Relocating the Newtok school is not a simple task. It's going to take many years to do, and during that time students may be living and studying in two different places as Newtok moves to its new location: Mertarvik. The new site is located on higher ground, away from tidal waters eroding the old village.
The Lower Kuskokwim School District has now included the cost of building and moving to a new school in its 6-year plan - the first step to getting the project on the state's capital spending list.
Timing is everything. Project Manager Ryan Butte says that reports indicate that in three years, the erosion in Newtok will be so bad that it may undermine teacher housing, and then the school buildings themselves.
This summer, work is expected to begin on building new houses in Mertarvik, but Butte says that the school district needs to have at least 10 students at the new location to provide educational services. Even then, it will be a portable school room.
"And it would be an extension of the Ayaprun School in Newtok," Butte said. "For these transitional years, the Newtok School will have a portable classroom some distance away."
Presently there are 127 students attending school in Newtok. The Lower Kuskokwim School District expects that the creation of a new village at Mertarvik will not take place all in one year; Butte says that there's too much to do.
"The new village site is in a new untouched site. So everything has to be developed. Water infrastructure, sewer, electricity, fuel storage, power plant generation. None of that exists."
Butte says that the school district will have to phase in the transfer of both the staff and facilities to the new village site.
"There's just nobody there yet to teach. So we're just trying to stay on board with the planning that's done so that when the community does move, LKSD will be ready to provide education."
The district is jumping over various bureaucratic hurdles to get facilities at the new village site for Newtok. Ryan Butte is planning to have a Capital Improvement Project application for the district completed by this fall.
"And then it's in the state's hands to score that application," he said, " and where it goes from there, we don't control."
The question remains whether resources can be found to move Newtok and its school before the erosion driven by warming oceans and climate change washes it away.
SaveSave