Real Change News | Parents call changes at Seattle’s Indian Heritage School a whitewash

September 30, 2009
Vol: 16 No: 43

Feature

Parents call changes at Seattle’s Indian Heritage School a whitewash

by: Cydney Gillis , Staff Reporter

Culture class gone, enrollment changed

Photo by: Luke McGuff , Contributing Photographer

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The chief academic officer of Seattle Public Schools has suspended interviews of candidates to replace the district’s Native American Programs manager in the wake of controversy over American Indian Heritage High School and changes that parents say have eliminated the last cultural vestiges of its program.

Scheduled interviews with applicants were halted Sept. 28, says Susan Enfield, the district’s new academic chief, to give the district time to get more input from native parents on what the job requires and whether it can be redefined to oversee all three of the district’s native programs, not just one.

That’s one suggestion parents have made in a series of heated meetings they have called with district officials after a Sept. 9 school orientation. It was there, students say, they were told that the Indian Heritage School, located in North Seattle and officially called the American Indian Heritage Middle College since 2000, had changed its native focus and dropped its culture class — a period of the day devoted to the study of tribal history and activities such as beading, dancing and storytelling.

At a forum held at the school on Sept. 17, principal John German said there had been no change to the culture class, which he describes as ongoing guest lectures that did not appear on the class schedule. Karen Wolf, a previous teacher of the class, and Theresa Barnes, a 17-year-old senior at Indian Heritage, say “culture class” was listed on the schedule last year and it was taught regularly.

The new class schedule Barnes received Sept. 9, however, did not list the course — something she says a teacher specifically pointed out to the students, telling them that Indian Heritage was no longer a native-based school, she says.

“They weren’t even considering it,” Barnes says. “It was decided: There was no culture class.” She liked the class, she says, because “it was something that made everybody closer.”

Parents say they had no input whatsoever and call it a final blow after years of neglect that have changed the intent of the alternative school. Originally an elementary school, Indian Heritage was founded in 1974 to teach native children about their culture and history, help them achieve — and provide a haven from the overt and institutional racism that parents say is still rampant in the school system. According to district data from 2007-08, only 44 percent of Native Americans graduated on time compared with 63 percent for all students.

When Principal John German took over five years ago, the school had about 250 students, all selected through an interview process at the school. As of this year, enrollment is handled centrally by the district and children are assigned to Indian Heritage, German says. Less than 10 of its 60 students are now Native American.

“Consistently, the school district has hired leadership who was not invested in perpetuating that school, whether knowingly or unknowingly,” says Kay Fiddler, a grandparent whose children and foster children have gone to Indian Heritage. “Sometimes you participate in institutionalized racism that’s so subversive you don’t even know you’re participating.”

German says the decline in native enrollment merely reflects a districtwide decline, from 1,200 to 1,300 students a few years ago to less than 900 today. But Arlie Neskahi, multicultural and family outreach coordinator the Edmonds School District, says the problem is structural. In 2000, the district turned Indian Heritage into a Middle College, an alternative program that focuses on core academics. Since then, he says, the native community has lost its voice in the school, which many look on as a community gathering place.

“The intention of that school and the purpose of that school has been diluted in the last six years and where it stands now is vaporized — there’s nothing, no substance to call it the American Indian Heritage Middle College,” says Sarah Sense-Wilson, who coached basketball at the school in the ’90s when it had an athletics program. “It’s cultural genocide.”

Sense-Wilson is a co-founder of a group called the Native Education Forum that’s now working to revive the school’s original model, upgrade its standards and bring in more resources, either by advocating for more parent involvement within the district or, possibly, founding a privately run native school — two options that were discussed Sept. 26 at a community forum held at the Duwamish Longhouse and attended by Enfield and school board member Sherry Carr.

Neither Indian Heritage nor the district has a Native American parent advisory committee today. The lack of a districtwide committee, says Mary Wilber, coordinator of Native American education for the Lake Washington, Bellevue and Northshore school districts, means Seattle is out of compliance with federal Title 7 requirements tied to Indian education funding.

“There’s a lot of things out of compliance,” Wilber told Carr and Enfield at the Duwamish Longhouse. “I think I would give you a failing grade.”

Enfield thanked parents in the group for the opportunity to listen, promising that she will work with them to find the right solutions.

But after 30 years of battles over the Indian Heritage School, Fiddler says, school officials should know.

“I appreciate you guys saying you want to listen to us,” she told Carr, German and other district officials Sept. 17 at Indian Heritage School. But, “These are the same things that Indian parents and grandparents and students have been coming and saying for how many years? ... You need to stop listening and you need to start doing.”

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Comments

Hi it is funny how everybody else gets credit for what someone else had told someone in the first place. but there are new facts that came up but it is too late now.

Myleaka Webster | submitted on 10/01/2009, 9:42pm

Myleaka, it’s never too late. You are still a member of the Native Community and the Native Ed program in Seattle. I and everyone attending those meetings appreciated your courage to speak up. There is no taking credit by anyone individual, everyone needs to work together to bring our community together. You were the first to bring to light what it’s like at that school for a student. Don’t stop now. We need you.

K Leona | submitted on 10/02/2009, 12:35pm

Myleaka- We are doing this with for you and all the Native youth that come after you. We are blessed to have a young leader like yourself involved. Stay strong my little sister we need you.

*Cydney-Thank You

Hiarm Calf Looking Sr

Hiram Calf Looking | submitted on 10/02/2009, 11:35pm

Thanks, Cydney!
Myleaka, there are evening meetings every tuesday in the old cafeteria. Please attend if you are interested in having an effect.

Sarah Kelly | submitted on 10/04/2009, 6:17pm

i already go to the meetings for a really long time now and I appreciate the support and help but its hard when you do something and someone else gets recognized about it and you dont you know what I mean? I have found out some more information when I went into Indian heritage on oct 1st. that would be important to know which i will let it be known on tuesday at the meeting. Thank you for the support and the encouragement. this was just another grain of sand that felt like a mountain I had to climb but the information at indian heritage half way pushed me down but lifted me up to. Because THE WHITE MAN PROMISED TO TAKE OUR LAND AND NOW THEY ARE TAKING OUR EDUCATION.!

Myleaka | submitted on 10/04/2009, 9:04pm

myleaka- love to you, sister. you have done amazing work in standing up when those district people were there, and saying to their faces what it was like to be failed by their system.

cydney- thanks for this article, and i hope that you can keep following/covering things as they come up!

kittyh | submitted on 10/05/2009, 6:38am

It is a sad day when parents don’t have their basic rights to speak out! We have conformed ourselves to only take the crumbs, it’s time to speak out and strategize! What are your rights under NCLB and Indian Education….Another way to formalize is to do so under IDEA, Special Education, their are policies and laws which need to be followed for parent’s to have a voice. Creating a timelime based on a stories, fhaving everyone sign a letter of support for Indian Education and submit to each level of asministration, follow protocol until you reach the top! Make a lot of noise…..great article! Have been fighting this issue in NM! We had a parent committee and the school district got their attorneys to change the by-laws to get rid of the parent committee!

ronwartome | submitted on 10/05/2009, 3:11pm

Thank you everybody and I hope to see and here from you at the Seattle Clear Sky Native Youth Council meetings tomorrow at 6:30pm to 8:30pm now.

Myleaka | submitted on 10/05/2009, 8:40pm

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