Education Archives - Page 56 of 77

Marysville students return to school

Watch the slideshow here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marysvilleglobe/9713212416/

MARYSVILLE — No matter how many years of first days of school students, parents and teachers have experienced before, it can still be an adjustment, as families found at both Marysville Middle School and Liberty Elementary this year.“It’s all new stuff,” laughed Angela Courier, as she and her husband Richard got their daughter Kailye checked into sixth grade at Marysville Middle School on Wednesday, Sept. 4. “It’s completely different from elementary school. There’s all different school supplies. You need to make sure you’ve got your information together beforehand.”While fellow moms such as Meridith Rosevelt reviewed their own children’s paperwork in the packed main office of Marysville Middle School, Rosemarie Running Water of Tulalip filled out forms to transfer her daughter, Maeliha Matta, to Totem Middle School to be with her friends.

For at least two families at Liberty Elementary, barely more than a block west of Marysville Middle School, this year marked a particularly unique transition.

Art Noriel Castillo entered fifth grade at Liberty Elementary this year, but his father, Arturo Castillo, had to show up early to complete all his paperwork since they just recently moved to the area from Saipan.

“We came here because the schools here are very good,” said Arturo Castillo, as Art Noriel Castillo deemed math his favorite subject.

Monika Little has taught second grade at Liberty Elementary for 19 years, while her husband Richard has taught fourth- and fifth-grade classes at Liberty for 16 years, but this year marked their daughter Maya’s entry into first grade at the school.

“This school already has such a community feel for us,” Monika Little said. “The only difference now is, at various school functions, we’ll be doing double-duty as parents and teachers.”

“We’ve really embraced the culture of this school,” Richard Little said. “What better way to do so than to bring our daughter here?”

Maya Little confidently asserted that she had “no worries” about starting first grade, and like Art Noriel Castillo, she looked forward to studying math in class.

Since the first day of school was the same day for elementary schools and middle schools in Marysville this year, Tammy Hildebrand had already dropped off one child at middle school that morning before introducing her daughter to her second-grade teacher and her son to his fifth-grade teacher at Liberty Elementary barely an hour later.

“I’ve had lots of coffee today,” Hildebrand laughed.

“I still get excited jitters on the first day of school, and I’ve been through 10 principals here,” laughed Karen Wright, a third-grade teacher who’s been at Liberty Elementary since 1984. “I was one of the younger teachers here when I started out, and I stayed here because I love this school and I love our families. I’ve got second-generation students now, whose parents were children in my class, and they’ve heard all the stories. Even the high school kids will come back and remember the places where they sat in my room.”

While third-graders don’t have nearly the amount of nervousness that younger kids do about the first day, Wright still needs to guide them back into the groove of studying, as they’re united with friends they might not have seen all summer long. Wright herself spent her summer studying the Common Core State Standards and acquiring new texts for her students.

“The curriculum has gotten more challenging over the years, and the expectations of state testing are more demanding now, but the kids are basically the same as they’ve always been,” said Wright, who praised the support of her fellow teachers and school staff members. “The kids are just great. I never wanted to become a principal, because being a teacher here is just great. Except for one year in England, I’ve taught in Marysville my whole career, and of those years, I’ve taught at Liberty for all but my first year, when I was at Shoultes. I love it here.”

For Liberty Elementary first-grade teacher Karen Robinson, this year served as a first day of school in more ways than one, since it was also her first day of teaching a class of her own.

“I was a substitute teacher for three years before this,” said Robinson, who credited her own fourth-grade teacher with inspiring her to enter education. “I thought she was so cool, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do when I grew up.”

Robinson’s biggest challenge in preparing her own classroom was figuring out how it should be laid out, since she was accustomed to coming in as a substitute and working within other teachers’ setups for their classrooms.

“In the end, I went with openness,” Robinson said. “I wanted to be able to see all the kids, and to see them learning.”

While Lucas Walker, one of Robinson’s first-grade students, had already attended Liberty Elementary for the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, his first day was still a bit difficult for his mom.

“I let him walk to school by himself, because he’s a big boy now,” Shelly Walker said. “It’s sad that he’s growing up so fast. He’s not my baby anymore.”

Watch the slideshow here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marysvilleglobe/9713212416/

10 Back-to-School Items to Show Your Native Pride

Vincent Schilling, ICTMN

For students wanting to show some Native pride in school, here is a list of 10 pretty cool items to show some Native flavor.

