BSSD Arts

The Bering Strait School District is located in northwest Alaska in an area encompassing roughly 77,000 square miles and 15 communities surrounding Norton Sound and the Bering Sea. It serves about 1800 students from Kindergarten to 12th grade.

While each of the 15 communities in BSSD are isolated and remote, knowledge and respect for living off of the land, creativity, ingenuity, perseverance, and collaboration, are what have made the Inupiat, Central Yup’ik, and St. Lawrence Island Yup’ik people successful survivors of the harsh Arctic climate for thousands of years. Along with a deep knowledge of subsistence, our students have grown up in a culture revered for its artistry in skin-sewing, beading, traditional tool-making (ulu, harpoon, qayaq), ivory, whalebone, and driftwood carving, as well as its rich history of traditional dancing and drumming.

BSSD has a commitment to providing meaningful and engaging education to its students, and supports bilingual/bicultural instruction in each school as well as arts instruction, striving to integrate cultural and arts activities into the academic curriculum to make education relevant for students.