The Sitka School Board at ANB Founders Hall Monday night (3-14-16). ANB/ANS members asked for more frequent reports from the Sitka Native Education Program (SNEP), and suggested that the school board consider holding a second meeting each year in the Native community. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
Alaska Native knowledge is becoming more valued in Sitka’s schools, but there’s still much work to be done toward racial equity.
That’s the message members of the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood delivered to the Sitka School Board at its regular meeting Monday night (3-14-16).
The Sitka School Board assembles once a year in the ANB Founders Hall — both to hold a regular meeting, and to listen to a status report from the Sitka Native Education Program.
Compared to meetings in years past, there was consensus that things had improved.
This is lifetime ANB member Nels Lawson.
“I’ve been associated with you coming here to the ANB Hall for board meetings for a very long time. And in that very long time, I tell you I see progress.”
Lawson was appreciative of the efforts of the school district to host a paddle-making workshop for a ceremonial canoe trip later this spring, and for participating in a recent discussion with the First Alaskans Institute on working together to better serve all students.
ANS member Patricia Alexander also saw positive change.
“I have to say that I like the tone of the relationship between the school board and the Native community. I think that it hasn’t really been a day at the beach for you all trying to balance the budget. I think we’re aware of it.”
But the good words were balanced by advocacy for continued work on Tlingit language revitalization, and for dialogue on racial awareness.
ANS member Marsha Strand told the board that she considered Tlingit an endangered language. She wanted the school district to take a lead role in its preservation.
“Wouldn’t it be awesome if the school district could brag of being on the cutting edge of the best local teaching of Tlingit in Southeast?”
Strand also wanted the district to continue to build racial awareness into teacher training. Her sentiments were echoed by former ANB president Tom Gamble, who is planning a two-day meeting on April 1 and 2 called “Advancing Native Dialogues under Racial Equities”.
Gamble told the board, “When people are given the opportunity to discuss their experience about race and racial inequity, it gives everybody the sensitivity to say, Look, whatever my actions, they may or may not impact somebody. It just happens with dialogue.”
Gamble urged board members to support the meeting — possibly by hosting it in a school building — and by attending in person.
Board member Cass Pook — an Alaska Native — agreed that racism was more prevalent than most people believe, and more insidious.
District cultural director Nancy Douglas responded that upending negative racial attitudes was a major benefit of the Sitka Native Education Program.
“When you think of racism, it’s thinking of changing people’s views of who we are as Natives. And we’re doing that. When you have little kids running up to me at SeaMart saying, Mom, this is the lady who taught me how to weave today — from the non-Native kids! It brings tears to my eyes, no matter if it’s our Native kids or our non-Native kids. Because that means to me that we are becoming valued in the Sitka School District.”
Douglas recalled learning from elders when she herself was a student in SNEP. The message Douglas was taught: “It is our responsibility to make our kids shine.”
The board listened to ANB/ANS members’ issues, but took no official action. They briefly discussed making Elizabeth Peratrovich Day a school holiday, but agreed that the more powerful way to celebrate the civil rights leader would be to gather students in school for a “teaching moment,” and then release them early to attend the local parade.
