Urban Exposure | Native Students

Web Exclusives:

Developing Culturally based Curriculum in Washington State

A Journey to Understanding

Harold Ott: What works in Native Education

Larry Byers (Native Voices)

"Voyage to Excellence" takes students from the village to the city

By Rhonda Barton

Spring 2004

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—The meticulous two-story house on a wooded cul-de-sac looks just like its well-heeled neighbors. But, you won't find a typical suburban family behind the mullioned windows and beige wood facade. More likely, the residents on any given day will be a dozen teenagers getting a taste of life outside the confines of their isolated villages.

Anchorage House is home to the Chugach School District's life skills program. The award-winning school district—headquartered in Anchorage but sprawled across 22,000 square miles of remote Southeast Alaska terrain—boasts an individually tailored, standards-based system that places heavy emphasis on real-life learning situations. For Chugach students—half of whom are Alaska Native—demonstrating skills in career development, technology, service learning, and personal development is as important as mastering traditional subjects like writing, math, and science.

But, learning how to read a bus schedule can be difficult in a roadless fishing village where snow machines, skiffs, and ATVs are the preferred ways to get around. Likewise, it's tough to investigate job opportunities in the midst of a subsistence culture. Recognizing that, Chugach purchased a residence in the state's largest city. Students from the district's three far-flung schools travel to Anchorage House for an education in urban survival.

Starting at the junior high level, kids come to the city four times for anywhere from three to 10 days. At the most advanced phase, the stay may stretch up to 10 months while an older student completes a job internship. Although the program isn't mandatory, 97 percent of the students make the trip, which the district has dubbed the "Voyage to Excellence."

"The kids can hardly wait to come," says Carol Wilson, life skills teacher. "It's like a carrot dangling in front of them." She points out, though, that it's no vacation. A typical day begins at 7 o'clock in the morning and goes nonstop until 9:30 p.m. The television that beckons in the cozy den hardly ever gets turned on, and students are as likely to pluck an SAT preparation book off the bookshelf as one of the board games that's alongside.

Wilson and other staff members serve as everything from den mothers to camp counselors, motivational trainers, and career advisers. They help the kids learn to balance checkbooks, purchase groceries, write résumés, and perfect their team-building and decisionmaking skills. The live-in advisers also keep a sharp eye on the masking tape "boundaries" that place the boys' and girls' sleeping quarters off-limits to the opposite sex.

During their visits, Anchorage House students complete job shadows, perform community service, and visit college campuses. Statistics show that the program, together with other Chugach innovations, is making a difference: Since 1994, 14 of Chugach's 17 graduates have gone on to postsecondary schooling, compared with only one student between 1975 and 1994.

Whether they enter college or return to the village, the experience leaves its mark. "You helped me find the right path," writes one Chugach student. "You showed me what I should have known about myself a long time ago. Now I know how to be a leader and a friend."

FYI: Anchorage House hosts students—and some adults—from about 65 other Alaska school districts during the year. More information about the program and Chugach's nationally acclaimed practices can be found online at www.chugachschools.com/. The winter 2003 issue of Northwest Education, "Compound Interest: Business and Philanthropy in Education Reform," also features information about the Chugach School District and its replication efforts, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.