Ute language classes and unpaid school lunch bills were primary topics when Ignacio School District and Southern Ute Tribal representatives met Tuesday evening.
Families can pay in advance into an account for a certain number of meals. But some families have let them run down and become overdrawn. If an account goes below $10, the district sends a reminder e-mail or text, Superintendent Rocco Fuschetto said. They've also tried phone calls.
"The school board has been writing off $10,000 to $20,000 in bad debts," he said. The meal program is supposed to be self funding, but the board has been subsidizing it by around $120,000 to get that fund to balance. "This year we were still $40,000 short and had to transfer that," he said.
The district is being more aggressive about collecting from families with meal debts, even sending the debts to a collections agency, he said. As of three weeks ago, around $7,000 was owed. As of Tuesday's meeting, the amount owed was around $5,000, with $2,900 of that from tribal families. Fuschetto is looking for tribal help on that.
Board president Bobby Schurman said, "We've dealt with this for two or three years. We're doing better. The thing that's hard for us, we don't want to deprive the kids of being fed, but we have to do something. The elementary (school) is the hardest. We're trying to get families to fill out the free and reduced meals forms." That's a federal assistance program based on household income and the number of people in the household.
District officials will try to get families to fill out those forms at school open houses. They are easy to fill out, Fuschetto said. "We don't check statements of income. In January we randomly select about 10 percent to verify, so the kid's status could change."
The district also will work out a payment plan for families. "If the family can't afford it, we ask them to call us and work out a plan," Fuschetto said. "We aren't getting those calls. We're very flexible. Students (with zero or negative lunch balances) will get a lunch, but not the same as everybody else. I really struggle with that, but we have to be financially responsible. There comes a time when parental responsibility is part of it."
Tribal Education Department Director Latitia Taylor said they sent a letter about this to Native families and urged them to pay these bills, but they don't have addresses for some of them.
Tribal Chairman Clement Frost said, "The tribe has only so much authority" since the bills aren't owed to the tribe.
Tribal representatives stressed how important the Ute language class is to them as part of preserving tribal culture for the future.
Taylor indicated that getting an ongoing teacher has been an issue. Fuschetto told the Times, "In a year and a half, we had three different teachers. We haven't had the consistency to develop a program. We need a guarantee that if we schedule a class, the teacher will show up every day."
It has been at the high school. In 2012, the district persuaded the Colorado Department of Education to count Ute as a world language so it can satisfy the foreign language requirement for graduation. The plan is to add it as one of the nine week "specials" classes at the middle school.
Taylor said students at the Southern Ute Montessori Academy have Ute language classes. That goes through sixth grade. "There was a suggestion to start it at the mid school to build from the Montessori into seventh grade." The academy teacher can't fit that into her schedule, Taylor said. "We're working to identify more Ute speakers. Most are elderly. They don't want to commit to a full term."
But she said a recent Ignacio graduate is interested in shadowing the Montessori teacher and then could teach it. "He was very excited about being an apprentice and working for the school district," Taylor said.
Chairman Frost said, "Rumor had it that you were doing away with it. It's our responsibility to find the person to teach it."
Fuschetto said, "We'll teach it as long as we have someone committed to be here every day." The curriculum exists, he said. He doesn't want students to have a different teacher every year. "We'd like to start at the mid school, continue from the Montessori. The commitment is the big piece that's been missing."
Tribal Council member Al Cloud said the language needs to be spoken continuously to learn or keep it, even elders who have spoken it all their lives. "Kids have lost it coming from the academy because of the gap at the mid school," he said.
Elementary Principal Kathy Herrera protested, "I'm feeling very left out. Elementary is the language acquisition age." She'd like to have the recent graduate that Taylor is talking about come to IES. Fuschetto said the district can't commit to offering a full time position to this person, but it's a possibility. He said he'll continue working on this with Taylor and her intern Trae Seibel, also an Ignacio graduate.
The district and tribal representatives agreed to meet again on Nov. 15.
Herrera said, "We have a common goal of building up the next generation."
Board president Schurman, who wanted more frequent meetings, said, "The thing is everyone having an open mind and recognizing tribal traditions. Your traditions and culture become our traditions and culture to some extent."
