CHAMPS Training

Just as I sat down to write my first blog post of the year someone woke up from her morning nap. J

Whew! Traveling in the bush is never dull and it’s certainly not dull when you add a three month old into the mix.  We just got back last night after spending a week in Bethel for various trainings.  To begin with we’d had some pretty nasty fall rain and fog for 3 days before we were supposed to leave. Originally it didn’t look like we were going to get out of Goodnews at all. Finally, Monday morning the fog and rain lifted; so Simon, Molly, Junie and I were able to get on the mid-day flight out of the village. We got into Bethel at 2pm and went straight to the training that we’d already missed half a day of. 

We were in Bethel for CHAMPS training. CHAMPS is a school wide behavior management and expectations system. The first two days Monday and Tuesday were for our Foundations team, which in such a small school is our whole staff. The Foundations team is responsible for the planning and implementation of procedures and expectations for all areas of the school. 

On Wednesday and Thursday Junie and Daddy got to spend the mornings at our bed and breakfast while I went to CHAMPS Classroom Coaching training. Daddy and Junie were working on re-learning a few forgotten skills, taking a bottle and mastering the art of napping alone. 

It's hard when you wake up and can't find your mama.

During the transition of moving home to Alaska a few skills she once had were quickly forgotten. Napping alone was the last skill on our list of things to re-learn. Yipee! We’re all happier and possibly a bit more rested now that we’ve conquered the nap. It looks like some time alone with daddy and a free schedule has set us on the right path again. In the afternoons they came to hang out with me at the District office in trainings.

 I am the classroom coach for our school. The coaching position provides teachers with non-evaluative observations and data points. As the coach I’ll be collecting data on all of the students and staff in our building. We’ll be looking at things like time on task, ratios of interactions, opportunities to respond and disruptions. Our school will take a close look at our data every 2-4 weeks and we’ll also be looking at a sample of our district wide data on the same things. (http://www.safeandcivilschools.com/services/classroom_management.php)

We started using CHAMPS school wide last year and have been extremely impressed with the results. So this year, we’re on a mission to spread the implementation to even more areas of the school. One of the reasons that CHAMPS is so successful when used school wide is that it uses a common language among teachers for teaching the same behavior. For example, all students in our building can tell you the voice levels and when each level should be used during specific times of the day. If you’ve been reading the blog for quite a while you’ll remember some of the behavior issues that we experienced last year.

Junie with Uppa Carlton, our Assistant Superintendent. (Uppa is grandpa in Yupik)

Junie was a super star! She did great with the travel and just might be the youngest CHAMPS trained baby in the YK Delta! Our trainer said she was the youngest person he’s ever trained. As you can imagine not a person in the room had a problem with our sweet little girl hanging out! She was quick to make friends with her charming smile.

On Friday we worked on some professional development stuff and also spent some time planning out instructional tools for our CHAMPS procedures. Part of the day we had the luxury of working from our home for the week, Bentley’s Bed and Breakfast, during the other part we met with some other teachers and the Instructional Coach for our school at the district office.

Friday night was the part we’d been looking forward to since the beginning of the school year. Seeing some of our friends from last year! All of the teachers hired in the same year have several trainings together—it’s a great way to build community with people in the same place as you. We had a great time having dinner and catching up with our friends. Junie was excited to meet more new people too. She insisted on staying awake until 10:30 when everyone else went to bed.

Saturday we had our 2^nd year teacher in-service meeting. It was there that we learned about 35 of 62 hires from last year are still in the district! This year the district needed to hire for 70 open positions—some of which are still open!

While we were in Bethel one of the families from my class had a sweet new baby girl! That makes for three new girls who call Goodnews home since June. We were super excited to run into them at the airport and discover they were taking the same flight we were back to GNU. 

And just for reading the whole way to the end… the part you’ve all been waiting for pictures! Ps. Someone at our house got a year older this week…

Can you tell Simon is thrilled I took this picture for the blog?

Everybody watches baseball in our house!

Weekend in Kwig

     As 2nd year teachers, Christina and I are little by little beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor. It's been so exciting to see the growth in our students- not just academically, but socially and emotionally as well. We regularly have conversations that go "I can't believe so-and-so's progress from last year!" or "Do you remember what so-and-so was like a year ago?" It's important to focus on the improvements that we've seen, because we often become mired in the tragic everyday realities of our students. It's one thing to accept a job knowing the demographics and the statistics that you are getting yourself into, but it's quite another when those statistics rear their ugly head with such swift devastation.

     Goodnews Bay has been dealing with some real devastation this year. Last winter, we wrote about going to the funeral of a mother of 8, whose children range from 2 to 18 years old. This past month, the father of those same children committed suicide, leaving a scandal of sexual abuse and heartache and displaced lives that has rocked the village. The teachers haven't even been made aware of all of the facts (the sexual abuse alone has been linked to people throughout the village, including students of all ages) because of the ongoing nature of the case by the Alaska State Troopers. But we do know that victims have become abusers themselves, and this troubles us.
     Aside from this major event, there have just been a lot of issues village-wide, from child neglect to alcoholism and poor parenting and abuse- many days we're left feeling pretty powerless and frustrated. So it was with some relief that I was able to get out of the village for a couple of days last weekend as coach of the NYO team- to get away from the negative energy and to do something positive and tangible with my students. I was especially glad that one of the boys from the affected family was able to travel with us.

We left Friday afternoon on a charter. The students were VERY excited to fly and to see another village. 

Goodnews Bay. A rare barge in the bay. The barge was anchored at the Point, but had to navigate itself further down the bay as the tide came in.

Kwigillingok, Alaska (Don't worry, I have a hard time pronouncing it myself).

The location of some of these villages blows my mind. Kwig is really out there in the middle of nowhere. While there is a small river nearby, it's hard to believe how people have survived here for generations.

Because of the swampy, marshland of the village, there are boardwalks that connect the various houses and buildings. While they are solidly built, I can't imagine driving my Honda on these in the snow and ice. We had Hondas zipping by us at 30mph every few seconds.

Though oil money runs our state, Alaska is ahead of the curve when it comes to renewable energy. Many of the villages have adopted wind or tide power, including Kwig. 

The school

I love this picture. The coach's room for the tournament was one of the Yup'ik classrooms. Here, students have drawn the major animals in the region, including their traditional Yup'ik name.

I had the choice to eat school food or traditional food for the tourney. Here we have (from top left, clockwise): akutaq (Eskimo ice cream), dried halibut, dried salmon, mouse food, salmon pasta, salunaq (salted raw fish), and seal oil. 

Eskimo stick pull, one of the NYO events. I spent the weekend judging Jr High boys' events with the NYO coach from Kasigluk. I learned a lot about the events, how to train for them, and how good some kids are!

Seal hop, the most grueling show of physical endurance.

Walking to the store the next morning. "I want to go store!" reverberates in my skull...

Walked past this quad lineup outside the school without thinking twice, and then went back to snap this pic when I realized how I'm getting used to some things my second year in the bush. 

Our proud team. The student to my left is holding a can of Coke that says 

"Share a Coke with your team" The poster was made by Kwig students

Getting a ride back to the airport

The basketball court out by the airport.

It's good to be home!