At least a dozen teachers, staff and school board members showed up for a town hall hosted by the Unalaska City School District on March 6 to discuss an impending $1.2 million budget shortfall for the next fiscal year.

It’s not unheard of for Alaska schools to build their budgets without knowing for sure how much the state will provide. In recent years, that contribution hasn’t been much, especially when compared to the growing rates of inflation. But many school districts across the state are facing deficits this year, forcing them to make hard decisions. The Unalaska City School District is no exception.

In this episode of "Island Interviews," Superintendent Kim Hanisch talks about a new union group in the district, staffing updates – including a new high school principal – as well as a potential increase in student meal prices.

Unalaska City School District officials are advocating for more education funding during their annual visits to the Alaska State Legislature. A top priority is increasing the base student allocation, or BSA — that’s a number the state uses to determine how much funding each district receives per student.

The Unalaska City School District is looking for a new middle school and high school principal. Newcomer Principal Carly Morris notified the district in January that she would be resigning at the end of this school year, according to Unalaska Superintendent Kim Hanisch.

Unalaska sixth grader Alexa Mendigorin won the school district’s annual spelling bee on Friday, correctly spelling “ambulatory” in the school auditorium before an audience of students and parents.

Unangam Tunuu is taught in only a handful of classes in the public school system, and outside these sessions, the language is seldom spoken in everyday conversation. The struggle on St. Paul mirrors trends across Alaska. A 2024 report from the Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council, a legislative council that advises the governor's office, found that all of the state’s Indigenous languages are critically endangered, with some spoken by fewer than a dozen people.

For the first time in over a decade, children in Nikolski are back in the classroom. The Nikolski school’s revival came through combined efforts of the Aleutian Region School District and the local tribal organization.

In this episode of “Island Interview,” Superintendent Kim Hanisch returned to the station last week to provide an update on how these changes have been going and to discuss other initiatives the district is currently working on, such as the creation of a cell phone committee and efforts to address student attendance.

As several schools across the state have begun implementing various cellphone restrictions, the Unalaska City School District is looking to follow suit. Unalaska Superintendent Kim Hanisch said the district hasn't made any decisions, but a 20-member committee is contemplating what a cellphone ban might look like on the island.