03-18-21 Native Advisory Committee

001[Music] all right okay we'll go ahead and get started can everyone see my screen oh wait your screen no no okay let me try this again i see you okay well welcome everyone uh to the nac meeting today march 18 and i'll go ahead and share the um agenda here and the first thing that we do is we go ahead and start with our land acknowledgement and introductions and then we'll start and turn it over to chairwoman kimberly after that cheryl may i ask that you um bless us with the land acknowledgement please good evening everyone we would like to take a moment to acknowledge that we are on aina land they have lived hunted and gathered within the movie for thousands of years we thank them for their stewardship of the land air water

002and all that sustains us within their traditional lands and we will strive to be good neighbors liana cheryl oops okay so we'll go ahead and go down the line of introduction starting with kimberly hello i am kazakhwa or kimberly santacotta um i'm half newbet we have three girls currently attending anchorage school district at polaris that are a quarter new band and our youngest will be in kindergarten this fall we filled out the lottery for her and she's attending cook in the native head start this year so my name is tanya jimmy and i have a junior high student and i apologize we're just going to be keeping it short and everyone's got a zoom thing going on so i'm down in the the dining room area so all right son shanda hi i'm shanda losi

003i am standing rock lakota and i have a fourth grade daughter at rogers park in the highly gifted program ayanna macon hi there my name is megan sherman my indie pac name is igona my family is from kotzebue i have three children in the district a second grader and third grader at bowman and an eighth grader at hanshu great thank you is jocelyn here i don't see her um angela not present in the shade my english name is niche time andrew i am 18 years old and a senior at service high liana school uh elena hi there uh i'm elena i'm a yupik senior at oh elena i think we just lost your um sound hello can you hear me i i didn't um i didn't hear what school you were at i think that's

004when the sound cut out oh i go to service hi okay thank you ryan hi i'm brian mcintyre i'm a teacher at william tyson elementary i have two students that went to uh east high school clark middle school winler middle school in tyson elementary and they've graduated now and one's in college and well they're both involved one's just taking a year off okay thank you brian i um i it was hard to hear you i don't know if the volume was all the way up um thank you uh georgiana hi my name is um georgiana chikirak star i'm a fourth grade teacher at alaska native cultural charter school we have had our um first few days of face to face and um it's been exhausting it's been exhilarating and we're really glad to have the

005kids back in school um i have uh a son who graduated from east high school and we're at east high school so things are looking different this year lyanna georgiana ricky oh thank you uh ricky lind goliczyk was my youtube name i teach music at winterberry and rokashula i'm also this is new i am a ed rising teacher leader which means if you're a middle or high school student interested in entering the education field whether it be a teacher or something else you could reach out to me which is neat and i like the closed captioning this is cool okay [Music] senior director doreen hi good evening um my youtube name is agafia my family my mom's family is originally from nepali on the cusco qrim and my father is originally from cedar rowley washington

006i am the senior director but most importantly you can see behind their old pictures i'm a mom i have a 25 year old son and i have a 14 year old that's attending romig i just want to take this minute real quick and give a shout out to megan because she's fierce and she's been at it for two hours already and she's got another two hours to go just advocating for our kids she was on our dempsey what we call the dempsey committee and it's the district instructional materials and curriculum committee and we're looking at the process of how the district adopts curriculum and long-term short-term goals and thank you megan for um representing us and and um staying with us for another two hours tonight thank you diana thank you oh go ahead brian

007can you hear me better now um just a tad but not too much it's almost like you're muted i'll keep working that okay great uh before we get to the rest of the title six staff i see that share um shannon and angela are here can you introduce yourselves please uh parents uh member and uh wanga is a senior at service and my family from gnome wales and little dining glad to be here tonight oh yeah thank you and i'm supervisor for indian education um and almost to a year a very long year in coveted years it's like you know five years so all right uh julianne hi i'm julianne porton i'm the administrative assistant for title vi um my family is from ohio and florida my husband's family is from wales and my son

008grew up in gnome up until fourth grade till he moved here and he's playing hockey down in bozeman montana right now thank you cheryl hello everyone my name is sheryl sherman i'm the cultural enrichment specialist for title vi indian education i am an asd graduate and i have five students in the district currently i have also have a scene who graduated last year i have another senior this year i have an eighth grader a sixth grader a fifth grader and a first grader at collegegate in the yuba commercial program thank you uh member margot bellamy yes thank you i'm margo bellamy i'm currently a member of the anchorage school board and i am delighted to be in this space i usually watch um the meetings after uh you know after they're over online so i'm

009really glad today to be in the room and to be able to um have a have a very uh thoughtful conversation regarding two new proposed policies um but i've had i have two kids they're both graduates of asd and i have two grandsons who are currently in the asd so thank you thank you for being here today uh both quentin and paula aren't in the queue yet um i will be monitoring their attendance so hopefully they'll be here um so we're going to go ahead and i will turn it over then to um chairwoman kimberly thank you um so um we'll do a call to order for the march 18th native adventure committee meeting um on march 18th at 6 11 pm juliana can you i'm sorry you said that wrong julian can you please

010do roll call for us yes thank you shannon here tanya here shanda here kimberly here megan here jocelyn angela here nashe here elena here brian here ricky here georgiana here okay we have a quorum i'd like to entertain a motion to approve our agenda [Music] i make a motion to approve your agenda angela makes a motion to prove the agenda [Music] i'll second this is shanda this is kimberly is there any discussion at all on the agenda seeing hearing none i will call the item to evoke all those that are um oh i lost the word that accept the agenda as it is please vote now any opposed we will accept the agenda as it is written um can i entertain a motion to approve the minutes of february 18th nac meeting shannon makes a

011motion to approve february 18 meeting minutes [Music] this is tanya's second map is there any discussion i will call the vote for um the approval of the minutes of the february 18th meeting um all those that are in agreement please vote now hi any opposed and seeing that that was passed we will move on to graduation regalia update with a resolution and i will turn it over to nashe all right um hi everyone um so for those of you who have been a part of the nac um since um our regalia journey started um to give insight i joined when i was 15 as a sophomore which is kind of crazy because now i'm 18 as a senior and i joined with the intent to see what i could do um to encourage the asd

012school board to pass a policy that would allow students to wear their regalia i did this in hopes that i could wear my traditional yupik headdress during graduation as per last meeting from this discussion i contacted dr kirsten johnson and mr marty lang which are the director of secondary schools and the director of high schools respectively and they encouraged me to go through the amazing committee who stewarded this in the beginning to expand this policy so here we have the resolution that i drafted up to expand the adjudicated report 5127b graduation regalia to include tribal headwear um because the current adjudicated report currently says that a um item of cultural significance cannot replace the moodle board which um does inhibit the ability to wear my uvic headdress um so i will just go ahead and

013read this so whereas the anchorage school district's native advisory committee wishes to expand the original adjudicated report 5217b graduation regalia on the accounts of the original intent of such progress and whereas title six indian education in order to be more inclusive in honoring traditional tribal identities in the anchorage school district and whereas as part of the mission to encourage inspire and strengthen solidarity solidarity among students cultural heritage and education and whereas in order to maintain high school graduation ceremony decorum and tradition while honoring the immense diversity uh in the anchorage school district and let it there be therefore be resolved that tribal headwear traditional to alaska native and native american identities may replace the motorboard graduation cap and be it further resolved of which will be determined by the appropriate staff of the title vi

014indian education department and be it further resolved the preceding details are officially addendum to the adjudicated report 5217b and be it further resolved superintendent dr dina bishop and school board members andy holman dena mitchell alyssa vachellis dave donnelly miss margo bellamy star marsette and alicia hild confirm the preceding details um so now i would like to welcome a discussion regarding this any questions or points of detail that anyone would like to add to this or if there's anything that was confusing that could be clarified so it can be officially resolved hi this is dorian i want to say thank you you did an amazing job and the thank you i i teared up because i'm just so proud of you and i'm proud of the committee and um good job uh the the part that

