On Sunday morning, February 15th, Lane sat down with MaryAnn Armijo for an interview about our project that aired on 99.1, 99.9, and 106.1. You can listen to it here.
It took me until the afternoon, but I stumbled upon an unexpected and positive editorial in the Independent today! We got some great coverage in the Independent yesterday alongside the school board election results. Here's the article from the 2-4-2015 paper. Please note, Masika's name is misspelled in the article.
The following are prepared public comment given by Lynn Huenemann to the Gallup McKinley County Board of Education 1/20/2015. COMMENTS TO THE GMCS BOARD OF EDUCATION REGARDING THE GALLUP INDIGENOUS SCHOOL INITIATIVE
Lynn Huenemann, January 20, 2015 Thank you. Good evening members of the Board, Superintendent Chiapetti, and parents and community members. 1. I would like to first introduce myself so that you will know why I am interested in the Gallup Indigenous School Initiative and why I want to offer these prepared remarks. My name is Lynn Huenemann. I am the father of 3 children and the grandfather – the chei and nali – of 6 grandchildren, all whom are enrolled members of the Navajo Nation. Our children attended public, private, and tribal colleges and universities, and our grandchildren now attend Navajo reservation schools, border town schools, and urban schools. For over 40 years I was a teacher and administrator in reservation and off- reservation schools serving Native students. And during these years I was an instructor, a professor, and an administrator for 4 tribal colleges and 3 public and private universities – including 9 years with Dine College - where I coordinated programs in teacher education, and taught courses in Indian education, bilingual and bicultural education, and Native American studies. Thus, my interest - Now, some thoughts that I believe relate to this initiative - 2. First, the bad news! American public education is very monolithic. For the sake of time, I will simply illustrate this by saying that if we beamed or parachuted you into a school classroom on a weekend you would often find it hard to tell if you were in urban Illinois, rural Nebraska, or the Navajo reservation. The classrooms in most of these areas are essentially similar. And the curriculum content and teaching methods used during the week are also much the same. Such conformity might be justified in national terms – if it were successful in serving all students. However, the unfortunate truth is that this dominant model has consistently failed to serve American Indian students well. As we know, Native students, as a group, score the lowest on standardized testing – nationally, and in Gallup McKinley County Schools – and Native student drop-out/push-out rates remain high. We know the following about schools that are supposed to serve Indian students. 1) As stated, Indian students have the lowest scores on standardized measures of English language and math proficiency. 2) States and schools lack standardized measures of Indian students’ achievement in Native language, Native culture, and Native values 3) The public often judges schools by the performance of their basketball teams rather than the academic performance of the majority of Native students 4) Teachers who are often competent in their use of conventional curriculum and instruction are often untrained in the use of culturally responsive pedagogy and the use and application of Native knowledge and perspectives within their academic subjects. 3. But there is good news! First, years of research findings have already recommended using models of school organization, and of teaching and learning that incorporate native language, native history and culture, native identity, fuller parent involvement, and contemporary native applications to make education more relevant to Native students and parents and tribes, and to increase student motivation and achievement. Second, a number of innovative Indian schools* and the 37 tribal colleges have already demonstrated significant success in various ways according to a variety of measures. These schools have all used culturally appropriate curriculum or culturally responsive pedagogy as part of their approach. Their success is sometimes shown on standardized tests of English and math. Just as often it is shown, rather, by the development of a healthy sense of personal and cultural identity; a sense of place and purpose in one’s world; and a sense of self-actualization and empowerment that has led to active study and positive social involvement. *These include, for example, Rock Point Community School, Ts4hootsoo7 Din4 Bi’olta in Fort Defiance, American Indian Magnet School in St. Paul, the Native America Community Academy in Albuquerque, Pine Point School community school and Bug-O- Nay-Ge-Shig Ojibwe immersion school in Minnesota, and 37 tribal colleges** in the U.S. and Canada. **Many tribal colleges in their formative years produced more innovation in educational curriculum and models than did most major universities during the same periods. Third, there is before us an opportunity to build on this research and on these I believe that the Gallup Indigenous School Initiative presents an opportunity to use and to demonstrate an approach that will better serve many students. I encourage the Gallup McKinley County Schools and School Board – and Native parents, students, and interested community members – to support this development. I cannot even begin here to describe the exciting ways in which real multilingual, multicultural, multiple arts, and multiepistemological inquiry and awareness can expand and deepen thinking and learning processes! Simply calling a school native, or charter, or magnet does not automatically produce success. But I believe that a native indigenous school has the potential to offer enriched learning for Native and other students and that it can also help the District to identify and incorporate more effective ways to serve and empower Native students and parents. Thank you. Ahehee. The following is a transcript of the prepared public remarks Professor Matt Mingus made on behalf of the Gallup Intertribal Community School at the school board meeting 1/20/2015 Hello. My name is Matt Mingus, I’m an Assistant Professor of History at Gallup’s University of
