State budget sends $24.3 million to fix up Mt. Edgecumbe's aging Sitka campus

Alaska's capital budget, signed into law in June, sends $24.3 million to Mt. Edgecumbe High School, the state-run boarding school in Sitka, to fix up a campus where student housing includes former World War II military barracks.

The biggest piece, $10.2 million, goes to renovating the dining hall and kitchen. The budget also lists $5.2 million for student housing upgrades, $5.1 million for a new exterior on the main academic building and $3.1 million for dorm windows. Then come three smaller items: $468,000 for dorm furniture, $125,000 for laundry machines and $50,000 for mattresses.

The money aimed "to try to get that facility in, in a more livable condition for the kids," said Sen. Bert Stedman, whose district includes Sitka and who led the capital budget, at an April press conference. Building work would take time, he said, but "the furniture and washing machines and things like that are a lot quicker to install."

A student survey with 186 responses, posted for a committee reviewing the school, raised some of the same concerns: dorm maintenance, including laundry equipment and showers, and food quality.

In a June report to the State Board of Education, Superintendent David Langford wrote that the school was preparing for an additional $14 million, the amount in the Senate's version of the budget. The House added $10.3 million, a House member said on the floor May 13, and the Senate agreed to the larger budget May 20.

Langford wrote that the academic campus was built in 1987 and that, "like many public campuses across Alaska, deferred maintenance has created challenges." About $15 million went into critical infrastructure over the past eight years, he wrote.

The school, which draws students from across rural Alaska, had 388 students as of October 2025, down from 422 in fiscal year 2024, according to a state board report.

A state review of the school ended this month with 22 recommendations to the board, from consistent dorm rules to a written protocol for calling parents, Alaska News reported Oct. 16.