015i really appreciate is all of it but i really appreciate the wording the tribal head headwear traditional to alaska native native american identities good way of pointing that out good way of um kind of making it narrow because i know that that was something that as administrators we had a hard time um talking about and how do we how do we do it in a respectful way so thank you that was good job thank you so much miss doreen that means a lot to a lot coming from you niche you did a wonderful job it's beautifully written i am so proud that i am on this board and that i can even be remotely associated with this thank you so much thank you i think it's wonderful i just want to make sure the way

016it's written if there was um a negation um it would still be sent be able to be sent to the committee to be approved like all the other regalia correct um yes so i um i put on the second resolve point of which will be determined by the appropriate staff of title vi indian education um i really was kind of intentional with that one because although i love the principles of the asd i really think this is best um and most appropriately decided by our staff thank you i just wanted to be sure that if a principal were to say this is not fitting that there was somebody that would be able to give a second opinion thank you you brought up a good point so it's not written anywhere i just want to room

017or let you know when we did this not last year with the year before um we met as principal or the principal's matt and we went through all of the notifications and if there needed to be clarification or there are some questions about um the notifications then the principals will follow up i really appreciated that opportunity because i think it really actually was a great learning opportunity to learn more about the diversity within our district so and and just to let you know i was there as well um and if we needed to bring in experts um cultural cultural knowledge bearers and we would do that as well okay um so that makes me think should um a part of the the resolved portion should any of that include um how it should be selected

018should i mention it should be selected as the the current adjudicated report [Music] hello this is tanya and i just want to say um that i'm i'm very much so proud and like dorian i i choked up too because when my daughter graduated that's when i first learned you couldn't wear regalia and so i'm so excited um very beautifully written and i was wondering you know because as you know we're we're having this discussion and dialogue i was wondering if the um be it was further resolved if we can say current administration because the school board you know i don't know you know will you know change eventually so but if we can have like current school board current superintendent um then that way you know um that was just a thought so i just

019kind of wanted to throw that out but thank you oh yeah now um thank you for your kind remarks and um i think i will definitely re-look at that because there is um election time so thank you for reminding me i am so happy that this is together and i really hope that this is able to go through for this school year to hopefully see some service graduates wearing more traditional regalia so i appreciate you bringing this to uh nac today and i'm really excited to see what the next steps are great job thank you so much um crystalline is there anything i should add or touch on um in regards to this discussion um well if you wanted to uh make you know this is if this is a draft i would recommend that

020um probably within the next week maybe there is a subcommittee that's just my proposal just to make sure that uh the language and considerations um would be um you know altered for the next meeting so it's up to um the board to determine what the next steps are definitely so if there's um anyone out there who would like to kind of go with this editorial process i will be making some changes i think i will be adding the selection process that will be the same as the current policy um but as as well as change the language from the bottom uh resolved lines to current administration um so if anyone feels so inclined to make a motion to do a subcommittee um i believe that would be welcomed right now i'm will motion to make

021a subcommittee to work on um the final draft to be brought to the next nac monthly meeting and going forward to the school district after that angela seconds the motion [Music] oh all those in favor say aye can i ask a question before we vote uh yes so this is shanda if we bring it back and i i don't know who can answer this question but is that gonna be enough time for this to be ready for graduation um graduation as far as i know is within the first few weeks of may um and the notification deadline if i'm correct is april 1st or somewhere in the beginning of april um from what i understood with my discussion with um dr kirsten and mr lang as as of now we are going through the process

022with the um the current policy as they're taking it um kind of just as a case by case notification um if um ms brown or ms scott could touch on that um clarify um as far as i understand that's uh the process for this year that's correct so um when i i don't think they're really they're doing it case by case so again when they give the notification if we see hadrassa's headdresses um the principals and dr kirsten and um marty lane will approve just making sure that we're changing policy i think um we shoot for that um for anyone who um wants to wear tribal headwear this year i encourage you to talk to your principals because they are a big factor in deciding and they would know you personally if you reached out

023to them and when it comes time to decide maybe they're able to give some allowances um considering that this policy is in progress during a sensitive time for graduation thank you and you can always reach out to our office as well um 742 742-4445 or you can email uh brown underscore and i'll put it in the chat as well i think we have chat nope don't so figure that out how to get that information um contact indian education title six indian education through our website and all our emails are linked there so if anyone has any issues we'll be happy to help you with that and i do want to make a point of clarification um the regalia deadline is april 15 and the next nac meeting is april 15. [Music] um okay that is

024important to know and um so the sub committee meeting will have to be between um anywhere tomorrow and before april 15th and um who um should i talk with you miss scott or ms brown about um organizing that um point of clarification let's vote it first yes okay um so we had a motion and a second so all those in favor of a subcommittee group to clarify um the resolution for graduation regalia please say aye hi hi hi those opposed oh this is ricky and i'm opposed but i'm only an advisor [Music] ricky can you repeat that i think he said he's opposed but he is an advisory vote um i think that's what i caught um so would this mean that we would move uh move forward with the subcommittee since it was a

025majority okay so we will move forward with creating a subcommittee to review um the updated draft of uh graduation regalia resolution and i'll be happy to join that subcommittee um i can help organize it if you'd like sooner than later and then um meanwhile behind the scenes looking at the process as well okay or the school board and what all the other details definitely all right well um seeing as we will be moving forward with this um i have to conclude my my portion of today um i do have to go to a another zoom meeting unfortunately if i can slip away earlier i will definitely do so um but i can never express how much i i appreciate this group i'm so glad i joined when i did when i was so young i

026really opened my eyes to what i want to do in the future and it opened up so many opportunities for me and um to just see the growth of what this committee was from when i was only 15 and now i'm 18 and we're still expanding this policy which is i think very awesome so thank you all for your time and your consideration and your comments um we'll definitely keep in touch nac board you'll see an email out we'll be happy to help schedule that for you all right bye everyone thank you you're fabulous you should stay and do my report do my my discussion no i'm i'm shaking enough thank you thank you all right bye everyone this is kimberly moving on with our agenda our next point is the anchor school district update

027um board update by miss margo bellamy thank you wow uh nashay just blew me out of the water here i got to regroup anyway but thank you guys for uh making time for me um the board is uh uh has set forth two proposed policies one is an instructional equity policy and i'm hoping that you guys have copies if not i can uh share my screen and put them up in just a minute but one is an instructional equity policy and the other is an anti-racism policy and both policies uh grew out of um our strategic planning process which began back in 2019 some of you in the in the room were at some of those community forums we held several community forums around our strategic plan and what came up in uh what came

028up in those discussions had to do about our goals which is a vision for education in our community as well as our values and the values of those are those uh um the things that we call guardrails right now and so in turn so we had to uh um in 2019 we had laid all the groundwork we did about all of our discussion we were supposed to adopt our goals and guard rails in 2020 so that we can move on to our uh you know to the next piece which would be what are the policies what policies are missing so that we can effectively implement our goals and guard rails then kovit hit so we had to put it off and then we brought it back and we just adopted our goals and guard rails

029last december and i know that you guys have had some discussion on the goals and guard um so um in order for one of the things there are a couple of things uh thoughts that um came forward uh for on the board as to what was missing from our policies we currently have um you know you know we don't haven't we we have our curriculum and adoption policies we don't have a policy that speaks to um uh you know equity and a lot of what came out of the discussions the community discussions had to do with equity yes it was reading yes it was math and yes it was life and career life college and career readiness but there were also things like underrepresentation in certain programs in our schools uh identifying and eliminating barriers

