STEPS Alaska Updates
Stepping Up for Alaska's Youth!
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This month's Stepping Up features community partners working to infuse our schools with cultural and community strengths. Tribes and community partners help nourish our students' hearts, souls, and bodies (quite literally in the case of locally supported food programs!) And they can help redefine what success means in a way that honors, celebrates, and reinforces cultural strengths. |
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Stronger Together: New Family Partnerships Framework for Alaskans
Across Alaska, and nationally, school staff report a real desire for training and support for effective family partnership approaches. In response, AASB introduced a new framework, Stronger Together: The Power of Family and School Partnerships.
What is the framework?
The Stronger Together: The Power of Family and School Partnerships offers foundational information and practical tools for school staff to strengthen their family partnership practices. Available in digital and hard-copy formats, the framework introduces a series of core building blocks, stories, family partnership planning tools and ideas on how to support family partnerships at a distance. The framework can be found here: https://aasb.org/family-school-partnerships/
Each building block helps educators understand how to build strong relationships with families that better link learning to families and place. The framework also explores how families can build confidence and link to their student’s learning. Core building blocks s include:
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The framework, developed with input from school staff across the state, allows staff to build and reflect on existing family partnerships efforts. Each chapter provides stories or examples of family partnership, concrete actionable ideas, and reflection questions to strengthen relationships, support learning, build confidence, or expand co-regulation strategies. |
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Indigenous Pathways
The Alaska Post-Secondary Access and Completion Network (Alaska CAN) has set a goal of 65% of Alaskans earning a post-secondary degree or credential by 2025. Those goals stem from the Alaska Department of Labor’s predictions about the number of Alaskan jobs that will require some type of degree or training beyond high school. Yes, there are jobs that are to be had here in Alaska.
But employment isn’t the only metric of success in Alaska’s communities. Nor are academic outcomes. Feeding our families, caring for elders and children, and honoring our past and future are just as, if not more important.
At a recent meeting of the Southeast Regional Alaska CAN Network and again at AASB’s annual conference, Mt. Edgecumbe High School Superintendent Janelle Vanesse presented her work on Rethinking College Readiness for Alaska Native Students.
Superintendent Vanesse showed how culture - the values and thinking patterns absorbed by a student from their family and community - can help them navigate life after high school. But in order to build on cultural strengths, it’s essential to understand cultural differences. Janelle described these differences as “The School Way of Doing Things” and “Indigenous Thinking/Ways of Knowing.” Another way to think about cultural differences in Alaskan terms is the individualistic bears and the collectivist wolves.
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A slide from MEHS Superintendent Janelle Vanesse’s presentation on Rethinking College Readiness for Alaska Native students. The “School Way of Doing Things” tends to emphasize individualistic traits, similar to single bear and moose. “Indigenous Ways of Knowing” tend to emphasize collectivist traits, operating more like a pack of wolves. Did you grow up in a family of wolves or bears? |
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These cultural differences can influence everything from which academic track a student gets placed on at an early age to their willingness to ask for help to their vision for their future. Developing a deeper understanding of these differences can help schools sweep out biases and build on cultural strengths. And it can help focus us on developing the whole student, so they aren’t just prepared for college or employment, but life as a strong member of our community.
Superintendent Vanesse is developing a self-assessment to help school districts think about these things. For a draft of the assessment, email: vanasse@zagmail.gonzaga.edu. Most of her presentation to the Southeast Alaska CAN Network can be viewed here (the opening is cut off - our apologies), and you can also check out her slides here.
And if you would like to participate in the monthly Post-Secondary Alaska CAN Network calls with other Southeast Alaskans and many STEPS partners, please contact Emily Ferry, eferry@aasb.org. Meetings happen on the first Wednesday of the month at 10 am.
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Fall Champion Gathering
The Fall Champion Gathering included a half-day of peer sharing, learning and discussion of Trauma Engaged Staff from CRESEL and STEPS communities as well as from the Lower Kuskokwim and Northwest Arctic School Districts. The gathering was facilitated by Heather Coulehand, Claudia Plesa and Lisa Worl.
During the gathering, the champions were able to:
- Connect and share SEL/trauma engaged schools work across districts, communities and grants
- Explore current needs and best practices/solutions to lift up our students, families and staff during the pandemic
- Identify follow-on resources and supports
- Give input into a statewide Trauma Engaged Schools vision
The Trauma engaged staff appreciated having time and space to discuss the current reality and challenges together. Among some of the things they acknowledged as being able to do before COVID included having more structure, less uncertainty, more in-person meetings and one-on-one conversations with students and families.
Some challenges identified included: how to connect as isolated geographically (with students, staff, and parents), how to build out even more connections, lack of technology (computer/laptops and connectivity), how to connect with secondary remote students, and also how to keep the secondary remote students engaged, and consideration of grading given new platform, etc.
Encouraging positives that were noted included that staff are “still able to build relationships” and that they are connecting with more families, parents with distance learning.
The Trauma Engaged Schools (TES) Champions will be meeting again soon to do some planning to prioritize and map out some peer learning topics they’d like to do together, utilizing reflective practice and the Transforming Schools toolkit.
If you are interested in joining the Champions meetings, feel free to reach out to Heather Coulehan at hcoulehan@aasb.org.
Below is the composite “vision” that was created by the Champions as they considered their TES work currently and going forward together.
So much love in our hearts
Growth, Equity, Hope
Everyone’s concern for students
Lost for words. Constantly searching. Sigh.
Help students get past this
Broken is not permanent. Keep trying!
Keep listening. Quyana!
Keep talking, every way you can
Stay safe, healthy, and be well
Collaboration opportunities - we need them – regularly
This space is a brave space
Brave spaces welcome self into learning
Immense gratitude for shared patience, resilience
I can. You can. We did.
