Dear Indian Education Parents, Students, Educators and Community Members

Dear Indian Education Parents, Students, Educators and Community Members,

June 15, 2015

Dear Parents, Students, Educators and Community Members,

As the 2014-2015 school year has just finished, I wanted to provide a summary of the accomplishments, as well as the challenges, Placer County Office of Education’s Indian Education Program experienced this year. As always, thank you to everyone who supported our program, in one way or another, as we worked to provide quality, consistent support, resources and academic intervention to Native students and families in Placer County Schools.

Our Parent Advisory Committee met nine times during the 2014-2015 school year. Chairwoman Sami Enos, Vice-Chair Mary Roche, Secretary April Moore, Teacher Representative Carolyn Jones,and our two Student Representatives met with PCOE’s Director of Education Services Gerald Williams, Program Manager Anne Ashton, and Academic Intervention Support Practitioner Lori Grasberger to discuss program goals and objectives, student progress and the 2015-2016 Indian Education Grant. Additionally, the Committee officers informed the group monthly about upcoming Native cultural events. PCOE is extremely grateful to all the Officers and Representatives for their time and commitment to this program.

PCOE is proud of the services we offered to Native students this past school year. Our staff made 188 outreach phone calls to Native families all over the county—from West Roseville to Lincoln to Foresthill to Truckee. Each of these contacts was an opportunity to tell families of the support available through the Indian Education program. As a result of this outreach, our staff administered 54 educational assessments and ultimately provided academic intervention services to 40 students around the county. This yielded hundreds of opportunities for our staff to create relationships with school staff and teachers, to educate them about the Indian Education program and to advocate for these students.

Additionally, for the third year, Lori Grasberger is offering her Back-to-School Kick-Start program. From late-July through mid-August, Lori will work with kids once or twice a week to reinforce previously learned knowledge, brush off any dusty skills, and prepare students to successfully start the upcoming school year.

While we were fortunate to have a committed Parent Advisory Committee, we still had very little additional parent or community presence at our monthly meetings. We consistently encourage folks to attend these meetings and/or get involved with the program, and will continue to do so next year. Another challenge is that many of the 506 forms (Native Student Eligibility Certification) we receive lack tribal enrollment information; the Office of Indian Education (OIE) will not accept forms missing this information, and this results in less funding for the program. We continue to search for ways to help families acquire this information. Chapa-De Indian Health Program has agreed to work with us in this endeavor; we are very grateful for their help and support with this effort.

Overall, 2014-2015 was a very successful year for Placer County Office of Education’s Indian Education Program. We are honored to serve the Native families and students in Placer County and to support the high qualify instruction Placer County teachers provide in the classroom. We welcome additional ideas, voices and involvement; please do not hesitate to inquire about attending Parent Advisory Committee meetings or contact the program administrator directly for any information regarding the PCOE Indian Education Program.