(Sage Smiley / KSTK)
Wrangell’s municipal election is set for next Tuesday (October 3).
There will be one contested race on the ballot: there are two candidates running for the one open seat on Wrangell’s School Board.
Incumbent school board member Esther Reese (Aaltséen) is running for re-election. Challenger John DeRuyter is also running for the seat.
KSTK’s Sage Smiley sat down with the two candidates to hear about the issues that they find motivating and what they think are some of the biggest issues facing the school district in the coming years.
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW (lightly edited for clarity and reading flow):
KSTK (Sage Smiley): First of all, we’re going to start out – I’m just going to ask you to introduce yourself and what you do in town and what position you’re running for. So maybe we’ll start with Esther.
ESTHER REESE: Okay. So my name is Esther Reese, and I am the tribal administrator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association, and we represent the 895 tribal citizens for the Shtaxheen Kwan. I also serve as the president of the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. And I am the chair of the IEA committee within the schools, and I am running for the one seat that’s open for the school board.
KSTK: John?
JOHN DERUYTER: My name is John DeRuyter. And I like to say that I’m retired, but that really isn’t all the way true. I’ve been a clinical psychologist for the last 25 years. And I still have some patients that – we just can’t get rid of each other, I guess. I’m going into my third year on the Secondary Advisory Committee. I chaired it last year, and so far, I’m doing the same thing now. I also have been appointed to the Economic Development Board. And I volunteer at Parks & Rec and a bunch of things like that. And I find that I’m way more busy, retired than I ever was not retired.
KSTK: And you’re also running for school board.
DERUYTER: I am running for school board as well.
KSTK: So Esther, you’re a member of the school board right now. And John, you’re running for school board. What motivates you to want to run for school board? And I’ll follow up with the same question for you afterward, Esther.
DERUYTER: Sitting on the Secondary Advisory Committee, what I was aware of – or became aware of is an awful lot of community interest in being involved in the school district and the school system in a variety of different ways. And it seemed that their concern, or their observation was very hard to be heard to be involved, to be a part of it. I know how to get the community involved. And that was the initial motivation.
KSTK: What motivates you to want to run for reelection, Esther?
REESE: Well, I have had two children in the school system, my son has now graduated, and I have a daughter who is a freshman. And so I have been a part of the schools the whole time, [since] they were in elementary school, middle school, and now high school. And so I’m very motivated to do things for our children, not just my children, but the children in our community. I’ve served [on the school board] for a year and feel like I have that experience that is beneficial, and was able to go and do the trainings for the new school board members. There’s a lot that goes into it, and I really enjoyed it and appreciated the opportunity to serve our community in that way. My motivation when I initially ran, and my continued motivation, is to make sure that we have collaboration between all of the entities in the community. So I really wanted to be able to connect the tribe and what the tribe was doing with the school system – and have experiences working with the tribal, state and federal entities – so just wanted to be able to bring some of that together with collaboration and feel like I’ve done a good job of that in the school board meetings, and just in general, making sure that the schools and the tribe came together, which I know is going to be important in the future with all sorts of things budgets, and different educational opportunities and things of that sort. It just felt really good to be able to do that for the last year. And I’m interested in continuing.
KSTK: The school board – and schools, and students, and teachers and everyone in the community – are facing a lot of really pressing issues. There’s a lot of inflation, this is a very hard time for a lot of organizations. What do you see as the biggest issue or maybe couple of issues that are facing Wrangell’s school system and school district and students in the coming years? Can we start with you, Esther?
REESE: Sure, yeah. Well, I know everyone’s aware that the budget is going to be needing a lot of attention. And there’s a look at consolidating the schools. So you know, some really good hard planning and looking like I had said at collaboration with different entities. For example, the tribe has opportunities for grants that other institutions don’t necessarily have. And so being able to do some of that collaboration on some of those hard things that we have to look at, like the budget. In the past, another issue that the school had faced was administration not retaining administration. And I’m really happy that we have some new administrators. And I’m very hopeful, because of just their history, that we will be retaining those people into the far future because, you know, really excited about the team that we have in place.
KSTK: How about you, John?
DERUYTER: I absolutely agree: budget is a huge issue facing us, it really is, in my perception of it – I don’t have access to the numbers like Esther does. But what I’ve been watching is things just just scraping by on so many levels. And because I’m on the economic development board now, one of the possible solutions to this is to really start building the Wrangell economy, so the funds are available to support the school system on a higher level. We’re working on a number of levels with that, most specifically, the deepwater port out at Six Mile. And then of course, there’s the Alder Top [Village] subdivision that’s going in. And those all have the potential to create more tax income for us, which then can be shared with the school system.
