ASD names 4 schools that will take students from the closing Mount Iliamna Elementary

The Anchorage School District this week named four elementary schools that will accept transfer students with emotional and behavior disorders from Mount Iliamna Elementary School, which the district plans to close next school year.

Based on where Mount Iliamna students live, they will attend either Baxter Elementary School in East Anchorage; Kasuun Elementary School in the Abbott Loop area; Lake Hood Elementary School in Turnagain; or Tyson Elementary School in Mountain View, said Glen Nielsen, executive director of elementary education at ASD.

Nielsen said in an interview Friday he felt "very optimistic" the plan to close Mount Iliamna and move students to new programs at neighborhood schools would be in place by the 2017-18 school year.

"It's still completely viable and we're probably good to go next school year," he said. "But you never write anything in stone."

Mount Iliamna, known "Mt. I" to parents and staff, is located on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson and currently serves about 60 students. It's the end-of-the-road grade school for students whose behavior is so violent or disruptive they were transferred there.

All of Mount Iliamna's students have some documented disability, ranging from autism to fetal alcohol syndrome to bipolar disorder. The district's goal is to surround the students with services and, if they're ready, send them to a neighborhood classrooms or special needs programs.

But that structure will change. ASD officials hoping to close Mount Iliamna have said they have concerns about access to the on-base facility, including the long bus rides some students must take to get there. They have also said they want to give Mount Iliamna students an opportunity to interact with more of their grade-level peers at neighborhood schools.

In their new settings, Nielsen said, Mount Iliamna students "get to now be part of that school community again. They'll have PTAs and they'll have popcorn Fridays."

However, some parents have expressed concern about moving their children away from Mount Iliamna's favorable student-teacher ratios and its structured array of services. Nielsen said Friday he is confident Mount Iliamna's students will continue to be surrounded with the same level of services at the four neighborhood schools.

The students will be in separate, small classes and introduced into a mainstream classroom setting only when they're considered ready, he said.

Nielsen said the district selected the four schools based on their capacities, locations and building layouts.

Most Mount Iliamna students who will transition live north of Tudor Road, he said. The schools selected also have separate spaces to house the new behavioral programs and have room for additional students, he said.

Nielsen anticipated that each school would have about 28 former Mount Iliamna students for the 2017-18 school year, plus additional teachers, counselors, intervention coaches, teacher assistants and behavioral specialists to staff the programs.

Baxter and Tyson are Title I schools, a federal designation for schools with high percentages of students from low-income families. Lake Hood already has a behavioral program for students who are closer to returning to regular classrooms, Nielsen said.

The other school that already has a more narrow behavioral program is Susitna Elementary in East Anchorage, but Nielsen said that school did not have the capacity to expand.

Nielsen said district is planning additional parent meetings to discuss the changes. The upcoming meetings are:

• Baxter Elementary, 6 p.m. Monday.
• Kasuun Elementary, 6 p.m. Wednesday.
• Tyson Elementary, 6 p.m. Dec. 20.