NPS fell victim to cyber scam

Insurance providers for the Nome Public School District will be able to recover almost all of the $312,000 taken from the school district during a cyber scam earlier this year, Chief Financial Officer Genevieve Hollins reported during the September Nome Public Schools Board of Education meeting.

"We went through cyber insurance and also crime insurance and between the two out of the $312,000 fraudulent … we're recuperating $307,000, so though there will be a $5,000 loss to the district," she explained during the business manager reports period. "But thankfully, that's a lot less than we anticipated that it could have been."

Hollins says the school district has implemented new policies to prevent this sort of loss from happening again.

"We also revised our standard operating procedures to specifically say that, anytime a vendor or an employee requests a change, we have to call them at their main line or their work line if it's an employee and actually speak with them so that this can never happen again," she said. "There was no way for us to know that that person's email was basically being shadowed, so this is just a way to stop that in the future."

In addition to hearing updates from Hollins, the Nome Board of Education heard several other presenters during the busy September 14 Board of Education meeting, the first full meeting since the start of the school year in late August. Board members had the opportunity to learn about future exercise programs, summer programming and state testing results.

Calisa Kastning, the executive director of the Skiku program, attended the meeting to present information about her organization. Skiku is an Anchorage-based skiing program for students in rural communities and has worked with the Nome Public School District in the past.

"Our mission is to promote cross country skiing and its wellness benefits by facilitating the development of local ski programs in the Alaska Alaskan communities that we serve" Kastning told board members on Tuesday. "We have found that partnering with the schools is the guaranteed way to provide programming to all students in each village that we offer programs to. So we believe we are making a difference when we provide a lifelong opportunity to be outdoors and active."

Board members were enthusiastic about Kastning's presentation.

"My grandson just loves the program," explained board member Nancy Mendenhall. "He's been in it every time he's had the chance and it's been very good for him."

Board member Darlene Trigg echoed Mendenhall's comments. "Thank you for providing this through COVID and being creative," she said. "It's amazing to see what so many folks have done to keep our kids engaged."

School board president Sandy Martinson, too, was enthusiastic.

"We look forward to this program and the benefits it brings to our students," she said.

The school district is working with Skiku to determine costs and a schedule for when ski instructors can do programming in Nome.

School board members also learned about several summer programming options the schools hosted over this past summer.

"This last summer was the first time in quite some time that we were able to offer some summer programs," explained Superintendent Jamie Burgess. "At our elementary school, we have an academic and enrichment program. And Nome-Beltz, we had our first summer school credit recovery program that we've had in a while."

At the lower age levels, teachers worked with around 50 elementary school students to explore the region.

"We decided to do three local things for each week, because it was three weeks and then some," explained Nancy Bahnke, the summer program administrator. "The first one was the tundra. The second one was the coast, so teachers could talk about the beach or the ocean, and then hills and mountains, so teachers could go to Gold Hill or they could go up on a mountain."

Bahnke said the program faced several challenges, including attendance and weather issues, but was overall successful.

At the high school level, teachers focused on credit recovery, and 20 of the 24 participants were able to earn back credits, according to Michael Hoyt, the program administrator for the high school students. Students faced challenges at the high school level, too, but Hoyt was encouraged by the level of work students were able to accomplish.

"We saw a lot of students that kind of struggle getting more one-on-one support," Hoyt explained. "As a result of getting more one-on-one support, these young kids that would normally not turn in work or would get distracted, they were turning in their work, they were on top of it, and they wanted to get things done."

Hoyt said the smaller group allowed students to get outside their comfort zones a bit more than a traditional classroom.

"A lot of the kids, especially those that are kind of shy or quiet … they felt freer, more comfortable to share what they were thinking, to share with each other what they're working on or what they're struggling with … because we had some smaller classes," Hoyt said.

Following presentations from Bahnke and Hoyt, the school board learned about results from last year's PEAKS exams.

PEAKS, or Performance Evaluation for Alaska's Schools, is a testing program for students in third through tenth grade. Students in grades 3 through 9 test in ELA (English Language Arts) and math, and students in grades 5, 8 and 10 take science tests.

Megan Hayes, who oversees assessment programs for the district, reported on the district's results, which she said were not great.

"How do you give information to your school board and to your stakeholders that might not be positive information or what they want to hear?" she said during her presentation. She explained the scoring process and what different standards meant, including proficiency levels.

"Most of our students are not proficient," she told the board. "Grades 3 through 9 for ELA, and this is district wide, we have 21 percent who are proficient or above, and then we have 79 percent who are below proficient. In a perfect world you'd had 100 percent proficient because this is looking at grade level proficiency and these students should know these standards."

Hayes submitted a letter from the commissioner of education to the school board, cautioning against misuse or misunderstanding of the PEAKS results.

"One of the things I included in [school board members] packets was a letter from the Commissioner of Education, explaining and using caution against making any sweeping conclusions about student performance using this data," Hayes said. "We can use this data to see how individual kids are doing and what standards they've met and what standards they haven't met."

Commissioners had the opportunity to ask Hayes questions following her presentation and learned about the testing process in the Nome School District.

Commissioners also heard from Doug Walrath, Director of the Northwestern Alaska Career and Technical Center, NACTEC for short, about an agreement between NACTEC and University of Alaska Fairbanks Northwest Campus that has been in the works for several years. "I'm here to present a little background history on something that's been at the NACTEC governing board level actually for 10 years," Walrath told the board. "Because we're a partnership that exists between Nome Public Schools and Bering Strait School District, this is actually an action that needs to occur across both school district boards."

The partnership NACTEC has been pursuing would allow UAF NWC students to take courses through the NACTEC facilities.

"With the completion of this project, Northwest Campus will be able to provide courses for students to attain advanced careers in the building trades, welding and engine repairs," Walrath told the board. "University of Alaska was asking NACTEC to waive insurance requirements, work-man's compensation aggregation clauses and agree to a mutual indemnification clause."

Board Member Trigg made a motion to "move forward to complete MOA with UAF Northwest Campus agreeing to their requests to waive the normal insurance requirements and workers compensation obligation causes and agreed to a mutual indemnification clause," and the motion passed unanimously.

During the school board meeting, Superintendent Burgess also introduced brand-new teachers and awarded last year's recipients of the Teacher of the Year and the Support Staff of the Year. The Teacher of the Year was awarded to Meghan Ten Eyck, a kindergarten teacher at Nome Elementary School, and the Support Staff of the Year was awarded to Jennifer Janke, Nome-Beltz Middle and High School secretary.

The School Board will host a work session on Tuesday, September 28, and a regular board meeting on Tuesday, October 12. Both meetings will take place at 5:30 p.m. in the Nome Elementary School Library.