Letters from ASD Staff to the Community

"Thank you for posting about ASD schools. I am a teacher and a mom of 3 kids in the district.

It is true that for many years our concerns have been dismissed by the superintendent and high level district administration. Teachers and principals often get information at the same time, or even after parents.

In addition to the lack of information and direction are subtle threats and intimidation coming from our employer.

One thing that the public doesn’t know is that a teacher cannot simply quit mid year. If we quit, the district can revoke our licenses so we can’t teach in the future. Our names go to a national database where other districts can see if our license has ever been revoked. So we can’t even teach in another state.

Many teachers feel trapped. My dream would be to take a year off from teaching and homeschool my children. Unfortunately, if I do that, I may never be able to teach again.

I don’t know if that means anything to the public or not. But when I hear people say teachers should quit if they don’t want to go back, I don’t think they understand it would mean quitting the profession forever. Thanks for listening."

"The current situation is not the time to start sending students back to school. We are seeing record highs of positive tests in Alaska at the moment. Dr. Bishop made a very impassioned speech at the school board meeting the other night, but did not offer any data to back up her claims.

At my school, we have a three and a half hour staff Zoom meeting scheduled to discuss various aspects of reopening our school. It is going to be a huge undertaking. And with no guarantee of success, or how long it will last having students back in the building before we have to close again due to positive tests in students or in staff.

Most definitely a lot of us are feeling pressured and stressed about all that's going on. We also feel a little nervous about saying anything publicly due to the possibility of being chastised by superiors."