Education Grants Boost Our Children
Mayor's Report Week of October 6, 2003

Our region can celebrate some wonderful news that came out of Washington, D.C. last week. Our Borough School District and the Kotzebue IRA were recipients of major grants for Alaska Native Education programs, thanks both to their own efforts and those of our congressional delegation. As part of a $14.5 million appropriation for Native programs in Alaska, the school district received two grants totaling over $1 million and the IRA received $1.6 million that will help fund the Nikaitchuat Ilisagviat program over the next three years.

The school district will receive $483,034 for a program to improve the reading, writing, and mathematics skills of 1,990 low-achieving Alaska Native students in grades K-12 through an after school remediation program. The tutoring program will deliver instruction that has been designed using scientifically based research. I view this is a very positive way of addressing the low test scores we have been seeing throughout the region and as a ray of hope that we will see improvement soon.

The other school district grant is for pre-school education of children under the age of five. The $548,164 in funding will allow the district to better prepare children for entering our education system, increase parental involvement in their children's learning, and improve resources for parent for parent and early childhood education. I am encouraged that the program will focus on parents, as they are the foundation of the entire education system. If they aren't effectively involved in the children's education on a daily basis, our school facilities and the great work of our teachers cannot be used to full advantage.

The grant to the Native Village of Kotzebue will provide for development of curriculum which will allow students to learn more advanced vocabulary and concepts of Inupiaq, while also covering the knowledge base needed for students to make an effective transition into our English-speaking schools. Nikaitchuat Ilisagviat is a preschool through sixth grade Inupiaq immersion school, operated in Kotzebue, that originated for the very important purpose of preserving the language and culture of the Inupiat people.

On behalf of everyone in the region, I would like to thank those who prepared these proposals and all who supported the funding. Our future can only be measured by the prospects of our children. Those prospects can only be enhanced by these programs.

As this was election week in our Borough, a special thanks also goes out to those who took the time to express themselves in the voting booths. Also, best wishes to all the candidates, regardless of the outcome.