Galena Interior Learning Academy (GILA)

Galena Interior Learning Academy (GILA) is a small rural high school in Galena, Alaska, serving 185 students in grades 9–12 as part of the Galena City School District. Like many schools in the region, GILA serves a highly economically disadvantaged community — between 87.6% and 95.2% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in recent years. Academically, the school currently sits near the very bottom of Alaska's statewide rankings: for 2025–2026, GILA ranked 61st out of 62 Alaska high schools, placing it in the 2nd percentile with zero stars.

State test results show significant challenges. In 2025–2026, just 11.1% of GILA students were proficient in English Language Arts, far below the 44.2% district average and 32.9% statewide. Science proficiency was similarly low at 13.6%, compared to 47.0% district-wide and 37.8% statewide. The nearby Sidney C. Huntington Junior/Senior High School, a much smaller school with 42 students in grades 7–12 and a student-teacher ratio of just 4.3 (versus GILA's 13.2), outperformed GILA on both subjects, with 23.8% ELA proficiency and 20.0% science proficiency. While Sidney also falls short of state averages, its better results under similar economic conditions suggest that concentrated poverty alone doesn't explain GILA's outcomes.

The clearest bright spot is graduation. GILA reported a 100% graduation rate in 2024–2025 and has consistently topped the district average — 84.2% in 2023–2024, 86.2% in 2022–2023, and 95.8% in 2021–2022. This creates a striking puzzle: students are finishing high school at high rates despite very low proficiency on state tests, suggesting that graduation requirements and tested academic skills may not be closely aligned. GILA wasn't always at the bottom — it ranked in the middle range of Alaska high schools in the early 2010s — but it has remained in the lowest 10% since 2016–2017. One especially serious finding for 2025–2026 was the school ranking last in the state (46th of 46) for female student performance, an indicator that the school's programming is not producing proficiency outcomes comparable to other Alaska schools for this group.