I am very thankful for and appreciate the opportunity to work with you as we educate and continue to serve the children of Maine Indian Education. I wanted to welcome all of you back.
I thank you for the many insights you and others have already provided throughout this year. As proud Passamaquoddy and Penobscot communities, as the State of Maine, and as a Country, we continue to navigate through significant and difficult challenges. As individuals, we all have unique perspectives. However, as a tribal school community, we share one thing in common: we are all united and focused on our commitment to serving Maine Indian Education children and families.
Maine Indian Education, as an organization, is genuinely invested in and cares deeply about every student who walks through our doors. School Committee members, parents and guardians, and community members are committed partners in providing for the children. Our focus has been to establish an efficient and strategically focused organization that can improve student achievement and operations. Maine Indian Education employs extremely hard-working, committed individuals. Developing systems in which all staff members are contributing to articulated and focused goals will lead to improved outcomes for students and the communities. When we couple an effective system with our dedicated team members, we will see that all things are possible.
We have an ethical responsibility to assist all students in realizing their full potential. Our approach to galvanizing all Maine Indian Education staff around improved student achievement is a systems approach, where every facet of the school is interrelated and functions in unity for a singular purpose. We will have a shared vision, personal commitment to excellence, and dedication to lifelong learning.
Communities Committed to Learning through Rigor, Relevancy, and Relationship:
We are creating “Communities Committed to Learning, through Rigor, Relevancy, and Relationship” where children and adults, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce the results that are important to us. Some of our key activities and partnerships listed below were focused on our key system-wide goals of Wabanaki Studies, Blended Learning, and Positive Behavior Intervention or Response to Intervention. We are moving into a Multi-Tiered Student Support System because every child requires a more personalized system of support.
Relationships/Collaboration
- Washington Academy to implement Wabanaki Studies
- University of Maine System
- Selected by the BIE as the only institution to invest in a five-year grant to improve schools. Tribal Communities in Schools (TCIS) is a partnership between the National Indian Education Association and Communities in School with a goal of improving outcomes for Native students by implementing a culturally responsive, community-wide integrated student support (ISS) approach. An ISS model puts students at the center and surrounds them with a caring community that provides academic, social, and other critical supports and resources—food, housing, personal supplies, healthcare, counseling, technology and more—so that they, in turn, can focus on their academic success and, ultimately, take charge of their future. As a licensee of the Communities in Schools ISS model, NIEA indigenizes the approach to ensure that the student supports integrate culturally responsive activities and interventions so that Native ways of knowing, believing, and learning are embraced, and Native students gain positive identity formation.
- Two significant funding from the BIE regarding the Facilities Improvements. One for Indian Township School at $832,532 and another for the Indian Island School at $766,550.
- MDOE- RREV Pilot Project, Transitions Planning/Programming
- Wabanaki REACH
- bCares- We Care (behavioral health services)
- Wabanaki Youth in Science (WaYs)
- Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI)
- Abbe Museum
Activities
- Tribal Communities in Schools (TCIS)
- Rethinking Response to Education Ventures (RREV)
- Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) development
- ELA program materials review
- After School Programs
- School Culture 360(C) Survey- John Hopkins Institute
- Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Committee (CIA)
- Wellness Committee
Most sincerely,
Reza Namin, Ph.D.