A Brief History of Community School Classes at Denali

In the spring of 1998, the Anchorage School District decided that Denali’s school day should begin at 9:00 AM, instead of 8:45 AM. This small decision opened the door to the creation of Denali’s morning community school program in the fall of 1998.

Denali parents had always sought ways to expose their children to second languages. While there has never been enough ASD funding to provide language teachers, knowledgeable parents have from time to time offered their children’s classes some instruction. For example, Amelia Walsh taught Italian to two classes, and Lydia Pinkston taught Spanish in Mrs. Miller’s kindergarten class. After school classes in Spanish and Russian were also attempted, but ultimately faltered. In this parent’s opinion, students find it difficult to settle down to concentrate after a long day of school.

The change in start times was a significant problem to those parents who brought their kids to school and needed to be at work by 9:00 AM. However, it opened enough of a time slot in the morning that we could schedule classes. After a parent survey, Stephanie Cole and Margie Mac Neille began to put together a morning language program. By August 1999, parents Bonnie Bernholz, Martha Sandel and Margie Mac Neille were meeting to plan the details and try to develop a Spanish curriculum that fit in with Montessori principles. Martha, then a graduate student, agreed to teach a class; this commitment was the cornerstone of the whole program. Two parents, Barbara Kraft and Lynn Gallant, wanted French instruction for their students and so became Deans of the French program.

In the fall of 1998, we began classes: 2 Spanish classes, a French class, a Wednesday music class and Learning Lab. Over the years, the numbers and levels of classes have ebbed and flowed. We have moved from 1 to 4 levels of Spanish, including a class just for kindergartners; the two French classes have coalesced into one for all levels. Once the computer lab was set up, Karen Glavinic began her very popular morning and afternoon computer labs. Other classes we have offered include adult yoga, afternoon math club, Japanese, chess club, and color guard. For the years we were in the old Denali building, Lizz Daniel and her mother Pat Austin ran Learning Lab, a morning drop-in program in the library. This was a very valuable safety net for the whole school. Language kids could go to Learning Lab if a teacher was delayed or absent; disciplined kids could be safely supervised; kids who were hanging around outside at 8:15 in the freezing cold could be brought in to a warm friendly environment. We charged $1 a visit, a quarter for free lunch kids, and got the PTA to help cover the costs

We had unwavering and invaluable support from Denali’s principal, Karen Rigg, and Steve Moss, the Fairview Community School coordinator. Fairview Community School was our institutional umbrella and did our payroll and taxes (thank you, Marilyn Doore.) More importantly, Steve was a constant presence, encouraging students, cheering up or firing teachers as appropriate, dealing with parents, running blizzards of copies, and finding space for our classes. His support was particularly helpful in 2002-2003, when the program was transplanted to Fairview School while Denali was rebuilt. Students were dropped off at Fairview for classes 5 mornings a week and after class boarded a bus for Kennedy School. Since school didn’t start until 9:30 at Kennedy, this setup allowed both students and parents to use the time before school wisely.  Steves help was lost to us when the District eliminated the Community Schools program in 2004. ACEA, and the dauntless Lora Jorgensen, gave us the go-ahead to run the program in the 2004-2005 school year before ACEA was even ready to run its own classes. Our parents were the guinea pigs for on-line registration. We had the additional wrinkle of adding students from Chugach Elementary, taking classes at Denali just as our students had at Fairview, before they get on the bus to Kennedy.

Finding teachers has always been a challenge. We have advertised, posted notices, and pestered other language teachers. However, our teachers came to us by luck. Marta Amaya found us in the Denali hall the week before classes began in 1998. Percell St. Thomas was a teacher’s child’s dance instructor. Cristina Calloni happened upon us when she registered her granddaughter.  Maria Herrera was an emergency sub whom Dave Harbour (then a parent and a sub) met when he visited her boss’s office. A stable group of teachers has evolved, but we have had periods of scrambling and patching instruction together. This was particularly true in the French program until the incomparable Stephanie Largent joined us (someone found her in the Crazy Croissant.)

Some decisions we made early on have shaped the program in ways that may not make sense any more  The underlying philosophy of the program has been to expose children at any early age to native speakers of Spanish or French, offering instruction in an enjoyable and low-key way, consistent with Montessori teachings. However, we had no way to offer Montessori instruction, or even a proposed curriculum, to the teachers we scrambled to find. In the early years, teachers were given materials on TPRS (Total Physical Response-Storytelling) which some used and some did not. Our teachers have each had specific plans of instruction in mind, however  We paid well by Community School standards because we had such a difficult time finding teachers for the morning slots. Payment has been by the day, paid monthly, because we have used a lot of substitutes and because some of our teachers have not been  in a position to wait until semester’s end for their stipends.

We scheduled classes for half an hour a day, finishing at 8:45, so students could go out to join their classmates in line and so the classroom teachers could have a brief period alone in their classrooms. We began with a 4 day schedule for several reasons: to allow kids to take another class (like Computer) one day a week; to allow families who did not need before-school care one day a week to sleep in; and then to accommodate Maria Herrera, who had to be at work early on Wednesdays. Classes started the second week of school in the fall, to allow a shakedown week and to allow late registration. Once the District delayed kindergartners one more week, we put off Spanish K until the third week, so that kindergartners would not have their first moment of school in Spanish class. We set fees right at break-even, and one year had to send out an emergency appeal to cover payroll. We offered half-price scholarships only to kids who were eligible for free or reduced lunch, so we didn’t have to ask about income. We originally had 3 sessions, but re-registration that often was crazy, so we matched the school semester pattern.

The important part of the program’s history is that year in and year out lots of children have learned another language. They have picked up listening and speaking skills during the period before puberty when their brains are open to language learning. They have moved into middle school and then high school with the advantages of early learning. In fact, the District is now placing Denali students in advanced classes in middle and high school  Our students are comfortable with another language, no matter what their level of proficiency is, and this will serve them well.