Assembly Select Committee on Native American Affairs

I'd like to call the informational hearing together with Native American Affairs Legislative Select Committee for this hearing today, we will go over the Department of Education's current standards of curriculum from State Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond. Our our next panel would be California Indian education successes and challenges.

Testimony provided by Vice Chairman Johnny Hernandez, Mary Levi, renowned educator Maggie Peters, learning specialist from Humboldt County Office of Education and Curriculum and Practice will be the next panel with Dr. Nicole Crawford, diversity and racial equity coordinator, Palm Springs Unified School District Kate Anderson, Director of Public Relations, Agua Caliente Bandaquia Indians and Anthony Pernell, former tribal Council Member, Agua Caliente Bandaquuia Indians.

We do understand that our first panel participant, state Superintendent instruction, is running a little bit late, so we would ask if we could start with the next panel. Panel three, that would be the California Indian education successes. But before we do that, we want to give land acknowledgement to Miwak Nissanan Baduan people from the area that's here. And as chair of the Native American Select Committee, Native American Affairs, I want to open with a traditional kuya birdsong. Tamale. Aloha. Tamale, tamale. Tumani. Watt away. Hamale. Tamalo. Tamale Hamalo. Money what the way. Aha.

Well, thank you for that. And we have asked permission from the local tribes to be able to share our traditional song. So thank you. As we start this Select Committee hearing, we just want to recognize the importance of the issues that we're going to be talking about today. Getting factual curriculum into the school system during the different colonization periods, to the gold rush era, to things that have transpired in the State of California.

We have different speakers ready to go on these panels, so I want to start with panel three. Vice Chairman Johnny Hernandez from the Samoa band of tribal government, Mary Levi, curriculum consultant and renowned retired educator Maggie Peters, learning specialist, Humboldt County Office of Education. If you're present, you could come up to the table. Thank you. As we begin the testimony with Vice Chairman Johnny Hernandez.

Thank you. Chairman Ramos, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, I'm in. Thomps Nitawan, Johnny Hernandez and Yahavia Tom Nahun Hakupa Ayatuta Yak Yahavia Tomovska BPI Vice Chairman, my name is Johnny Hernandez. I have the honor of serving as a Vice Chairman of the San Manuel Nation and I chair our tribe's education board. I'm testifying today in support of Assembly Bill, a Bill to amend two sections of education code regarding student instruction of social scientists to include a factual and accurate history of the treatment of Native Americans.

Thank you, Chairman Ramos and Members of the Assembly Select Committee on Native American affairs for the opportunity to speak on behalf of this important Bill. For far too long, the truth about tribal cultures, languages and traditions, and the crimes and atrocities inflicted upon many generations of native people have been eliminated from the mainstream conversation, especially in the classrooms. There has been nothing short of a betrayal to our native people.

What we as Native Americans hold true is very different from what is taught in school, which has left us vulnerable and has cast doubt upon our place within the state. The Bill will help ensure future generations won't experience the same pain going forward. Moreover, this Bill will ensure that all California students will learn the truth about the Native American experience as part of their education.

As California native nations, we have many unique social, cultural, and legal and political identities, often challenged by forces outside our governments, families, and communities. From a young age, we find ourselves balancing between two worlds, the world of our tribes and our ancestors, and the world we come to know through school work and interactions with the world at large. It is important for our students and communities to have the opportunity to learn about and understand California's first people who live among them.

Past generations of mothers and fathers within our own tribe have lived through violent repression of their language, culture, and identity in schools, and they took a grassroots approach to this divide. In San Bernardino, a collaboration between San Manuel's tribal citizens, and educators created the San Bernardino City Unified district title six education Indian education program in the late 1980s.

The program has its origins in the work of tribal elders from San Manuel, who for decades went to local schools on their own to share with their culture with students and teachers while building relationships on a school by school basis. They knew that if their children and other native children witnessed authentic representations of indigenous people, it would help to affirm their identities, leading to better outcomes and closing the divide between school and home.

Our tribe was very small at the time of these graduate efforts and knew that developing a more sustainable approach was critical. In order to continue the support work to continue the path forward to continue the path forward set by our elders or young fathers from a reservation Assembly, James Ramos, being among them, began a collaboration with the San Bernardino City and county schools and Cal State San Bernardino in 1998.