A Beaded Pen

If you want to look slick taking your next test, jotting down notes or while biting the end and looking thoughtfully into space, you definitely want to get a beaded pen. Looking around online there are a few places, like Sun Country Traders, selling these modern marvels, as for me—I got mine at a powwow.

A pow wow is a great place to pick up Native goodies. (Vincent Schilling)

A Backpack

Imagine reaching for your books in class and bringing your Native-style backpack up on to your desk with a nice loud thunk. What better way to say, “yep, I’m Native and proud.”

There are some gorgeous—but sold out for the moment—back packs designed by Kevin Dakota Duncan at Painted Warrior Designs.

Painted Warrior Designs is an accessory and clothing company with designs by Kevin Dakota Duncan. (Painted Warrior Designs)

Some Awesome Native Earrings

Any Google search can turn up a 10-mile long result page on Native American earrings, but the folks at Tlicho and the Beyond Buckskin Boutique have some earlobe-adorning winners made by Native artisans in a range of prices. So poke another hole in those ears and get to class Native style!

These “Firework” earrings are blue dyed and natural porcupine quill. The online store is owned by the Tlicho Government for the Tlicho people. (Tlicho Online Store)

A Native T-shirt

What better way to “teach” the masses about history and its alignment to your Native views than with a confrontational T-shirt? Just check out these designs from Noble Savage and their “Original Landlords” design and the OXDX folks and their “Don’t Trend On Me” and “Native Americans Discovered Columbus” designs.

OXDX is a Native-owned clothing line based in Chandler, Arizona. (OXDX)

Baseball Cap or Beanie

Native Threads have it on point with their selection of Native baseball caps and beanies. In all seriousness, I want one of each. These things are all that and a bag of chips out of the school vending machine—and you just happened to have exactly 65 cents.

The baseball caps and beanies sold by Native Threads, a Native-owned and operated clothing company, are the result of a grassroots entrepreneurial effort. (Native Threads)

Next Stop—Hoodie Time!

Having to choose between Beyond Buckskin’s Red Sea Hoodie designed by Tahltan artist Alano Edzerza and the black zip-up hoodie on the Native Threads website, I just might have to break down and get both before autumn starts working its way into the weather forecasts. No matter what, you are sure to look like a hip Native student.

This Red Sea Hoodie was designed by Tahltan artist Alano Edzerza for the Beyond Buckskin Boutique, a place for American Indian designers to showcase their work. (Beyond Buckskin Boutique)

Mineral-Based Cosmetics

Those students wishing to accent their looks can venture over to Kamamak, an aboriginal-owned cosmetics company. According to the site, these cosmetics are infused with the Native culture of North America, and are a modern, fun, sophisticated take on cosmetic art.

Kamamak Cosmetics is an aboriginal-owned cosmetics line. Their products are mineral-based and paraben-free. (Kamamak Cosmetics)

A Good Book

Some teachers may not have extensive knowledge of Native American culture and history, with a good book on hand, you can teach the teacher if you do a report on a good Native book. Two good places to find great Native titles are Birchbark Books and Native Voices Books. Of course the library is always free for older titles.

These titles are all published by Native Voices Books to preserve the history, culture and stories of Native people. (Native Voices Books)

A Craft Project

As an artist raised by grandparents in the Nooksack tribal community in a shack with no running water, Louie Gong, (Nooksack, Squamish, Chinese, French and Scottish) has overcome considerable odds to become one of the nation’s most successful shoe artists. He’s created what he calls the “mock-up,” a cool shoe-mold craft project for budding artists.

So if you want to try your hand at crafting a Native style, you should get yourself a mock-up to stand out from the crowd with your next craft assignment. Mock-ups are a do-it-yourself toy and are made of vinyl. According to Gong, “The advantage to the vinyl surface of mockups is that you can apply almost any medium to it—pencil, colored pencil, crayons, spray paint or you can add sculpting material. They are very versatile. You can erase just about anything too.”

So go get crafty!

These mock-ups were designed by Louie Gong, who created the shoe/craft project. (GetMockups.com)

Barrettes and Bolo Ties

Etsy website Native bead crafter DeanCouchie has a vast selection of bolo ties and NorthwestBeadwork has an impressive collection of customized coin purses, arm cuffs and even a Batman beaded barrette, there is no excuse to go to school sans beaded-something.

This Batman barrette was beaded by Stephanie Pinkham, Nez Perce, who runs an Etsy shop called NorthwestBeadwork. (NorthwestBeadwork)

See you in the halls decked out in beaded gear and Native style accouterment.

