By Cathy Grimes
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
22 June 2003
FIFE, Pierce County - The state Board of Education has approved procedures associated with a pilot program to teach native languages and culture in public-school classrooms.
The board approved procedures associated with a three-year Washington pilot program launched last February. They provide the framework by which each tribal government can appoint and certify individuals to teach language and culture classes in the schools. Any tribe in the state can participate.
After the vote, representatives from nine tribes signed agreements with the board cementing their partnerships. State Board President Bobbie May and Hank Gobin, cultural-resources manager for the Tulalip Tribes, called the occasion historic.
"It is historic that the state Board of Education is willing to work with the tribes to perpetuate their cultures and language," Gobin said.
Tribal leaders said the program will help stem the loss of indigenous language and culture, reversing a centuries-old trend. Language experts estimate that of the more than 175 indigenous languages once spoken in the United States, only 20 remain in active use.
In Washington, native-language fluency rests with a handful of tribal elders. Several tribes have worked to recover their language, but they wanted more than archival evidence of its existence.
They wanted it to live, according to Gobin and S'Klallam cultural specialists Elaine Grinnell and Jamie Valadez.
"They say if you lose your language, you lose your culture," Grinnell said as she received her teaching certification Friday. The program will help prevent that loss, said Grinnell, a Jamestown S'Klallam tribal elder and language teacher.
State board Executive Director Larry Davis said the board's action provides legal recognition of courses in tribal languages and culture as core world-curriculum courses for credit. Students taking such classes at the high-school level can satisfy world-language or elective requirements for graduation or admission to college.
But Davis said the most important element was recognizing the importance of culture and language for the Native American students. He said the pilot program aligns with federal and state education-reform efforts, which target every child.
Davis said the state board will not require districts to offer native language and culture courses, but the pilot program "will leverage the importance of cultures that are part of our state history. That's what makes them unique among all cultures."
Currently, the Bellingham and Port Angeles school districts offer such language and culture courses. Representatives of the Lower Elwha Tribe, which teaches the Port Angeles classes, said they are seeing success as students realize sometimes unintended benefits.
Valadez, a specialist with the Lower Elwha tribe who teaches in the district and received her special teaching certificate from the state Friday, said students in elementary and secondary programs write notes to each other in the Klallam language.