Thursday, March 13, 2025 – 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. We’ll 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. GUESTS Emily Schwing, KYUK senior reporter Jason Dropik (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), National Indian Education Association executive director   Break 1 Music: They Sing to Each Other (song) Pamyua (artist) Side A Side B (album) Break 2 Music: Old Alberta (song) Blue Moon Marquee (artist) Scream, Holler, and Howl (album)