Morning assemblies create community

Cultural values teach kids about respect and responsibility

At Tulalip Quil Ceda Elementary, each day is begun with a song and a presentation of core Tulalip cultural values. Photo/Andrew Gobin

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

Tulalip – Entering the main hallway of Tulalip Quil Ceda Elementary you hear the drum beat. Nearing the gymnasium you begin to feel the beat resounding through the corridors. Kids stream in off busses, excitement building as they find a seat. Others come to school, drum in hand. This is the norm for students at Tulalip Quil Ceda Elementary, where each day is begun with a song and a presentation of core Tulalip cultural values.

Started at Tulalip Elementary in its final year, the morning assemblies are an excellent forum to create a community, where students and teachers can communicate about respect and the responsibilities they have. The school’s canon of learning, GROWS, is visible in almost every aspect of the school day.

“The students have really taken to GROWS. It stands for Grow your brain, Respect for all, Own your actions and attitudes, Welcome all who come to our community, and finally Safety is paramount. The morning assemblies are used as a way to teach a value that ties into one of the GROWS,” said Dr. Anthony Craig, school principal.

The songs are led by students, with the help of occasional community volunteers. The students are seated in a fashion similar to Coast Salish traditional gatherings, which is in the round.

In an effort to build a stronger educational community, some classes are trying a technique called looping, where the students of a class will not change as they progress to the next grade. Some classrooms have dividing walls that are opened up the majority of the time, so that two classes become one larger learning group.

“We are trying to develop groups of students that learn well as individuals and as a collective,” explained Dr. Craig.

This year, Tulalip Quil Ceda Elementary will develop a cultural aspect to their educational community. The Marysville School District created a cultural specialist position in the school in an effort to incorporate traditional aspects of life into the learning process. In doing so, the district supports and encourages what the faculty of the school is trying to achieve.

Former Tulalip teacher and new cultural specialist for the district Chelsea Craig said, “Here at school you see kids walking around with a drum and a school bag. They don’t have to be a native student; they can just be themselves, at school, as they are meant to.”

The Tulalip Tribes Youth Services department created two comparable positions, with the intention of collaborating with the school. Tenika Fryberg and Taylor Henry are the cultural specialists for Youth Services.

“This has never been done [in Tulalip or Marysville] before, so I plan to develop a program where the community decides what they would like to have brought into the curriculum,” noted Craig. “I’d like to see more community involvement too. Why can’t we have a grandma in the back of every class? We should make this school ours. It is ours; it belongs to the community as every school does. We shouldn’t wait for our own k-12 program, nor do we need to,” she added.

Both she and Dr. Craig acknowledge that some families are not comfortable with their children participating in these cultural activities and have other activities available for children to opt out of the cultural practices, though all of the students are still brought together as a whole for the group message in an effort to continue to develop the learning community that is Tulalip Quil Ceda Elementary.

How to Write the Great American Indian Novel

September 9, 2013

Poem By SHERMAN ALEXIE

Montana Public Radio

All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.

The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
from a horse culture. He should often weep alone. That is mandatory.

If the hero is an Indian woman, she is beautiful. She must be slender
and in love with a white man. But if she loves an Indian man

then he must be a half-breed, preferably from a horse culture.
If the Indian woman loves a white man, then he has to be so white

that we can see the blue veins running through his skin like rivers.
When the Indian woman steps out of her dress, the white man gasps

at the endless beauty of her brown skin. She should be compared to nature:
brown hills, mountains, fertile valleys, dewy grass, wind, and clear water.

If she is compared to murky water, however, then she must have a secret.
Indians always have secrets, which are carefully and slowly revealed.

Yet Indian secrets can be disclosed suddenly, like a storm.
Indian men, of course, are storms. The should destroy the lives

of any white women who choose to love them. All white women love
Indian men. That is always the case. White women feign disgust

at the savage in blue jeans and T-shirt, but secretly lust after him.
White women dream about half-breed Indian men from horse cultures.

Indian men are horses, smelling wild and gamey. When the Indian man
unbuttons his pants, the white woman should think of topsoil.

There must be one murder, one suicide, one attempted rape.
Alcohol should be consumed. Cars must be driven at high speeds.

Indians must see visions. White people can have the same visions
if they are in love with Indians. If a white person loves an Indian

then the white person is Indian by proximity. White people must carry
an Indian deep inside themselves. Those interior Indians are half-breed

and obviously from horse cultures. If the interior Indian is male
then he must be a warrior, especially if he is inside a white man.