030barriers that that um that would keep some of our kids from being successful so uh and that kind of led to looking at our data which we already knew what our data looks like you guys know what it looks like it looks if you look at our data you will see that some of our kids are are being more successful than others and and the ones who are not being successful are our black brown and indigenous kids and so in looking at how can we systemically change and and and hold ourselves accountable for uh making sure that we are giving every kid the opportunity to be the access and the opportunity to be successful so that's how i came to remember um mitchell and i kind of initiated the the work around this and then

031the whole board came together to show to to uh rep to um come up with the policies that we have now so before i begin what i'd like to do is just go through some definitions i'm gonna see if i can share my screen really quickly and then figure out where my powerpoint is there it is and then i need to go to [Music] share this slideshow because i i think it's it's important to start with definitions so that we um so that we're on the same uh at least we're we're kind of at least not on the same uh in the same space with what what these policies are and what they're not okay why i'm okay i better use this one here okay so when it comes to um there's a lot of

032talk about what's equitable uh in turn what's equitable and what is equal our current system is based on equality it's based on giving everybody the same and so when you look at our data what what what really comes up what really pops out is that yes we we do a great job of giving every kid uh the opportunity to do whatever but we don't always look at we have not always uh considered what are the barriers limitations that some kids face so even though we are equally protected under the law when it comes to discrimination harassment bullying and all those things that are illegal uh uh or legal protections for us in the workplace and in our classrooms uh we can no longer assume that ev that equality is the only way that we can

033provide for successful outcomes for all of our kids so that's what and that little diagram shows you what equality really looks like they all have the same box they're standing on the same box the taller kid he can see pretty well the kid in the middle he can see pretty well but look at the little guy in the blue shirt now he might be peeking through the little cracks in the fence but you know so equality we have to go deeper we can't just stop at providing uh uh justin you know everything equal so then comes in the term of equity and the board spent probably three sessions just working on this definition of equity uh equity and and i'm going to read it verbatim and then it and we actually start the actual policy

034with this term equity is the fair treatment access opportunity and advancement for all people while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have presented the uh prevented the full participation of some groups improving equity involves increasing justice and fairness within the procedures and processes of institutions or systems as well as in their distribution of resources and so when we give the same resources and we give so this these these two slides represents the possibility the possibilities of equity you now have the kid to the left he's tall enough he doesn't need to have that box but he's still able to enjoy that game the kid in the middle is still on his box because if he didn't have it he would not be able to see the game and then the

035little guy in the blue shirt well hey some the the kid you know he he now has what he needs to enjoy that opportunity that access and then when you really look at removing structural barriers we come up with uh ideas to to really make adjustments so that all kids benefit so then it's no longer about the kid in the blue shirt the maroon shirt or the light blue shirt it's about all kids and their ability to access opportunities programs and other things so when it comes to anti-racism um this this is a very important definition because when we talk about race uh people go places in their own experience that may or may that that that that defines what anti-racism is for them for the purposes of our pr of our policies when we

036are trying to when we are looking to to be um to identify we the practice it's a practice of identifying challenging and changing the values structures and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism so we're not out there calling people racist we're not insinuating that people are racist we in in terms of educating our kids we have got to value those structures behaviors and changes that are limiting them for being successful so when you look at our data you will see that our black and brown kids whether you are looking at graduation rates you're looking at who's identified for special education you're looking at who uh who who has access to our choice programs or our um uh uh special programs or alternative programs um it is very clear that as well as our achievement scores uh

037so we want all of our kids to be successful so we've got to be intentional and mindful about looking at all of the reasons why our kids may are not being successful how do we give our kids all kids what they need to be successful and the disparities in our system right now are absolutely along the lines of race and we cannot continue to ignore that uh and then i just have a note here about the difference between um you know we the proposed policies will not replace our current legal laws our current laws and uh policies that protect our kids and our employees from non-discrimination and anti-harassment it will not these we will be our policies the policies that we are going to discuss tonight will work in conjunction with the non-discrimination and anti-harassment

038policies so i'm going to stop sharing and then i'm going to uh come back and i'm going to pull up the well i don't know which one it'll be whichever one comes up is what we'll talk about first um where did it go okay nope hold on one minute oh shoot can you guys see that no do you guys see a policy on my screen on my screen share not yet okay all right let me try again sorry i'm i'm challenged hold on let me try one more time i meant to get these out to you guys in advance remember bellamy i do have a copy that was sent to me internally yes that would be happy to share it with you thank you let's start with the uh instructional equity policy if if we

039can okay and and then i'm i want to like uh be responsive to uh to the group uh their your questions your comments your concerns um all right so that that is the this is the uh the the equity the instructional equity policy draft and as i said we start out with the equity uh defining what equity is so that we are all on the same page and then that second paragraph uh and i'll read it just in case people are having might have a difficult uh time reading it in terms of seeing it uh the board believes that instructional equity involves increasing justice and fairness within the procedures processes and allocation of resources within the district and its systems our district has a collective responsibility to sustain a school community and learning environment that

040reflects these values recognizing the importance of accountability and transparency to our community the superintendent shall submit an annual equity report to the board this may be a compilation of data presented at board meetings as part of the board's goals and guard rail monitoring measuring equity of both inputs and outcomes so again the policy sets the direction and then the superintendent gets to go back we'll take the policy if it's approved and put in the administrative regulations those will be the actions by which the policy will be implemented so um it is not it is not the intent of the policy to be prescriptive in terms of this is going to happen this is going to happen and this is going to happen we will have input into the administrative regulations that will guide for for

041instance the allocation of resources in our district um that will um you know uh um make sure that we have in turn you know uh like if you look at our guard rails right now those guard rails are stated in a will not uh pers uh perspective the superintendent will not um let me just read a couple of them the superintendent will not leave student groups underrepresented in lottery application based programs that's an equity statement but it gives the guidance to the superintendent and we've adopted these this policy will support that the superintendent will not operate without a diverse or culturally responsive workforce again diverse or culturally responsive workforce that's another equity piece the superintendent will not allow unsatisfactory employee performance to go uh unidentified or unaddressed and the superintendent will not operate elementary schools

042without mental health services so those are the values that came out of our um out of our community uh the work that we did with the community so your thoughts concerns i see brian's hand yeah i i guess i'm i'm wondering how how are they going to measure and take data regarding equity i mean what kind of things will they be looking for to see to measure yeah so it would be everything every every way that we measure what our kids know and are able to do so it would be it would it would be achievements uh scores it will be graduation rates it will be dropout rates it will be grade distributions it will be all of those things um that that uh that we've that that mark success or failure for kids so

043that that seems to me as the result of inequities not not fixing the equity problem does that make sense um if we're measuring the outcomes of of what's caused by inequities we need to we need to figure out ways to measure what we're doing to solve the problem not um the outcome so we have a there is an equity audit that is the the the baseline for this will be the equity audit that the superintendent has already commissioned it will come to us i i any i'm not sure when but i'm sure it will be um at some point so we will have the board will have that as a basis for setting the uh uh the ars because it doesn't right now it doesn't exist does that answer your question brian a little bit

044okay other questions kim kim has a question yes cam so in looking at our historic indigenous people there's generational trauma in um especially alaska natives and american indians um where school has not been a positive thing will there be um a look on how communities how schools reach out to the families and to bring school to a more positive light for um families because i know when you don't feel like you're welcome somewhere as a child and wanting to interact with somebody for your children it can be hard for families sometimes to seek the help that they need yes and yes and i think when we get to the the anti-racism policy it speaks to building communities of work and learning communities uh that that value all of uh all of our students and families

