FAIRBANKS — A Fairbanks principal has been named Alaska’s secondary school principal of the year.
The award for West Valley High School Principal Shaun Kraska was announced Wednesday by the Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals, which recognizes a principal with the honor each year, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
Kraska, who was previously named Fairbanks North Star Borough Principal of the Year, said she was shocked to hear that she had received the statewide recognition.
“I was really surprised this morning when everyone came walking into the office,” she said. “We have so many wonderful administrators statewide I didn’t even think twice about it actually.”
Kraska has spent most of her educational career at West Valley and started there as a teacher in the late 1980s. She has been principal of the Fairbanks school for eight of the last nine years.
During the 2014-15 school year, Kraska served as interim assistant superintendent of secondary schools for the borough school district before returning to West Valley.
But this school year marks an end to her 27-year career at West Valley. In March, she was named the district’s assistant superintendent of secondary schools.
Kraska called the move “bittersweet,” saying it will be difficult to leave the school where she has served for nearly three decades, but that now feels like the right time.