If the interior Indian is female, then she must be a healer, especially if she is inside
a white woman. Sometimes there are complications.

An Indian man can be hidden inside a white woman. An Indian woman
can be hidden inside a white man. In these rare instances,

everybody is a half-breed struggling to learn more about his or her horse culture.
There must be redemption, of course, and sins must be forgiven.

For this, we need children. A white child and an Indian child, gender
not important, should express deep affection in a childlike way.

In the Great American Indian novel, when it is finally written,
all of the white people will be Indians and all of the Indians will be ghosts.

Read Sherman Alexie’s mini biography on the IMDB site.

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6 Places to Find College Scholarships for Native Students

Sequoyah High SchoolPictured are the six Gates Millennium Scholars from Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Pictured, from left, in the front row, are Lakin Keener, Nicole Mangels and Rikki Duvall. Pictured, from left, in the back row, are Zane Kee and Tyler Handle. Not pictured: Nathalie Tomasik. — Sequoyah High School
Pictured are the six Gates Millennium Scholars from Sequoyah High School in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Pictured, from left, in the front row, are Lakin Keener, Nicole Mangels and Rikki Duvall. Pictured, from left, in the back row, are Zane Kee and Tyler Handle. Not pictured: Nathalie Tomasik.

ICTMN Staff

September 04, 2013

While most parents and students are just thinking about getting back to school, high school students should always be thinking about applying to as many scholarships as possible. The more money that can be earned through scholarships means less loans to pay back later.

Here are 6 places for Native students to start looking:

The Gates Millennium Scholars program chooses 1,000 minority students each year—150 of which are Native—to receive scholarships of up to $250,000 that are good until they graduate at a university of their choice. Just keep in mind that while becoming a Gates Scholar will be worth the effort, it won’t be an easy task.

“The application process was really grueling,” said Lakin Keener, 18, a 2013 Gates Scholar from Sequoyah High School. “I spent six months on it. I probably spent two months on one essay alone.”

Applications for the 2014 Gates Millennium Scholars program are due January 15, 2014. For more information, visit GMSP.org.

The American Indian College Fundhas been providing Native students with scholarships and other support since 1989. Alli Moran, Cheyenne River Sioux, is one of those students. The American Indian College Fund has helped her get through attending the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She’s in her third year toward obtaining a bachelor’s degree in indigenous liberal studies and a certificate in business and entrepreneurship.

Application deadlines vary for scholarships offered by the American Indian College Fund. For more information, visit CollegeFund.org.

Catching the Dreamoperates three scholarship programs for Native students—MESBEC, the Native American Leadership Education program and the Tribal Business Management program. MESBEC includes math, engineering, science, business, education and computers and is fund’s oldest program. “These fields are the ones in which tribes need graduates the most, and the fields in which there are the fewest Indian graduates,” says the Catching the Dream website.

The deadline for the spring semester is September 15. For more information, visit CatchingtheDream.org.
The American Indian Science and Engineering Society provides scholarships to Native students in an effort to increase the representation of American Indians and Alaska Natives in STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—fields.

The 2013 AISES National Conference will be held October 31 to November 2 in Denver, Colorado, this year’s theme is Elevate. Applications for travel scholarships to attend are due by September 6. For more information, visi tAISES.org.
The Association on American Indian Affairs began in 1922 as the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs. It was started to help protect the land rights of a group of Pueblo. It became the AAIA in 1946 and awarded its first scholarship in 1948. While they are no longer accepting scholarships for the 2013-2014 school year, it’s never too early to prepare applications for 2014-2015. For more information, visit Indian-Affairs.org.

Indian Country Today Media Networkoffers a convenient list of scholarships for Native students to browse through while they decide where to apply. View the full lis there.

Native students should not just be looking for Native specific scholarships though. As Dr. Dean Chavers, director of Catching the Dream, says there are fewer than 200 Native scholarships listed on the Fastweb database, another good place to look for scholarships as they have more than 1.5 million listed.

“Native scholarships represent less than one-tenth of one percent of all scholarships,” Chavers says in his essayHow to Find and Win Scholarships. “We urge students to find all the scholarships they are eligible for, and apply to them. Scholarships are not all equal.”

Professor helps students, community see sky as Natives did

Is it the Big Dipper or a fisher shining in the night sky?

Annette Lee sits in the planetarium with constellations behind her at Cloud State University. (Photo by Stacy Thacker/St. Cloud Times)

Source: The Buffalo Post

According to Native lore, the constellation of stars is a fisher that jumped into the sky while chasing its dinner. A professor in Minnesota is helping tell the story of Native stars and stories.

