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SAN
JUAN
BOARD OF EDUCATION
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Paul Mantz
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President
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Manuel Morgan
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Vice-President
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Preston Nielson
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Member |
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Pete
Black
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Member |
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Neal
Crank
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Member |
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HERITAGE
LANGUAGE CONFERENCE
COMMITTEE
The
Utah State Office of Education
Diana Cortez,
Alternative
Language Services
Shirlee Weight, Indian
Education
San
Juan School District
Donna Blake, Secretary
Clayton Long, Chairperson
Tania Riggin, Secretary
Toni Richard Turk, Director
Monument
Valley High School
Pat Seltzer, Principal
Mexican
Hat Elementary School
Val Roberts, Principal
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Gary Cameron, Superintendent
San Juan School District
200 N. Main
Blanding, UT 84511
435-678-1211
cameron_gary@do.sanjuan.k12.ut.us
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Welcome
to our Conference,
On behalf of the San Juan School District
and
the Board of Education, I am pleased to welcome you
to our 6th Annual Heritage Language Conference.
We are excited and pleased with the preparations
that have been made for your enjoyment and
educational experiences in conjunction with this
conference.
We are pleased to offer a variety of presenters,
including local specialists who are the foundation of
the excellent Heritage Language program we offer in
San Juan School District. These presenters have had
hands-on experience and as you read through the topic
descriptions you will find a variety of motivational
presentations.
Our Heritage Language Conference has
provided a
way for us to strengthen and develop a growing
partnership to see that all of our children develop the
skills necessary for a successful life. The world needs
more people with these valuable skills.
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Welcome to beautiful Monument Valley,
Utah.
Our conference theme, "A Mosaic of
Language", means we
honor all languages. San Juan School District's priority is
literacy; hence, the conference emphasizes literacy for
educators, parents and students. The sessions have been
broken up into educator, parent, and student strands.
Have a wonderful time learning and
being a part of our conference.
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Clayton Long, Bilingual Director
San Juan School District
200 North Main
Blanding, UT 84511
435-678-1251
long_clayton@do.sanjuan.k12.ut.us
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Patricia Seltzer, Principal
Winner of 1999 Milken Award
Monument Valley H.S.
P.O. Box 360008
Monument Valley, UT 84536
435-678-1259
seltzer_pat@mvhs.sanjuan.k12.ut.us
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Welcome
to Monument Valley High School
The
community of Monument Valley is host to over 500,000
tourists from all over the world each year and it is also an area
that is pictured in literally hundreds of advertisements,
commercials, music videos, and movies. In the midst of this
beautiful and culturally rich area is Monument Valley High School,
a school that is unique in its efforts to blend culture and tradition
with the modern world of technology and progress. The challenges
are never-ending and offer endless possibilities as we try to help
our students and our community find ways to "walk in two
worlds." I hope that you enjoy the conference, that you take
advantage of the excellent presentations, and that you also relax
and experience Monument Valley, the "land of room enough and
time enough."
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Welcome to Our Conference
Mexican Hat Elementary is located on
the northern border of the Navajo
Nation. It was founded in the late 1950's by Vanadium Corporation of
America which was mining in the area at the time. Since that time, the
school has been added on to twice taking the school from five original
classrooms to fifteen. We have about 300 children enrolled. They live in
the areas of Oljato, Monument Valley, Douglas Mesa, VCA, Halchita, and
Mexican Hat.
Language development is our major emphasis and is important in all
aspects of the school. We have developed a strong emergent reading program
and are now emphasizing comprehension strategies and thinking skills.
Students are taught both English and Navajo and have other content
instruction in both languages. Recently we have added music instruction
as part of the curriculum.
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Val Roberts, Principal
Mexican Hat Elem.
P.O. Box 310457
Mexican Hat, UT 84531
435-739-4211
valr@mxh.sanjuan.k12.ut.us
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Diana
Cortez
Alternative Language Services
Utah St. Office of Ed.
250 E. 500 S.
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
801-538-7645
dcortez@usoe.k12.ut.us
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Utah
State Office of Education
The Utah State Office of Education is pleased to be a co-sponsor of the 6th
Annual Heritage Language Conference. I have
been personally involved with the evolution of the Heritage
Language program in San Juan County over the past seven years.
San Juan School District has clearly established itself as an
innovative leader in alternative language initiatives that have
drawn not only state recognition, but regional and national
attention as well. Take the time to visit the area and to interact
with the others who are here. Enjoy this conference and make
plans to put it on your calendar to return again next year.
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Utah State Office of Education
San Juan School District is educating one out of
every five Native Americans in the State of Utah. Consequently, it is exciting
to see the initiatives that have developed here to preserve and honor the languages
and cultures of area indigenous peoples, primarily the Navajo and the Ute. I
am pleased to have been a part of defining and implementing the Heritage Language
programs that are now underway in the District schools. This conference is a
celebration of the diversity of our State. Enjoy the conference and take the
time to feel the wealth of culture around you.