New Mexico branch, I am now a two-year resident of Gallup, and I’m here in support of the Gallup Intertribal Community School. To be entirely honest, I am not a fan of charter schools. My mother was a public school teacher, my wife is currently a public school teacher in this district, and I have always been (and continue to be) completely dedicated to the mission of public education. Too often charter schools have been used to erode that mission, siphoning off valuable public dollars to bolster a particular political worldview or religious ideology, and to chip away at the important collective bargaining power of teacher unions. I think that this school board, however, has a chance to reorient the purpose of charter schools. Originally, charter schools were used as small-scale centers of pedagogical experimentation. Those teaching methods which seemed particularly effective with students were then applied to the broader public school system, while those methods found ineffective were abandoned. When they are held to this original purpose, charter schools can be powerful allies for a school district. I have never lived in a school district with as much need for pedagogical experimentation as GMCS. From my perspective, as a professor at the university, the students here have been perennially underserved – the Native American students in particular. In fact, last year’s report from the New Mexico Higher Education Department ranked both Miyamura and Gallup High Schools among the top five in the state requiring college remediation. 77% of students from those high schools fail to be college-ready by the time they graduate. That is unacceptable and only contributes to the lack of economic opportunity in our community. It would be delusional to blame the school board for this failure. I think most of us here recognize that the intertwined evils of poverty and racism have created a web in which many of our students get trapped. But this charter school is an opportunity to chip away at that web in ways our public school district, right now, cannot. The data makes it clear that Native American students need help in this district, and you have a proposed charter school asking to help – specifically – with that problem. The school board should not pass up this opportunity to establish a local institution (not an out-of-state university or testing company!) – a local institution dedicated to educating Native Americans in new and exciting ways that could potentially be applied to the broader district. I trust that the leadership of this new school would be committed to the kind of experimentation initially undertaken by charter programs, just as I trust that our school board has the ability and the will to hold the charter accountable to that commitment. I implore the school board and the superintendent, then, to actively support this proposal and build a solid working relationship with the Gallup Intertribal Community School. Thank you for your time. Check out the story (on p A-8 from the 1/22/15 Edition) about this week's School Board meeting that includes us! A few thoughts about the article:
- We don't know if we'll be a district charter or a state charter yet. We'll have to decide that before July 1st, when we submit our charter. We'd love to be authorized by the local district, but ultimately it's up to them if they want to work with us in that way. - We also don't know if we'd use district facilities. Certainly the ability to use an empty building like Church Rock Elementary School or Juan de Onate Elementary School would be easy for us and potentially helpful to the district financially, but again, that's up to the district and it's not guaranteed. - I don't think it's fair to say that charter schools in New Mexico get $14,000 to $15,000 per student. There's no extra money that charter schools automatically get in New Mexico, and state funding is influenced by school size, student population characteristics (ELL, SPED, etc.), and other factors. Some charter schools qualify for a small school multiplier, but not all. When a small school (district or charter) gets some extra money to help pay for overhead, then they get more money per student, but often that money is necessary to help sustain a smaller school. Read up on our Press Release from our presentation to the Board of Education last night! This weekend we mailed our Notice of Intent to Gallup McKinley County Schools and emailed it to the state PED. Things just got real! It's important to know that nothing in the Notice of Intent is formally binding, and we don't consider our community work finished. We put a lot of work into ensuring the NoI was a quality snapshot of what we've heard and synthesized so far, and if you have further thoughts or feedback about any of the ideas in it, please let us know! You can read our Notice of Intent and instantly type feedback here on our site. More big news. In the last two weeks both the National Indian Youth Leadership Project and UNM-Gallup have signed on as Mentor Organizations. In this way they will continue to support us publicly because of our shared interest in founding a school committed to excellent and relevant Indigenous Education for the students in and around Gallup.
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