Education

After months of debating and weighing options, the Lower Kuskokwim School Board has decided where to rebuild the two Bethel schools that burned down last year.  Their decision seems perhaps the most obvious choice​— the Kilbuck campus, the same land where the the Ayaprun Yup’ik Immersion School and Kuskokwim Learning Academy previously stood. KYUK’s Anna Rose MacArthur and School Board Chairwoman Susan Murphy walked down to the charred campus to discuss the board’s decision.

State budget cuts are making deep slashes across Alaska including the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. The state Legislature hasn’t passed a budget, but with an almost four-billion dollar deficit, state-funded groups are paring down as they prepare their own budgets for the upcoming fiscal year. With the whole University of Alaska system preparing for major cuts, administrators at Bethel’s UAF Kuskokwim Campus are whittling to the bone.

It’s that time of year when Pomp and Circumstance and mortarboard caps fill the air, a time of teenage passage. And for most students at Bethel Regional High School, it’s a time of saying goodbye to friends who’ve been together with since kindergarten and preparing for a future apart. So before receiving their diplomas, the 48 Bethel graduates gathered backstage one last time. KYUK’s Anna Rose MacArthur was there and has this story.

Pizza is a rare treat in Goodnews Bay. No pizzerias or even restaurants exist in the 250-person community in southwest Alaska. So Wednesday morning when 22 fresh pizzas arrived at the school, it was a big deal. But the even bigger deal was the national winner inside the building.

How can the University of Alaska Fairbanks system better respond to sexual assault cases on its rural campuses? That’s what a group of men from UAF came to the Kuskokwim University Campus in Bethel last week to answer. KuC is the third rural campus the men have visited with this questions. The trip occurred just days after an external review called the UAF’s handling of five sexual assault cases between 2011 and 2014 failures. The University of Alaska system requested the review be conducted.

Bethel’s only library will be closing for renovations this Saturday for at least three months. The Kuskokwim University Campus runs the library, but it’s used more as a public space more than as a university resource. Members of that public who rely on the library for computers and entertainment will have to go elsewhere this summer.