Do: All it takes is one person

Parts of plan able to implement:

Revamping of the annual spring fifth grade orientation at the middle school (ARTIFACT 2)

Created a student panel representing past Crow School students to tell their perspectives of transitioning to middle school and being available for answering questions.

Had the band and choir teachers present at the orientation and then had students fill out elective information after clarifications on costs and expectations were given.

Did not have students tour the school with non Crow alumni and instead slowed the day down to give students an opportunity to take in classrooms while in small groups, accompanied by fifth grade teachers who presented questions that came up during the anchor chart activity in class.

Revamping of the annual spring fifth grade orientation at the middle school:

Created a student panel representing past Crow School students to share their perspectives of transitioning to middle school and being available for answering questions. Although the intent was to allow the students an opportunity to be open about their experiences, the administration for the middle school was present and helping to lead the discussion so I am not sure how open the students were with their questions. The overall impression when speaking with struggling students in class is that there is racism and teachers are mean to the Crow students. This opinion is also carried over to educators and administration at the Crow School. It would have been nice to have the openness and trust to ask the questions I hear in class while in the panel, however the students, for the most part do not question the system.

We had the band and choir teachers present at the orientation and then had students fill out elective information after clarifications on costs and expectations were given. Usually this is done at the Crow School, apart from the middle school and the teachers so the students are unclear on what they are being asked. We have our largest incoming group of sixth grade students into band this year. We also have our largest group of future band students participating in the summer pre-band camp in Hardin.

This year I requested we not have students tour the school with non-Crow alumni and instead slowed the day down to give students an opportunity to take in classrooms while in small groups, accompanied by fifth grade teachers who presented questions that came up during the anchor chart activity in class. The tour has been a whirl wind of moving around the school and being told about the day from a perspective the students see as very different than their own.

How successful was your plan of action at addressing the challenge?

My plan of action changed from the beginning of my capstone to the end. My plan of action initially was to increase reflective thinking and collaboration with my team members. As I moved through the Foundational Competencies, from emerging; recognizing the differences between cultural groups, recognize and understand strengths and limitations of collaboration skills and organizational practices when interacting with cultural groups. With evidence being teachers who are aware of the cultural differences and recognizing the need for flexibility, adaption, and communication. In addition I believe teachers and administration recognized the interactions between cultures as different but were unaware of how to change, especially when they themselves struggle with the ability to understand different perspectives between themselves, as adults. I was able to move to parts of the others competencies, including pieces of transforming; Facilitate and inspire others to create alliances, this is a tricky one in that alliances have struggled in the past and I have to wonder if the communication roadblock was broken down due to my leadership, which comes from a non-native individual. At this time I will not focus on this aspect of our collaboration and instead continue to work collaboratively with individuals at the middle school to improve policy.

The ultimate goal of my action plan is to build the reflective practice and collaboration to cultivate a socially just learning environment at the middle school. It is important to take baby steps as I move forward, building my team so we can tackle the issue of transition as it effects the low graduation rates among Native students.

I began working with my fellow teachers and took the time to recognize the differences between each of my colleagues. My team consists of a Navajo woman from Arizona who has experienced the same stereotypes as our students but in turn holds her own against members of another tribe, a teacher who attended a one room school house, in Wyoming, until high school and experienced many of the hardships our students face even though she is not native, and myself who grew up in Seattle with a very stable home life. Each of my fellow teachers had a different lense when looking at our students and we needed to develop a level of trust to begin breaking down the barriers we set in front of the kids. Both of them had the attitude, 'I succeeded from difficult situations, why can't they?’ Breaking down this misunderstanding helped us come together and begin to look beyond the surface issues and into the deeper problems causing the surface issues.

As a team we began to reflect on ourselves and not on how we overcame out childhood experiences, but how to guide students to persevere. In the article, Supporting Students with Adverse Childhood Experiences by David Murphey and Vanessa Sacks, we learned that toxic levels of stress can come from traumatic experiences and events, ranging from abuse to neglect to parental incarceration. Adverse Childhood Experiences, referred to as ACEs can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being.

Montana as a whole, not only the reservation, struggle with students who have high ACEs scores. As a team, as a school, and as a district we need to do a better job of acknowledging these issues and supporting students.

One mechanism responsible for the effects of ACEs-toxic levels of stress- can be substantially buffered by stable and supportive relationships and caregivers. Schools and educators can also play a critical role by promoting caring relationships, as well as emotional skills, that support healthy youth development for all students. Removing exclusionary and punitive disciplinary practices, and supporting the physical and mental health needs of students.

