Training in UNK

Before starting out any school year there is training.  Some of it is for the stuff you get every year like mandatory reporter and blood born pathogens training.  Others are for super duper curriculum that will cure everything your student has problems with.  We were going to spend five days in Unalakleet for training on everything.

First we had to fly from St. Michael to the district office in Unalakleet or UNK.  In the bush, villages are often called by their airport code, example: "I am leaving SMK for UNK."  We were told to get to the school at 8 a.m.. We were told that we would be flying out at 10.  That is more of a suggested time, in reality it is possible to fly out give or take 4 hours.  On days that we are going to fly out we are asked to have our bags packed and ready to go just in case a flight is available earlier...also being prepared to wait and wait...and wait.  So our plane lands on time (rare), it is a TP tube with wings.

Beechcraft 1900

I was reading about this plane and it seems in the early 1990s Beechcraft made a model of this plane that allowed passengers to able to stand up straight.  We did not have that model.                                        

All staff plane ride

I was way too tall for the plane

We piled everything on the plane including ourselves for a brief flight to Unalakleet.  It was the most cramped trip I have ever taken on a plane. 

Upon landing in UNK we grabbed our stuff and headed to our temporary home at the high school.  We were placed in classrooms with inflatable beds.  Then we were fed lunch...all the food we could eat.  The Unalakleet High School kitchen staff outdid themselves everyday feeding over 150 teachers pretty tasty stuff.  I was trained in the districts reading curriculum.  Success for All, it is metered out to the minute and very scripted method to teach reading.  While this does not allow for much freedom of choice for the teacher (even the books we read are preselected), it does work for a school district that has huge amounts of turnover like the Bering Strait School District.  I got to explore UNK with my fellow teachers.  The weather was amazing that week.  So good in fact I realized that the school really was not built to keep cool,  its silly to buy a air conditioning unit for a place that would never need it.  The school had no AC.  It was hot.

Fireweed is blooming.  When it wilts it means fall is coming.

Wandering around town

We were going to the town store, every town you visit you have to check out the store to compare which store has a better selection.  My friend Tim is the 7th grade teacher at SMK on the left was trying to use his smart phone to navigate around town.  There are street names, which he had, but there are no street signs in towns.  We were lost. As you can see there is not really anyplace we could go, we followed the main drag (the one with a stop sign on it) and we found the store.

Unalakleet

Fish drying shack at the beach

I got the unique opportunity to fish with an administrator in UNK and my future in-laws the Martins. 

Setting off to the fishing hole

Jim, Jay, and Jim. Got a keeper.

I was successful

Silver Salmon were running and it was unbelievable how fast we were catching fish.  There was a person baiting, a person fishing, and a person netting and we were rotating as fast as we could get hooks in the water.  I now have enough fish to last a while.

All I could pack into the box I took with me

 The trouble that I was worried about before flying out was weight.  The airline that the BSSD had chartered from had complained that the teachers had packed too much stuff in.  There was a limit of 40 pounds per teacher on the way out...I was over that.  I asked the veteran teachers what I should do, they said ignore it, happens every year.  I taped up my box and put it in the pile going to St. Michael.  I watched them put it on the plane, my worries were unfounded.  Then we killed time before our flight.

Play cards, kill time

The training was helpful and I got to meet a lot of the district personnel.  I also have the freshest salmon I will ever get to enjoy.  Now if only I could cook it...

Now some random pictures.  The principal of the high school get to spend 1% of his budget on art installations, he spent his money well.  They are the Wolf Pack.

 Can't miss with the wolf motif.

The puppy is Jay's.  He is as adorable in real life as he looks in the pictures.  I forgot the name.

Bloodhound puppy

Bloodhound puppy