A closing North Pole school to be repurposed for alternative learning programs

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTUU/KTVF) - Midnight Sun Elementary School, which the Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board voted to close next academic year, has plans to be repurposed into housing resources for alternative learning programs in the school district.

At a Jan. 6 School Board Work Session focusing on school consolidation, district administration discussed a plan to use Midnight Sun’s building to house Star of the North, a school of choice program, which finds itself in need of a new building after the district terminated the lease for its current location.

The building would also be used for the SMART program, designed for students suspended or expelled, and as a North Pole satellite office for BEST Homeschool, the district’s homeschool program, within the repurposed building.

Starting with the 2023-2024 school year, Nordale Elementary School was repurposed as the main office for BEST Homeschool and has since been used for that purpose and housing several other alternative learning programs.

At the January meeting, Superintendent Luke Meinert discussed the increasing popularity of homeschooling in Fairbanks.

“Homeschooling and correspondence education is one of the fastest growing options for students, I would say, within Fairbanks and the country,” he said. “Pre-pandemic, we were at around 275 students in our home school program, and we’ve seen as high as 1,200 or 1,300, I believe, and BEST, and so it is an attractive option and continues to be for Fairbanks.”

Chief Operations Officer Andy DeGraw, meanwhile, presented on why Midnight Sun was chosen for repurposing, saying the process “centered around the need for a repurposed location in the North Pole area.”

At the beginning of April, while discussing school boundary changes, Josie Hollett, parent of two students at Midnight Sun and President of the school’s Parent-Teacher Association, said she had heard frustration from parents about the situation.

“Whether it’s teachers or staff, they feel frustrated, or even parents feel frustrated just because they are essentially closing our school and then just turning it into a best location for the homeschool,” she said.

Students from Midnight Sun will be split between North Pole and Ticasuk Brown Elementary Schools.

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