Churchill Region Administrators Meeting

On March 17, 2003, the Churchill Region Administrators held their regular monthly planning and development meeting. Joe Alsup, principal at Crest Drive Elementary, reported on their literacy and science project, which has culminated in their publishing of The Crest Headwaters learning guide (which is free to anyone to adapt or use). The Kennedy administrators also shared a cultural competency awareness strategy which they had used with their staff, making people more awared of the factors which enhance or detract from a person's access to education. Below are pictures which elaborate on the presentations.

Principal Joe Alsup proudly presents The Crest Drive Watershed project, a result of staff studies in combining literacy with science using local applications. In the process of development, they made many contacts with other school on the watershed route to the sea.	To download a PDF of example pages of the project, click here.	Anselmo Villanueva, principal at Adams-Hillside, and Javier Gonzalez, administrator intern at Chavez Elementary, think about how the project might work at their schools. Included in the project are a list of state resource people and agencies involved.
Kennedy Middle School staff recently used these posters to begin their workshop on cultural diversity.	The examined mainstream beliefs about diversity, principles underlying the concepts of culture,and things they wanted to consider regarding culture.	Then the rubber hits the road question - how does culture effect service to students in our school?
Kennedy principal, Laurie Henry, explains the cultural activity they used to get at the effects of culture on access to education - first staff members received a card which determined their ethnic background.	Kennedy assistant principal, Scott Marsh, tells how staff members lined up across the room in terms of how they thought their ethnic person might have educational access - which caused a lot of discussion!	Then Laurie added depth to the conversation by adding mitigating factor cards, which included income levels, physical and mental handicaps, homes with and without resources, etc.

One of the resources that Kennedy administrators utilize is Cultural Proficiency: A Manual for School Leaders, by Randall B. Lindsey, Kikanza Nuri Robins, and Raymond D. Terrell.

Another resource ready at hand is the University of Oregon and Eugene School District 4J Wallace grant collaboration: Educational Leadership Improvement Tool: A Research-Based Assessment, Evaluation, & Improvement Tool for School Administrators.

Churchil Region administrators examine the Cultural Competence scoring guide from the administrator's Improvement Tool.