They organized large scale field trips for students and teachers, offering a week long California Indian education cultural awareness event in honor of the state's Native American Day. At this event, native people became the teacher for the day to students and teachers alike, presenting the factual accounts of communities and cultures. This event has been a successful model in reaching tens of thousands students and teachers and parents in more than 20 years that has been taking place.

AB 1821 is an important step in moving us toward a sustainable approach to students and educated about the factual history of California Native Americans. It is critical and a positive step forward that helps to ensure future generations know and understand the truth. We have experience with our local districts what AB 1821 would require and know the possibilities and the positive outcomes for students to receive the factual history and treatment of Native Americans in their learning instruction.

When the California India Education act was making its way through legislation, Samuel wow was invited to work with San Bernardino county schools on development of a Native American model studies curriculum. Our VP of education and our education board actively engaged in leading a task force to write the A through G course requirements that met UC standards in preparation for the curriculum being rolled out to the county school districts and incorporated into instruction.

In addition, we met with our local school district leaders who requested opportunity to engage with our tribe as they worked on writing ethnic studies curriculum to include factual and historical information reflective of the local tribes in the region. The desire of our educational leaders is there to learn more for themselves and in turn teach our California students the truth. AB 1821 builds on the foundation set with the passage of Assembly Bill 1703 the California Indian Education act.

It was a pivotal day for Indian country when AB 1703 was signed in law. The Bill made through Legislature with unanimous support, highlighting the fact that our leaders of an inner state see the value of bringing factual and local Native American histories in the classrooms. Our tribal youth join me in that hearing process and still talk about the positive impact of participating in this historical experience.

AB 1821 has opportunity to continue the positive and good work of the state to reconcile and heal from the past treatment of Native American people with fulfilling a promise of future and dignity and understanding for all Californians. It is an important truth to be told, which also requires patience and respect when seeking to capture the authentic and real truth from native peoples.

I thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony and I look forward to the positive outcomes that will come in the passage of AB 1821. And I encourage each of you to consider the significant impact that this will have for future generations to know and understand the truth of the California Native Americans as the first peoples of the state. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony, Vice Chairman Hernandez. Now we'll move to Mary Levi, curriculum consultant, retired educator.

Good afternoon Chairman Ramos and Members of the Committee. N. Mary Levi, an enrolled citizen of the Hopi tribe and a retired California elementary educator. For 34 years I've been honored to be asked to speak before you today and I give the respect to the people of these lands that I am speaking on.

This journey of advocacy started about 34 years ago for Native American curriculum over 34 because in the last 10 years I've been very happy to see a strong momentum focusing on accurate California native curriculum. However, there's still a lot to be done. 34 years ago I started teaching kindergarten and as a new teacher I looked to my mentor teachers for guidance in teaching their curriculum. When November rolled around, they insisted on making Indian paper bags best and having a Thanksgiving feast.

Moving up 30 years and I'm teaching fourth grade. The fourth grade classes around the district love to have the day of historical reenactment and of course this meant reenacting gold rush days and in fifth grade reenacting colonial days. This is not uncommon for these grade levels within California. Now why would I object to these traditional days that give students and parents experiences of historical past events? Because they give a glamorized feel of history, a very painful history for Native Americans in California.

But what were the alternatives to students to have authentic experiences? The curriculum that districts adopted only presented one side of our history and native people were only presented in the past. And when I taught third grade, I would ask my father in law, Robert Levi to come into my classroom to tell stories and sing kuya birdsongs. That was authentic. I would ask my friend Laurie Sisquat from Sherman Indian High School to come in and talk about basketry.

I would ask my mother in law Esther Levi to come in and talk about foods like we wish or corn mush and fry bread. And thank you, Chairman Ramos, for speaking to my students last year via Zoom during Read Across America Day. Our California framework and standards didn't reflect Native American curriculum and even now it's the only reflected in history and social studies framework. It continues to reflect native people of the past.

As an educator, I was fortunate enough to be an active Member of the California Teachers Association. I would talk with many educators who wanted to teach in more authentic way to present Native American topics. However, the resources were not easily available. The dependence on textbooks did not give authentic information or the information on particular topics such as basketry was not at grade level.

Elementary teachers can easily teach six to seven subjects in one day, and only one language arts and math are state tested for apt history. In the 11th grade, there are always four to five questions on Native American topics, which are the least percentage of passing each year. Last year I was grateful to the program called readworks. There were short stories or short reading passages that were written for fourth grade and fifth grade that were on Native American topics all year long.

