Post by Okwes on May 11, 2006 11:50:17 GMT -5
Indians honored in graduation ceremony in Denver
[foto] Evan Semon © News - Rhonni Maddux, 17, who graduated from Kennedy
High School, gets some words of wisdom from her grandmother, Marie
Hudgens, a member of the Twa Pueblo Indian tribe, during a ceremony
Thursday.
* * * *
*Indians honored in graduation ceremony*
45 seniors largest group ever in annual DPS rite
By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News
May 5, 2006
www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4675642,00.html
Being young and American Indian in 2006 looks like Erin Fleming, 17,
with blonde highlights in her long, dark hair and a green rubber "Live
Native" bracelet around her wrist.
Her tribes are Kickapoo of Kansas and Cheyenne, but she is usually
mistaken for Hispanic. On Thursday night, though, at CEC Middle College
of Denver, a northwest area high school, there could be no mistake.
That's when Fleming and 44 other students were honored in the Denver
Public Schools annual American Indian graduation ceremony, serenaded
with native songs and wrapped in blankets of symbolic designs, such as
an eight-pointed morning star.
"In the Lakota philosophy, the star brings us knowledge of the day,"
said Gracie Red Shirt Tyon, who teaches Lakota language classes at East
High School. "It is usually given for big occasions such as graduation
or a birth."
Thursday's celebration also marked a rite of passage for the DPS Indian
Education Project, which tries to provide a network of support for
students and their families. The 45 seniors are believed to be the
district's largest-ever graduating class of American Indian students.
Although relatively tiny in number - American Indian students make up
1.2 percent of all DPS students - the district's smallest ethnic group
also carries some of its biggest challenges.
American Indian students average more missed days of school than any
other ethnic group, according to DPS data released last week. They
typically have the highest dropout rate and the lowest graduation rate,
no matter who's calculating it. Their test scores hover near the bottom
of all ethnic groups.
Perhaps because their numbers are so small, they also tend to be left
out of talks about solutions. There has been no citywide American Indian
achievement summit, like that on Hispanic academic issues in late 2004.
Of more than 4,000 DPS teachers, 15 identify themselves as American Indian.
"It's like when you're always the last one picked for the team," said
Rosalie Tallbull, whose children and grandchildren - Fleming is her
granddaughter - have gone through Denver schools. "We, as native people,
feel that in every classroom. We're overlooked."
DPS began its current form of Indian Education, an emphasis on what are
called focus schools, in 1991. The district now designates three
elementaries, a middle school and two high schools as focus schools,
meaning there is at least a part-time staff member assigned to work with
American Indian families.
At the three elementaries - Brown, College View and Wyman - the staff
member is intended to be a bridge between families and the school. They
can explain cultural issues to the school, such as why the family may
need to return to the reservation for days at a time, and vice versa.
"Sometimes our parents are not comfortable in a school situation," said
Rose Marie McGuire, coordinator of the Indian Education Project. "We get
a lot of calls from moms, from grandmas, who ask us to come with them
when they meet with principals."
At middle schools and high schools, Indian Education staff members also
teach classes. David Redhorse teaches small groups of sixth-, seventh-
and eighth-graders at Merrill Middle School about cultural issues and
works with families. Families may gather on reservations for ceremonies,
for example, and not notify school officials of the trip.
"We need to recognize our culture," Redhorse said. "But we also know, if
your student is going to miss two or three days of school, can we get
homework assignments in advance?"
His class - where students read /Indian Country Today/ and debate topics
such as whether to change the name /Navajo/ to /Diné/ - is an elective.
At East High School, one of the two focus high schools, Tyon teaches
American Indian history and the Lakota language class. Non-Indian
students also take the classes, so McGuire sought the permission of
Lakota elders before offering the language class.
East senior Tarah Hoover is in her third year of Lakota, although she is
Choctaw and Creek.
"I wanted to know at least one Native American language, even if it's
not my own," she said.
Fewer than one-fourth of the 855 identified American Indian students in
DPS enroll at the focus schools, a number McGuire said she would like to
increase.
"The people there now can really be mentors and tutors," she said. All
staff members are Indian. Some students said they attend the focus
schools simply to be around other American Indian students.
Adam John, an eighth-grader at Merrill who is Navajo/Diné, followed the
program recently when it moved from Hamilton Middle School to Merrill.
He lists "meeting other natives" as one reason he did so. So does Jesse
Morrison, an eighth-grader who is Oglala Lakota.
