The Alaska Native/American Indian students are at a higher risk of failure in school due to high absenteeism, behavior problems,

poor adjustment, or facing disciplinary action such as in-or-out of school suspension or expulsion. How can we help these students become more successful in education? My focus was to find designed programs to help students that are at risk of dropping out of school for my culturally response paper. Over the years teaching at the high school level in the Anchorage and Mat-Su School Districts, I noticed that a large number of Alaska Native Students that are At Risk Students. Either they were born and raised in an urban setting or if they moved from the rural areas of Alaska to the urban setting, a higher rate in these students have a low expectation in education. The transformation of a cultural and the social economic differences influences their education. My study intrigued me to look for programs that would help influence these students find support in a positive educational experience. Im interested in this study as Im an half Yupik Eskimo and Caucasian Educator and I grew up in Anchorage. I found that a majority of my native student friends I grow up with didnt do well in school and it was noticeable. I believed my importance is this research was to find more ways to be know more about resources I can use in the future to help support all students. What I found in my study was looking up journals and papers about support for native students towards education. Though I found information, a majority of information was about supporting rural students in education about making education relevant and supporting college native students. So I started to look up community support. Such as the Alaska Native Heritage

Center, Southcentral Foundation in Anchorage and the Knik Tribal Council in the Wasilla area. There are support opportunities in education for students. Here are some of the research, programs and websites. Two Remote Schools Struggle to Make Classes Relevant for Native Students: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rural_education/2013/03/one_remote_school_struggles_to_ make_classes_relevant_for_its_native_students.html In Remote Alaskan Villages, Teachers Struggle to Make School Meaningful: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/02/in-remote-alaskan-villages-teachersstruggle-to-make-school-meaningful/273596/?single_page=true Alaska Native Heritage Center: http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-andprograms/youth/walking-two-worlds/ ; http://www.alaskanative.net/en/mainnav/education-and-programs/youth/high-school-program/ ; http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/youth/internship/ ; http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/youth/alaska-studiesprogram/ Journal of American Education: http://jaie.asu.edu/v13/V13S3inc.html Southcentral Foundation: https://www.southcentralfoundation.com/services/raise.ak ; https://www.southcentralfoundation.com/services/pathway.ak Knik Tribal Council: http://www.kniktribalcouncil.org/Services/SocialServices.aspx

Although there are different programs in the school districts to support the native students in Federal Programs and Indian Education, I wanted to look outside the box in this project. The biggest factor why Im in this program is to be an example. The project gave me inspiration about the importance as a principal to find resources to help these students in different situations that we need to part of the community. I found that the importance to use the community and what we have to support my students to develop productive students and community members.

For my own personal educational growth as a teacher Ive tried to look outside the box and find what I could do to help these students in the classroom. At Service High, I asked my principal if I could add another Alaska Studies course but just for native students. The curriculum was the ASD Alaska Studies guidelines but with a twist. This was my schedule:

Monday: Alaska Studies Thematic.

Tuesday: Native Dance (The Alaska Heritage Center brought two dancers to teach dance.) Wednesday: Elders Visit. (Using the ASD Indian Education resources, they would bring a native elder over to speak to my students about their lives.) Thursday: Alaska Native Literature. (Each student would pick a book about Alaskans and write a weekly journal about the readings.)

Friday: Student Native Gov. / Native Cultural Club: (Students in class started our club and we would go over issues, plans for what they wanted to do such as NYO, Elders Youth Conference and what they wanted in our school.)

For two years I had this opportunity to teach this course. I found that during lunch the native students would start hanging out in my room and found an identity as part of the school. Academically, I believe the students enjoyed this class. That was my intention and goal for this course. After transferring to a different school district I heard they dropped the class. I believe that a class in this matter was a great idea and support for the native student body at Service High. This is another good example why I chose this culturally response paper and supporting native students in an urban environment.