Candidate profile: David Noon, school board incumbent

Juneau Board of Education candidate David Noon on Sept. 4, 2026. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Independent)

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau Independent

Voters will elect two Juneau Board of Education members for three-year terms.

Age: 56

Occupation: University of Alaska Southeast history professor

Number of students in the Juneau School District: One student at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé, one recent graduate from Thunder Mountain High School

Length of residency in Juneau: 24 years

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is your background? Tell voters about yourself.

“It’s been an extremely educational three years. I have learned a lot about school finance. I've learned a lot about budgeting that I would not have expected three years ago.”

“As I keep emphasizing, the learning curve is incredibly steep for board members coming on in their first term…a firehose of information, policy, budgeting — and just learning how to conduct yourself as a public official with board members, all of whom bring different sets of experiences, skills and dispositions. So it is a very time-consuming task, and it spills over into every other aspect of one's life. So it's not surprising that a lot of board members come in for one term and then scram.”

“I did not intend to do that from the very start. When I ran in 2023, I was — internally at least — committing to at least two terms, if I were re-elected, possibly more. Board continuity, as I keep emphasizing, is really important.” 

Q: Why is board continuity important? 

“I think that board continuity is important because it preserves institutional memory; it means that every time you go into a new budget cycle, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, to use a cliché. Board members who have been through these things before and have been through them together can draw on each other’s experiences, and it really does save time.”

Q: You’ve said it was a difficult decision to run again — what went into your decision-making process to remain committed? What in the past three years made it difficult to consider?

“I think it was my second or third board meeting (when) we got the full scope of how horrific the deficit was for FY23. That entire year trying to resolve that deficit, trying to cut spending immediately, trying to put together a budget that saved money moving forward, and that ultimately led to the closure of both middle schools, the consolidation at Thunder Mountain (Middle School), and the consolidation at JD(HS). That was an absolutely soul-devouring process…It was the most difficult thing that I've ever been involved with.”

“That being said, I did learn quite a bit. I learned a lot about school finance that year. I learned a lot about how budgets are put together. I learned a lot about how people in this community are attached in ways that are very positive and in some ways that are less positive to their schools. We received a lot of criticism. Everybody on the board, no matter what position they took on consolidation — we all got some pretty ferocious public feedback. It all came from a place that we could understand. They were concerned about the future of their kids’ education. They were concerned about the integrity of the school district.” 

“In every possible way that was a heavy burden on the community, we felt that as well. We also had prolonged threats from the Dunleavy administration — from the (Alaska) Department of Education — to change the way that out-of-cap contributions from municipalities were defined. This raised the possibility that we would have to, as a district, cover from our own operating funds what was usually funded by the city. That loomed over us for two years.” 

Q: Were there other stressors other than financial? 

“We hired a new superintendent, which was an exhausting process. It was successful. I think it turned out extremely well. But nevertheless, that's another component of boardsmanship that is not easy to learn. I had the advantage of coming from an academic background where I've been involved in dozens and dozens of administrative searches and faculty searches over the years, so I knew at a fundamental level how to do all that…But even so, there are aspects to hiring a district superintendent that aren't replicated in a university. And then on top of it all, we had a new strategic plan that we were working on.”

Q: How will the strategic plan be measured for its success?

“The verbiage, the mission, the values, the priorities — that was all approved by the board in May. Now we're finalizing the metrics…So for example, what are we going to target in terms of attendance rates over the next five years? What are we going to target in terms of student activity participation over the next five years? What are the goals that we have for our financial officer over the next five years? Because one of our priorities is fiscal and operational integrity.”

“There's been a lot going on, and it's all been incredibly enlightening, time-consuming — sometimes very frustrating — but it's meaningful, and that's ultimately why I'm running again, because I think it's meaningful work.”

Q: Why is the work meaningful to you? 

“There's an enormous public trust that's placed in people who are on the school board. We've got tens of millions of dollars in public money that we are expected to allocate responsibly. We are responsible for establishing and maintaining the policies that shape how people learn and work in the district. We have a responsibility to all the families who entrust the district with their kids every day. When we have successful outcomes, it's really meaningful…It just feels good to be involved in work that helps to give Juneau's kids a successful education.”

Q: How do you think trust has been eroded in the past few years? If you're re-elected, what actions would you take to restore it?

“You’ve got this underlying condition in which state funding has been inadequate. It has not kept pace with inflation. So, teachers have more students, they are compensated less well for their work, their health benefits have eroded, new teachers don't have the same kinds of retirement options that older teachers do. So there's a lot of structural stressors in K-12 education right now that the school board itself can't necessarily do anything about, and the district administration can't necessarily do anything about.”

“But if, on top of that, people feel like their district leaders or their school board is not effectively communicating and effectively soliciting input in meaningful ways, then that adds to this feeling that it's not just a problem of inadequate state funding — this is a problem of leadership that doesn't respect us … So, I think from our vantage point as a board, with new district leadership  this is an opportunity to reset a lot of the patterns of communication and the day-to-day experiences that people face.”

“District administrators and school board members can, at the very least, celebrate and acknowledge the work that is often being done. And I think a lot of longtime teachers have left over the last few years because they just felt like their work was not valued.”

Q: If anything, what would you say the board could do differently going into the next contract negotiation cycle — especially in terms of communication and making sure teachers feel appreciated?

“The board and the district are really constrained in terms of what we can communicate publicly. Most of the conversations that we have as a board surrounding collective bargaining are held in executive session because they pertain to district finances.”

“One of the criteria for going into an executive session is that you’re talking about something that can have a dramatic impact on the district's finances. So a lot of our conversations with district administration are cloistered and we're not supposed to share information. We can't communicate as a board directly with the bargaining units. That all takes place in negotiations, which are also supposed to be confidential… In terms of the contract negotiations, there's not a whole lot we can do in terms of changing communication.”

