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Bernina Venua appointed to board of Dillingham City School District

KDLG

The school board of the Dillingham City School District interviewed and appointed Bernina Venua to the school board at their Monday meeting.

Bernina Venua was appointed unanimously to the Dillingham City School District school board at Monday's meeting. She will fill Tonya O’Connor’s vacated seat until October. O’Connor gave up her seat on the board when she took on the new role of magistrate judge and clerk at the Dillingham Court.

The board interviewed both Venua and the other candidate, Aksel Buholm, at the meeting and appointed Venua, who served as school board president in 2014.

"I was really interested in education, and I worked with youth. I thought that it was really important to show the youth that education is important and that there are people around the community that care about them," said Venua, explaining her interest in serving on the board in 2014 and for reapplying now. "Because of my recent experience, I feel like I have a good handle on the issues that the schools face and how to navigate through this really intense process of budgets and end of school kind of festivities."

As she joins the team, she says one goal she hopes the board will work toward is reducing turnover of teachers and administration.

"I think some issues are sustaining teachers. I think we have constant turnovers, and it seems to go cycles from when I was in high school to what seems like will be happening next year. I think that that’s important, having steady teachers, steady admin team."

Venua is an economic development and brokerage coordinator at the Bristol Bay Economic Development Coorporation. Her term on the school board will run through the next City of Dillingham general election on October 3.

Contact the author at avery@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.