Tlingit classrooms get high marks (fwd)

[Phil Cash Cash]

Tlingit classrooms get high marks

Tuesday, August 12, 2003 - The Associated Press
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~1566026,00.html#

 JUNEAU--Tlingit-oriented classrooms at a Juneau elementary school are
being hailed a success.

 Students enrolled in the Harborview Elementary School program generally
perform as well as other students in the school district, and do better
than Native students on average, a recent study shows.

 "This whole emphasis on literacy is paying off," Annie Calkins, a
former school district administrator who has studied the program, told
the Juneau School Board last week.

 Eunice James-Lee's son Hunter, 9, has been enrolled in the Tlingit
program for three years.

 "For the chance for our kids to succeed in school, to see them thrive,
to see them develop, to grow in confidence--I wanted that for my
children--and to know who they are, where they're from," she said.

 The Tlingit classrooms have operated for three years, emphasizing
English and Tlingit language instruction, and incorporating Native
culture such as potlatches. Beside the classroom teachers, the program
employs a cultural specialist and elders, according to the Juneau
Empire.

 Native students suffer from low self-esteem, teacher Shgen George told
the school board. They tend to talk less and talk quieter, but children
in the Tlingit classrooms are proud to be Tlingit, she said.

 "I think that's the lowest, deepest root of this program," George said.

 The program was funded in its first two years by a federal grant to the
Sealaska Heritage Foundation. The program is funded now by the school
district.

 The classrooms are housed at Harborview downtown but are open to
students throughout Juneau. About three-quarters of the students have
been Native. In the past school year, four out of 10 students qualified
for free or reduced-price lunches.

 As in school districts across the nation, a smaller percentage of
Juneau students who are from low-income families or from racial
minorities perform well on standardized tests and other measures of
academic success than other students.

 Nonetheless, in many of the Tlingit program's grades in its three years
of existence, a larger percentage of its students are meeting the
state's academic standards than are other students.