Ann Wessel of the St. Cloud Times has the story about Annette Lee’s work.Lee, assistant professor of astronomy and physics, explained to a room full of teachers attending a summer conference at St. Cloud State, that in Ojibwe culture the fisher is a clever, fierce and brave animal and a good fighter. It climbed a pine tree and jumped through a hole in the sky to bring back the birds and, therefore, the spring. Fishers are constantly on the move, sleeping for only a few hours before returning to the hunt. Like the fisher, the Big Dipper is constantly on the move in the sky.

On the Dakota star map, the Big Dipper contains the Blue Spirit Woman, who helps newborns pass from the star world to Earth and back again.

Through the Native Starwatchers Project, Lee has introduced audiences in Minnesota and throughout the U.S. to some Dakota and Ojibwe constellations and the stories they carry. Minnesota teachers are tuning in because state science standards require instructors to show how people from other cultures, including the state’s American Indian tribes, have contributed to science.

“I think it’s important for people to understand that although the mainstream science uses European and Greek (constellations), it’s important to know it comes from a certain culture,” Lee said later. “There are many ways of knowing, and that’s just one way.”

Lee said she hoped her efforts would give native people a better sense of their own history — a history that is being lost in a culture where stories were spoken, not written.

“Part of it’s recognizing all different cultures. We all have our connection to the stars, and that’s one of the few things in this day and age that connects us,” Lee said.

Montana School District Charged with Voting-Rights Violations

Courtesy Richard PetersonWolf Point school district voting-rights lawsuit participants, including, left to right, plaintiff Bill Whitehead, plaintiffs’ counsel Jon Ellingson of ACLU Montana, plaintiffs Lanette Clark and Ron Jackson and Jim Taylor, also of the Montana ACLU. — Courtesy Richard Peterson
Wolf Point school district voting-rights lawsuit participants, including, left to right, plaintiff Bill Whitehead, plaintiffs’ counsel Jon Ellingson of ACLU Montana, plaintiffs Lanette Clark and Ron Jackson and Jim Taylor, also of the Montana ACLU.

Stephanie Woodard, Indian Country Today Media Network

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the Wolf Point School District, which has a predominantly Native student population, drawn from the surrounding Fort Peck Indian Reservation, in northeastern Montana. The suit argues that school board districts favor non-Native voters and should be redrawn.

Wolf Point is the largest community on the reservation and has a two-part school district. The predominantly non-Native portion, with 430 residents, elects three members to the eight-member school board of trustees. The 4,205 residents of the predominantly Native American portion—nearly 10 times as many people—elect five members. That means one board member from the mostly white area represents 143 residents, while board members from the mostly Native area each represent 841 people, according to the suit, Jackson et al v. Wolf Point School District.

This imbalance violates the one-person-one-vote principle, said Montana ACLU legal director and plaintiffs’ co-counsel Jon Ellingson. The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Great Falls, Montana, asks for enforcement of equal rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, as well as by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The suit also invokes Section 3 of the VRA and asks the court to “bail in” the school district and subject it to Section 5 preclearance. If ordered to submit future redistricting plans and other election procedures to the court, the district would have to prove in each instance that its practices were not discriminatory, says the complaint.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the VRA’s Section 4 in June and sent an existing list of preclearing jurisdictions back to Congress for retooling, the high court left the rest of the law intact. That includes Section 3, which provides an alternate way to require specific jurisdictions to provide this type of accountability.

The unequal representation in Wolf Point has profound effects on students, who have few Native teachers, counselors and others to guide them and provide role models, according to Ellingson. “For 15 years, the school’s board of trustees and other authority figures have been almost exclusively white. The children see Native employees who are mostly support staff.” As a result, said Ellingson, the school does not promote Native children’s culture and aspirations.

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office investigated the school, according to a Helana newspaper. This followed years of activism by Fort Peck tribal member Iris Allrunner and others and a report to the agency on a visit to the school by Indian-education advocate Christine Rose. The agency heard parent allegations ranging from overprescribing of Ritalin and use of a locked, padded isolation room for Indian students to sexual abuse and incidents of racially charged cruelty by white students and staff.