"At my old school, I was the only full blood there," Morrison said.
Both boys said their families teach them their culture and its
traditions. Other students rely on more unconventional methods,
including the Internet. Some said their families don't know much about
their history.
Two students - Hoover, the East senior, and Augustine Cardoza, a senior
at North - said they did not become interested in their heritages until
middle and high school. Both have mixed backgrounds and appear black.
In fact, Cardoza, who is Oglala Lakota, once had to produce
documentation to play on an American Indian basketball team.
Hoover said taking American Indian history and Lakota "changed the way I
see myself," increasing her pride in her past.
"There was just so much I didn't know about my history," she said.
Others, such as Erin Fleming, who has traveled back and forth to her
reservation in Montana since she was little, said her family's teachings
helped when school lessons portrayed her ancestors as less than honorable.
She has never wavered in her pride in her heritage, and she was still a
little nervous Thursday, as she waited for the quilting ceremony to begin.
"This is going to be my first star quilt, and I'm excited," she said.
"It's honor; it's respect."
American Indians in Denver Public Schools
*.* 855 of the 73,018 students enrolled this fall identified themselves
as American Indian.
*.* Just 15 of more than 4,000 DPS teachers identify themselves as
American Indian.
*.* American Indian students are the smallest ethnicity in the diverse
city district, comprising about 1.2 percent of all students.
*But they face big challenges:*
*.* Indian students have higher truancy rates than any other ethnicity
at every grade level. In 2004-05, the students averaged seven unexcused
absences per year in elementary school, 11 per year in middle school and
21 per year in high school.
*.* Indian students have the lowest graduation rates among all
ethnicities in Colorado. A 2005 /Rocky Mountain News/ study of DPS
graduation rates found that only 27 percent of Indian students in the
freshman class of 2000 graduated four years later from a Denver high
school.
*.* State test results for Indian students typically hover just above or
on par with those of Hispanic and black students, meaning that all three
groups lag their white classmates./Source: Denver Public Schools, Rocky
Mountain News.
/
/*
/
The material in this post is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research
and educational purposes. For more information go to:
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email
for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner.
[foto] Evan Semon © News - Rhonni Maddux, 17, who graduated from Kennedy
High School, gets some words of wisdom from her grandmother, Marie
Hudgens, a member of the Twa Pueblo Indian tribe, during a ceremony
Thursday.
* * * *
*Indians honored in graduation ceremony*
45 seniors largest group ever in annual DPS rite
By Nancy Mitchell, Rocky Mountain News
May 5, 2006
www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/education/article/0,1299,DRMN_957_4675642,00.html
Being young and American Indian in 2006 looks like Erin Fleming, 17,
with blonde highlights in her long, dark hair and a green rubber "Live
Native" bracelet around her wrist.
Her tribes are Kickapoo of Kansas and Cheyenne, but she is usually
mistaken for Hispanic. On Thursday night, though, at CEC Middle College
of Denver, a northwest area high school, there could be no mistake.
That's when Fleming and 44 other students were honored in the Denver
Public Schools annual American Indian graduation ceremony, serenaded
with native songs and wrapped in blankets of symbolic designs, such as
an eight-pointed morning star.
"In the Lakota philosophy, the star brings us knowledge of the day,"
said Gracie Red Shirt Tyon, who teaches Lakota language classes at East
High School. "It is usually given for big occasions such as graduation
or a birth."
Thursday's celebration also marked a rite of passage for the DPS Indian
Education Project, which tries to provide a network of support for
students and their families. The 45 seniors are believed to be the
district's largest-ever graduating class of American Indian students.
Although relatively tiny in number - American Indian students make up
1.2 percent of all DPS students - the district's smallest ethnic group
also carries some of its biggest challenges.
American Indian students average more missed days of school than any
other ethnic group, according to DPS data released last week. They
typically have the highest dropout rate and the lowest graduation rate,
no matter who's calculating it. Their test scores hover near the bottom
of all ethnic groups.
Perhaps because their numbers are so small, they also tend to be left
out of talks about solutions. There has been no citywide American Indian
achievement summit, like that on Hispanic academic issues in late 2004.
Of more than 4,000 DPS teachers, 15 identify themselves as American Indian.
"It's like when you're always the last one picked for the team," said
Rosalie Tallbull, whose children and grandchildren - Fleming is her
granddaughter - have gone through Denver schools. "We, as native people,
feel that in every classroom. We're overlooked."