When reading Murphey and Sacks article we saw economic hardship, the Crow Reservation and neighboring Cheyenne have the largest combined unemployment in Montana at 22.5%, as well as separation of parents or guardians the most common adversities nationally.

*Just under half of the children in the United States have experienced at least one adversity. At the national level about 1 in 10 children have experienced three or more ACEs. However, in five states as many as one in seven children have experienced three or more ACEs, Montana being on that list.

On the Crow reservation, Specifically my school and my classroom of nineteen students, fifteen of my students did not have parents who were together, three of my students had a parent who died or was murdered, one of my students was currently dealing with a parent who was suffering adverse affects of drug use and would soon pass away, at least half of my students had a parent who had been arrested and served various lengths of incarceration and or rehabilitation stays. All of my students suffered from some level of economic hardship, and many of my students lived with or were in close proximity to family members who had substance issues. Even with this quick assessment of my classroom, none of the data listed in articles about ACEs and cultural groups referred to Native Americans.

Just because the articles and research are ignoring this ethnic group does not mean the problem does not exist.

In order to help lead teachers, school boards, administration, parents to better meet the learning needs of our students…in order to cultivate socially just learning environments, one must understand their cliental and not hide behind the issues.

Being a united force we were able to work better with our instructional coach and ultimately create a cohesive group of students who see us as a cooperative group of teachers who do not purposefully place difficult tasks in their way, but instead are fighting for their success. Eventually we began to hear the students’ voice concerns over racism, hard classes, mean teachers, and express concerns on how to overcome the attendance issue they know they have, but lack control over. So, we asked the students to brainstorm a list of these concerns so we could address them with the Vice Principal and the Counselor when they came to the school for an initial visit. During our collaboration we also decided the schedule of the visitation didn't really meet the needs of the students and worked to revamp it.

The plan of action went from collaborating with my colleagues to collaborating with the administration at the middle school. My plan of action is to work in small steps to change to mindset of administration and teachers at the middle school to better support the students coming from Crow Agency Public School. Through collaboration with staff and principal's I will be following these students and supporting them and parents through the educational system after elementary school, providing them an advocate for learning and avoid the possibility of dropping out.

Childhood Adversity can cause stress laden reactions in children, including feelings of fear, hleplessness, and terror. By ignoring the unique educational needs of Native students the cycle will continue and evidence shows the rate of alcoholism, unemployment, and poverty with continue to rise.

Students show these adversities through behaviors such as difficulty focusing, difficulty in school as a whole, self-regulation and behavioral challenges. The biggest indicator of success with these students is POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS.

One of the most sobering findings regarding childhood adversities is the evidence that the negative effects can be transmitted from one generation to the next.

Toxic stress experienced by woman during pregnancy can negatively affect genetic programming during fetal development, which can contribute to a host of bad outcomes, sometimes much later in life.

Which stakeholders and practice or program were impacted?

The fifth grade teachers and fifth grade students were impacted by the beginnings of this program. Parents will be the second step in the program, impacting students in the future. Currently I am working with one high school student to guide him in the steps needed to get ready for college and I will be following the students through their educational career to see what additional supports they may have.

One concern I have is in the past students from our classrooms tend to disappear. We encourage them to come back and keep us up on what they are needing help with, but as of now I have only had one student return. In order to solve this problem I am working with the principal at my school to plan a get together with the students at the beginning of the year to touch base. The bus returning our past students to the community drops students off in front of our school. Keeping the community of our school together even after they move on will provide them with a support system they may not have at home.

How do you know (site evidence)?

Students were asked to write letters to the Middle School expressing questions they still had and to tell the administration anything they thought was important for them to known about them. Students had a difficult time thinking of questions because as they told me, "They answered all our questions" Sadly, I did have a student who wrote in his letter that he would have trouble with tardies and attendance and wanted them to understand why, he wrote; My dad has trouble waking up in the morning and when he doesn’t, he doesn’t get me up. He drinks a lot.

Holding this student responsible for something he has little control over can retraumatize him. As a district we must become trauma informed and sensitive otherwise we are causing him to be retraumatized by consequences he had nothing to do with. Eventually building a trust between the elementary school and the middle school, we can discuss the truancy and the ridiculous policy of withdrawing students after they have been absent for ten days.

ARTIFACTS: see below

Communication, through email, about students happened for the first time this year as well as a sit down meeting about students with IEP's occured for the first time.

What obstacles, if any, did you encounter?

How did you address them?

1. Given the outcomes, describe any changes you might make to the Capstone project.

Developing relationships with my colleagues and understanding that change takes time and small steps has eliminated the obstacles I was expecting during my beginning stages. As I continue to work to make change I hope those relationships will support conversations and compromises that will support what is best for learners.