Basketry, hopi quilting, Navajo sheep traditions, and so on. This was reading skills and native knowledge all in one. There are many creative and clever educators in our state with a passage of ethnic studies my husband, Robert Levi and I have been talking to educators who are nervous about teaching Native American section of their course. What they are finding out are the complexities of teaching Native American thought and cultures to their students, and it is because they themselves don't know the complexities of it.

When I taught science to my fourth graders and fifth graders last year, we did many lessons on environmental justice. What does damning rivers mean to the salmon? Why is controlled burning needed? But most of all, why is there time to give thanks and offering before all environmental endeavors are to be completed? There is a need to have more Native American educators in our elementary and high school levels. There is a need for our native students to see themselves in a profession and curriculum.

We know our heroes. We need our educators to know them too. And they are comfortable, and so they are comfortable in highlighting them all year long. And this again is a need for teacher education programs to be addressed at the college level. And I'm happy to say Robert Levi, Jr. Will be teaching a Native American component in ethnic studies at Cal State San Bernardino this fall.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done and my envy of Montana, Wisconsin, Washington, and Oregon are just to name a few on their Native American education. For all has now come to California. The key component is the connection to our tribes and what they want to be taught. Authentic knowledge is now coming out in materials developed by the tribes and they can continue to connect with educators to see what lessons are appropriate. I loved AB 1703.

The word shell did not give it much force, but AB 1821 gives a force to educators to look at their methods of educating fourth and fifth graders and hopefully gold rush and colonial days will soon be of the past. Knowing native knowledge will be understood and we will have a population of Californians who will give respect to the lands as we do. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony and bringing in the light of educators in the State of California need to be Native American educators so that they truly feel the passion and the teaching of our culture. Thank you so much as we now move to Maggie Peters, learning specialist from Humboldt County Office of Education, Ayuki School.

Yuda Kachoi my name is Maggie Peters and I am a York tribal Member also of Karuk descent and currently serving the Humboldt County Office of Education as a Native American studies model curriculum learning specialist. I am from a cultural family and lived within my indigenous lands. I have minored in American Indian education in my undergraduate program, and I have had the opportunity to serve as a teacher and an administrator on the Hoopa Valley reservation for 16 years.

Given who I am, in my experience, I have taught students accurate history of California native people, and I am one of half a percent of American Indian Alaska teachers in the state. So given this experience, I think that many of the testimonies that we have heard already today have identified these really great needs. We have solutions, and I'm really excited to be able to share some of my thoughts.

Some of the roadblocks that we have in delivering this really important histories is a lack of accurate resources and 21st century materials. There has been many starts and stops in curriculum development over the past 50 years, and it's usually they come with a short term funding and then once that funding runs out, those curriculums are never updated and they're never really revisited to include resources for educators that can be applied in classrooms as the classroom environment has continued to change.

Also that many of the resources that we have accessible are not authentic, they're not written by native people, and those indigenous voices are not uplifted often in our classrooms. Continued professional development for California educators around Native American studies topics is also lacking. That for tribal nations and for educators.

These are two industries that have a very high turnover rate, and we have to really accept that we are in kind of like a perpetual year, one of implementation, and that there is always going to be a need every single year to revisit professional development on Native American studies topics. Teacher Comfort, as was stated earlier, is a huge factor in whether or not these lessons will be taught.

And I can say that student testimonies that I heard at the California Indian Education conference that I attended yesterday really kind of broke my heart. Some of their testimonies that they shared, including it becomes our job to teach and educate. One student said. When we do speak up about the inaccuracies, it's traumatic when a teacher disagrees because they're reading things out of the textbook. Another thing that was shared is I've had a lot of hatred thrown at me because I've spoken up.

Another testimony says that not all tribes are represented and that when they tried to say, hey, this happened to my tribe too, their teachers are diminishing their voice in the classroom. Many, many students want the truth about historical things. As mentioned about the gold rush. They want the truth about Thanksgiving. They want the truth about the many trails of tears and the missions. And I believe that they want that honesty as a part of their healing journey.

There are some successes to celebrate with your work here at the Capitol. I have three adult children who have had the privilege of learning their Euroc language in high school and to fulfill those a 3G requirements for foreign language, and I'm very, very thankful for that.

