district and city decide who’s financially responsible for the afterschool activities program.
The Sitka School Board on Wednesday night (4-14-21) heard a presentation from the administration that recommended reallocating the Community Schools budget to the swimming pool.
Posted by Robert Woolsey, KCAW | Jan 15, 2021
According to interim Superintendent John Holst, around a dozen of Sitka’s senior teachers are eligible for early retirement, sevreral of whom work a the high school. (KCAW file photo)
The Sitka School District is considering an early retirement incentive for teachers, as a way of helping make ends meet next year.
At its last meeting earlier this month (1-6-21), the Sitka School Board authorized the interim superintendent to open negotiations with the local teachers union.
Early retirement is a tool that has been used before by the Sitka School District, as well as by other communities in the state. Alaska’s educators belong to a pension program called “TRS” or the Teachers’ Retirement System which mirrors the state’s program for municipal and government employees called “PERS” the Public Employees Retirement System.