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Shirlee Weight
Indian Education
Utah St. Office of Ed.
250 E. 500 S.
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
801-538-7838
sweight@suoe.k12.ut.us
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"As I was growing up
on the reservation, my
elders said that it was important to share with others. The most important thing
to share is yourself. 'Learn much so you may have much to share.' I feel it
is important to share my knowledge and origins of my work. If I am able to convey
my approach to the work and the process it took to create it, then the viewer
will see that art, literature, and storytelling take a certain amount of preparation
and knowledge as well as heart. This is the manner in which I share, I share
by educating through my art, my books and my stories told of a time long ago." |
Keynote
Address
Michael Lacapa
Ts' Lea Enu
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Michael Lacapa
moved to
Whiteriver, Arizona, on the Fort Apache Indian
Reservation at the age of one. He is the second of
eight children with ethnic roots from the Hopi, Tewa, and Apache Tribes. Michael's
boyhood passion for art
was "fine tuned" after earning a bachelor's degree in secondary education
(art) from Arizona State University
and completing graduate studies in printmaking from Northern Arizona University.
He began his formal
teaching career at the Phoenix Indian High School and then Chaparral High School
in Phoenix. Michael left
his high school teaching duties to work with the Apache Tribe in developing multi-cultural,
educational
curricula for Native school-age children. From this work came Michael's first
co-authored/illustrated book,
Ndee Benagode'i (Three Stories of the White Mountain Apache Tribe).
Michael's storytelling talents sprang
from this project.
With storytelling developed Michael returned
to the classroom from 1982 to 1984 to teach art at Whiteriver
Elementary School.
Today, Michael is as well known for authoring
and illustrating many children's books as he is for his Native
American storytelling. Michael travels throughout the country teaching the craft
of art and the love of his
culture to school age children through author visits and artist-in-residence programs.
He is also sought after
by both national and international storytellers' conventions to teach, share and
tell his stories - stories that
are sounds of the heart.
Michael has three children and currently
lives in Taylor, Arizona, with his wife Kathy, who is also an author.
Special
Recognition
Mary Dorn
In 1994, Mary Dorn came to Monument Valley
High School as a school volunteer. She had visited Monument Valley in the
summer and soon after wrote a letter offering her services to the school and the
community. "I am a 63-year-old, retired school
nurse who is recently widowed. I had a chance to visit your school this summer
and I think you need me. I come cheap - free.
I just need a place to stay, and I am willing to do anything from answering the
phone to scrubbing floors. I obtained your name
and address from a waitress at the San Juan Inn. Please call me if you think
we might work something out."
That letter was the beginning of a relationship
between Mary Dorn and the community of Monument Valley. The relationship
lasted 5 ½ years until this January when she was diagnosed with a serious
illness that has forced her to move back to Wichita,
Kansas, where she can get the medical attention that she needs.
While here, Mary added a spirit to our school that
has been almost impossible to replace. In 1999, Mary was awarded the
Huntsman Award for Utah Volunteer of the Year. She was also recognized by the
U.S. Department of Education as a recipient
of the Stanford Heroes of Education Award in October of 1999.
The Huntsman Award nomination recognized Mary for
outstanding contributions to the school and community. Following is
an excerpt from the award nomination.
"She volunteers 24 hours a day...It is now
8:00 p.m. and she has just finished feeding new baby lambs that were born as triplets
this morning to a ewe that is not too excited about being a mother. Whether it
is helping with a project like this one, or providing
an elegant dinner for the Honor Society, Mary has become an integral part of this
school and community. She provides all the
school nursing needs and, in 1996, when the Monument Valley Hospital closed and
we were without a clinic, she provided much
needed medical help for the community. She teaches CPR to the local tour companies,
Head Start, and high school staff. She
runs the school store, usually driving round trip to Sam's Club in Farmington
twice a month for supplies. She supervises the school
office if one of the secretaries is absent, babysits for the staff, and takes
care of the school flower garden. She drove a two-ton
flatbed truck loaded with the high school band in the Homecoming parade, and has
cooked sloppy-joes for groups as large as 200.
When the school popcorn machine burned out and a new one mysteriously reappeared,
she just smiled, saying that many of her
friends spent their extra money playing golf. She does not play golf, and whenever
she feels like being a bit frivolous with her
money, she justifies it by calling it her 'golf money'".
We, as a staff and community,
miss her a great deal and hope that she does recover quickly and fully. As one
student, who
recently wrote to her, said, "The spirit at Monument Valley is different
without you, but we will do our best to keep the spirit
alive."
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