Michele Stuart Morgan: Juneau Board of Education candidate
Age: 62
Occupation: Semi-retired, medical assistant
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. It took place a week after school began – assessments of how schools are doing under the new consolidation plan may have changed.
What is your assessment of how schools are doing under the new consolidation plan?
I hope they’re doing well. It’s early on. My concerns and what I’m hearing from the families is that parking down at the high school is one of the big issues that people are talking about. As it goes through and becomes the norm, then we’ll start to see new things that might need to be addressed.
If you had been on the school board when the extent of the district’s financial crisis was revealed in January, what would you have done differently in terms of process and what you voted on?
You can’t really go backwards and you can’t really understand the people that are in the hot seat at the time unless you have all of the information. I like to listen more than I like to talk and then I like to take action. I’m not going to go back in hindsight and redo someone else’s work.
I do know that on a separate issue, the recall, I think, was not a good thing for our community. I thought it was very divisive and not the way you would want that to occur. That’s why I said I would put my name in to run for school board because I just want to make sure that the divisiveness doesn’t creep into our schools.
What my focus would be on is making sure that future actions are taken with our community and our teachers and our kids in mind and doing the best.
What issues and needs do you feel were overlooked with the budget dominating the board’s attention during the second half of the school year, and what do you see as the top non-budget priorities if you are on the board after the Oct. 1 election?
Some of the things that I would like to look at would be transportation, lunches for the kids, and food services with all this reorganization. And how different schools are affecting the students and the families. Because when you go to school, it doesn’t end at school, it continues at home, the whole family is involved.
As a community member and someone who’s worked in the school, the student-teacher ratio is huge. Raising the BSA is huge. I worked in the school. I worked in behavioral health. You cannot teach with 36 kids in your classroom. I think making sure that our teachers have the resources and that our kids have the time and the space.
You mentioned addressing the food services. Do you have any thoughts you want to share on how the district will be shifting to paid breakfast after winter break?
When you charge some students for lunches and other kids not, and then they go without food, you bring that stigma in, and I’ve seen it in kids that will not eat. Having a decent meal is as much being a part of the classroom as having pencils and paper.
You said you worked in a school — what were you doing?
I worked at Sayéik Gastineau. I was a paraeducator for five school years there and I absolutely loved it.
The Juneau School District was the first in the state to take steps toward legally challenging a state ban on transgender girls playing on girls’ sports teams, but efforts were abandoned due to the budget crisis. Do you believe resuming such a challenge is a good use of district time and resources, and why or why not?
No and there’s not an issue. There is not an incident that’s occurring right now. We have things that are happening right now that need to be addressed.
What long-term planning should the school board be considering now given the contradicting future circumstances involving: 1) the homeporting of a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker in Juneau during the next few years and 2) a steadily continuing decline in the student population during the coming decade?
We need to keep jobs here and people here so that they can have families here. And to do that, we need housing. That’s how the mines all in Juneau got started. You can’t bring transient workers here because they want to be with their family.
But if you can bring people in and have their families be with them, that’s how you start a community. And that’s how we can plan to make sure that we keep our student population there is to make sure that people can afford to live here. It’s all entwined.
What specific accomplishments do you believe you can achieve as an individual if elected to the board?
In 2015, I listened. We had people dying from heroin overdoses. So just as a person off the street, I started a nonprofit grassroots (Juneau Stop Heroin Start Talking) right out of my kitchen table and we went to the Legislature.
We got Senate Bill 23 passed, which allowed us to get Narcan in our community. Senator Ellis had tried to get the bill to pass and had failed twice.
So taking action, listening and seeing how it affects our families. Once I see something happening that’s hurting someone, I take all those facts, I take everything and I do something positive with it. I’m the kind of person that does like to help. I like to make sure that I understand what’s happening and make a difference at that point.
If you’re elected to the school board, do you have plans to continue the conversation around Narcan with students who may be using fentanyl or heroin?
We already have. So in 2017, there was no Narcan in the schools. When Senate Bill 23 passed, it allowed Narcan to be put in the hands of the community.
We kept pushing. This is happening to our young people. We need this in anyone’s hands. We need this education. They have Narcan in every single school now. It took many years of pushing.
In a few sentences, what else would you like voters to know about why you are running for school board and hope to achieve?
I think the school board is at a really unique spot right now with all the changes. Anytime you have change in any part of your life, it’s difficult. I would like fiscal responsibility. That’s huge.
I would like to make sure that the parents are heard. And like I said, when you make changes to your students, it doesn’t just affect your students or your teachers. It affects the whole family. It affects the whole community. Just commute time is a big deal. I remember being a working parent and driving my son to school and then when he went to high school, that added on 15 more minutes, and it was a huge change for us. We had to adapt. So making sure that the school board is listening to what families are going through and that we’re financially being responsible and that we’re supporting those teachers and letting them teach.
