S moke S ignals
SEPTEMBER 15, 2015
9
Proposed Native American
curriculum termed ‘ambitious’
By Brent Merrill
Smoke Signals staff writer
After almost 30 years of sitting
on the shelf, a “new” mandatory
American Indian/Alaskan Native
education curriculum plan could
become a reality in Oregon.
Grand Ronde Tribal member
April Campbell, the Tribe’s former
Education Department manager
and now the Oregon Department
of Education’s Indian Education
specialist, presented an updated
plan to the State Board of Educa-
tion in April.
The Board of Education adopted
the two-year plan that will target
Native American and Alaskan Na-
tive students in Oregon in an effort
to improve educational results. The
plan is essentially a road map to
guide the state in ways to improve
opportunities and outcomes for
Native youth in Oregon.
Campbell spent nine months
working with an advisory panel
that had 29 members she put to-
gether with representatives from
all nine federally recognized Tribes
in Oregon. The panel members
collaborated to update a plan that
had been last updated in 2006 and
had been on and off the radar since
the late 1980s.
“What I did when I came into
office was update the plan,” said
Campbell. “We brought together
advisers throughout the state, met
monthly, looked at the old plan,
prioritized current affairs of Indi-
an education here in Oregon and
formed objectives.”
Campbell said the process start-
ed in July 2014 and culminated in
March. She said panel members
listened to the needs of Indian stu-
dents as they were presented and
formulated a list of 11 objectives to
present to the Board of Education
for its approval.
The objectives outlined in the
plan come with strategies and the
ability to measure the outcomes of
each objective.
By design, the plan is aligned
with the Oregon Department of Ed-
ucation’s strategic goals, including
increasing attendance and gradua-
tion rates for Native students.
If adopted by the Legislature,
the plan would guide the state
in providing culturally relevant
professional development for teach-
ers, increasing recruitment and
retention of Native teachers and
implementing historically accurate,
culturally imbedded Native curric-
ulum and instructional materials
throughout the school system.
“Leaders from the Tribal govern-
ments in Oregon and the Legisla-
tive Commission on Indian Services
have identified education as a top
priority for years,” said Karen
Quigley, executive director of the
Legislative Commission on Indian
Services. “LCIS has always been
interested in both the work on the
plan, its goals and its implemen-
tation.”
April Campbell
Quigley said the Indian Services
Commission will continue to be in-
terested in the plan as it plays out
at the state level.
“The goals in the plan are clearly
outlined,” said Quigley. “The strate-
gies designed to achieve those goals
are described specifically and the
plan includes some concrete ways
to check on how things are going,
such as more Native teachers hired
and more Native students starting
and finishing schooling beyond high
school.”
The specific objectives revolve
around the idea that every stu-
dent graduates from high school
and is ready for college, a career
or for civic life, and that all school
districts develop and implement
systems of excellence. The plan
calls for meaningful engagement of
Elders, parents and the community
to make Oregon schools among the
best in the nation.
Specifically, the objectives are
to increase graduation rates for
Native students that will meet or
exceed the statewide average of all
students, increase college or career
readiness to meet or exceed the
statewide average of all students
and to have each high school stu-
dent graduate with a minimum of
three college credits.
Objectives also are seeking to in-
crease the statewide attendance av-
erage of Native students to meet or
exceed the average of all students,
to have school districts recruit and
retain at least 5 percent Native
teachers in their schools and to
have all teachers and administra-
tors and their support staff attend
culturally responsive training at
least once per academic year.
The plan also calls for all students
who complete Oregon Native Amer-
ican Teacher Preparation programs
at the University of Oregon and Port-
land State University to be recruited
by Oregon schools and/or Tribes.
Outlined in the objectives are
goals to have every school district
in the state implement historically
accurate, culturally embedded and
appropriate, place-based and con-
temporary American Indian and
Alaskan Native curriculum and
instructional materials developed
in collaboration with local Tribes.
The plan also calls for schools to
implement culturally relevant fam-
ily engagement in an effort to help
Native students be as prepared as
possible for higher learning.
Another objective of the plan is to
accurately identify who is counted
as Native, as well as establish the
framework for accountability of the
would-be mandatory plan.
