Join the conversation

Story posted November 5, 2009

Results:
• Native American math performance increased from 1080 to 1397(on Oklahoma's API scale of 1500) over the past two years
• Native American reading performance increased from 1059 to 1272 over that time
• Native American families feel more connected to the district   

Bruce Belanger seems to be caught in the “wow effect.” When he speaks of the rapidly mounting success among Native Americans in Weatherford Public Schools (WPS), it’s hard for him to keep his enthusiasm from boiling over.

As director of special education, federal programs and testing at WPS, it falls to Belanger to find ways to improve student achievement. And for the past two years, good things just keep rolling in for Native American families in the district.

Central to this success are two related initiatives: a Native American Task Force (formed in October 2007) and a Community Conversation program funded by a National Education Association grant from the Public Engagement Project/ Family School Community Partnership, implemented with assistance from Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) staff members.

The need for a new relationship
Because No Child Left Behind requires districts to look at the achievement of all subgroups with 30 or more members, Belanger began taking a closer look at Native American students’ scores. In 2006, WPS’ Native American API scores were well below the scores for the district’s larger white population. This gap presented a special concern given that this population is steadily growing in the Weatherford Schools. Of WPS’s 1800-plus students, nearly 200 are Native American, representing 10.5 percent of today’s student body. That’s up from 9.6 percent in October 2007.

Belanger’s desire to improve these scores inspired him to contact the Native American community. He shared the data and suggested they all start working together. A Native American Task Force (NATF) was formed and a goal of closing the achievement gap was established.

About half of the Native American students in Weatherford are Cheyenne or Arapaho, though more than a dozen different tribes are represented among the district’s Native American students. And the Cheyenne Arapaho tribes have made a huge commitment to this partnership. They paid for lunch at the first Community Conversation and have provided more than $1,000 in Native American cultural materials for school libraries. The tribes have also provided ACT tutors and hand-held electronic tutors to WPS.

An incredible turnout
A story in OEA’s Education Focus on how NEA/OEA-supported community conversations benefitted a struggling Hispanic population at a west Oklahoma City high school struck a chord with Belanger, who read it and thought, “This is exactly what we’re going through.”

He made contact with Dr. Dottie Hager, OEA associate executive director for teaching and learning and communications, and asked if there was a way Weatherford could work with OEA and use community conversations to close the achievement gap of the district’s Native American students. She said yes.

With the NATF already functioning, Belanger expected the first Community Conversation would be a success. He was right.

“We had an incredible turnout for our first Community Conversation,” he said of the September 2008 kickoff event. “We had more than 100 people in attendance including moderators, recorders, families and district personnel … The child care room was full.”

Given the NEA’s Community Conversation model calls for laying the ground work at the first meeting, that meeting began with a simple question. “We asked, ‘Why we are even doing this?’” Belanger said. “We wanted to talk about test scores and we wanted to close the achievement gap. The (meeting) was not gripe at the school. It was not gripe at the Indians. It was about closing the achievement gap and working together.”

The attendees split into small groups, each with an OEA-trained moderator and a recorder from the community. School personnel listened from the edges. Representatives from Southwestern Oklahoma State University participated, as did the Cheyenne Arapaho Department of Education and the Johnson O’Malley (JOM) Parent Committee, a financial incentive program for Native Americans.

“It was a really good night; a good, eye-opening experience,” Belanger said.

Ideas expressed during the conversations were compiled and the Task Force then identified common themes that needed to be addressed. Cultural awareness and a need for tutoring were both high on the list.

Cultural awareness presented a double-sided coin. The attendees wondered if teachers were culturally aware of Native American events, such as powwows and funerals. But also, were Native American students aware of their own culture?

The district recently took the first step to enlighten its faculty about Native American culture by providing a two-hour in-service on Martin Luther King Day. Speakers, including Dr. Henrietta Mann, president of the Southwestern Oklahoma State University Cheyenne Arapaho Tribal College, discussed culture and acceptance. The Weatherford ACT used an NEA Rural Education Grant to pay for the speakers and lunch, which was provided by local families who prepared Indian tacos, complete with fresh fry bread.

Three more community conversations were held during the 2008 school year. The district is planning additional actions based on the outcomes of those discussions, including:
• Establishing a Native American Club at Weatherford High School, with help from Southwestern State’s Native American Club;
• Creating student achievement and attendance incentives;
• Providing more professional development opportunities in Native American culture for faculty, and;
• Offering Weatherford students more cultural events and field trips.

Test scores are rising
These initiatives have had a major impact in Weatherford. Native American achievement is improving at impressive rates since the formation of the NATF. In just two years, the math API score has jumped from 1080 to 1397 (317 points, on a scale of 1500), and reading has gone from 1059 to 1272 (213 points), with 87 percent proficiency. These gains have contributed to an increase of 101 points for the district as a whole over this time.

In addition, local families are feeling more of a connection to the district. Participation has doubled in Weatherford’s Title VII after-school tutoring program and enrollment in the JOM incentive program has grown from 58 families to 105.

Despite the success so far, Belanger is not content to rest on these laurels. “We’re still learning,” he says, adding that more is to come.

For additional information, please contact:
Bruce Belanger
Director of Special Education, Federal Programs and Testing, Weatherford Public Schools
bbelanger@wpsok.org  

This story came to LFA’s attention after being featured in the Oklahoma Education Association's Education Focus.  Adapted with permission.

Full citation: Doug Folks, “Dream Catching.” In the March 2009 issue of the Oklahoma Education Association’s Education Focus, p. 2-3

Copyright © 2009 by the Oklahoma Education Association.

Click here to access the original article as contained in the OEA’s website.

Photo courtesy of OEA (by Jeff Barron, courtesy of the Weatherford Daily News).

NEA’s Public Engagement Project/Family-School-Community Partnerships (PEP/FSCP) is based on this premise: It’s time we take family and community engagement as seriously as we take curriculum, standards, and tests. The project has sponsored more than 125 community conversations in 21 states — catalysts for change driven by local coalitions of families, students, teachers, business people, clergy, and other stakeholders. Together, they identify local causes of achievement gaps, develop and implement action plans, and mobilize to get results. For more information, contact Roberta Hantgan at 202-822-7721 or rhantgan@nea.org.