U.S. News & World Report 2013 education ratings show an underperforming school, with reading and math scores below the state average. Enrollment figures provided by the district data specialist for the school year 2012–13 show Native children making up a smaller proportion of the student body as they age: 72 percent of junior high students were Native, while just 48.8 percent of high school students were—a difference of just over 23 percent. Meanwhile, white children made up 10.7 percent of the junior high and 27.8 percent of the high school. The rest of the children were from other population groups or had been identified by their parents as being of two or more races.

A measure of the Wolf Point elite’s blind spot for Native concerns can be found in the history section of the town’s website. In the early 1900s, the area was little more than a railroad station and a collection of settlers who had “poured into” Montana for cheap Indian land, according to the site. The web page continues: “Only one more thing was needed. Wolf Point was on an Indian reservation—a huge reservation with very few Indians…In the early summer of 1914, the date everyone was waiting for arrived—the official opening of the Fort Peck Reservation to homesteading.”

At press time, officials of the school district and board of trustees had not returned calls requesting comments on the various issues the suit raises

SMCF grant will help fund study of Native American education

GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.

Aaron Newton, Polk County Itemizer Observer

GRAND RONDE — The education status of Oregon’s Native American youth will be the focus of a new, one-of-a-kind study thanks to a grant from the Spirit Mountain Community Fund.

The Chalkboard Project, a Portland-based education advocacy group, received a $71,000 grant from SMCF to study the state of education among Oregon’s Native American population.

The sweeping study will look into the achievement outcomes of K-12 students, graduation rates and higher education status in eight of the nine federally recognized tribes in Oregon.

This spring, the Chalkboard Project approached SMCF for a grant and SMCF staff saw it as an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.

“This was an unusual and exciting request for Spirit Mountain Community Fund,” SMCF Director Kathleen George said. “After discovering it and looking into it, we saw that really this would be the first-of-its-kind study in the state.”

The Chalkboard Project, partnering with Pacific Northwest-based consulting firm ECONorthwest, has conducted similar studies — most recently publishing a report on Oregon’s K-12 education system — but none solely focusing on Oregon’s Native American tribes.

The eight tribes involved in the study are spread across Oregon, from Coos Bay to Burns and Klamath County to Umatilla County.

The divergent nature of Oregon’s tribes and its relatively low population has led to the general inattention when education is concerned, George said.

“I think they’re largely out of sight and out of mind for the education leadership of our state,” she said. “Our kids are widely dispersed across the state. You’ll have several hundred Warm Springs kids; maybe a hundred, maybe less in Burns Paiute.”

The Chalkboard Project’s goal for the study is to inform each tribal government on their students’ progress and achievements in the public school system.

Reports will be provided specifically for each tribe, with only data on their students, and a master report will be prepared for Oregon legislators at their 2014 session.

The study is now under way, but sifting through the data to produce quantitative information is where the trouble lies, said Dr. Andrew Dyke, economist with ECONorthwest.

“The big hurdle is figuring out who the population is, because of confidentiality concerns it’s not as simple as going to the tribes and asking who their kids are,” he said. “The next step is to quantify the high level outcomes and take that information back to each tribe for feedback.”

Fresh From the Farm to School Lunches: Navajo Pilot Program Proves Successful

Vincent Schilling, Indian Country Today Media Network

Native schools on reservations with limited budgets often struggle to provide healthy, unprocessed and culturally relevant foods for their students. One possible and viable solution to address the severe conditions of poverty, social stress and health and nutrition problems in Native communities and schools is a Farm-to-School program in which local farmers supply produce to the schools directly within in their communities.

Though it may seem like a simple remedy, government regulations stand in the way of small farmers supplying such schools, because before a farmer can sell their wares, they must first gain certification by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The good news is that such an achievement is possible. Thanks to the efforts of the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI), a Navajo community-based charter elementary STAR School and a Navajo Farmer, a successful Farm-to-School program is more than just a theory.

In an effort to create similar Farm-to-School programs in Indian country, the FNDI has released a report that offers guidelines for other schools and farms to achieve success.

The report, entitled “Healthy Foods for Navajo Schools: Discoveries from the First Year of a Navajo Farm-to-School Program,” authored by Shawn Newell of Native American Development Associates, details how such a program, if implemented correctly, would be not only be a successful demonstration for any school wishing to undertake a similar project—but it would also be addressing how such issues as obesity and diabetes could be alleviated.

Dr. Mark Sorensen is the co-founder and Director of the STAR (Service To All Relations) School, an elementary charter school located near the southwestern edge of the Navajo Nation. The school is based on four values: respect, relationship, responsibility and reasoning that are rooted in Navajo Peacemaking, a traditional form of conflict resolution.

