Nearly 20 years after the school in Sleetmute, Alaska, asked the state for funds to repair its deteriorating building, it is now at the brink of collapse. In this small village along the Kuskokwim River, about two dozen children arrive each morning to attend class in a building that is rapidly falling apart.

For 19 consecutive years, the local school district has requested state assistance to fix the school’s leaking roof. Each time, the state has refused. Over time, rainwater seeped into the structure, causing beams to decay. As winter snow and ice accumulated on the roof, a window cracked under the pressure. Eventually, an entire wall began to buckle, leaving a large gap in the building’s exterior.

In 2021, an architect assessed the school and determined that it “should be condemned as it is unsafe for occupancy.”

The following year, Taylor Hayden, a resident who assists with school maintenance, discovered a pool of water beneath the building when he opened a hatch in the floor to address a heating issue. Years of rain and melting snow had eroded several concrete footings into rubble.

“Just like someone took a jackhammer to it,” Hayden said.

The Sleetmute school, situated in the remote wilderness of Alaska's Interior, has few alternatives. Like many rural Alaskan schools, it is state-owned, and the state is required by law to fund construction and maintenance projects.

However, over the past 25 years, state authorities have largely ignored hundreds of pleas from rural districts to address the deteriorating conditions of public schools across the state, as revealed by an investigation from KYUK and ProPublica.

In the cramped crawl space under the Sleetmute school, Taylor Hayden uncovered that the foundation had decayed. (Photo by Emily Schwing/KYUK)

Alaska’s state-owned schools face unique challenges. Local districts in the U.S. are usually responsible for the construction and upkeep of public schools, often funded through property taxes. In Alaska, however, the state owns almost half of the 128 schools in its rural districts. These areas, without a tax base, depend almost entirely on the state to finance their educational facilities.

To request repairs, school districts must apply annually, and the state compiles a priority list. Since 1998, at least 135 rural school projects have waited five years or more for funding, according to an analysis from Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development. Of these, 33 projects have been on the waiting list for over ten years.

Indigenous children, who make up the majority of students in rural districts, suffer the most due to this lack of funding. Many of these students were once forced to attend separate, often subpar, schools due to discriminatory policies.

A small atrium in the Sleetmute school is one of the few usable spaces, where students eat meals surrounded by images of the village’s Yup’ik and Athabascan elders. (Photo by Michael Grabell/ProPublica)

During recess last spring, students played soccer outside. But when temperatures plummet in winter, recess is canceled, as the gym remains closed due to the building's poor condition. (Photo by Emily Schwing/KYUK)

State Education Commissioner Deena Bishop admitted that the state’s capital improvement program isn’t functioning properly but noted that her department is limited by the decisions of state lawmakers.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, Alaska Native and speaker of the Alaska House of Representatives, also acknowledged the program’s failures.

“I think the evidence speaks for itself,” he said after visiting the Sleetmute school in October. “These bright young children show up every morning to go to school in a building that’s not fit for even anything but being ready to be demolished.”

Edgmon, who co-chaired the House Finance Committee for the past two years, admitted that lawmakers could have done more, vowing to “raise some Cain” in the Capitol. This year’s legislative session has seen extensive debate about education funding, as Alaska’s revenue from oil has decreased and the state has no income or sales tax.

As rural districts await funding, conditions at the schools continue to deteriorate, creating significant health and safety hazards for students, teachers, and staff. Last year, KYUK and ProPublica investigated schools across the state, uncovering black mold, bat guano, and raw sewage — health risks that contribute to respiratory issues, headaches, and fatigue. These conditions are especially harmful to Alaska Natives, who already face some of the highest chronic illness rates in the U.S.

In Venetie, a village located 30 miles north of the Arctic Circle, exposed electrical wiring hangs near flammable insulation. In Thorne Bay, Southeast Alaska, the school has repeatedly requested funding for fire sprinkler replacements, but nothing has been done. Meanwhile, in Newtok, a Bering Sea coastal village, the school’s pipes froze and burst, forcing students to ride a “bathroom bus” to their homes during the school year.

In Sleetmute, the situation is similarly dire. The school is infested with black mold, which coats the buckling wall in the wood shop, a closet in the gym, and a section of drywall in the ceiling above the kitchen door.

In the fall, another issue was discovered when Sheree Smith, a teacher in Sleetmute for 12 years, was forced to swat at a bat that flew through her classroom while her students quietly read. The bats roost above the gym bleachers in a utility closet, where the floor is covered in guano.

Without a gym, students miss out on community events and opportunities to connect with the outside world. The school would typically host basketball tournaments and movie nights, which help fund trips to places like Anchorage and Washington, D.C., providing once-in-a-lifetime experiences for many families. “They feel the pain of that, like just not having the extra opportunities,” said Angela Hayden, the lead teacher at the school.

Over the holiday break, the district temporarily reinforced the back end of the building with floor-to-ceiling supports to prevent the woodshop from collapsing. But this is only a stopgap measure. The roof has been leaking for as long as Hayden has been teaching there — 17 years.

“When I come in the building, especially after a lot of rain or a lot of snow,” she said, “I just think, ‘OK, what am I going to have to deal with before I can deal with my classroom?’”

Playtime in the Sleetmute school gym is infrequent. The gym, which doubles as an emergency shelter and community gathering space, has been off-limits for two years. (Photo by Emily Schwing/KYUK)

Students begin their day with the Pledge of Allegiance in Sleetmute, where the school’s leaky roof has been a problem for longer than many of the children have been alive. (Photo by Emily Schwing/KYUK)

If you have information about school conditions in Alaska, please contact Emily Schwing at emilyschwing@gmail.com.

Originally reported by Emily Schwing in Alaska Beacon.