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Subsistence Foods in the Classroom
Haa Kusteeyí áyá, This is who we are.
At the 67th Annual Association of Alaska School Boards Conference, partners shared their efforts to build on culture, strengthen student resilience, and incorporate subsistence foods into the schools and classroom. From Lower Yukon to Hoonah and south to Sitka, our presenters gave us insight into how they are bringing the natural resources and local culture of their communities to the front of their classrooms.
While bringing subsistence foods into the classroom does make the classroom part of that environment, having the cultivation and harvesting of subsistence foods as part of the curriculum also makes subsistence activities the central way of learning content. These activities link students to traditional ways of knowing and to reciprocity taught in many Southeast communities. These activities help us to reflect - what if every day, your education honored your lands, honored your history, and honored your community’s values?
Janet Johnson and Diane Reed shared how the Lower Yukon School District benefits from moose hunts, fishing, and berry picking. Students and the community benefit from their programs, which give students the opportunity to share food with community Elders such as Agutak and moose stew. In this video you can see teachers and students from LYSD as they prepared to enter this school year with a seal hunt, goose hunt, and other activities that got students engaged with the subsistence activities that the community values and depends upon.
Heather Lgeik’i Powell shared Hoonah School District programs and activities that build on the community’s cultural and community strengths.
Haa Atxáayí. Haa naagú. Haa Kusteeyí áyá.
Our food. Our Medicine. This is who we are.
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Photo: Students make jerky and harvest game in Hoonah. |
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These photos show students engaging with subsistence based lessons in Hoonah. Students harvest game and make jerky, as well as participate in the kanat’á (blueberry) harvest. This activity is followed by a "weigh-in" in which the opposite clan weighs one another’s berries. The lesson uses science, measurement, reciprocity, as well as accounting and weighing hypotheses for which groups would gather the largest crop. Along with the help of Uncles and Aunties, subsistence activities in the school were able to process over 350 lbs of Halibut, an entire seal processed head to tail, Sockeye, Coho, beach asparagus, goose tongue, berries and other beach plants this year. Heather shared that the impact and importance of these activities on students is immeasurable.
Chandler O’Connell with the Sitka Conservation Society (SCS) spoke to Sitka’s efforts to include sustainable seafood and food system in the schools. The Fish to Schools program brings local, commercially harvested coho, King salmon, and rockfish into Sitka’s seven schools. To go along with the food initiative, SCS developed a Stream to Plate curriculum for students in grades 3 through 5.
Mt. Edgecumbe and Pacific High School students made the most of this program by smoking the fish, creating recipes, and working with the school garden. Fishermen in the community also work with students during the program’s “We love our fishermen” days. Each element of SCS program supports Sitka's local environment, economy, and culture.
Haa Atxáayí. Haa naagú. Haa Kusteeyí áyá.
Our food. Our Medicine. This is who we are.
Gunałchéesh and quayana to Diane Reed, Janet Johnson, Heather Lgeik’i Powell, and Chandler O’Connell.
The video for LYSD’s subsistence activities can be found here.
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Yakutat Community Lunch Program
Volunteers in Yakutat have been integral to keeping the community lunch program going. Meals are served at the school several times each week. Much of the food is donated by local businesses and fishermen. Donations or grants support enhancements of fresh fruits and vegetables. Long term, the community plans to develop a community garden so that students and community members can grow their own Tlingit potatoes and other fresh foods.
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Gunalchéesh yoo x’atángi Kingestí.
At the 2019 Sharing our Knowledge Clan Conference, Shangukeidí (Thunderbird) Clan Leader Kingestí David Katzeek shared that Tlíngit decorum was to thank a speaker before continuing to the next “so that their words don’t just float around.” By saying “gunalcheesh”, we recognize the responsibility of having received the gift of those words given to us. As virtual gatherings have come together to honor Kingestí after his passing, it is clear that the words he left with us will not just float around but have been woven into the lives of the children, teachers, and community that he touched.
His invaluable explanations of the cultural significance for place-names throughout Juneau are part of the indelible legacy he leaves on the Southeast community. The name Yadaa.at Kalé, “the beautiful face of the mountain,” now graces the Juneau Douglas High School. Katzeek was one of the elders to have approved the name after Arias Hoyle, a student at the school, petitioned for the name. Having provided guidance and support to the Tlingit Culture Language Literacy (TCLL) program, Katzeek’s contributions to transferring cultural knowledge were immense. One teacher in the TCLL program noted that “It’s really powerful for kids to see the interaction between teachers and Elders and how correcting is done with love and humor.” Last year, Kingestí was recognized by the Alaska State Legislature for these contributions and his dedication to Tlingit language and cultural revitalization.
While our community mourns his passing and continues to be impacted by isolation during the pandemic, it is inspiring to see how strong the sense of community remains. The TCLL community received word of his passing and immediately came together virtually so that the Tlingit teachers, students, and families could provide support to the Shungukeidi and to the Eagle clans. During the TCLL gathering and the virtual memorial that was presented, the strong ties between the clans were evident. Grandpa David, as the school kids affectionately and respectfully called him, had been a part of the TCLL community for more than twelve years, visiting each Monday and providing guidance to the teachers as they developed the cultural curriculum each week. Juneau School Board President Elizabeth Siddon participated in the virtual memorial for David and shared how his knowledge and contributions are significant and noted how his presence will be missed greatly throughout the Juneau schools. No doubt, the strength in our community is fortified by the gift of Katkeek’s words that he left us.
Gunalchéesh yoo x’atángi Kingestí.
Here you can listen to Kingestí tell the story of the Sea Lion and Ptarmigan:
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