Students look how to cook in the Navajo Farm-to-School Program (Courtesy Louva Montour)

According to Sorensen, “The Farm-to-School program was initiated with the help of a grant from the FNDI and was supported from the idea that plants have sustained our families for generations. Our communities are really suffering from not having nutritious food grown locally—our area of the Navajo Nation is considered a ‘food desert’—and kids are not likely to start eating more vegetables unless they are personally involved in growing, harvesting, and tasting the food.”

“Our program involves interaction of students and local farmers as well as developing greenhouses on the school campus, all for the purpose of providing students with healthy, fresh, locally grown vegetables,” Sorensen said.

One of the main challenges, explained Sorensen, is that farmers need to meet the qualifications necessary to supply these foods to schools.

In the report, the author Newell states that creating a successful Farm-to-School program involves traversing a complex and evolving jurisdictional landscape because Federal, State and county regulations define school cafeterias and kitchens as food establishments and are subject to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food code.

This code mandates that such food establishments buy only from an approved source. In order to be an approved source, a farm needs to obtain certification. Unfortunately for small farmers, such certifications are not easy to obtain, the most common is the USDA Good Handling Practices/Good Agricultural Practices Certification or GHP/GAP.

Sorensen says this is the main reason for their efforts. “One of our purposes in this program is to help local farmers develop their food safety practices to the point of being able to regularly supply the school with food. It is to fulfill this purpose that we wrote the Navajo Food for Schools Manual.”

In the meantime, Stacey Jensen (Navajo) the Farm Manager of The North Leupp Family Farms (NLFF) a community-based, non-profit, volunteer- driven farm supporting sustainable agricultural for more than 20 years – says they are working on such certification. In the interim they can’t supply food to the schools.

“We cannot sell our produce to STAR Schools without a certification. We are working and should have it in the next six months. This time next year we should have our 501(c) (3) so we will be able to go after the big grants. The farm is also working to get off our diesel generators this year and become completely solar,” says Jensen.

“This could be the best thing ever, I envision it to be that way but there are regulations and certifications and standards and so forth – which sort of negates our efforts to have this wonderful community come together as farmers and schools and students,” he says. ”It definitely is frustrating at times.”

Though he is frustrated with policy, he loves working with the STAR students and sharing his culture.

“The children are wonderful; I love children especially the STAR School students. I call them STAR kids because they have the philosophy where everything has a relationship to everything else and everything is in a cycle. The kids definitely enjoy it. One child came out that didn’t know where carrots came from until I pulled it out of the vegetable bed for him. You should have seen the expression on his face,” said Jensen.

Louva Montour (Navajo) is the Foodservice Manager/Home Economics Teacher and the Wellness Program coordinator at the STAR School. Montour speaks well of the Farm-to-School program but voices concern as to how government policy keeps locally available, healthy and culturally relevant foods from their school.

“The rules and regulations keep us from doing this program to the extent we want to do this,” said Montour. “We want to work with our own native farmers. That is the whole idea is that we would like our young kids to learn about and appreciate our cultural and traditional foods.”

“Last spring, there was a group of fifth and sixth grade students who went out and planted corn. They also helped with harvest, they brought it back and husked the corn. We made kneeling down bread, which is a Navajo recipe. Another class dried blue corn and later ground the corn. We also save the kernels for stew and we used it for winter food.”

The Navajo Farm-to-School Program emphasizes culturally relevant foods and cooking techniques. (Courtesy Louva Montour)

“We teach a lot of cultural awareness, says Montour. “A lot of students are living in urban areas. They are not living in a ranch or farm setting. This (program) takes them away from their electronic games.”

Montour says that the program also teaches values that the students take away to share with their families. “The kids tell me that because of this, they help out more at home. They help their mother more with cooking. They helped their mom make bread. They use these foods in traditional ceremony and they will tell me they helped out.

Ultimately says Montour, “This is all hands on learning. We have a lot of fun.”

Raymond Foxworth, (Navajo) the FNDI’s senior program officer, told ICTMN how the success of the STAR School and the corresponding manual will serve to guide others in Indian Country.

“Farm-to-school has become an important model in urban areas as one mechanism to increase access to healthy and fresh food for kids. But in Indian country we only have a handful of successful programs and there are a variety of reasons for this. At the STAR School they are overcoming these challenges.”

“Food is an important part of Native identities and is always a part of social gatherings and celebrations,” says Foxworth. “This program really takes steps so that we can begin to ask questions about what we are eating, how the food we eat is prepared and where does our food come from,” he said.

