City raises community risk level to high<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\nLooking forward<\/p>\n
Siddon said that she sees recovering from the academic losses that students have suffered as a result of the pandemic as a critical issue facing the school.<\/p>\n
“Recovery from the academic losses and supporting the social and emotional needs of the students and rebuilding after COVID is a high priority,” she said.<\/p>\n
Siddon said that a desire to get students back into school five days a week is the one piece of feedback she “hears almost unanimously.”<\/p>\n
“We are all coming from a place to get kids back into school,” she said. She cited suggestions from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, urging the return to in-person school.<\/p>\n
“We are all coming from a place to get kids back into school,” she said.<\/p>\n
Facing challenges<\/p>\n
Siddon said that one of the most significant areas of need is reading instruction.<\/p>\n
“One of the biggest areas of need is reading. The test scores have shown it as an area of need for some time,” she said. “One of the things we can do is put money into the areas where we want to see change.”<\/p>\n
To that end, Siddon said the district had funded new positions for reading specialists at the elementary level and formed a task force to focus on reading.<\/p>\n
She said that these efforts had made her “cautiously optimistic.”<\/p>\n
Background<\/p>\n
In school, Siddon enjoyed science classes.<\/p>\n
“I have some pretty clear memories of high school chemistry class,” she said.<\/p>\n
She is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in marine and freshwater biology.<\/p>\n
She’s served as an aquanaut living and working underwater in the Aquarius Undersea Laboratory — an experience she has shared with local students as part of her commitment to outreach.<\/p>\n
Conducting underwater research at the Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine proved to be a pivotal moment for her.<\/p>\n
“That changed my life,” she said, adding that the experience ultimately led her to Alaska, where she enrolled at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and earned a master’s and a doctorate in fisheries. She completed her degrees at the Lena Point facility and has done extensive diving around Juneau.<\/p>\n
She works in the fisheries division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a research fisheries biologist. She studies the Bering Sea ecosystem.<\/p>\n
Siddon is married and is a committed runner.<\/p>\n
“I’ve logged a lot of miles of Perseverance Trail and on Pioneer Road,” she said. She was a figure skater as a child and still enjoys playing hockey. Her family enjoys dining at the Island Pub, Saffron and Coppa.<\/p>\n
About the election<\/p>\n
Siddon is running against five newcomers for one of three open seats. Other candidates include Wiljordon V. Sangster, Aaron Spratt, Thomas Buzärd, Amber Frommherz and Ibn Bailey.<\/p>\n
The election will take place on Oct. 5 and will be conducted primarily by mail. <\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Dana Zigmund at dana.zigmund@juneauempire.com or 907-308-4891.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three open seats attract six candidates <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":716,"featured_media":73475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[765,75,223],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-73474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-city-and-borough-of-juneau","tag-local-news","tag-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/716"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73474"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=73474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}