Alaska included among states with highest Alaska Native and Native American absences

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaska Native students are more likely to drop out of school and have the lowest attendance rates above all subgroups, except for homeless students, in Alaska.

That’s according to data compiled by the Associated Press as part of its Missing Kids project, which focuses on students who continue to be chronically absent since the pandemic.

AP Exclusive data on Native American students and absenteeism from across the country shows startling statistics:

• Native absenteeism rates are at least 10 percentage points higher than the local average in half of the states featured, including Alaska.
• In almost every state with data, including Alaska, absenteeism for Native students increased more than it did for students as a whole. In some cases, Native absenteeism worsened even as attendance improved for other students.
• In some states — Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota — the majority of Native students missed enough school to be considered chronically absent.
• In Alaska attendance rate for Alaska Native students was 84.71% and the dropout rate was 72.49%, according to state numbers compiled from 2022-23.

The only subgroup with a lower attendance and dropout rate were homeless students with an 81.08% attendance rate and a 9.43% dropout rate. English learners also had a higher dropout rate at 6.05%.

In Alaska, the highest attendance rates are led by students who are white, not economically disadvantaged, and those with active duty parents or guardians. The lowest dropout numbers are for the same groups.

Overall the student attendance rate in Alaska is 90.10% with a dropout rate of 3.55%, according to the state.

A request for comment from the Alaska Department of Education was not returned.

AP data shows that many schools with a large number of Native American students are trying to strengthen connections with families who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty and repairing distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American and Alaska Native culture, language and identity by forcing children into often abusive boarding schools.

“[History] may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work, and a member of the Cherokee Nation, told the AP.

Oklahoma has proven to be a bright spot going against these trends. AP data shows that out of 34 states with data for the 2022-2023 school year, Oklahoma was the only one where Native students missed school at lower rates than the state average.

So what is Oklahoma doing differently?

That state has 38 federally recognized tribes, many with their own education departments that support and contribute to student’s success.

Part of that is an alternative program called Eagle Academy that helps students who continue to miss class or have low grades by strengthening bonds between the schools and families. Those students are rewarded for attendance with incentives like field trips. When students miss class, a teacher and assistant go to the student’s home to visit the family to figure out what barrier contributed to the absence.

In Oklahoma, an Indian Education Director would do things such as making sure students have school supplies and clothes, and the role would connect students with federal and tribal resources. If a student doesn’t show up to school, the person with the position and a colleague could drive to pick the child up.

Holie Youngbear, the Indian Education Director at the Watonga school system in Oklahoma, says a cycle of skipping school goes back to the abuse generations of Native students endorsed in boarding schools.

“Native students are never going to feel really welcomed unless the non-Native faculty go out of their way to make sure that those Native students feel welcomed,” Pettigrew said.

There are efforts in Alaska to envelope students stronger into their schools.

Indigenous educators from across the state Wednesday submitted the first-ever reading standards for Native languages to the Alaska State Board of Education and Early Development this past October. If signed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the standards would allow Alaska Native languages to be part of the state’s reading requirements.

Alaska’s News Source asked the governor’s office if he would implement the standards and if there are any studies or solutions coming from his administration.

“Any new standards would be set by the state board of education. We do not have any new studies on chronic absenteeism, and I am sure you can find a local expert yourself,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

The draft shows what students in grades K-3 are expected to know at each stage of their educational journey, and were developed by 14 Ahtna, Aleut, Alutiiq, Gwich’in Athabascan, Inupiaq, Tlingit and Yup’ik educators with a goal of elevating Alaska Native languages and culture to inspire students and help them connect to their schools.

The group created the standards at the behest of the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED), with Sealaska Heritage Institute leading the effort.

“Just a few generations ago, well remembered in our oral history, all of Alaska was Indigenous territory,” the group stated. “Alaska Native languages are the Indigenous languages of this land and have been spoken here for tens of thousands of years.

“Up until 1930, less than 100 years ago, Alaska Native people made up the majority of Alaska’s population, speaking twenty-three different languages despite colonial efforts to eradicate them,” the group wrote. ”Those twenty-three Alaska Native languages are now considered official by the State of Alaska, meaning that they are acceptable to use for government and legal purposes and are taught and used in schools.”

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