“Moreover, this program starts with our kids so that we can grow future generations of healthy, strong, educated and health conscious Native children.”

Students reject healthy school lunches, forcing U.S. districts to drop out of multibillion-dollar program

BY CAROLYN THOMPSON, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, AUGUST 28, 2013

After just one year, some schools around the country are dropping out of the new federal healthier lunch program, complaining that so many students turned up their noses at meals packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables that the cafeterias were losing money.

Federal officials say they don’t have exact numbers but have seen isolated reports of schools cutting ties with the $11-billion National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for meals served and gives them access to lower-priced food.

Districts that rejected the program say the reimbursement was not enough to offset losses from students who began avoiding the lunch line and bringing food from home or, in some cases, going hungry.

In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2012 file photo, a select healthy chicken salad school lunch, prepared under federal guidelines, sits on display at the cafeteria at Draper Middle School in Rotterdam, N.Y. After just one year, some schools across the nation are dropping out of what was touted as a healthier federal lunch program, complaining that so many students refused the meals packed with whole grains, fruits and vegetables that their cafeterias were losing money. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)

“Some of the stuff we had to offer, they wouldn’t eat,” said Catlin, Ill., Superintendent Gary Lewis, whose district saw a 10 to 12 per cent drop in lunch sales, translating to $30,000 lost under the program last year.

“So you sit there and watch the kids, and you know they’re hungry at the end of the day, and that led to some behaviour and some lack of attentiveness.”

In upstate New York, a few districts have quit the program, including the Schenectady-area Burnt Hills Ballston Lake system, whose five lunchrooms ended the year $100,000 in the red.

Near Albany, Voorheesville Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder said her district lost $30,000 in the first three months. The program didn’t even make it through the school year after students repeatedly complained about the small portions and apples and pears went from the tray to the trash untouched.

Districts that leave the program are free to develop their own guidelines. Voorheesville’s chef began serving such dishes as salad topped with flank steak and crumbled cheese, pasta with chicken and mushrooms, and a panini with chicken, red peppers and cheese.

In Catlin, soups and fish sticks will return to the menu this year, and the hamburger lunch will come with yogurt and a banana — not one or the other, like last year.

Nationally, about 31 million students participated in the guidelines that took effect last fall under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

Dr. Janey Thornton, deputy undersecretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, which oversees the program, said she is aware of reports of districts quitting but is still optimistic about the program’s long-term prospects.

“Many of these children have never seen or tasted some of the fruits and vegetables that are being served before, and it takes a while to adapt and learn,” she said.

The agency had not determined how many districts have dropped out, Thornton said, cautioning that “the numbers that have threatened to drop and the ones that actually have dropped are quite different.”

The School Nutrition Association found that one per cent of 521 district nutrition directors surveyed over the summer planned to drop out of the program in the 2013-14 school year and about three per cent were considering the move.

Not every district can afford to quit. The National School Lunch Program provides cash reimbursements for each meal served: about $2.50 to $3 for free and reduced-priced meals and about 30 cents for full-price meals. That takes the option of quitting off the table for schools with large numbers of poor youngsters.

The new guidelines set limits on calories and salt, phase in more whole grains and require that fruit and vegetables be served daily. A typical elementary school meal under the program consisted of whole-wheat cheese pizza, baked sweet potato fries, grape tomatoes with low-fat ranch dip, applesauce and 1 per cent milk.

In December, the Agriculture Department, responding to complaints that kids weren’t getting enough to eat, relaxed the 2-ounce-per-day limit on grains and meats while keeping the calorie limits.

At Wallace County High in Sharon Springs, Kan., football player Callahan Grund said the revision helped, but he and his friends still weren’t thrilled by the calorie limits (750-850 for high school) when they had hours of calorie-burning practice after school. The idea of dropping the program has come up at board meetings, but the district is sticking with it for now.

“A lot of kids were resorting to going over to the convenience store across the block from school and kids were buying junk food,” the 17-year-old said. “It was kind of ironic that we’re downsizing the amount of food to cut down on obesity but kids are going and getting junk food to fill that hunger.”

To make the point, Grund and his schoolmates starred last year in a music video parody of the pop hit “We Are Young.” Instead, they sang, “We Are Hungry.”

It was funny, but Grund’s mother, Chrysanne Grund, said her anxiety was not.

“I was quite literally panicked about how we would get enough food in these kids during the day,” she said, “so we resorted to packing lunches most days.”