Mt. Edgecumbe High School (Sitka, AK)

Dates:

Establishment 1947

History notes:

Mt. Edgecumbe High School (MEHS) is a public boarding high school in Sitka, Alaska in the United States. Established in 1947 after the military abandoned the area, the school was originally operated by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) as part of a network of boarding high schools, which included schools in Eklutna and Wrangell. After several decades of operation by the BIA, the school was briefly closed in the 1980s before being reopened by the Alaska Department of Education, which operates it today. The student body, both in its former and current incarnations, is predominately from rural Alaska. For a time, until the resolution of the Tobeluk v. Lind lawsuit and the subsequent construction of K–12 schools in most rural communities, MEHS was one of the few viable options many rural students had to obtain a high school education, as BIA schools in rural villages only provided schooling until the eighth grade. Today, the school still attracts rural residents, primarily students from communities too small to qualify for state school funding, plus exceptional athletes who seek to develop their skills beyond what competition their local school districts can provide. The school is named for Mount Edgecumbe which is located on Kruzof Island, a 3,077 feet (938 m) high dormant volcano visible from the campus. The mountain, in turn, was named for George, Earl of Edgecumbe, by British Captain James Cook in 1778.