Bering Strait School District (BSSD) is located in Northwestern Alaska and serves approximately 1700 students in grades K-12 in 15 isolated villages. All schools in the district serve students from grades K-12, and most classrooms are multi-age. Official language(s) English Capital Juneau Largest city Anchorage Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 1st 663,267 mi² / 1,717,854 km² 808 mi / 1,300 km 1,479 mi / 2,380 km 13. ...

BSSD is one of the most unique school districts in the United States for several reasons.

The district's 15 villages are spread across a roadless area of 55,000 square miles, or an area roughly the size of Minnesota and North Dakota combined. The district serves a student population that is roughly 98% Alaska Native, including the Yup'ik, Siberian Yup'ik and Inupiaq Eskimo subgroups. Travel from village-to-village is by small airplane, and the closest road connected to the outside world is about 700 air miles South of the District Office. Alaskan Natives are Aboriginal Americans who live in Alaska. ... The Yupik or, in the Central Alaskan language, Yupik, are aboriginal people who live along the coast of western Alaska, especially on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta and along the Kuskokwim River (Central Alaskan Yupik), in southern Alaska (the Alutiiq) and in the Russian Far East and St. ... Siberian Yupik (Yuit, self-naming: Yupikhyt, Yuhyt) are an indigenous people who reside along the coast of the Chukchi Peninsula in the far northeast of the Russian Federation and the St. ...

The communities in BSSD are among the most traditional Eskimo villages in the world. Native dance, and traditional crafts such as walrus ivory carving are still strong. Daily subsitence activities, such as hunting marine mammals, migratory birds and gathering of berries are the mainstay of village life. Traitional whaling is still practiced from small boats in at least four of the villages. Few cash economy jobs exist in the district's communities, and the school is most often the largest employer. Aboriginal whaling is the hunting of whales carried out by aboriginal groups who have a tradition of whaling. ...

Visitors to four of the district's schools can see Russia with the naked eye from North America. Siberia is easily visible from the Diomede School's steerable Dateliner Webcam, and the [International Dateline] is only 1.5 miles from the camera. The Russian cliffs visible from the school are 23 hours, and calendar day ahead, so viewers are looking "into tomorrow".

The famous Iditarod Sled Dog Race paces through six of the school district's communities, more than any other area of Alaska. The race is a major event in the villages, and many current and former Iditarod racers live in the District, and participate in school activities focusing on the history and cultural traditions of mushing. Image:Iditarod map. ...

Bering Strait School District is now one of 15 districts working in partnership with the Alaska Staff Development Network (ASDN), the Re-inventing Schools Coalition (RISC) , and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to enable all students to meet standards-based curriculum requirements instead of traditional subject area coverage. This makes the instructional materials available from most textbook manufacturers useful only as references, and has forced the district to innovate to produce collaboratively designed curriculum content. The Alaska Staff Development Network is a statewide non-profit organization that provides staff development activities for K-12 educators and school administrators in Alaska. ...

The district asked for, and has received, a waiver from the State of Alaska to [Carnegie Unit] credit requirements for graduation, and done away with grade level groupings. Students progress through a mastery-based series of standards levels in ten content areas rather than traditional subjects in order to graduate.

BSSD recently launched a MediaWiki-based curriculum content project OpenContent Initiative. The BSSD wiki system is one of only a few in the United States open to collaborative curriculum development for all teachers, students, and district administrators. Outside visitors, and other educators are allowed - even encouraged - to help the district improve and reform its standards and curriculum resources. The wiki content is then evaluated by curriculum committees on an annual basis to make changes to the official documents used daily.

BSSD plans on extending this into a WikiBook project this year, much like the South African National Curriculum project, and is leading an effort of public school districts in Alaska to collaborate over distance using wiki technology.

All district schools are receiving basic training on how to involve students in adding content to Wikipedia as a meaningful part of classroom instructional activities, not just consuming the contributions of others. This focus on Place-Based Education is one of the priorities of the district's leadership.

External Links

• Home page
• BSSD OpenContent Initiative
• BSSD iCommunity