Native America Calling: Decades of funding neglect is causing serious problems for rural Alaska school buildings

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Thursday, March 13, 2025

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Decades of funding neglect is causing serious problems for rural Alaska school buildings

An entire wall of one school building is buckling after a leaky roof went unattended for 19 years.

Students at another school have to go home to use the bathroom during the day because the school’s water pipes burst. Exposed insulation hangs from the ceiling in another school.

For more than a quarter century, the Alaska legislature has devoted only a fraction of the funds needed to keep the public school buildings that serve a predominantly Alaska Native student population functioning properly.

Join Native America Calling to hear about the investigation by KYUK in collaboration with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network and NPR’s Station Investigations Team that exposed a problem many years in the making.

ProPublica: Alaska Has Ignored Hundreds of Requests to Fix Its Crumbling Public Schools

Guests on Native America Calling

Emily Schwing, senior reporter for KYUK in Alaska

Jason Dropik (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), executive director of National Indian Education Association

New: Two inches of raw sewage. Black mold. A bat infestation. Reporter Emily Schwing shares what she uncovered as she investigated dangerous conditions inside Alaska's deteriorating public schools. https://t.co/NejGSS9BPw
— ProPublica (@propublica) March 14, 2025