By SUZANNE DOWNING
Jan. 26, 2026 – Concerns over a sharp decline in student enrollment at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka surfaced during an Alaska Senate Finance Committee hearing Monday, as lawmakers pressed the Dunleavy Administration to investigate what is happening at one of the state’s flagship public schools.
Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, raised the issue while discussing the broader state fiscal picture, pointing to Mt. Edgecumbe High School a as a troubling example of institutional decline.
“It was the most highly rated system that we have,” Hoffman said. “It has been one of the highlights, the stars of our education system.” But, he added, the school has now lost a significant number of students and “it seems as though it needs some drastic attention.”
Hoffman urged the administration to take a closer look at the situation, saying the scale of the withdrawals signals deeper problems.
Mount Edgecumbe High School, a state-run boarding school that serves students from across rural and isolated parts of Alaska, began the 2025–2026 school year with over 400 students enrolled. Public testimony before the Alaska Board of Education in early December 2025 indicated that more than 40 students had already withdrawn, double the number of withdrawals at the same point the previous year. Other reports suggest the turnover may be significantly higher as the school year has progressed.
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, whose district includes the school, said he does not yet know the root cause of the losses but acknowledged the situation appears abnormal.
“Something is going on, we just need to find out what it is and fix it,” Stedman said. “I can’t sit here and tell you what the issue is, because I don’t know.”
Stedman said typical enrollment at Mt. Edgecumbe is in the range of 430 to 440 students and that some turnover is normal at a boarding school, where homesickness and adjustment issues can lead to withdrawals.
“But it seems to be extremely high this year,” he said. “I’ve heard numbers that are pushing 100, which would be a quarter of the school, almost.”
He added that it is unclear whether departing students are being replaced by new enrollees, making the net enrollment impact difficult to assess.
He also raised concerns about student life and supervision issues at the school. Stedman pointed to recreation and structure as critical components for a residential campus.
“It’s a boarding school — you’ve got to have things for the kids to do, especially the boys,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure they have less energy in the evening, [rather] than more. And supervision.”
Reports earlier this school year indicated concerns about student mental health and wellbeing at Mt. Edgecumbe, with school leadership framing the issue as part of a broader statewide mental health challenge affecting students across Alaska.
Stedman said the situation requires direct engagement with school leadership and state education officials.
“We just need to get it defined and fix it,” he said, calling for a direct conversation with the superintendent, who reports to the Alaska Department of Education.
6 thoughts on “Senators raise alarm over enrollment losses at Mt. Edgecumbe High School during fiscal hearing”
You hire too many White educators and staff. Considering the majority student population is Alaska Native heritage. mt edgecumbe should at least be 80% Alaska Native employed with all the High School Teachers be Alaska Native as well as the school be culturally relevant and sensitive to Alaska Native Cultures.
Despot their boasting they have never been a school that hired Alaska Native Lead teachers for the classroom and culturally relevant and sensitive to their students.
Considering the Ak birth declines and birth declines in Alaska Native families, you will save the state money by closing the school at the end of this school year.
I have seen a shift in the politics and agenda of those who are running things at Mt. Edgecumbe – while it used to be a school promoting opportunity, it has shifted into a woke environment where kids are indoctrinated with leftist and “land back” ideology. Gil Truitt would be so disappointed.
First of all, let me respond to Tina’s comment above. It would be illegal for the state of Alaska to hire staff at Mt. Edgecumbe based on ethnicity. Further, it would amount to a form of racism. That said, this particular school has been on a manufactured downhill slide for the past year or more. Certainly members of the legislative education committees should have known about it but if not then they probably weren’t asking the right questions. It is doubtful that the top of the food chain at the department of Education didn’t know the situation the school was in at least a year ago.
The Big, Beautiful Bill has funds for education but the one issue not talked about is that all funding for Native and Indian education now goes through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. No one has addressed this in state government and needs to get it out in the open to get the problem of funding for all the Native and Indian education taken care of now. We should not be left in a lurch over this and its a problem that needs care now.
Funding for rural students is not race based. This public boarding school is for all rural Alaska students regardless of skin color because it is being funded by public dollars.
Why all the demands for race based preferences in any public funded school?
These are PUBLIC tax payer funded and Must be colorblind!
I worked in the dorms from August 7th, 2025 – February 9th, 2026 and resigned, citing student behavior, my superior’s & the dorm principal’s failure to respond to student behavior, feeling unsafe working in a hostile environment, poor work-life balance, failure/refusal to pay me outstanding overtime pay & job misclassification as my main reasons for resigning. I was hired to be a Dorm “Manager”, but never given any managerial duties, just a salaried position so they can make me work 50+ hours weekly without having to pay me overtime – I was doing the job of an hourly working, but paid a salary. The contractor forces its managers to clock in for working 40 hours per week even if they work more than that and if they record working anything over 40, it won’t be approved and payment would be missed on the next pay day.
105 students departed before I did and of the half or so that were boys, about half of them were dismissed due to behavior-related issues such as possession of THC/Vape or other issues – such as two students recording their roommate in the shower. Many students obtain THC/weed from a homeless local who sells it to them. The students non-stop whine about how this school is strict but it’s a boarding school, and so there will be rules they’d have to follow that you wouldn’t find in a traditional public high school – must clean your room, must do dorm chores, must be in the dorms for curfew, must study during study hour, set hours for doing laundry, must be in bed at the designated bed time, & must attend tutorials if failing classes. And when confronted for not following rules, they want to plead ignorance (even seniors do this) and call home crying when they get written up. And why is there a cycle of this? Because the administration & the dorm general manager allows it. They don’t back up or support their dorm staff.
The dorms are grossly understaffed because rather hire adequate people, without being informed during an interview, I was hired, again, not to be a manager, but to fill in every time employees called off, resigned, or took leave, since as a salaried employee, I wasn’t getting overtime, especially if I was held under duress to inaccurately clock in for working no more than 40 hours per week even if that wasn’t the case of face a consequence of not getting paid. The understaffed is going to lead to an inability to keep tables of students whereabouts and create consistent and staggering inattentiveness to student needs. They need between 13-15 RAs & Dorm Managers working on school nights in order for the dorms to run smoothly, but they’re lucky if they get 7-8 people to work in the dorms per night.
This new dorm contractor, Nana Management Services is nothing more than a shady entity reeking of corporate greed. If you take a job with them, they will likely burn you out, rip you off, cheat you, and not give you any support or proper training.