Kenai Peninsula Borough School District

Students are back in class, adjusting to new routines and expectations. For some, it's a year of major milestones, like starting their final year of high school or moving up a grade. Others are excited to reconnect with friends and dive into new learning opportunities.

Teachers and community members held “walk-ins” across the school district, gathering outside schools in support of funding public education before going about a regular school day.

Six schools in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District will not qualify for Title I funding next year, and three are located in Homer.

Three Homer High School seniors qualified as National Merit Scholarship finalists this year — a feat that requires a rigorous application and some of the best PSAT scores in the state.

The Homer City Council’s Jan. 22 meeting was filled will legislation requesting additional funding for the harbor expansion and public schools.

Dozens of students oohed and aahed on a cold morning in Anchor Point as biologists spawned a pair of coho salmon and fertilized their eggs. It was the first lesson in the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s annual “Salmon in the Classroom” program, which teaches Kenai Peninsula students about salmon biology in their classrooms throughout the school year.

In response to concerns about culture, transportation and enrollment, among others, parents of the small Kenai Peninsula community say they’d like to see a charter school up and running next fall. But the district says they're too late.

Homer area schools were under a soft lockdown Tuesday following the threat of a school shooting, according to the Homer Police Department.Around 8 a.m. Tuesday, the Anchorage FBI told police that a 16-year-old Homer teenager posted on TikTok that he was going to shoot up a school and be the “next serial killer,” according to a statement from police. The specific school under threat was not identified.

Kenai Peninsula Borough voters will weigh in on two boroughwide bonds this October, for upgrades to a dozen schools and for a new emergency services building in Soldotna.

Funding for Alaska’s schools is always in flux. Questions of budget cuts and school consolidation are never off the table, even for the state’s biggest districts.