North Slope Borough School District Holds Joint Meeting With Ilisagvik College, ICAS

The North Slope Borough School District brought together Ilisagvik College and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope in a trilateral public meeting on March 5, with the joint session listed in NSBSD's BoardBook agenda and convened at 1:00 p.m. The gathering placed Qargi Academy Tribal School at the center of discussions about culturally grounded secondary education across the region.

Qargi Academy, part of the ICAS Tribal education system, serves high school students in grades 9 through 12 across all eight North Slope villages. Its program is rooted in Inupiat language and culture and primarily serves Alaska Native and Native American students and their families on the North Slope, as well as tribal members living outside the region. The school also accepts non-native students, reflecting ICAS's stated goal of building healthy and sustainable communities across the borough.

The school's design deliberately reaches students who have struggled in conventional settings. Its programming targets alternative students, those who have dropped out, disenfranchised students, unmotivated students, and homeschool students facing particular challenges. That inclusive orientation is central to the Iñupiaq Learning Model underlying the academy's approach, which draws on the principle that it takes a village to raise a child.

Culturally, the school is built around reviving the Qargi, a traditional gathering space for learning and community. The academy's model incorporates Iñupiaq elders alongside local trained success coach and teacher staff, known as Ilisaurrit, and connects students with virtual culture experts who teach Iñupiaq skills and values. Instructional methods, classroom environments, and assessments are all designed to reflect that cultural foundation.

Governance of the ICAS Education Committee, which oversees programs including Qargi Academy, follows a structure that includes one representative from each village tribe within ICAS regional boundaries, one member from Ilisagvik College, and two student non-voting members. All voting members must be ICAS citizens or members of a village tribe, serve two-year terms, and the committee is required to convene at least four times per year. The ICAS Council retains oversight authority and can intervene when committee performance falls short of established standards.

The vision for this model has deep historical roots on the North Slope. Eben Hopson Sr., the first mayor of the North Slope Borough, spoke to what was at stake in Indigenous education, noting that "possibly the greatest significance of home rule is that it enables us to regain control of the" — a passage that, even incomplete, frames the ongoing work of institutions like Qargi Academy as a continuation of that founding aspiration.