Our mission is to create quality educational and personal growth opportunities for rural Alaska through culturally trained educators, peer mentors and others.

Through strategic partnerships we help foster holistically healthy rural Alaskans and enable them to thrive and seize opportunities that benefit their families, communities and culture.

The Yupik word for teacher is “elitnauriste.” 

The average teacher tenure in rural Alaska is less than 1 school year, and each year, more than 100 teacher positions remain unfilled in the rural communities of Alaska. This creates significant challenges for school districts, rural villages and diminishes the quality of education for Alaskan students. There is significant need for more educators but more strategically for increased teacher retention and educators cognisant of native Alaskan history, culture and values.

At AKSP we work to meet this need through our “Elitnauriste Program” by strategically:

• Recruiting graduates and teachers from around the nation who share our values to come and teach in Alaska.
• Providing 10 months of cultural immersion training and continued education to prepare each teacher candidate for teaching in rural Alaska.
• Forming cohesive teams of teachers to be placed in villages that will significantly increase teacher retention and health.
• Providing continued resourcing & training for teaching teams in rural communities.
• Coaching our teachers to become more than resident educators. Endorsed Elitnauriste Program graduates will be able to be equipped healthy life coaches, mentors, and positive members of the community they serve.

A teacher in rural Alaska should not just be an educator but a “elitnauriste”.

The Yupik word for friend is “Yugnikekng’aq”

Peer mentorship is powerful and effective. Research indicates that rural high school students who have a friend at the university are much more likely to attend that university.  Once at the university, having a healthy friend significantly increases the likelihood of retention and more importantly success.

Through our Peer mentorship program we:

• Build partnerships with on-campus organizations to recruit college students who will be qualified to serve as healthy peer mentors and share the values of AKSP.
• Train these peer mentors to effectively mentor students from rural Alaska.
• Provide opportunities for relationships to form via school visits around the state.
• Provide accountability and opportunities for follow-up and future relational connections between the student and peer-mentor.
• Resource peer-mentors to continue peer mentorship from high school to the end of a rural student’s college experience.

*More information coming soon.