By Jasz Garrett

Sitka, Alaska (KINY) – In a special meeting held on Jan. 20, the Sitka School District (SSD) School Board met to review the application materials for the open position of Superintendent of Sitka School District. Before the meeting, the Association of Alaska School Boards, contracted by the school board to facilitate the search for a new superintendent, conducted background checks of the nine applicants for the position of SSD Superintendent.
The Sitka School Board announced that only one candidate was moved forward to the finalist round.
Of the nine applicants, Dr. Deidre Jenson was determined to be the most qualified and well-suited for the position.
Dr. Jenson came to SSD at the end of the 2022 – 2023 school year after several years serving as the interim superintendent, school principal, and director of state and federal programs for the Southeast Island School District, and time as a principal, classroom teachers, special education teacher, and school counseling grant project director in Deering, Wrangell, and Kenai.
In addition to her extensive experience in Alaska public schools as both a teacher and administrator, Dr. Jenson holds a Doctor of Education (Ed.D) from Gonzaga University where she studied educational leadership and wrote her capstone on “Surviving, Living, and Thriving in Two Worlds: The Inupiaq Culture and the Western Education System.”
“When I did my doctoral, there was an element of cultural integration that fits very well for Sitka with that experience. I think small communities or small towns is different than working in very large systems. And that’s primarily where I’ve lived is in small rural communities,” Dr. Jenson said. “I think that it has more of a family feel and requires more collaboration. And so I think that that experience just knowing how that operates, I think will also help.”
During her time in Sitka and with the Sitka School District, Dr. Jenson has shown herself to be an excellent assistant superintendent who stepped into the role of superintendent for more than a month this past fall when the current SSD Interim Superintendent, Steve Bradshaw, was away on medical leave.
The School Board hopes to host many community outreach and engagement events with Dr. Jenson in the coming weeks and months so that the community has the opportunity to continue to get to know her and to provide her with input on what is needed for Sitka students.
Dr. Jenson shared her goals as Sitka’s Superintendent.
“We want to continue to work on the collaboration efforts within our district as well as our partners within the community. This spring, we have budget concerns and issues. I think there’s an element of the culture aspect and cultural integration that we have as a goal,” she said. “We’ve been trying to revitalize our strategic goals and really kind of focus on them because they’re quite broad. So, we’re trying to narrow down exactly what that is. Those collaborative efforts will continue. Our goals are set by the board, but with some communication with a lot of the stakeholders.”
She also gave details on what Sitka’s budget concerns are.
“We’re all lobbying for some increase with the BSA. We’re not alone in this one. There hasn’t really been an increase in the BSA, the base student allocation,” she said. “We have a lot of things that we need to do with increased mandates, especially with the AK Reads Act. It just requires some more help. And cost of living and we need to have some funds to support the mandates that we need to meet to meet our student’s needs.”