**Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Dillingham City Hall on election day. Early absentee voting is available now at City Hall from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday until Oct. 6.**
On the City of Dillingham’s ballot, three seats are open for the Dillingham City School District School Board.
Incumbent Heather Savo is running uncontested for one of those seats, and, as she tells KDLG, student literacy, staff retention, and balancing the budget are at the top of her priority list for next term if elected.
Savo: My name is Heather Savo. I am running for the school board here in Dillingham, and I work at Nushagak Electric as a senior accountant.
Sutherland: And you are currently the president of the school board. How long have you been in that role, and how long have you been on the school board?
Savo: So I've been on the school board for six years. I have been the chair for two, and then I was the vice chair two years before that.
Sutherland: And aside from your work on the school board, do you have any other previous government experience, community involvement, or involvement at the school?
Savo: Yeah, I served on a DPAC (Dillingham Parent Advisory Committee) committee for, I don't even know, like 10 years, because I did it simultaneously for a while also. I was on DPAC and the school board for maybe three years, and then I kind of was like “It’s time to step back,’ especially when I took on the chair position. It's a lot more work.
Sutherland: Why are you running for re-election for the Dillingham City School Board?
Savo: I know that turnover impacts our kids at all levels. It impacts our kids when admin or teachers and people don't realize it also affects our kids when school board changes happen. Every level affects our kids. And when I signed up, you know, I wanted to do it for not just my kids, but for my community. And I want to continue to do it as long as I have the time, and it's what's right for kids.
We also have some big things happening, you know, with an interim superintendent and trying to find a new one to fill the position. All of these things, it's hard to do that with little experience on the board, I think, because everything's a process. And I think that having some experience of being through this process before will be helpful to the members coming on and the members that we have on there that are from before, you know, it's a process that no one's really been through. So I want to be helpful and hopefully getting someone that's right for our community.
Sutherland: What things in the district are you passionate about that motivate you to continue sitting on the board?
Savo: Probably the biggest thing that's been on my plate, especially, is when the Reading Act came through and we had half of classrooms that were not proficient in reading, and we've started to move in a direction where our kids are getting proficient in reading, and then we can start working in other areas. But I have a child that struggles with reading, and so seeing her progress and all the other students that we've watched in the last few years, excel and start to grow, it has been like close to my heart, and what I want to see our kids do, because I think once they get that, they can do anything. If you can read, you can do anything. And so that's probably the biggest thing that I want to make sure our momentum doesn't take a step back, is making sure that the reading progresses.
Sutherland: What issues would you like to address this term if reelected?
Savo: I feel like it's kind of, with the school, it's money. Like the budget and the money and positions and figuring out, you know, we have so little money to operate the school, and what we can do for our kids with the money that we get, and figuring out what's best there. And I want to say that's always at the forefront of pretty much everything. So I would say that's probably number one, you know.
And other things are just trying to keep staff, retain, and figure out, you know, why teachers are leaving. Or why staff in general are leaving, and what we can do to make a difference.
Sutherland: In going back to the first topic you discussed, money this past year, districts across the state were tasked with balancing the budget amidst uncertain state and federal funding. Many of those conversations of balancing the budget with new funding in the picture and amidst continued uncertainty are happening this year. How do you plan to approach the budget for this coming year?
Savo: Well, we have a budget finance committee that does a lot of that legwork, and getting with admin and staff and really grinding out what the best ways to help students and staff to keep what we can. That's, you know, that's just where it comes from, is the Finance Committee coming in with their recommendation, and us looking that over, you know, and working from there. And this year was nice, they had a priority list that if we got money, could we do this? Could we do that? It hasn't really panned out that way, just because of some other things that have come up. Even though we did get the state funding, it still does some grants and other things that fell through in the background. So I feel like it's always a ball that's being juggled.
Sutherland: And then, as far as staff retention goes, do you have ideas on how to approach the issue of staff retention in the district?
Savo: We revamped, last spring, the exit interviews so that we could try to get a better grasp on why people were leaving. And we went over those at the last meeting, and most were pretty positive. A lot of things had to do with, like, you know, ‘my family's not here, so I'm leaving’ or whatever. Like, there weren't a lot of things that we could do to fix it. But just knowing the areas that were struggling in, like, housing was always a big one, and I feel like we really tackled that this year with being able to have the apartment building available to teachers, and it, you know, we can accept pets and things that other landlords in the community don't. So we're always trying to take steps to figure those things out. And I think this was a big step was, you know, finding out what the issues were to begin with, and then going from there to tackle them, if we could.
Sutherland: Is there anything else you would like voters to know about you going into the election?
Savo: I guess just that I was pretty much raised in the community. I've raised all my kids here, and it's an honor to be able to serve the community to the best of my ability.