045and employees as well but i absolutely um i absolutely agree that comes up the whole concept of how we communicate with engage with the community uh comes up quite a bit uh and and we need to so we know that that is um and that's not just a race that's not just a race an issue of race uh but some of our some of our families are not comfortable coming to school uh whether it's uh uh you know whether it's to a a parent conference or having to come because for some other reason and so trying to figure out how do we build communities that are culturally responsive respectful and engaging for all of our kids is is is is part of why we feel both policies they will they will um complement each other

046but they will also stand alone because uh i think for me the equity the instructional instruction is going to be at the the core of of of of how we um you know of how we how we how we ins uh implement changes that will benefit all kids especially those kids who are right now um you know they're just not benefiting from the they're not benefiting from the opportunities or the or or from education as well as others and so in trying to address the disparity give every kid what they need it's you know we've got to do something different than than just the you know the equal the the the whole concept of equal just giving people you know just well we gave it we did it and they didn't take advantage of it

047it's bigger than that so i think kimberly when we go to the next policy i think you'll you'll see a reflection of your concern there okay i see georgiana's hand hi um thank you so much from for um for one for drafting this um policy and i really do appreciate the thought that went into this to um highlight the um the inequalities that we see across the board this is just a couple of things um one um you know with this whole year of the pandemic um that really showcased and highlighted the um the inequalities that we see across the board and we know that our minority children were adversely affected more so um with the pandemic um with a lot of with a lot of various reasons so i think that you know the

048the board really has to look at um specifically look at those inequalities that were so highlighted in this pandemic year and we're not just talking you know socioeconomic we're looking at you know um you know just um data broadband data computer access all these things that that um that have the disparities between um who was successful and then who was not and i really do appreciate um you bringing up the um the whole idea of justice and fairness and that brings to mind what we're trying to implement and learn at our school which is the whole um the whole idea of restorative practices and i know that a lot of different schools look at this in a lot of different ways and i think that it's really important when you have these policies um to

049have a variety of toolkits available to help people along the process you know to make um the the moving parts easy to digest and easy to understand and um you know and that also kind of falls along um with um teacher training and i know that the university at their level has really looked at the teacher training and how to better inform um you know pre-service staff on the necessity of being culturally sensitive understanding the diversity because when the first alaskans had that training with asd those years ago we had a lot of people who were very uncomfortable with that process of looking at race and equity from an alaska native perspective and um i think that you know when you start looking at the um you know at different various groups and how they're

050underrepresented in asd i know that there's a lot of moving parts in um addressing these and um as a teacher who's in the first cohort of minority leadership i'm beginning to understand like the bigger picture of of these things that you're bringing up and thank you so much for doing that thank you georgiana and you know i uh again this is this is this is the value and attached to it if it passes will be up teacher training it will be under representation and special programs diversity and recruitment and how we and culturally responsiveness all of those things will be part of the action items that uh which and it will be and teacher training is a big piece not the only piece it's just a piece because we are doing a lot of things

051right now we are doing um i mean and i think it's an opportunity for us to kind of bring a lot of things um together instead of having them out in silos because we do we are doing some a lot of this work now but it it is it is not being done consistently throughout the district all right so we're there's no way that we're saying that nothing is being done it's just that it's not being done and the restorative justice comes up over and over and over again and um so uh yeah i thank you for your comments and i um i captured all of your um recommendations brian we're back to you i can't see everybody doreen can brian speak again hold on brian yeah okay i'm you back brian i can't hear

052you i'm here you're on you [Music] thank you hey i guess that's what i was looking for because when when i read it i was like well they're acknowledging that there's inequity in our instruction right and we already know that and i've known that for 20 years there's inequity there and it felt like this was just an acknowledgement of that but you're saying if we acknowledge that they're going to put policies into place to help that problem and there's going to be trainings and there's going to be absolutely all of that okay that's what i was doing absolutely yeah because right now brian what we have is we have uh we have equity work being done in the district but we also have some not being done right and so uh this will you know

053if if this policy will engage us systemically as a district as you know whether you know our teachers our administrators our kids our families um and and so uh what that will look like i mean what the actual action items will be i know communication will be one of them i know teacher training will be a one of them um you know i think uh um you know so it you know i i i know what i would do but i'm not the superintendent right but we get to we get to work with the superintendent to bring up uh uh those you know to make sure that we uh cover everything which is why it's so important to hear from the various groups so that uh if it's not in the ars you know if

054if or if we miss something just in the policy then we we want to fix it uh before we uh vote on it and we won't be voting on it until april 20th so you've got time even after today uh to uh get information to me or to any board member yeah you're welcome so not seeing any hands on this one let's go to the anti-racism policy so this one uh is this one kind of sets people off on on different um because of their experience uh it it kind of brings up things and i just want to be real clear that you know we're when we're referring to anti-racism where we it we are defining it as the practice of identifying challenging and changing the value structures and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism race

055hatred bias and the oppression of marginalized groups now we know that they're legal protections right so we're not replacing those this is in conjunction with those legal protections the anchorage school board and superintendent shall work to end the predicted value of race on students academic success and access equal and access to equal opportunities the board rejects all forms of racism and we've never said that before we've always been legally we've always adhered to the legal protections under the law the board acknowledges that racism has historically existed in our educational systems and is often compounded by other forms of discrimination including those protected protective classes referred to in board policy zero four one zero non-discrimination the board recognizes the negative impact of racism on student learning and on lifelong socio-economic opportunities health and well-being the board

056will work with the superintendent to identify and redesign any racially inequitable policies and procedures that limit academic opportunities the board and superintendent will work to champion a district culture that values and respects the diversity and life experiences of all stakeholders to support the district's mission vision core values goals guard rails instruction and guardrails sorry instructions should encourage critical thinking on the history of racism in alaska america and around the world and the current structural explicit and unconscious biases toward people of different races so um so so if it is our it is my hope in in in really again we've been working on this we i started out with the draft probably 17 pages long and that draft was just too comprehensive for anybody to to to be able to understand right but i got

057everything in my head out and when we started talking as a board at first i had instructional equity and anti-racism combined into one i am so glad they convinced me to separate them out into two different ones because i think they are both stronger uh because of it um so you're quite any questions around what are your thoughts on this policy [Music] hi my name is quinton simeone i work for new student services at uaa hi quentin thank you for this information um i think it's a great policy i think um i was working with a friend of mine who's got a student in anchorage school district and some of the curricula that my friend student was being exposed to had racist ideologies and things like that that just didn't sit right with me um

058is there anything in this policy that addresses curriculum or anything that's being taught in the schools uh so yes i think so i think um uh you know when we are there there will be uh again uh i don't know how if you heard the explanation about the policy and then the ars i fully expect there to be a curriculum and instruction ar that will be attached to not just the anti-racism draft but also to the instructional um the instructional equity uh policy and so the policy provides the value of the direction uh uh for for for the district and then we the next step after we get the policy is to identify the pieces that we need to look at and i fully expect that curriculum and instruction will be a primary piece along

059with discipline along with uh oh my goodness i mean i got i got a list here um because i you know looking at communication leadership and administration curriculum and instruction [Music] um and uh so there will be pieces training teacher training uh opportunities for students to engage and have conversation be exposed to different uh uh uh kinds of literature i got that same i don't know if we're talking about the same person but i got a call that one of the reading lists from one of the high schools did not have a single person of color or a female on the list and i don't think none of it's it's intentional but it is very impactful and so um i i'm excited to see uh how the superintendent and uh what those what those steps

060those action steps will look like um but i i'm already going in with with uh um an idea of kind of what what i would like to see and i have two grandkids in the school district i don't have any more kids that are students but i have two grandbabies oh marshall this is ricky land i'm a musician oh good thank you can i offer something through youth to clinton also on the teacher's side sure thank you on the teacher side of things clinton it's kind of like doing dishes like oh as a music feature i'm like where'd this piece of music come from i would never do this with my students so it could be a maintenance side issue too just uh working through the teacher and the principal like hey this we're using

