“It’s going to really benefit our students and get our communities connected to the school,” the superintendent says. “Instead of seeing the school as this alien institution that occupies their village that promotes Western values and Western instruction.”
September 15, 2022A jumbled drift net, like one the district may have used at their summer fish camp. For years, students in the Yupiit School District were already following an unofficial subsistence calendar. That meant that they just wouldn’t show up to classes during bird hunting season in the spring and moose hunting season in the fall.
Instead, Ballard said that it took months of phone calls. Ballard morphed from superintendent to activist as he worked to earn support from state senators and representatives. He negotiated with the Alaska Department of Education and its commissioner. The change is simple. Instead of August through May, school will only be in session from September to the end of April. To make up the time lost, 30 minutes of instruction are added to each day. There is also an optional, two-week summer school in August, which incorporates subsistence activities.
That effort goes beyond changing the rhythm of the school year. It means incorporating Yup’ik culture into everything the district does. The district is already incorporating activities like fishing, hunting and gathering into their curriculum for the rest of the year. They’re also studying other issues important to the community, like science labs on river erosion.
Norge Siste Nytt, Norge Overskrifter
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Southwest Alaska school district adopts subsistence calendar in effort to center Yup’ik cultureStudents in Southwest Alaska's Yupiit School District, comprising Tuluksak, Akiak and Akiachak, will no longer have to miss school to go hunting. Via KYUKNews
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