We do have an exciting history of native people actively engaging and advocating in the educational system, pushing against the inaccuracies as family Members, as community based organizations, native educators, administrators, and tribes taking more of an active role in these educational spaces, demanding authentic representation. And I applaud you for being a good listener and making those things happen for them. One of the things that I would really like to surface is the Native American studies model curriculum.

I do think that this is a means to the goal, that there can be a way to incorporate indigenous perspectives and accurate historical information and cultural sensitive content to provide students and educators a more comprehensive and balanced understanding of American experiences in the state. Excuse me, but those require partnerships and building collaborations which require time to build trust.

Native nations of California or all over the United States have very valid reasons not to trust the educational system and that this builds time and sometimes requires facilitation and then going back to visit the idea of the high turnover rate. Tribal governments have high turnover in leadership, schools have high turnover in leadership, and so even those facilitations of partnerships takes an ongoing, continued effort and funding that supports that effort. But we can build those partnerships, and really great things can come out of that work.

By working closely with tribal leaders and scholars and community Members, educators can gain valuable insights and access to authentic resources and ensure that the curriculum content is respectful and inclusive of native voices and perspectives. We are working to develop the best practices for cultural competency, training and uplifting native voices from educators, as well as working with social workers and school psychologists to support educators with the implementation piece.

However, the Native American Studies Model Curriculum project is funded for three years and with limited funds, and in that time, we're doing our best to uplift the representation of as many different tribal people in California as possible. However, we all know that there are a lot of voices to represent, and this really does require regional support.

Right now, Humboldt County Office of Education is co leading this project with San Diego County Office of Education, but ideally, these funds could be distributed to regions with the planning with funding to plan and to facilitate partnering with local COEs and those tribal nations to build those place based relationships because that's what is going to be necessary for the implementation.

Going back to teacher comfort, the only way we can really support teachers to feel comfortable is giving them that exposure, giving them that first hand experience with their tribal partners in their areas to collaborate on lesson building. That's what's going to help them feel comfortable enough and feel confident enough that they are doing it right. It's not so much comfort like leisure, it's more like they don't want to get it wrong, and that's valid. But the absence of the information is also causing harm.

And so we want to make sure that they're best equipped to facilitate these lessons, not just for native students, but for all students of California. As we know, tribal nations are building strength in California. They are much more visible in land stewardship and in economic development. And so building the next generation of collaborative efforts between non native and native children will ensure a future of positive collaborations and a shared belief system that we are partners in supporting the development and the future of California. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that enlightening testimony and really reiterating that the voices that should be teaching should come from our own people in the first place, which hasn't been done historically here in the State of California. But we're working to make sure that that is something that is going to happen here in the state with these types of hearings moving forward. So thank you for coming forward. Do I have any questions from the dais?

No, I just want to add, as our Chairman stated, we here in the Legislature need to be informed by tribal leaders and by California Indian scholars and educators, and so certainly look forward to our continued partnership.

And we know that there's a long way we have to go to improve the outcome, not just for those who are represented in this room today, but bringing together an inclusive environment for everyone so that we could all understand that we have a lot of lessons we have learned and need to continue learning. And these hearings are so important for Members to understand the challenges that you all have faced and how we could work on legislatively and budgetarily. One time fixes aren't going to solve this. What are our ongoing commitments? And that is what I look forward to, working together on our ongoing long term commitments on behalf of the Legislature.

Could I add one more thing? I apologize.

Go ahead.

I do think that the careful planning and that really facilitating those partnerships is really important, because if we make requirements in teaching an accurate history of California Indians, there is a fear that the textbook companies will try to respond and commodify our histories and commodify our lessons and what we might get out of that outcome, because there is a requirement before a quality product, before we are finished, or we will never be finished.

I just want to say that with the amount of lessons that can be generated to represent the diversity of California, but there is a fear that I have, or that we probably collectively have, that school districts are limited to what's available in curriculum, right? And so if there is this mandate, then they're going to look around, what can I purchase? What can I purchase? And make hasty decisions and maybe perpetuate these inaccuracies that are very harmful because that's what's available.