061this in this class and it shouldn't be there so you can use something else so that's another option you could do is take it to the teacher yeah if that doesn't work the principle and i find music too it's i would never use certain pieces with my students so it could be taken to the teacher as well thank you that's true that is so true and that's exactly what we did in my case we just you know i advise a parent to just go talk to the take it back to the teacher because it was and it was not an intentional thing all right i mean it it was just it was just what happened on that day that time and it was it was a a readily and welcomed uh it was readily uh

062fixed and it was a welcomed response so um so yeah it can be as simple as that i often know that um well because i'm speaking from a white perspective um that a lot of times racism is um i don't see it as often as i probably would if i'm walking with my wife somewhere and she tells me then i notice it but i wouldn't notice it otherwise so a lot of it a lot of the time it's not um apparent to yeah people that are in power i guess and and that is and you are so and that is so true and the best word is a good thing you know and and again you know we we bring to to our work and our in our engagements we bring every way everything that

063we know and the ways we've been imprinted by whether it's power or privilege or or hurt and pain and disappointment we bring that with us and one of the things i think we can do for for adults is give them safe ways so that they can at least think about you know the impact of what they of of how they think and what they bring to the classroom and uh uh because i think our teachers are doing a great job i think i think we can resource them in ways that will help them be more culturally responsive and more sensitive and so how how we will how that will be done uh i don't have that piece yet but i i know that it will be part of the the the implementation of these policies

064and it it's not it is not uh you know uh i think our children of color face microaggressions every day from somewhere and none of it and again it's not intentional but we've got to know and we've got to be able to say to ourselves you know am i doing all i can to make this place a safe welcoming learning or work environment for all who for everybody who's here so it's not about calling people out for bad behavior although we have processes for that too uh but we also have to uh um facilitate the opportunities for our kids to have discussions about different kinds of literature uh making sure that our kids have uh opportunities to um understand uh a different perspective other than their own uh they don't have to agree uh but

065to do so respectfully and so i'm hoping that um the impact of the of these policies will not only improve uh academic achievement you know i mean i look at our goals our our number one is they're not in any priority order but one of our goals is reading now we know how important reading is right if a kid can't read and we know by third grade if a kid can't read then we we then that kid is probably not likely to be we know they're not they're gonna struggle all right we pray that they graduate we pray that they that you know they stay in school but we know that they're not going to read i mean if they can't read they're not going to be as successful by the third grade so if

066we want kids to read by the third grade then we've got to put resources into them being able to do that we've got to put teacher power behind that we've got to put training we've got to do what we need to do now i don't know what all that is but the superintendent and her her staff will figure that out and so by 2026 we should our reading and this in this district uh should improve for all of our kids all right right for all of our kids from 50 to 80 percent and i know i'm over crystalline but i see julian had julianne has a hand up yes so um actually i moved from being a youth development tutor um at an elementary school to being the aaa and um so i come from

067a little bit different perspective and i was just wondering um because i was utilized more during the win time when i need time and it was so structured for a lot of our students and i was wondering how much of um more i guess i don't want to say leeway will a instructional aide have to be able to bring in culturally relevant stories [Music] material during that time to help our students out i was lucky enough to be able to have a principal allow me to do that with some of my win time with students in the group um and i know that some of it is going to have to be structured for some of our low students but to have them constantly being in that type of environ learning environment is one it

068doesn't work i've seen it it works if you have it equal with other reading and other cultural pieces brought in and and that's a great question my initial thought is is that if we are being culturally responsive and we make that the expectation and not the exception then principals will will be able will be empowered to do just what you just uh mentioned uh within you know within within you know we all have a defined day we have a defined schedule we have you know how how these policies might adjust that i don't know but we do have a defined school day we have a defined amount of time that we are with kids and how we utilize it uh the principal is responsible for setting up those schedules but if we have if culturally

069responsiveness is is is the expectation across the anchorage school district then it's to me it should simply take a a suggestion or a um you know there should be a process by which we could achieve that which you're talking about because there's like right now it's not it is not you know i i know we have culture responsive standards for the state of alaska and i think we have i think our teachers uh um are very familiar with them but i don't know that that every teacher is familiar and that every teacher understands and see that i think that's the power of policy it is it it sets the tone and the expectation the level of respect of what's important in our district and um what the community told us uh and this will be

070my last little i know i'm over time i always go over and what the community told us was reading math the successful achievement of all students equity addressing disparities in student group achievement and opportunities access and program uh underrepresentation in our programs identifying and eliminating barriers that impede student success or family access to learning diverse and culturally responsive schools and workplace inclusion and life and career readiness um and there's more on our website but i just pulled those off because that's what the community is that's what the community values and that's what our schools should be reflecting miss margot i just have one extra comment to have uh this is shannon parent role i hope that those comments and suggestions uh had uh some [Music] feedback from community members that are last native or american

071indian uh i i would like to hear a little bit more about how many uh voices might have been present during that uh if not i feel like there should be another avenue to give more feedback yes that's just yeah and that and that yeah and that's true we are uh we have split ourselves up and we are going to all of the advisory groups we have set two town halls for the city uh the first one will be on the 25th of march and that would be a noon meeting just so people can pop in for during their lunch and then the next one will be on the hold up let me just look real quick the 30th and that's a six to eight o'clock uh town hall now we have been discussing these

072policies in our governance committee which is a public meeting and we have gotten lots of testimony on them from uh since uh i think november um but we have this but we did not the policy just moved out of governance i think it was march 2nd no march 9th okay thank you i agree i agree we need to have more voices and so we are all doing um we're all doing okay i can we move on to the next topic we keep okay so um if i may make a suggestion i'm mark marking the town hall dates nic members i'll move that forward and it sounded like you would mention that april 20th is the conclusion of the feedback so if everyone wants to send feedback individually or you know as as a board for

073nac of support uh the avenue sounds like it's there um so i'll make sure to list out the dates and and forward that on to you nac members and if anybody would like a presentation at another group just if you can let crystalline know and uh we will figure out a board member to uh accommodate you thank you liana thank you thank you margo thank you um i know that took a lot of time is there a way we can set up a subcommittee to maybe work on nacs a draft of nac's thoughts and support of these policies moving forward and how would we go about that so i guess it's asking the advisory committee if they want um i guess it's a motion to have a subcommittee but you can i don't know since

074margot said they're they're waiting till april 20th to decide but i think it's input that kim's talking about yeah the upper discussion for you guys i'm wondering if you guys want to have like a some committee to like kind of put together our thoughts before our next meeting which would be before that deadline and then when when we have our thoughts aligned have a letter of support that can go to the board for these policies because i think the intent there is to do lots of good with this but we also want to have a strong point and a letter of support might be able to give that punch of what we want and envision in these policies so could i entertain like a motion to create a subcommittee for those that feel very passionate

075about this um to work together and then bring it back next month okay seeing none we'll move forward to um the next item on our agenda which is the uaa native um student services and we have two guests um in our meeting right now quentin and oh i just lost we just lost a paula jones there sorry hi quinton and paula thank you so much for being here tonight nice to see you too and you're in the presence of a lot of good people and streaming live to youtube and we are i'm happy to hear any updates about the good things you're doing at uaa so welcome thank you um i guess i have the the power to to share my screen is that is that okay okay so i'll um i'll start our screen

076share and then in our presentation we'll introduce ourselves a little bit more formally and whatnot but um my name is quentin simeone i work for native student services and paula is our student services coordinator and we will be doing a quick presentation on our service that we provide at uaa native student services and the net program um i'm gonna move some stuff around okay here it is and present everybody see that okay does that look good that presentation mode awesome okay so [Music] our general motto at native student services is fostering wisdom one mind at a time and then so [Music] uh little bug my english name is quentin i am a yupik man i come from the villages of bethel in antioch on the kuskokum i moved to anchorage in my family my dad's