Lastly, among the objectives is
the ideal of continuing to build
the capacity of the Department of
Education internally by increas-
ing staffing that will support the
schools in implementing such an
ambitious plan.
“So the idea is to make progress
on all those objectives in the next
two years,” said Campbell. “It’s a
live, breathing plan so it’s a stra-
tegic plan. We will be re-visiting
it annually to see the progress we
made and every two years to update
it and add new objectives and new
goals.
“It’s a very ambitious plan, but I
think it needs to be ambitious be-
cause I don’t think we can wait any
longer. Putting this off any longer
is just not doing our students any
justice.”
Campbell received assistance
from Education Northwest’s Senior
Adviser Matt Eide when revising
the plan.
Education Northwest is an educa-
tion nonprofit organization located
in Portland that is funded by feder-
al contracts in an effort to provide
technical assistance to schools and
support state education agencies.
Eide acted as the co-facilitator
with Campbell on the advisory
panel and he said the plan contains
lofty goals.
“There was a lot of discussion
around the setting of these objec-
tives and goals,” said Eide. “Ulti-
mately, the panel decided to set
ambitious and perhaps maybe even
audacious goals as a way to really
light a fire and bring some urgency
to the issues that Native students
face in the state and in the nation.
“I’m really pleased with the pro-
cess and the product. By bringing
this body together and helping
them become cohesive and act as an
advisory panel is going to pay divi-
dends for the state and the Oregon
Department of Education moving
forward. It really is a strong plan.”
Campbell said she is currently
focused on developing more spe-
cific action plans for each of the
objectives and moving forward with
their implementation.
“One of the objectives in the plan
is that the Oregon Department
of Education would support leg-
islation that would come forward
similar to what Washington and
Montana have done so that it would
be a requirement,” said Campbell.
Campbell said that school dis-
tricts have local authority over
their curriculums and that they
determine what is taught in their
classrooms. The state education
departments in Washington and
Montana agreed with the local
districts having that authority,
but what they made mandatory
were specific components of Native
American history.
“And not just history, but contem-
porary knowledge,” said Campbell.
“That is the kind of language we
have developed and that we are
working to simulate here in Ore-
gon.”
In May, Washington Gov. Jay In-
slee signed a bill making teaching
of Washington’s Native American
curriculum titled “Since Time
Immemorial: Tribal Sovereignty”
mandatory rather than encouraged.
The supporters of the bill en-
vision Native students becoming
more engaged in their own educa-
tion and in essence their futures. It
is now a mandatory part of school
curriculums in Washington to teach
students about the treaties between
Tribes and the United States. Stu-
dents will learn what those treaties
mean and that Tribes have their
own governments, jurisdictions and
economies, and that Tribes have
responsibilities in their historical
areas because of those treaties.
Campbell sees a window of op-
portunity with Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown in office. She intends to take
advantage of that opportunity.
“This plan has been in place for
nearly 30 years and there has been
really little to no effort in terms
of implementation so I think the
atmosphere and the environment
is ripe right now to make this actu-
ally have some action taken,” said
Campbell.
Campbell said she will be work-
ing with Tribal lobbyists who will
aid in developing legislation and
recruit sponsors for Oregon’s ver-
sion of the Washington state bill.
“We hope to go through the leg-
islative process,” said Campbell.
“We were really hoping to get it
into next year’s short session, but
it’s such a quick turnaround time
we’ll see. If not the 2016 session,
then definitely in the 2017 session.”
Quigley is also eager to see the
Native curriculum reach fruition
as well.
“I am sure LCIS would be
thrilled to get positive reports on
the plan’s implementation in the
years ahead,” said Quigley. “Most
important will be real results – an
ever-increasing number of Tribal
members engaged in a meaningful
relationship with their fellow stu-
dents, educators, administrators
and staff in interesting, challenging
and positive lifelong learning that
allows them to be the best students,
Tribal members, family members,
community members, employees
and citizens that they can be.”
Leslie Riggs, current Grand
Ronde Education Department
manager, said he likes the plan
See EDUCATION
continued on page 15