And I do think that the state has to really understand that it's their responsibility to ensure that tribes have that first ability to fill that void before a corporate curriculum development agency tries to respond to what is now being required. If we are looking at updating the history and social science standards to reflect accurate histories, then there will be a momentum in the corporate world to get that done, and they might try to do it too quickly to make it correct.

Thank you so much for that. Any other comments?

Can I add on? I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying, and I think, too that the model curriculum or the curriculums that are being put out there in cooperation with our tribes and our educators and everybody needs to be considered as well as a textbook would be considered and go through that process of being adopted by the state so that the districts can easily go and put funding towards or adopting those programs.

Because right now, as it is, it's a supplement and it's not currently an adopted curriculum. And whereas some of that curriculum is not in, it's only in history and social studies science. So that the only time we're going to be relooking at it is when we review the history and social studies framework. It needs to be adopted. It needs to be in your language, it needs to be in your science.

It needs to have a better force in those standards so that it can overall be looked at when you go and review your science, when you review your language arts, and when you review all your arts curriculum or your writing curriculum, it needs to be in those pieces. Otherwise they're not going to be looked at.

Well, thank you so much for your testimony for the Vice Chairman remotely on this very important topic. Right. If history is going to be corrected of what's being taught in the school system about California's first people, the voice should come from California's first people. And again, teacher comfort. One way to combat that is getting Native American teachers engaged in the classroom and maybe even a recruitment process towards educators with Native Americans.

So thank you so much for your testimony as now we move to Department of Education's current standards of curriculum. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members. Tony Thurmond, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, coming to you today from the land of the Aloni people and grateful that you would convene this task force on Native American affairs. As you heard from the previous speakers, there is much work to be done. Would like to start by saying for those who want to become teachers, this state does offer a $20,000 scholarship for anyone who would like to become a credentialed teacher.

And we would be happy to support anyone who wants to go through that process of accessing that money. And I will just say it on the record for those who want to reach out to us at [email protected]. We'd be happy to walk anyone through that process. While there's much work to do, there are resources.

I would note that on this Friday I'll have the opportunity to visit with many at the California Indian Nations College for a great ceremony and that we've met with students who have talked about a renaissance and opportunities to learn native language. And we believe that the timing is right for the legislation that you've brought forward.

And we're happy to be a sponsor of AB 1821 so that we can have the true history and end the conversations, the false conversations about the mission period and the gold rush. Everything that is written in statute and in our guidance and our frameworks encourages teachers to teach something that is accurate. But yet people have held on to teaching about putting together pretty structures that resemble structures from the mission.

Our history of social science framework says that the truth should be told in ways that might be sensitive because it's complicated, but that the truth should be told so that we never forget and we never enter into these periods again, that the truth should be told about forced labor, about forced residency, about illness, and attempts to convert Native American people, and that the truth should be told about the experience of the first people.

During this time, I'm grateful to great educators like Mary Levi, who helped us to center our conversations in this state, not just for the Native American model curriculum that was referenced, but also for the ethnic studies model ethnic studies curriculum guide that talks about the experience of Native American people. Thank you, Maddie Peters and others who are working on the model curriculum guide for Native American students.

I also want to acknowledge that there are many who are working with us in partnership with the California Department of Education, who are part of the American Indian Education Oversight Committee and who very much want to center the conversation of accurate history that reflects the experience of the first people. I would also note that a parallel to this conversation about what we teach our kids is how we recognize and respect tribal practices.

Thank you, Chairman, for your authorship of AB 945 to allow students to wear tribal regalia at graduations. It is hard for me to imagine that in 2024 that we need a Bill to articulate that students should be able to wear their tribal regalia in the graduation line. But yet we have students pulled out of the graduation line. And as a result of your legislation, we're implementing a task force to make recommendations on tribal regalia.

We've sent a letter to every single school district saying respect that students are allowed to wear native clothing and that they should not be taken out of the graduation line.

And Chairman and Members of the Committee, I would just say that this year we will also be sending a letter to every one of our 1000 school districts, letting them know that they must teach the true history of the mission period and the gold rush, and that what they're teaching is not accurate and is not reflected in our frameworks. And so we will continue to promote the true education honored to be a sponsor of the legislation.

We will continue to look for resources to support the experience of Native American students, like the $4.7 million that our office administers directly to California tribes to have access to tutoring and professional development. I would remind our partners that there are dollars at the school district for professional development, but it's always a fight and we have to be vigilant to make sure that those dollars get spent. This Legislature allocated more than $1.2 billion for what's called the Educator Effectiveness grant.