DPS began its current form of Indian Education, an emphasis on what are
called focus schools, in 1991. The district now designates three
elementaries, a middle school and two high schools as focus schools,
meaning there is at least a part-time staff member assigned to work with
American Indian families.
At the three elementaries - Brown, College View and Wyman - the staff
member is intended to be a bridge between families and the school. They
can explain cultural issues to the school, such as why the family may
need to return to the reservation for days at a time, and vice versa.
"Sometimes our parents are not comfortable in a school situation," said
Rose Marie McGuire, coordinator of the Indian Education Project. "We get
a lot of calls from moms, from grandmas, who ask us to come with them
when they meet with principals."
At middle schools and high schools, Indian Education staff members also
teach classes. David Redhorse teaches small groups of sixth-, seventh-
and eighth-graders at Merrill Middle School about cultural issues and
works with families. Families may gather on reservations for ceremonies,
for example, and not notify school officials of the trip.
"We need to recognize our culture," Redhorse said. "But we also know, if
your student is going to miss two or three days of school, can we get
homework assignments in advance?"
His class - where students read /Indian Country Today/ and debate topics
such as whether to change the name /Navajo/ to /Diné/ - is an elective.
At East High School, one of the two focus high schools, Tyon teaches
American Indian history and the Lakota language class. Non-Indian
students also take the classes, so McGuire sought the permission of
Lakota elders before offering the language class.
East senior Tarah Hoover is in her third year of Lakota, although she is
Choctaw and Creek.
"I wanted to know at least one Native American language, even if it's
not my own," she said.
Fewer than one-fourth of the 855 identified American Indian students in
DPS enroll at the focus schools, a number McGuire said she would like to
increase.
"The people there now can really be mentors and tutors," she said. All
staff members are Indian. Some students said they attend the focus
schools simply to be around other American Indian students.
Adam John, an eighth-grader at Merrill who is Navajo/Diné, followed the
program recently when it moved from Hamilton Middle School to Merrill.
He lists "meeting other natives" as one reason he did so. So does Jesse
Morrison, an eighth-grader who is Oglala Lakota.
"At my old school, I was the only full blood there," Morrison said.
Both boys said their families teach them their culture and its
traditions. Other students rely on more unconventional methods,
including the Internet. Some said their families don't know much about
their history.
Two students - Hoover, the East senior, and Augustine Cardoza, a senior
at North - said they did not become interested in their heritages until
middle and high school. Both have mixed backgrounds and appear black.
In fact, Cardoza, who is Oglala Lakota, once had to produce
documentation to play on an American Indian basketball team.
Hoover said taking American Indian history and Lakota "changed the way I
see myself," increasing her pride in her past.
"There was just so much I didn't know about my history," she said.
Others, such as Erin Fleming, who has traveled back and forth to her
reservation in Montana since she was little, said her family's teachings
helped when school lessons portrayed her ancestors as less than honorable.
She has never wavered in her pride in her heritage, and she was still a
little nervous Thursday, as she waited for the quilting ceremony to begin.
"This is going to be my first star quilt, and I'm excited," she said.
"It's honor; it's respect."
American Indians in Denver Public Schools
*.* 855 of the 73,018 students enrolled this fall identified themselves
as American Indian.
*.* Just 15 of more than 4,000 DPS teachers identify themselves as
American Indian.
*.* American Indian students are the smallest ethnicity in the diverse
city district, comprising about 1.2 percent of all students.
*But they face big challenges:*
*.* Indian students have higher truancy rates than any other ethnicity
at every grade level. In 2004-05, the students averaged seven unexcused
absences per year in elementary school, 11 per year in middle school and
21 per year in high school.
*.* Indian students have the lowest graduation rates among all
ethnicities in Colorado. A 2005 /Rocky Mountain News/ study of DPS
graduation rates found that only 27 percent of Indian students in the
freshman class of 2000 graduated four years later from a Denver high
school.
*.* State test results for Indian students typically hover just above or
on par with those of Hispanic and black students, meaning that all three
groups lag their white classmates./Source: Denver Public Schools, Rocky
Mountain News.
/
/*
/
The material in this post is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research
and educational purposes. For more information go to:
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
oregon.uoregon.edu/~csundt/documents.htm
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this email
for purposes that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain
permission from the copyright owner.