Seattle's American Indian Heritage School Invests in Children Story-Date: 09:38 a.m. PST Sunday , November 30, 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------ Seattle's American Indian Heritage School Invests in Children By Midori Baer, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News SEATTLE, Wash.--Dec. 1--At a time when the average American Indian adolescent has little sense of his or her identity, principal Andy Lawson is trying to infuse Indian reality in his students. Mr. Lawson, of the Tsimshian Tribe, knows that one important factor in the education of American Indian children is their culture. An estimated 25 percent of the 120 students at the American Indian Heritage School are diagnosed as having either behavioral or learning disabilities. Mr. Lawson estimates that another 25 percent are undiagnosed behavior or learning disabled students. In most mainstream schools, that number does not rise above ten percent. With such a concentration of BD or LD students, issues such as truancy and student turnover are urgent and serious concerns. The students are highly mobile -- each year, 50 to 60 percent of the students either drop out or transfer elsewhere. About 45 to 50 percent of the students are absent on any given day. Mr. Lawson attributes the high percentages of BD and LD to the environment in which the children grow up. A significant proportion have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, due either to substance abuse by the parents or inadequate pre-natal care, correlated directly to the existing state of poverty. Parents aren't involved in their children's education since mere survival is of greater concern. Under these circumstances, BD and LD become epidemic. Some students live in homeless shelters, others have been abandoned by their parents. All the students depend on public transportation to and from school. Most of the children at the American Indian Heritage School qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. School is the only place they have to go to and with them, they bring their anger and frustration, making the school environment volatile. Nevertheless, these issues are only symptoms. The epidemic BD and LD -the anger and confusion -- are not the disease. The conditions in which the children are brought up has a direct effect on their school experience. "To me, poverty is the worst kind of violence," Mr. Lawson said. "BD is preventable, it's not genetic." Poverty and destitution have instilled rage, frustration, resentment and a confused sense of worth in the children. In general, traditional schools are not prepared to address the harsh realities of history. Blaming the victim is the justification used for what happened to Indian people, Mr. Lawson said. This kind of instruction exacerbates negative feelings in American Indian children. However, the American Indian Heritage School is not mainstream. Instead, it is earmarked as an alternative school, attracting students who are not successful in mainstream schools for various reasons. "Indian Heritage is a Seattle public school chartered to meet the unique needs of Indian children who experience problems in traditional schools," Mr. Lawson wrote in a proposal to increase enrollment. In the mainstream school curriculum, American Indian history is distorted; students need to be reacquainted with their tribal cultures. However, the school does not have a magnet program. That is to say it does not attract students to a focal program, rather to the school itself. A state-funded school, Indian Heritage is preparing to more than double its enrollment from 120 students to 250. Mr. Lawson is hard-pressed to find a way to do so. The enrollment determines the level at which a public school is funded and currently, the Seattle School District provides $700,000 a year to Indian Heritage. As a result, the high school is able to provide a curriculum that meets only minimum requirements. The curriculum is remedial and graduates of the school are qualified to continue their education at a community college. Indian Heritage is not funded to prepare students for a degree granting institution. In order to qualify for a four-year college, high school graduates must have taken a series of required courses. For example, math classes beyond geometry, foreign language classes and higher level science classes are required to qualify for a degree-granting institution but are not offered at Indian Heritage. Nevertheless, the cultural component at Indian Heritage attracts students and encourages them to succeed. Principal Lawson would like to hone the curriculum further by infusing more Indian culture into the program. Ideally, and included in plans for the future, classes at Indian Heritage would be taught from an American Indian perspective. History would incorporate the Indian point of view, science would be taught with an Indian slant. Students would attend a required culture class. To incorporate a broader picture into the curriculum, the grading period would be based on an American Indian theme. For example, students would focus on the American Holocaust in their classes during one grading period, fishing and gaming during another. Also, students would learn their legal rights as American Indians, of which most are ignorant. The school would expose students to their own culture, eradicating the stereotypes they assume because they are uninformed. Presently, Mr. Lawson and the Indian Heritage teachers are concentrating efforts to attract more students. A low enrollment will no longer be tolerated by the Seattle School District. In a policy to maximize District resources, Indian Heritage is required to double its enrollment over the next two years. If the school cannot reach this goal, it runs the risk of being reduced to a program or being phased out altogether. ----- Visit Indian Country Today on the World Wide Web at http://www.indiancountry.com/ ----- (c) 1997, Indian Country Today, Rapid City, S.D. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News. ------------------------------------------------------------