Early Spring ‘08 - Wainright

There are no roads to Wainwright, an Inupiat village of around 500 people located on the Arctic coast some 80 miles southwest of Barrow, but good intentions still manage to pave the way to hell here.

The doors to Alak School mark the unofficial line of demarcation and the porch has become the no-man’s land where the battles that you do want to win just aren’t fought. From 7th grade on up, the kids who smoke cigarettes - and that would be most - will hang out and light up when the urge hits. Most don’t flaunt it – or are at least discrete until after regular school hours, but when the bell rings, everyone smokes on the steps with impunity.

There are real North Slope Borough Police in Wainwright - not the typical and often anemic Village Public Safety Officers. The borough provides two officers who alternate 2-week on and off schedules. But they each focus on keeping the peace and dealing with more critical concerns. Underage smoking doesn’t make the top-10 list of major problems. Kids can’t and don’t buy cigarettes in either of the two stores in town, but that doesn’t matter as older relatives and friends openly provide them. How can you fight that?

Inside the school, there is an attempt to enforce some rules.

“The circus came back to Wainwright,” said Rusty J, the school’s only middle school teacher after chaperoning a school dance last month.

“I caught RJ with a cigarette tucked behind his ear and I told him he had to leave.”

The kid refused to go. Rusty went and found Al S., the principal, who then politely asked the kid to leave. Thinking that the situation was resolved, Rusty went back to the gym to maintain a presence at the dance. A few minutes later he spotted the same kid with the cigarette still defiantly displayed

“If I suspended or expelled every kid who broke the rules, there wouldn’t be anyone left in school. As it is, I have the highest rate of disciplinary actions of any principal in the North Slope Borough”, explained Principal S. “Besides, the kid didn’t actually smoke in school”

S tries to avoid confrontations with students and chooses to fight his version of a hearts and minds battle instead. It’s difficult to see the evidence of that effort working – it seems the principal’s actions and inactions are based on his own personal fears and his unwillingness to confront any problem.

All four teachers and the principal are new at the high school this year and Rusty is back for his second tour of duty after replacing a teacher who was fired in mid-term last year. This is the principal’s first administrative role.

All have been recently notified that their contracts will not be renewed next year.

Alak High is a Class 5 failing school as defined by No Child Left Behind standards. There hasn’t been progress in any of the critical standards for more than several years running. No one knows if there ever has been success at the high school – but who defines success?

Ten minutes after the interaction with the principal, the situation escalates. The student was never escorted out of the building and now confronts Rusty and tells the teacher that he is going to get his ass kicked.

Rusty was in the gym with John L, a visiting principal from Kaktovik, who is in Wainwright with his school’s basketball team. John asked the young man if his words were a threat.

RJ responded by pointing his finger inches away from Rusty’s nose and shouting that he would personally kick the teacher’s ass.

Rusty, a former collegiate wrestler is still fit and is not at all intimidated by the verbal assault, but chooses to retreat to the office to call for the cop. When the officer arrives and confronts the kid, the student escalates the situation by shoving the policeman.

“Al told me to stay back,” Rusty shook his head in disbelief. “So I thought, what-ever, handle it yourself. The cop didn't arrest RJ and didn't even make him leave. Al gave RJ the standard five-day suspension to begin on Monday. The cop and Al said RJ needed help.”

But beyond the rhetoric of frustrated words, what help is that?

No one offers an answer.

Al does write up some intervention plan that won't be followed and probably not shared with the parent or anyone in the school. The plan is filed with the district central office and as far as the top-level administrators are concerned, something has been done.