Metlakatla High School

Metlakatla High School is a small public high school in Metlakatla, Alaska, on Annette Island, serving just 98 students in grades 9–12 as part of the Annette Island School District. The school serves a predominantly low-income student body, with roughly three-quarters of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and it operates with unusually generous resources: about $37,892 spent per student and a student-teacher ratio of roughly 9-to-1, figures that far exceed surrounding schools.

Academically, the school currently ranks in the bottom 5% of Alaska high schools with a 0-star rating. In 2025–2026, only 15% of students were proficient in English Language Arts, well below the statewide rate of 32.89% and also below both Ketchikan High School (27.43%) and Revilla Junior/Senior High School (32.00%). Science proficiency was 19.05% versus 37.81% statewide, and the most recent math results, from 2022–2023, showed just 9.68% proficiency compared with 32.53% statewide. This marks a dramatic long-term decline: in 2012–2013, the school ranked in the 77th percentile of Alaska high schools with a 4-star rating, but it has slid steadily since then.

The central tension in the data is the disconnect between resources and results. Metlakatla spends nearly double the per-pupil amount of Ketchikan High School and maintains far smaller class sizes, yet its proficiency scores are the lowest or near-lowest among comparable schools. That said, graduation rates paint a more encouraging picture, ranging from 80% to a perfect 100% in recent years — stronger than Revilla Junior/Senior High School's 65.1% and closer to Ketchikan High School's 90.1%. With such a small enrollment, year-to-year swings can be dramatic, so short-term shifts should be interpreted with caution. Still, the school's sustained downward trajectory over more than a decade, combined with high spending and low academic outcomes, raises important questions about how its substantial funding is being translated into student achievement.