077side of the family are the simians the morgans and the pete's and on my mom's side we are the hoffmans and the millers and my job at uaa is i work for students or young people who attend attend school at uaa and this is paula um my name is paula jones i'm originally from queen huck alaska which is in the southwest alaska about 85 miles away from bethel um i come from a large family the pros and the joneses my entire family still resides back home aside from my mom and my daughter um and uh i work over at uaa as a student services coordinator i just started that position in august after graduating with my bachelor's uh in human services in may um and you know one of my things is building a connection

078with the students that come through our program i do a lot of outreach uh with our students just checking in to make sure that they're doing okay and provide a lot of resources for them if they need it um we also have an office manager cheryl she was born um in the holy cross uh and her a lot of her family still resides there cheryl has actually been the office manager for about 20 years um over at uaa and is also a graduate of uaa um and uh you know her father's families are the turners and uh her mom's families are the franks and the sims and yeah so our our director is amber christensen fulmer um her grandmother was born in haycock which is up in the gnome region on in that norton sound

079spot i'm sure but she's born here in anchorage um grown three kids two dogs and four cats got like a whole family going on um her family up in that no merrier than the naoks and swansons and she's also an adjunct professor besides being our director i mean her things that she does primarily is he's a student support advocacy and mentorship all across the board not only student mentorship but mentorship for both paul and i and and cheryl on our progression and so this is our our mission statement for for native student services i'll just kind of talk about the highlights but we provide support services for all of our primarily rural students but all alaska native native american students or any students who wants to have a space at nss we just try to

080have bring a sense of belonging and having a strong collaborative partnerships across the board even with other departments not even at uaa working with uaf and uas their rural student services and made a student day of student and rural service student services at uas so we're trying to be very inclusive so uh what is the net program uh the net program stands for native early transition program um it is meant to serve both rural and urban alaska native students who are attending and registered at uaa and really learning and guiding them on their way to being a successful college student you know we really look at our model as a whole person standard uh so when students come in we look at them as that whole person um the net program now it has been

081rebooted and revamped uh when our director came in uh last january um it was at first uh a five day orientation um and she turned it into a two-year full cohort model and it's based on holistic advising and support through the first two years which is about 60 credits for a full-time student attending uaa and we do a lot of strength-based student-focused support um and as clinton mentioned early a lot of mentorship with them the way that the net program is set up right now um are in sequential courses so the first semester usually starts in the fall we offer a three-credit course focused on transitioning into post-secondary college and establishing a sense of belonging and connection and cultural identity project now i will say with that when we first developed the program uh we

082had um you know figured that when the students came in we would work with them um on and you know have them do a an e-portfolio essentially highlighting their journey as a college student and we quickly found out that the students that came into our program into the net class were very under prepared um to be in college and so instead of having students conform to our curriculum and our and in the way that we structured the class we conformed to our students and we met our students where they were at and so we we looked at the program and um realized that we needed to focus on some of the um the basics of coming into college um in the second semester uh we offer one to three credit course um focus on mentorship

083and again the cultural identity project and career pathways um so there is a lot of of the whole person standard there's a lot of um meeting with peers and and having staff and faculty um that look like you as you guys saw in our introductions we show uh where we come from in alaska and we talk about our family so that our students can get a really good understanding that we also understand where they are coming from and what they are experiencing in their first semester in post-secondary education so in the first experience that the students have coming into to anchorage or to um uaa or any of our large campuses can be super daunting super scary it's uh it's it's a lot to chew on when your campus can be as big or bigger

084than some of our rural communities that we have um in normal parts of alaska and so students are able to move in one week early during this week we're hoping to have some time for them to meet either virtually or in person build rapport with other students get them connected to other villages like the financial aid village or the first year advising village or disability support services village or alaska new studies village or the residence life village and just so that they are they know who their people are at before the big hustle and bustle of the first semester comes in um we try to have engaged campus tours or would make it very real and accessible for the students um if that's to be done on video or an actual walking tour with students

085um also getting students connected to ua online blackboard some of the technology that we use for student success on campus personally transitional advising just getting to know who our students are and what their needs are going to actually be throughout the semester if they don't have any family who's going to be here there's a little bit more engagement i think on our part when they they do have family in town and then we have presentations from the other departments from the chamai room and rob indigenous and other outreach programs across the campus so um as i mentioned earlier we definitely uh look at the whole person right so we do everything with a holistic approach um and we find it really important to be rooted in indigenous philosophies beliefs and practices what we want our

086students to know is that they don't have to leave their culture and identity behind once they enter into this uh onto campus life and in this institution we want them to come in and and go on a journey and learn how to navigate through the through the university system as native students and using their indigenous knowledge for the for their benefit in the classrooms um and so you know we a lot of the things that we do in the whole person standard is we focus on on their needs you know their intellectual emotional social spiritual physical and and everything else needs their basic needs because once um if they're not doing okay in those things they are going to have a very hard time succeeding with their education so a lot of what i do

087and our instructor as well you know we have a behavioral health background is we are continually outreaching to our students on a regular basis to make sure that they are connected to make sure that they are staying engaged and to make sure that they are feeling healthy emotionally and mentally because a lot of times you know within the first maybe month and a half six weeks after uh the first semester starts a lot of students start getting homesick and you know missing their peers and are having a really hard time connecting with a space or with staff and peers on campus because there is no one that really seems to understand where they are coming from so we definitely do a lot of work on community building from the moment they enter into campus for

088that net week orientation uh so our first our first goal is to make sure that they are doing okay and then we start focusing on the academics and i think a lot a lot of our students experience like some sort of a almost a sense of trauma when they get here and so being able to like you can breathe now you can you can have this space and it's safe i think it's one thing that we do at the student services give that that place of safety so as you can see here i just wanted to put a visual in it um that's you know all these things such as mental health needs career planning financial health meeting the basic needs and tutoring um you know it's it's kind of all over the place right

089you have all these different things that you need to do um and nothing kind of makes sense and you're going and you're bouncing back between things and you kind of lose track and you end up slipping through the cracks so instead of doing things so separately like this we work at the holistic approach which is in the next slide so that we are really forming an individualized plan with each student which is so important building that connection with each student on a different level because we are then more able to understand what it is that they need what they may be struggling with what they are excelling in um so that we can really foster and and support um their vision for themselves and so you know what we really want is students to understand

090that native student services as a whole is is the hub right so they may need financial aid they may need to um talk to an advisor but they may not know where to start because there are so many different departments there are so many different titles um we really want them to know that if any time that they need something that they can always know that they can go to native student services with one of four of us and say hey i need this and we will connect them with that right person and we're hoping that by that point you know we have built enough of a rapport and trust with our students that they are willing to engage with other people that we bring into our space such as advisors and and professors even

091um because sometimes it is pretty intimidating to talk to complete strangers about your struggles and um you know even advocating for yourself we work a lot with students on building in those competencies and also um speaking with other departments and staff on you know things such as cultural awareness and cultural relevancy and sensitivity and learning how to engage successfully with native students especially those that are coming in from the rural areas [Music] and so one of the things that we also try to do is provide the best avenue for success for our students once they come out of their elementary and their secondary schooling experience once students kind of break free or get out of that high school experience that's kind of when life really begins and so if you imagine your your higher education

092as a tree if you get your aas or your aaa degree that's kind of like along the trunk the main part of your education and so that's kind of broken down in a couple of tiers in higher education terms here one being writing math and oral communications and so that's the foundational classes that our students need to be successful no matter where they go if they take an aas degree or an associate's general [Music] associate of arts degree or if they branch off into one of the bachelor degrees they need that those tier ones at the beginning of their journey before they take any other classes and then tier two are going to be the rounding out or the rest of the trunk of that tree and that's going to be getting students closer to

