David O’Neill appointed to school board seat C

The Nome school board met Tuesday, May 19 for a special meeting to appoint a board member to Nancy Mendenhall’s seat. Mendenhall is leaving the board after 11 years due to personal family matters. Two candidates – Vincent Villella and David O’Neill – were up for consideration. The board ultimately voted for O’Neill, who will serve on seat C until the October municipal election. O’Neill will be sworn in at the June 9 regular school board meeting.
In an interview with the Nugget, O’Neill said he wants to be involved in the community, expand what’s good and work to improve Nome Public Schools. “I have a huge passion for education,” he said. “I think education is like the most powerful currency that we can have in this world.”
O’Neill said that one of his priorities is helping the curriculum at NPS evolve to be more meaningful, impactful and practical. He wants to ground core subjects – English, science, math and social science – in Nome. “Doing things that are practical but also teaching those core subjects and making them pertain to the world that our students in Nome are experiencing and existing in,” he said
O’Neill also wants to work on improving student attendance and teacher retention. “When you get buy-in from teachers, you get buy-in from students, you get buy-in from parents,” he said.
O’Neill plans to stick around and re-run for the seat when it’s up for election in the fall. “I’m excited to kind of dig my feet in, get to work and understand it more and more,” he said.
O’Neill moved to Nome in 2020 after his fiancé got a job here. “I told her at the time, two years is what she got from me,” he said. “That was six years ago.”
O’Neill was born in California and taught social studies there and in Arizona. He has a master’s degree in teaching. He worked briefly at Nome Elementary School as a behavior specialist and now works as the property manager for corporate housing at the Norton Sound Health Corporation.
At their regular meeting on May 12, the board approved several action items.
All board policies were approved on first reading except for a policy that lays out high school graduation requirements. The item was pulled to discuss the potential for adding a cultural class requirement. The policies will go up for second reading and approval at the June 9 board meeting.
The five-year strategic plan was approved, and an action plan will be prepared by the administrative team during the first week of June. The Portrait of a Graduate was approved, and additional work on the measurements and parent engagement section will happen in FY27. The final FY27 budget revision, adjusted to reflect the $3 million appropriation from the City of Nome, was approved. The Nome Elementary School and Nome-Beltz Middle High School student handbooks were approved. Anvil City Science Academy asked to revise the section on leave to include subsistence leave.
The next regular meeting of the school board is scheduled for Tuesday, June 9.