KSTK: So that really segues pretty well into the next question I wanted to ask, which is about kind of the converse, and you’ve both mentioned some solutions to this – but what are the solutions, if you can see any right now to these big problems that the school district is facing? We’ll start with you, John.
DERUYTER: You know what, I wish I had a magic wand. Don’t have one of those. I don’t know that there is any particular solution that I would say: ‘This will do it.’ It’s just not possible to go there, in my mind. It’s a community effort, the community needs to see and acknowledge what’s going on and why it is important. And then step into it together. We are a community. There’s not a piece here in a piece there and a piece over there. And we need to act together to make it work. So I can’t give you: ‘This is going to do it.’
KSTK: That’s fair. How about you, Esther, what’s your take?
REESE: Yeah, I absolutely agree, we are going to have to solve this all together. It’s going to have to be collaboration, it’s going to have to be the city and the schools and the tribe and all of the different entities coming together to try to fix the budget. And the good news is we have a little bit of time to do that. And it’s wonderful that we have some very capable people at the city working on this with the school system and the tribe’s involvement. And I mean, we’re a community that has faced challenges in the past and have overcome them. And I’m very hopeful that with all of these wonderful people in place, that we can do exactly the same thing. Because I mean, like I had said, our children are just so important. And education in our community is so important. And collaboration, I think is how we’re going to have to get through this.
KSTK: In your – Oh, sorry.
DERUYTER: – Yes, you’re right. Sorry, I had to say it out loud.
KSTK: No worries. So in your time, either on the school board or on the Secondary Advisory Committee so far, is there an accomplishment or some project that you are most proud of that you’ve been involved with? We’ll start with you, Esther.
REESE: It’s only been a year. But I really feel like in my time, I’ve been able to build some of those bridges between some of these some of these entities, you know, and all the school board meetings, I have fun doing the report afterwards, like: ‘Hey, the Hokulea is coming in.’ ‘Let’s remind everyone that these opportunities are happening.’ ‘This is what the tribe is doing.’ And so I’ve felt really good about being able to, to bring some of what the tribal government is doing in with the school system, and so feel really good about that. The other great thing is we’ve got some great new teachers. I was on the curriculum committee, and so we chose some really great math curriculum. I just feel like during that time, being able to build some of those bridges and also just being supportive of the administration.
KSTK: How about you, John?
DERUYTER: When I joined the Secondary Advisory Committee two years ago, the coming up of three now, there were four members. Last year I took over as chair and by the end of the year, we had nine people coming. There’s people involved, anxious to participate in what we were doing. And around the middle of last year, what we did is go back and look very carefully at our charter. Are we following this, are we accomplishing those things that were called to accomplish? And we readjusted a bunch of stuff. And we’ve been, from my perspective, way more successful, moving suggestions and concerns up the ladder.
KSTK: Thank you both for sharing. So my final question is one related to this election, which is: There’s one school board seat. This doesn’t have to be adversarial. But what makes you a good candidate for the school board seat? Why should someone vote for you? We’ll start with you, John.
DERUYTER: Goes back a long way. I went to high school at a school just about this is just a little bit bigger than this one. I know the dynamics. I know how it works, the very different context. But I know what little schools are about. I have been very successful in Alaska, running a number of different businesses. I know how finances work, I know how that all fits together successfully. I bring a lot of experience to the table, not from a school board perspective. But from a management perspective, from a business perspective, from an economic development perspective. Those are all things that are valuable when you’re managing a school district. And that’s why I’m running.
KSTK: How about you, Esther?
REESE: Well, first off, I’d like to say that I’m happy to be running against someone – I was unopposed last year. (laughter) So it’s nice to have interest in serving on the school board. As far as what I feel like I would bring to the table – I’ve been a community member of Wrangell for I think it’s 20 years now. And so I’m intimately familiar with the community, with the school system. I’ve had two of my kiddos in the school system. My background: I worked as a financial advisor and business manager for a brokerage firm prior to coming to Wrangell, and I now manage the tribe as the tribal administrator. So I have a lot of experience with grants and budgets and finances in general. I also feel like I’m just extremely passionate about our community, and the health of our community, and making sure that our kids here have everything they need, even though we are a small community. I also have some experience having served [on the school board] for a year and have a little bit of the knowledge of exactly what it means to be on the school board and be a functioning school board member. And so I think all of those things come into play. And then also just my desire to have a lot of collaboration between the tribe in the school system in the city. I think those are some of the ways that I could serve in this seat if elected.
KSTK: Thank you both very much, and good luck to both of you in this race.
REESE: Thank you!
DERUYTER: Yeah, thank you very much.
Get in touch with KSTK at news@kstk.org or (907) 874-2345.