093their aaa and then eventually to the branches of their bachelor degree and of course we have five themes for our gr general education requirements that's um alaskan themed ger and that can also be within the arts humanities natural sciences or even the social sciences so a lot of different options on how to get in these classes but just making sure that the students are taking them in the proper order because i think almost every student that enters the higher education environment it comes to a come to us as a non-degree seeking student basically they might have an idea of where they want to go but college is such a broad experience for people to have these opportunities for growth that we don't want to limit them you know what classes they want to take but

094want to make sure they're taking the right ones so no matter what branch that they want to go down that they're properly equipped from the get go so you don't end up taking your math class in your final semester that's going to be like your one thing that you need to graduate and so we want to make sure that our students are doing things in a proper way and can i just add we recently um met with the writing department as we know you know writing and math are are some of the challenge areas that a lot of students face um and so we recently met with the writing department and we told them these things and some of them understood where we were coming from and um in working out those details we formed

095a partnership that the writing professors are now going to be we now have a a writing professor specific for our net class and um you know as i mentioned earlier we really worked on slowly transitioning the students into post-secondary education so that they're so not so overwhelmed and you know we're teaching them those basics of um ua online we're teaching them how to navigate blackboard we're teaching them some terminology that they're going to hear from professors and and other students and so in conjunction with that we the writing department is going to do a late start with us so we have two weeks to work with these students transitioning slowly into the college life and then the writing department will come in and start teaching their classes in the writing department providing students enough space

096and and time and they also developed a writing lab um that is also a credit um that will be offered for our students as well and we're hoping that we can get um other departments on board such as map because math is one of the biggest biggest issues that we we have um in and students uh struggles with overcoming which math class that they're going to go through or even passing by math because it is so fast-paced so we we are working on some things so that the program is called accelerated learning program and it's it's a model where you have your general class and then a support class kind of built on top of that where you have that extra extra support right afterwards and so instead of students having to take two or

097three years of pre-ger classes like taking you know writing on i know writing 110 then writing 111 what what the students are now able to do is if they test close to like a writing 111 they can take the writing 111 and then take that support class right on top of it and so that reduces semester-long worth of education and a 700 750 class so reducing the amount of tuition that our students are paying condensing some of the time that they're going to be in school providing them with that little bit of extra support because they know they can do the work they just need that little bit of extra because they're coming to anchorage is shocking it's coming to college is shocking so we just provide that buffer for our students and so some

098of the things we do in our space to provide some of that buffering um is we have sent computers stations we have printing stations so that students can print out some of their work we have a communal study space and quiet study spaces that students can go into for more quiet things provide tutoring and that's one of the things that we have a strong partnership with the learning commons is providing tutoring for some of our harder classes and direct tutors that work directly with our programs and our students and so that it is that this is your community kind of support we also have visiting area with couches kids will fall asleep on there and we just let them sleep cover them with blanket we have a student fridge so students can bring in their

099lunch especially if they're commuting a long ways and they don't can't get back and forth to their their homes and we have an open pantry that's open all the time that has all kinds of snacks in it for our students um so i wanted to jump in and i know that i'm watching the time and we do end at eight o'clock um more importantly the reason why um we have uh the net program here for uaa is just due to covid i have a concern that students may not be pursuing higher education this year or maybe they didn't make plans or fill out the fafsa which they still can and we wanted to make sure that our students who are staying local have the connection with universities or whatever program so the next question is

100how do they get a hold of you can they call you up soon can they call you can they start talking to you now how are you able do they have to be graduated to be talking to you so how can people get a hold of you great great question so on on the screen that's up right now is our email addresses that's the best way to get a hold of us um i think paula and i can put our our emails in the in the chat box as well i don't know if i can cut and paste from this i don't think so um but that's that's the way to get a hold of us our general line i'll put that in the chat too i'm going to stop the share so um oh

101q a i guess i'll put it in the in the q a is that where i put stuff do i put one thing that we can do is um since we're streaming on youtube i can share this youtube video on our facebook page and share out your emails as well and they can always go on to uh uaa website and look up uaa native student services and all of our information pops up on there along with the registration form um for for a net class if they're interested in joining our net program but we are definitely available we are we really want to connect with our students we definitely want to connect with students who are interested in going to college so that um you know the earlier we connect with them and familiarize them

102with our faces and our space and um i really feel like that the idea of going to college won't be so daunting um because by then they will be comfortable enough to approach us with any questions or concerns that they may have and uh they'll be you know we can introduce them to other people as well within the other departments that they need uh to work on their fafsa and residence life and and things of that nature so they can they are absolutely welcome to to call us and and we want parents and and family to be involved as well they are a part of our community and so if we can get parents engaged with us as well and get comfortable with us um i really definitely think that we can make some progress

103with getting students on board with going to uaa in the fall well lyanna thank you so much and um you know hoping to point students in your direction and we'll make sure to share away um your information so thank you so much for being here orianna for having us [Music] thank you okay so we only have a few uh more pieces of information for you from title six that we wanted to make sure to share out um before the conclusion of the meeting i'm looking at the time and we do have uh 15 minutes remaining and our part will be at least my part will be pretty short so hopefully you are able to see my screen i wanted to quickly give you an update on the current status of our financial report and then

104our uh most importantly our easy grand part one uh that was submitted on behalf of title six for the grant and then cheryl will conclude with all the good stuff and that is the cultural programming and upcoming opportunities so our financial report was sent out to you in ac members uh we do have some budget codes cleanup that we have to take care of but overall all in all so good and we are you know budgeting for uh summer camp um or summer enrichment program that um cheryl will be talking about as well as other opportunities so everything looks good and we'll be working on the budget for next year for your approval on april um 15 i believe is the date of approval for the next year's grant um [Music] you'll see red but

105there's things that are not going to be read the next time we meet and that is just due to some cleanup um so the more important update that we have for you is that doreen and i have worked on uh the electronic administration of the grant uh to submit our numbers to the office of indian education for next year and that grant deadline um we completed and that was on march 11 and we did due to um uh enrollment numbers have a decrease in our 506 forms so those numbers are there you could see um 2019 2020 we had a count of um 7 233 people in our program and then this year for the maximum for enrollment we have 6400 students that will be reported to the federal government we are formula funded so

106um we are awaiting their feedback on um that will be giving us a number um after the second part of the grant is submit submitted um fortunately the um there are opportunities for discretionary grants um that our native and tribal communities will be amping up for awards so hopefully we'll see a lot more grants and programs in the community for our native students we shall keep you posted and leaving on a good note i want to make sure that cheryl sherman is able to quickly update you all on our cultural programming and what is upcoming hello everyone i will be super fast i just wanted to show you guys what i wasn't able to show you since i was doing this the last meeting so uh in the top row is two of the soapstone

107carvings that our middle school students did and then the bottom row is two of the high school students and then this is our what we're looking forward to slide so on the top row you can see the process of us preparing for moose antler scrimshaw so on the left is the antler and then it being cut up um by our artist and then on the right is a little glimpse at what will be being mailed out to the high school students this really it'll they're going out tomorrow um to those that have already signed up and there is still a little bit of space so if over the weekend when i'm hoping to get some more people signed up then i'll go ahead and get those out on monday and then on the bottom is

108our save the date for our summer enrichment program i'm super excited and that will be going out to families it was sent there was a electronic version sent out but we're actually going to be mailing postcards for families to stick up on their fridge as well and this is the format of the postcard and many of you know you probably know vincent gregory he is our carver who has been he shared the soapstone carving talent with students and then he also shared the little ones the soap carving and that was really fun and messy um so really looking forward to the seeing what the outcomes of the towns of students with the moose antlers and it was really great to be able to see that students are making that connection with them he actually had

