Community School Committee

According to Cam, if you want anything to change or get done or improved, the Community School Committee is the place to go.  Made up of five residents of the village (four females and one male) and our two (male) school administrators, they meet monthly for the good of the school.  The CSC has no actual power.  They can only make recommendations but you can be sure that if they recommend something, it is likely to be done.

I went to the meeting partially out of curiosity and partially to make some connections outside of the school.  I wanted to float the idea of a Parent School Village association similar to a PTA but with a bigger scope to include everyone in the village, not just those with a vested interest.  Because in a community this small, everyone has a vested interest in the school being successful. 

Thus far, they are not doing a very good job.  That is not a bland comment.  During the course of the meeting it came out that 64% of Secondary (7-12th) are failing at least one class.  64%!  There is likely to be no girls basketball team because so many of them have an F.  One teacher was there to defend himself against rumors that he and his wife deliberately failed students to keep them from playing.  At one point, I spoke up for middle school girls coach who resigned rather than be bullied by the administration to allow her girls to travel even when their grades weren't up to snuff.

The meeting was very formal and Parliamentary, yet there were tears, recriminations, name calling, apologies, more tears, stern words and gentleness.  It also took five hours.  The agenda was adhered to but one item (the one about the academic sports policy) ate up three hours.  By the end, everyone got to have their say, much of it contradictory and even more a mixture of Yupik and English that made it hard for a newbie like me to follow some of it.

I think the only thing that was decided was that there would be a push to move basketball practices around to the morning so that Gym Night can open up again and not be cancelled until March.  I spoke to that, focusing on how it gave me, a person with no vehicle, a chance to meet and mingle with people from the village I might not ever have a chance to talk to, and to get to know the kids in all grades of the school, not just my twelve students.  I didn't mention that I already spent my Gym Night money on ball chairs for my students (more on that later) and about half of it came from my personal pocket.  But someone made the point that tobacco use has gone way up since basketball season started and someone else suggested we talk to the police to see how crime may have gone up also.  At the same time, we were very clear that having Gym Night after practice was not an option since we volunteer and no teacher wants to stay up until 10 at night. 

This led to a digression about the curfew.  It is 10 on weekdays and 11 on weekends for all kids, regardless of age.  There have been stories told to me about seeing kids as young as five years old out and about with no supervision as late at 11:30.  Tardies are running over 800 this term because so many students don't make it to class in the morning because they are too tired from staying up into the wee hours.  Parents do nothing to stop it, according to people who know the facts.  I kept my mouth shut but the parents of one of my chronic sleepers were there, and his dad is the mayor!

What many of the items boiled down to was what can only be called poor parenting.  No discipline at home but angry phone calls when it is used at school.  No supervision but resentful grumbling when teachers don't make time out of their off time to provide entertainment, like Movie Nights.  Harsh words when a students grades are outright terrible, but only from the parents who never come to Parent Teacher conferences but would rather blame the teacher instead of the student who refuses to do the work.  It is a quandary that is not limited to this community but this is the community in which I live, so I am challenged to find suggestions to create positive change while not offending anyone by my Outsider perspective.  A heavy task indeed.



Here is the hat Madame Chairwoman wore: seal with wolf tail.

Student vs Athelete

Growing up in 1970s Seattle, soccer was king.  We played at the park, we played on the concrete playground at school, we played weekend games on crushed brick fields.  I played for eleven seasons with essentially the same neighborhood team.  Go Pounders!  The best team with the worst name.

I also played softball and basketball with my school teams and ran track.  It was just something you did, not because you were particularly good or even enjoyed it much.  To this day, my only memorable moment playing basketball was getting a technical foul for ripping the ball out of another player's hand (in my own defense, if the other girl had let go, it wouldn't have been a big deal-gawd). 

Here in Togiak, sports are the only after school activity there is.  No arts.  No jobs for the high schoolers.  No community center, though the Seventh Day Adventists do have a Teen Night once a week where they show movies and teach rudimentary cooking to any young person interesting in learning.  Mostly they go just for something to do, not out of any religious reason.

In the Fall, there is volleyball for girls (boys are allowed to play but they don't) and wrestling for boys middle school age and older.  To be on the team means travel.  Teams fly about every other week for weekend long tournaments to other villages like Twin Hills, Manakota and if they are lucky Dillingham where they get to buy Subway sandwiches for the first time in their lives.

But basketball is The Sport.  The reason is obvious; basketball is an indoor sport.  It doesn't matter how much snow or ice is on the ground outside.  At Thanksgiving, the middle school teams put on a tournament for kid and adult teams that was well attended but the adult teams showed such poor sportsmanship, they were disqualified from the tournament that was supposed to be held this weekend.

Supposed to be held, but was cancelled when only one team, made up of Fifth grade boys, signed up.  The high school girls have yet to field a team because there are so few girls and of those, all but four don't make the grade cut.

The middle school girl's team had their coach resign from coaching when the administration wouldn't support the academic contract she had the team sign.  It said that no player would travel for games if they were getting an F or a D in any subject, a regular clause in any sports team I know of in Oregon.  But the principal insisted that as long as a student had a 2 point grade point average, they were to be allowed to travel.  She quit rather than compromise and I immediately sent her an email of support.

Yes, athletics are important.  But school is more so.  What would we be teaching these kids if we told them outright, Oh yeah, grades aren't really anything to worry about, the game is more vital.