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KPBSD considers 9 schools for closure

A sign marks the entrance to Nikiski Middle/High School on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024 in Nikiski, Alaska.
Ashlyn O'Hara
/
KDLL
A sign marks the entrance to Nikiski Middle/High School on Saturday, Aug. 17, 2024 in Nikiski, Alaska.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District on Monday published a list of nine schools it’s thinking about closing as a way to balance its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

The list includes three schools on the central peninsula – Nikiski Middle/Senior High, Sterling Elementary and Tustumena Elementary. It includes two schools on the eastern peninsula – Seward Middle and Moose Pass. And it includes four schools on the southern peninsula – Homer Middle, McNeil Canyon Elementary, Paul Banks Elementary and Nikolaevsk schools.

Proposed school closures come as the district works to balance a roughly $16.9 million budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Ahead of budget talks, school board members have warned of drastic times ahead. On top of closing schools, the district has also proposed shutting down school pools and theaters, eliminating the district’s middle college program, cutting more than 85 teaching positions and making class sizes bigger.

There is time set aside at the board’s quarterly work session Tuesday for members to discuss school closures. That discussion is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. at Soldotna Prep School.

Prior to joining KDLL's news team in May 2024, O'Hara spent nearly four years reporting for the Peninsula Clarion in Kenai. Before that, she was a freelance reporter for The New York Times, a statehouse reporter for the Columbia Missourian and a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. You can reach her at aohara@kdll.org