Its focus is on diversity and equity and professional development. But districts get made, decisions get made at the district level. And so there has to be advocacy to ensure that these resources are being spent in ways that will advance the causes that we're talking about here today.

I submit to you that as your state Superintendent, we are working to improve the graduation rates of Native American students, to reduce chronic absenteeism of our students, to improve test scores of Native American students, and to make sure that they're prepared for a great future. And it is that reason that we're proud to partner with a school in conjunction with the Pala community and Chairman Smith, a school called Acorns to oak trees that is making resources available to families to know about autism.

And we'll be putting on a statewide conference for Native American families to know about the resources that exist. And so I'm grateful for all that is taking place through this task force. I'm sorry, through this Select Committee and the work of the legislation. And we will continue to work closely with this Committee and its Members and our incredible tribal communities here in the State of California. With that, I submit these remarks and happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Superintendent. And you've been a great ally in this challenge that we've seen come our way with traditional regalia of graduating Native American students in the State of California, and also cultural attendance and credit back in the classroom and in the schools that many Native American students participate in. Do I have any questions from the Dais comments? I just want to thank you and thank you for highlighting the different process of recruitment of the $20,000.

That's something that we should get out into Native Americans Indian country to let them know that this is available to move forward in those areas. And thank you again for your hard work in being an ally for AB 1703 and continuing to help lead the charge in getting factual curriculum in when we talk about the colonizational periods and the gold rush era, that there is a story that still needs to be told. So I want to thank you for your presence here today and for your testimony and most of all, your friendship.

Thank you, Chairman and Members of the Committee, and just let us know how we can be helpful. I appreciated the ideas of great educators like Mary Levi, who talked about creating a book that can be a guide. Typically, what the state board of education will do is approve several books or the framework for how publishers can create a textbook. And it's a long standing process. It takes a long time.

But we had a hearing and I believe both of you were here when we pull all of the curriculum publishers into this body to say, hey, you need to provide a curriculum that reflect the experience of our students and their diversity. And I believe that we can do that work. And we're happy to do that work with you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Now we will transition into our panel of curriculum and practice with Dr. Nicole Crawford, diversity and racial equity coordinator from Palm Springs Unified School District. Kate Anderson, Director of Public Relations, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians. Anthony Purnbell, former tribal Council Member, Agua Caliente Band of Kuya Indians. We'll start with Dr. Nicole Crawford.

Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to thank Assembly Member Ramos and the Select Committee on Native American affairs for asking us to be here today. And I'd like to thank the land, the original stewards on where we're residing at this moment. I'd like to thank them.

So with that, my name is Dr. Nicole Crawford and I work as the coordinator for diversity and racial equity for Palm Springs Unified, our district, I'm speaking on behalf of our district, have collaborated with our local tribes to create curriculum specific for our 3rd, 8th, and 11th graders. So I'm going to kind of just talk about the General feedback we've received thus far.

And my colleagues will be touching a little bit more on the history of how it came into fruition to build curriculum with the tribe. So with that, the General feedback from our teachers is that the curriculum that we've developed along with the tribe is very robust. They say that it has a depth of knowledge that they've never seen before in any other type of textbook, and it's a true and authentic representation of the local tribe and its rich history.

Students themselves have had a lot of fun because the curriculum is very interactive and you can see the growth. We have videotaped evidence of growth from our students being from the second grade and commercing into the third grade. And the knowledge that they obtain from these lessons that we've developed with the tribe is absolutely amazing. And finally, one of the field trips that we do with the curriculum is to the Indian canyons.

And one of the rangers actually said that he feels he needs to step up his game because a lot of our students who visit with the Ranger, they actually knew they were able to obtain the knowledge that they've learned from the tribe, and they knew the plants and the animals in the Koia Language. And the Ranger was so taken aback, he said, I got to step my game up because the kids know more than I do at this point. So we see that this is working.

The timeline itself, with the curriculum development, we have, again, a robust curriculum developed for three different grades. The third grade curriculum took about two years from fruition. So brainstorming with the tribe, working together, creating an MOU curriculum development, and getting into the classroom. Our 8th grade curriculum was a little bit quicker in about a year and a half. And our 11th grade curriculum right now is in its final stages of development.

