May 30, 2003
Boulder Daily Camera
by Brittany Anas
Eighth-grader Kerry Lujan, left, talks with friends, including Sophie Roessler, right, in a ceramics class at Summit Middle Charter School in Boulder on Wednesday. Kerry is one of 129 American Indian students in the Boulder Valley School District.
Photo by Carmel Zucker
Violin lessons now fill the time slot that Kerry Lujan once spent beadworking and basket-weaving at a culture club.
And Kerry tediously finishes homework by herself on Thursday afternoons. A few months ago, the 14-year-old Summit Middle Charter School student looked forward to meeting with her fellow American Indian peers at least once a week to receive after-school tutoring at a homework club.
Lujan, one of the 129 American Indian students in the Boulder Valley School District, said she is feeling the absence of the district's American Indian education specialist, Theresa Halsey, who has been on medical leave since November.
"Everything has just crumbled to pieces," Kerry said. "There isn't much going on in Boulder for Indian students anymore."
Because the district recently proposed to cut Halsey's specialist position altogether, some parents in the American Indian community said they fear the worst is yet to come for their children.
"It's such a loss to the Indian community," said Kerry's mother, Judy Lujan. "People within the school district do not understand the importance of community in educating our children."
Halsey, who has been the hired specialist for 12 years, said she has served as a liaison between the American Indian community and its students by bringing native speakers into the classrooms, coordinating tutors for American Indian students and circulating a community newsletter.
Last March, Kerry Lujan won a first-place ribbon in a national math competition in Albuquerque, N.M., an accomplishment that her mother partly accredited to the tutoring services that Halsey organized. In addition, Halsey has been responsible for compiling American Indian students' test scores and grades for yearly reports.
Barbara Conroy, the district's assistant superintendent for learning services, said the proposal to eliminate Halsey's position resulted from changes in grant provisions as well as $2.4 million in district budget cuts.
The Office of Indian Education would no longer support putting such a large portion of the grant toward funding Halsey's specialist position, Conroy said.
"We decided not to recommend spending money on a community liaison position and rather provide more direct services to students through tutoring and academic support," Conroy said.
Expanding homework clubs with on-site tutors may be one example of more direct services, Conroy said.
"Again, that's a problem with non-Indians deciding what is good for Indians," said Don Ragona, director of planned giving for the Native American Rights Fund. "Indian people know what's best for their children. They know how to get them interested in school while still keeping an interest and pride in their history and who they are."
Without a liaison position, Halsey said, she fears the camaraderie between American Indian students, who are dispersed throughout the district's 57 schools, will weaken.
"It seems like the message they are sending to our community is 'You're not important,'" Halsey said.
The preliminary budget presented to the school board has already incorporated the elimination of Halsey's position as well as 10 more cuts in the learning services division, said Nancy Horst, director of communications for the district. Other cuts include five literacy coaches, a director of curriculum, a coordinator of diversity, a secretary, a curriculum development secretary and two positions with teacher-assistance programs, Horst said.
"I don't think any positions are considered expendable," said Pam Duran, the district's director of institutional equity and multicultural education. "I think our budget cuts are causing us to make some really tough decisions. I think it's a hard time budget-wise, and we are going to have to pull together as a district."