109a student who did soap carving and then came in with their parents to the shop so he he carves at the alaska art alliance and a family actually went and looked at what they had displayed there to go see the ivory snow goggles that vincent made and then over um over ferondi's spring break they had a booth at the diamond center and he actually had another one of the students stop by and say hi to him there too so that was great and then we're getting ready to do things in person so our beading circle is slowly moving to in person at certain locations um and we've been doing some string games with students we're getting ready to do felt button blankets again students at west have been continuing to make more baskets they've been

110making the uh the tiny drums that were really popular and they're going to be making big instrumental drums as well we've got um in those beading circles at the high schools we're starting with different feeding time things but also inviting like students if they're working on projects to bring those if they think they might want to do something with their graduation cap if they're not really sure what um i'm gonna kind of help assist with that as well i meant to put the picture of the in process cap for my niece um up but i will have to share that with you guys and hopefully be completed but for the next meeting so you guys can see that and then we're plowing forward with scp our summer enrichment program and this year's theme is nurturing

111nature stewarding our land so we're going to be outside a lot looking at what's around us how what our relationship is to that and doing some really great things with that as well [Music] and um since we had so much content for this session nac members will be sharing uh this presentation with you so you can refer back to it uh the best way to find out about cheryl's um programs would be on our website or on our facebook page um so oftentimes she will target market um high school students for a high school event right but if you're curious about everything hap that's happening overall you can visit our asd department website as well as our facebook page every day we pretty much post something new so thank you for sharing such exciting information

112um so we do have seven minutes um and um i just want to kind of open it up if there's other points of clarification questions uh next steps um a lot of follow-up communication it sounds um between now and the next session thank you crystalline gotta go with our niea topics thank you we attended um the national indian ed association annual hill day which is usually in washington dc but it was virtual this year and in attendance um scheduled in our meeting with don young's staff was winter marshall allen from homer she teaches special ed down there uh christy mcewen who teaches music in fairbanks uh crystal and scott who's in our zoo thank you crystalline uh karen dylan who teaches i think secondary math and fairbanks i forget but gifted and talented in fairbanks

113is what she does myself who teaches music here in anchorage and sonia scan who is a school board member in ketchikan and there is also members in our meeting who are from do you remember which village they were in crystalline oh they were from the hooper bay charter school right so it's a new charter school for them and they're super excited to share that news with us but we we had scheduled meeting with don young's staff who actually did not show so we had them record our session we were able to talk about nine out of ten topics so you're only given 30 minutes you know those topics we are given from the national ed association we personalize them to fit alaska the first one would be policy work and culturally sustaining and culturally competent

114language in our laws financial ask from the handouts which are covered by me including fully funding which i handed off the mic to crystalline for for title six infrastructure allocations meaning road and ferry systems covered by winter and sonia uh broadband access for internet all across alaska the higher ed act reauthorization which was covered by karen and christy it's also known as executive order 13592 diverse educator recruitment and retention which was covered by winter because we both serve on the teachers union ed diversity collective immersion schools increased funding for the esther martinez act they're asking for two million dollars as an increase uh language preservation to address impact in covenant 19 particularly in lower 48 where they're suffering this extreme loss of community elders and also the last thing in charter schools as um in

115was it hooper bay sorry short-term memory loss yes hooper bay oh okay yes okay so that's what we covered and um the nut the teachers union adversity collective which winter and i um serve on to help recruit and retain diverse educators they're really holding my feet to the fire and they're having me do a presentation and i called it what i wish i knew before i started teaching and i sent doreen and crystal in an invite to this zoom it's open for current veteran and aspiring educators and i cover everything from class management to retirement thank you [Music] thank you anything else for the order nac members points of conversation clarification ricky thank you for and being a part of that and chrislyn also um having a voice really does make a difference crystalline can

116i share absolutely okay you guys are going to be so amazed um i'm so i'm so proud i just um two lots of things to be proud of tonight and all of you are part of this huge endeavor that actually probably took i think it was four years so dun dun book is done it's hard covered it's done we love it so this is going to be in the hands of third third graders if the pilot i think it's done now we did a pilot in a different couple different schools brian your school was one of them um so this is the book it's gorgeous it's it's forever it's gonna be not forever i hope but um it's timeless i always tell you at least we we think it's timeless an amazing job one of

117the key the features that i like of course is the little um the square fact factoids i guess or rectangular and then i love the what we did with the pictures because we did really like traditional old um old pictures and then we also featured making sure that we have our native people that you know of today so you'll see both it's pretty amazing the stories are um amazing as well and lots of great again it's it's nice to look at it's nice to touch and feel and then i just want to let you know that everybody's name is in here we have an um acknowledgement page and so we put you guys on their native advisory committee niche angela shannon tanya luke ricky shanda brian kim and megan so thank you for all your

118hard work we also recognized some other cultural consultants as well so you guys all put a lot of work into this thank you for um your assistance on this it's gonna be amazing uh it's already amazing again we're finishing up the pilot we're finishing up the um editing the teacher's manual and so everything will be out and about we're actually i think chrislyn's helping us with a party an epic party is what dr bishop would say so um i think i i shed tears when i looked through it because i was so happy and so pleased um and so thank you all of you for all your hard work today um it's another day to walk with pride um you guys are doing it and i just want to say thank you from the bottom

119of my of my heart it's another you know another dream of mine that's fulfilled um ubik immersion was one um third grade curriculum i'd like to see ninth grade done as well so and of course regalia so i've had these really significant um journeys and um native advisories always been a part of that so you guys are strong and have our have our students and our community in your hearts and i appreciate that and we appreciate that thank you can we can we find that at a book store can we buy those not yet and i'm going to tell you we're going to have a party and you guys will get a copy as well so just let you know we just made the whole list of who needs to get one so they'll be

120i think we're going to mail them or give them out at the party um but if we do sell them because i think everybody in alaska is going to want something like even if you came and visited the state i think you'd be interested in that um i'd like to sell them and what i what i asked to do is that the monies be set aside so kids could go to the heritage center third graders could go to the heritage center that would be my desire so um we're looking at that so dr bishop is um certainly committed to selling i think we've already got a lot of requests kind of across the state because they like to be able to pick it up and just use it because it's phenomenal it's a phenomenal um

121curriculum so it's great and of course it stars a bunch of great people our native people so it has to be great and of course it's great some more to come can we get another like sidebar meeting to whoever wants to be a part of it hopefully dorian will about margot's information i want to hear uh your thoughts dorian i mean we're running out of time but so are you motioning to make a subcommittee i don't know if i want a subcommittee it's just a sidebar meaning you motion it okay shannon motions to make a subcommittee in regards to uh the equity and anti-racism equity and education and anti-racism policies for asd guardrails and goals thanks for completing that motion [Music] is there a second this is georgiana i second so a motion has been

122made to make a sum committee about the instructional equity and anti-racism policies for the guardrails and goals for asd to flush that out before the next meeting and explore that more is there any discussion um is there a possibility to put that discussion with the um the resolution graduation regalia discussion or should it be separated i think it should be separated just because regalia is so big and their policies are another big thing um i think there's a lot of overlapping but i don't think it should be joined seeing no more discussion um all those in favor of this motion of creating the subcommittee please vote now hi [Music] all those opposed i advise you though it passes with the majority so we will um have um chris lynn help um organize that subcommittee and

123anybody that's interested please let her know um looking at the time is there any other discussions um there seeing and hearing none i would like to entertain a motion to adjourn this meeting of the nac uh all intimidating the motion kim i'll second it any discussion [Music] seeing and hearing none all those in favor bye hi any opposed being none we shall adjourn this meeting um on march 18 21 of that [Music] 6 at 804 pm who second the motion that was me tanya oh thank you just throwing any name out there that's okay ricky i'm sorry i thought it was georgina