By SUZANNE DOWNING
April 10, 2026 – The Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District will close two of its elementary schools at the end of the current school year, after the school board voted unanimously to shut down both Fawn Mountain Elementary and Point Higgins Elementary in a move driven by declining enrollment and mounting financial pressure.
The decision has been building for years. Ketchikan has continued to lose school-age population, going from 2,291 students in 2019β2020 to 2,049 in 2023β2024. That is more than a 10% drop in student population.
Last year, the board restructured the districtβs three traditional elementary schools in an effort to reduce costs, shifting to a grade-level model that sent kindergarten through third-grade students to Fawn Mountain and Point Higgins, while fourth through sixth graders attended Houghtaling Elementary. The restructuring altered grade configurations but kept all buildings open. But it was not enough to stabilize the districtβs finances.
Now, with a three-year plan in place to repay more than $5 million owed to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, and with the state previously warning that funding could be withheld if the district failed to balance its budget, board members said the district had reached a breaking point.
With the closures, Houghtaling Elementary will be the districtβs lone traditional neighborhood elementary school. Charter and alternative elementary options will continue to operate, including Ketchikan Charter School, Tongass School of Arts and Sciences Charter School, and Fast Track, which together serve a portion of elementary-aged students but do not replace the capacity of the neighborhood schools being closed.
The Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District currently operates nine schools overall, including elementary, middle, high school, and alternative programs, and serves roughly 2,000 students. But enrollment has been steadily declining for nearly a decade.
District enrollment peaked around the 2016β2017 school year. The downward trend has been consistent since 2017:
- 2015β2016: 2,340 students
- 2016β2017: 2,361 students
- 2017β2018: 2,359 students
- 2018β2019: 2,314 students
- 2019β2020: 2,291 students
- 2020β2021: 2,161 students
- 2021β2022: 2,156 students
- 2022β2023: 2,074 students
- 2023β2024: 2,049 students
Fewer students mean less state funding, since Alaskaβs education formula is largely enrollment-driven. That dynamic has forced districts across the state to consider consolidation, staffing reductions, and school closures. These discussions are underway in Anchorage, Mat-Su, Juneau, and Fairbanks.
2 thoughts on “Ketchikan closing two elementary schools”
Good. Itβs the financial responsible action to do. Now, the rest of the state school districts can do the same!!!!
This is what happens when a state hasnβt celebrated Life at conception for as long and longer than our statehood. Or to even not be encourage your children go ahead have a family have children despite that the world is going to Hell in a hand basket. This is still Godβs world and he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply subduing the earth, donβt worry about running out of space which I think we will never really run out of space for all of us. I mean we have old age deaths, premature deaths by wars, sicknesses, famines, violence, and whoβs to continue a tribe if people in depression just stopped having children? Besides Heaven is spoken to have more space than our teeny brains can comprehend for every person to had every been conceived, born, and died who has known Christ since the Church age started. (Dont get all caught up what about thr people before Christ? Donβt think too hard your teeny brain is going hurt! If you get to Heaven youβll eventually find out what your teeny brain couldnβt grasp)
To not still value life at conception means declining populations and extinctions.
You have to keep living, moving forward, raising happier and healthier generation than letβs say how you, your parents were so in your family is added new generations.
Itβs okay to adopt because you waited too long. Itβs okay to adopt as a single parent because you waited too long for a partner and your partner hasnβt come yet and maybe never will but you really wanted a child. That adopted child might be even more loyal to their adoptee parent than a birth child because you took him when he was alone.
If you like going out and fellowshipping with others and you can get to Anchorage or you want to be more Prolife. April 25th on the Delaney parkstrip there is going to an event the March for Life to stand together in solidarity for family and life hosted by Alaska Family Council
I know that Republicans and the MAGA Crowd like going out, this is another opportunity to use your flags, wave them, and drive in your parade to show Democrats that Democrats may own this town won the April election but you all still exist and hadnβt all moved to the valley, yet.