I am asking for your help to save my sons school. Let me tell you a little about Joy Elementary School located in Fairbanks Alaska. Joy has an extremely unique round design to their building which is particular to their high special education enrollment. Joy currently possesses 319 students, 87, or 27% of the school is rated as special education simply because this school has one of the best programs and most amazing staff in the district. Also, please keep in mind that out of the 20 schools in the district Joy has the 3rd highest number of special education children.

Let me tell you a little about my experience at Joy over the last 6 years. You see my son started there in kindergarten and lets just say it was not the easiest for him, or his poor teacher at the time. He hadn’t been diagnosed at the time and was ALL over the place: up, down, left, right even upside down at times. His teacher never gave up on him ONCE, she never pushed him to the side, she always took the time to ensure he was right on track just like the other students. That same year we suffered a horrible tragic incident that left my son with PTSD and our apartment in smoke. We were left with the clothes on our backs and that was it. This school went above and beyond any expectation that I had. His amazing teacher even started a clothing drive to help provide warm clothing for him and even some for me as well. They never gave up on him even on the worst of days where he was yelling and screaming and swearing at everyone. They would call me and allow me to come in and figure out what was going on to calm him down. It was never “come get him we can’t do this”, it was always “we’re a team lets work together to help him succeed”. This amazing kindergarten teacher always checked on him throughout first grade and worked with his 1st grade teacher to ensure he was succeeding. Fast forward to 2nd and 3rd grade where this same amazing teacher was his teacher again and I watched him soar above all expectations that were placed in front of him. Even his resource teacher went above and beyond always ensuring he knew she was there for HIM and anything he needed, even just a time out to cool off and recoup she was there. We then go into 4th grade and COVID hits, his teacher was nothing but expectational! Always willing to have extra meetings with him, always communicating with me, even later at night after I got off work to ensure that we were still a team. Guess what, we were so fortunate to have that same 4th grade teacher as his now current 5th grade teacher! Furthermore, his new resource teacher that he met starting 4th grade has been the most amazing thing since sliced bread! He has my son playing computer games that require him to build his math abilities, and let me tell you…… my son absolutely despises math. Thanks to the work of our team, he even jumped 17 points on his math testing and I cannot even begin to tell you how HUGE this is for him.

Now, let me tell you about his school district and how they came to this decision or so they claim. The poor negligence in mismanaged funds by the Fairbanks North Star Borough school district has now put them into a huge deficit and they are taking it out on the children. They’re stating they need to close 3 school at the end of the school year and my sons school has been chosen as one of them. The school district is playing favoritism by not even considering a school that is over 101,000 square feet, only has 296 students, only 49% utilized, and needs work done to close a school that has 319 students, 87 of which are special education, 60,600 square feet which also needs work. Furthermore, the school district just paid the deductible to replace the roof on another building instead of cutting their losses and using that money to either help fix some of the things at joy, or chipping away at their deficit. The school district had the absolute audacity to send someone to Joy and inform the kids of the fact that they were thinking about closing the school. Not ONCE did anyone from the board follow up to see what their little conversation had on my son. They didn’t bother to attempt to understand the screaming, yelling, crying or sadness that was displayed when he arrived home. One student in my sons class even did a drawing showing his anger stating “The school district has ruend my life”, “I’m not leaving”, “What does money have to do with learning?” and even “F the system”. This is what the families are going to go through because of the school district. The school district has absolutely NO plan in place for these kids, they simply claim “they we be disbursed accordingly after new lines are drawn”, which I am now questioning how they are going to read through 87 IEP’s and determine which of the 3 middle schools (since they want to send the 6th graders to middle school) or 19 other elementary schools will best accommodate them with their specific needs. In addition to that by making this move and putting all 6th graders into a middle school setting they are now going to have to put 1480 students into three buildings that ALL combined a total of 1650. Throwing our kids into what is going to become over crowded schools is not the answer to your money woes! I am asking for your help in raising awareness and putting forth your name to help save Joy Elementary School. Every building will always need maintenance done to it just like your home does and by neglecting these building for so long and not prioritizing where the money is being sent this is never going to stop. The roof on your home will not last 70 years, you will have leaks along the way and repairs will need to be done, but let me ask you this: would you choose to fix something on something else instead of the roof on your home?

Please I am begging you, from the bottom of my heart, help me save my sons second home and family. Help me bring awareness to the fact that the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is playing favoritism against other schools because of who they know. Help me keep my sons sanity in check and ensure that his, and all the others, social, emotional, mental, and academic well-being in line. Help me prove to the community that just because they have the money, they don’t have the power.