School in Nome begins with less students than last year

By Anna Lionas |

Nome Public Schools opened its doors on Tuesday for the first day of the 2025-2026 school year. Students flooded in ready to begin the new year, but the hallways are a bit emptier this time around with enrollment down 6.3 percent.
Superintendent Jamie Burgess informed the school board of this change at the August 12 board meeting along with other updates preceding the school year.
“This is not unusual. We’re seeing, you know, declining enrollments happening in a lot of different places,” Burgess said, referring to other districts across the state.
The district receives a majority of funding from the state through a per-student formula, which was recently increased by the legislature to $6,960 per student.
The district is combatting the loss of the money they would’ve gotten from the 41 less students.
“We have actually lost two classrooms here at the elementary school simply because of the low enrollment, and that’s been a way that we’ve been able to respond to some of our funding challenges as well,” Burgess said.
When asked about why numbers dropped in such a way, Burgess said she it was mostly students leaving Nome and there hasn’t been a great uptick in kids leaving to bee homeschooled, which the district still does receive a smaller amount of funding for than students in brick-and-mortar schools. But some students moved from the homeschool program back to Nome-Beltz this year, Burgess said.
The board report was given before the deadline for kindergarten registration, which could increase enrollment yet. Student numbers are counted over a month period in the fall.

Other News
This year, 23 percent of certified teachers are from other countries. This is with the addition of five more teachers from the Philippines and one from Zambia, Assistant Superintendent and HR manager Elizabeth Korenek-Johnson said in her report.
The increased hires from outside the country reflect a difficulty of sourcing teachers from the state or even the Lower 48.
Of the 60 teaching positions available at Nome Public Schools, two are not yet filled.
Nome-Beltz is sporting a new roof over its main building after the summer construction repaired the outdated, leaking one. Burgess said it would be nice to get the roof over the gym replaced at some point but there are not yet official plans to do so.
The Alaska Native Science Engineering Program’s Acceleration Academy begins in Nome for the first time this year. Beginning in 9th grade, students can start earning credits toward a college degree. Eleven students at the high school are enrolled, four are freshman. The director Kacey Miller was appointed earlier this summer.
There have been multiple changes of leadership with the retirement of Lisa Leeper from Anvil City Science Academy and Nick Settle from Nome Elementary school. Emily Annas has been with the district and is taking over the principal position at ACSA and Michelle Carton is stepping into the role at NES. Also, former teacher Holly Harlow was promoted to assistant principal of Nome-Beltz.