Q: Is there something the board could do differently fiscally when it comes to a collective bargaining agreement? 

“If I'm on the board when we go into contract negotiations, I go into it with an understanding that 90% of our budget is personnel, and the vast majority of that 90% is devoted to direct classroom instruction. It's paying the salaries and benefits of teachers, paras, support staff, and so forth. I believe in the labor theory of value: that the people who do the work deserve the vast proportion of the benefits of doing that work.”

“This is not a profit-making institution, but our teachers and our staff deserve more than we have been able to give them. They deserve more than the state is allowing us to give them. And within the boundaries of what's reasonable, we want the most compensation for our teachers. The tradeoff is always, ‘What is the impact on education?’”

“If we are simultaneously trying to give more compensation while trying to hold the line on classroom sizes, that's a balancing act. It's not responsible to our students and their families, nor is it responsible to the teachers to create a situation where class sizes are unsustainable.”

“That's just the fundamental principle going in. I believe that everybody deserves more than they're being paid, and our kids deserve smaller class sizes than they are forced to inhabit.”

Q: What is your stance on mental health support for students? Do you see areas for improvement?

“The generic answer is always that mental health supports can be better and can be more comprehensive, that interventions can occur earlier, that training for staff and teachers can be more focused on mental health. As with all systems there's always room for improvement. I do think that over time, especially in the wake of the pandemic, supports for student well-being have been improving.”

“Not to tie this back to the strategic plan, but that’s one of the metrics that we’re going to implement. A priority for the district is to come up with a comprehensive wellness plan. We have lots of different ways that our schools address student wellness, which includes everything from physical education, mental health supports, and relationship and sex education.”

“We have lots of things that accomplish that goal, but we want to have a comprehensive plan for student wellness at all levels.”

“These are not priorities that we established in order of importance, but student well-being is the first priority that we have listed; academic achievement is the second, and those things are closely related.”

“This is a point at which the district has responsibilities that can only be met in cooperation with outside agencies. What happened with those two students is something that doesn't just impact students in that building; it impacts the teachers, of course, it impacts the families, and it just kind of ripples outward. So this is one of the areas where the district needs to have strong partnerships with mental health agencies and social service providers.”

Q: What sets you apart from the other candidates?

“I don't think that there's anything that really sets Britteny and me apart from one another. There's two seats, we've both been doing this for three years; we're both, as I said, pretty knowledgeable about board responsibilities, budgetary stuff, and policies. I think that experience is important and qualifying.”

“I don't think that the other candidate (Christine Johnson) is unqualified to serve as a board member, but experience in this position is something that I would hope voters would consider very seriously.”

“Christine is really emphasizing school safety, which is an uncontroversially foundational part of what we do. I'm concerned that she may believe, or that people may hear from her, the suggestion that our schools are unsafe, and that is not true.”

“In the three years that I've been on the board, and in the last 10 years, the district has adopted a pretty comprehensive array of safety procedures, protocols, and systems to keep our schools safe.”

“This includes everything from expanding MANDT training, which is about conflict de-escalation, which has now been extended to most of our support staff in the JESS union. It's also been extended to building administration. Building leaders have been trained in this, and we now have a large cluster of people in the district who can serve as MANDT trainers for others.”

“We have new safety procedures regarding pupil transportation. The bus drivers for First Student have a particular kind of training that was required in the last couple of years. We have new systems for monitoring access and controlling access to our school buildings. We have a threat assessment team that got put into place that represents one of several collaborative relationships that the district has with JPD — with the (Juneau) Assembly — with other service organizations in the community that can help district teachers and administrators evaluate student behavior and deal with it before it becomes a problem.

“We have, generally speaking, very safe environments for our students and our teachers. There are always improvements that can be made and the board, in its deliberations over the three years that I've been on the board, has always prioritized student safety.”

Q: Has there been an elevated concern around school safety after the incident at the Dzantik'i Heeni campus (where a former principal tackled a student) or other recent incidents involving students?

“Let's put it this way: we’ve got these systems. We've got these procedures. We've got these protocols. Those are all great, and they're very important, but they have to be constantly maintained. So you have to constantly refresh training. People who have been trained have to follow the procedures. If the procedures break down because of human error, it's not the fault of the procedures; it's the fault of the humans. People are fallible. People who have been very well trained in conflict de-escalation can act in ways that are absolutely contradictory to that training, and that can be disastrous.”

Q: What board support is needed for special education in JSD?

“In terms of board priorities, special education is in the top tier, along with student safety, along with academic achievement for all students. And we have a profound legal obligation to our students with special needs. The services that we deliver are legally mandated. And we've got a number of people on the board who have been there for a long time and have made their commitments to special education obvious. We talk about it a lot. Some of the budgeting and the staffing is done very differently than how we fund our general education classrooms…When needs arise, we do our best to make sure that they are met.”

Q: What else do you really want to see through?

“I think that we've got new district cabinet leadership. Many of them have many years of experience in K-12 education. They are far more expert in their areas than any of us on the board are. So at the same time, we want to learn from them, but we also want to make sure that those folks can do the most effective job that they can. So as a board member, and other board members share this value…We don't want to place unreasonable expectations and demands on people who are serving in these jobs for the first time. They've got a lot of experience in K-12 education, but many of them have not served previously in this position or that position. So even though we are not there to train them or to cultivate their professional development, we are there to support them.”

“And I feel as a board member that it's really important to be involved in supporting our new HR director, our new teaching and learning director, and so forth — our new special ed and student services. We have a brand-new position: the assistant superintendent. As a board member, I want to help make their transition into those leadership positions successful.”

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.