The reported proficiency rate for Science is 7%.
Original Research by School Decision on Paul T. Albert Memorial School
Paul T. Albert Memorial School sits in Tununak, a traditional Yup'ik village on Nelson Island in far western Alaska, within the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge. The school serves every grade from pre-kindergarten through twelfth, making it the kind of place where a child can spend an entire academic life under one roof. The enrollment is small, with only a handful of students in each grade, and the high school grades are especially thin. Every student identified in the demographic data is Alaska Native. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which reflects the broader economic conditions of a remote subsistence community rather than any individual family circumstance.
The village itself is deeply tied to fishing and a subsistence way of life. Boats, snowmobiles, and ATVs are the primary means of local travel. There is no road connection to the outside world. Passengers, mail, and cargo arrive by air via a state-owned gravel airstrip, and barges deliver goods a few times each summer. The community relies on a washeteria for laundry and bathing, and some homes use a flush-and-haul system while others haul water from shared watering points. The sale and importation of alcohol is banned. Employment centers on the school district itself, the village corporation, local stores, commercial fishing, and the clinic operated by the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation. Tununak was briefly incorporated as a city but returned to traditional council governance. Population growth has been slow across the decades. A parent considering this school should understand that the setting is one of the most isolated in the United States, and daily life is shaped by that isolation in ways both practical and cultural.
Academically, the state testing picture is sobering. On the AK STAR assessment in math, the school's proficiency rate fell in the lowest reporting band, with no students reaching proficiency among those tested across grades three through eight. English language arts results were suppressed by the state, so they cannot be reported here. Science performance on the Alaska Science Assessment was similarly low, with only a single tested student demonstrating proficiency. Participation was full, which means these results reflect the actual student body rather than a testing gap. Average scale scores were not available for any subject. There is no multi-year trend data to show whether performance is improving or declining over time. No graduation rate was provided, and the data set did not include advanced coursework, career pathways, dual-credit options, or any program-level detail beyond what the district describes broadly.
The Lower Kuskokwim School District, which operates the school, has adopted a Dual Language instructional model integrating Yup'ik and English instruction, now in place across many of the district's schools. The district states its mission as providing bilingual, culturally appropriate education for its predominantly Alaska Native students. This is the clearest pedagogical signal a parent receives about what happens inside classrooms here, and it reflects a deliberate effort to ground schooling in local language and culture rather than importing a generic curriculum.
Data on special education, English learner status, staffing, attendance, discipline, and course access was not available for this school. Housing values and rents were not reported, which is typical for communities without a conventional real estate market. There was no neighbor comparison set, so the school cannot be positioned against nearby districts in the usual way. A parent reading these results would want to speak directly with the school about how instruction works day to day, what supports exist for students performing below grade level, and what the high school experience looks like given the very small upper-grade enrollment. The academic numbers are weak by any standard measure, but they come from an extremely small testing pool in one of the most remote communities in the country, and that context matters when interpreting what they mean for an individual child.
See more original research from School Decision →