We're just going through the editing process one more time, but by the end of this school year, students will have the curriculum in their hands as well. So it's been going amazingly, adopting it with the tribe, the impact itself, it's very important. As our other colleagues have already testified, it is truly important to have tribal representation and true decolonized curriculum. That is the biggest impact for our kids to learn the lands that they reside on.

From collaborating with the tribe, we've been able to do an enormous amount of growth within the district itself as well. We were able to develop a Native American parent advisory council to support our indigenous families. We've been able to adapt some of the things that we have into our ethnic studies curriculum, and we've been able to support authentic student voice for our indigenous people, their families, and the community. And we've even been able to finally get our board to have a land acknowledgment every session.

And that is huge for us. And it's not performative. It's truly giving thanks to the original stewards. The most important issue, I think, is, again, the tribal history and culture. As we know, our indigenous cultures were under a genocide. We were decolonized or we were colonized, and we need to decolonize that. A lot of our history textbooks are inaccurate and unfair representations. We were erased from history of our ancestral lands. And our nation needs to know the true and right wrongs of what has happened.

And one way is through education. Personally, this is very important to me. My mother is native Hawaiian and Alaskan native, and my father is Mohawk. And I was not able to learn about my culture or my tribes, and I'm very far removed from them. So I feel bringing in curriculum like this into our classrooms to educate our kids, they won't have the loss that I've experienced. So I appreciate you bringing this Bill on. I appreciate all the recommendations from other panel Members, and I'm excited to hear what the tribe has to say as well.

Thank you so much for that testimony, and then we'll have some follow up questions as we move on. Kate Anderson.

Good afternoon, Chairman Ramos and Members of the Select Committee on Native American Affairs. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. I'm Kate Anderson, and I am an enrolled tribal Member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a federally recognized tribe with a reservation in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Today I'm here in my official capacity as the Director of public relations for the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians in Palm Springs, California, for which I have the distinct pleasure of serving.

It's my honor to share with you information about an important partnership that began several years ago when the Palm Springs Unified School District and Agua Caliente Band of coindians began a first of its kind collaboration to create an elementary, middle school, and high school Native American studies curriculum within the Palm Springs Unified School District.

Following a year long series of planning sessions, the tribe, the foundation for the Palm Springs Unified School District, and the Palm Springs Unified School District itself entered into a memorandum of understanding to establish and implement a curriculum plan. Because of the MOU and mutual dedication by the tribe and school district, the program has continued even after many of the original individuals working on the project have moved on or retired, including three different superintendents and two different tribal chairmans.

The curriculum, which is approved by the tribe and mandated by the School Administration, touches on a wide range of aspects of Aguacalente history, culture, traditions, lifestyles, and modern day government and economics. The curriculum project builds on the Aguacalente's legacy of a strong commitment to education in the Palm Springs region. The curriculum is geared to elementary grades three through five, middle school grades six through eight, and high school grade 11 in the Palm Springs Unified School District.

The Agua Caliente have an important and historic presence in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, yet many public school students were previously unaware of the important cultural history, let alone to know and understand that the Agua Caliente are living in the world today. This curriculum helps to establish a real groundwork of understanding by students on who the Agua Caliente Band of Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians are and whose ancestors have been in the area now known as Palm Springs since time immemorial.

Since inception, the curriculum has met State of California educational standards and was woven into the existing social studies, civics, human geography, and other teaching units. All curriculum content has been jointly developed with the participation of relevant tribal government representatives, School District Administration and curriculum specialists engaged specifically for the project. The foundation for the Palm Springs Unified School District has served as a project liaison.

Critical and crucial tasks have included identifying relevant information, writing of all classroom materials and messaging to ensure learning and retention, and careful training of Palm Springs Unified School District teachers, aides and coordinators with the guidance of the tribal government. The third grade curriculum is a 10 lesson unit of study covering Flora and fauna of tribal lands, water trade, history, culture, language, migration, artifacts, and a field trip of all third grade students to the tribe's ancestral land in the Indian canyons.

This reaches more than 1700 students a year. The 8th grade curriculum is an eight lesson unit of study covering geography and water sources, treaties with the US government, Indian agents, the Indian Removal act, the establishment of reservations, and the 19th century history of the tribe. It is taught to more than 1,600 8th graders each year.

We are currently on the verge of implementing the 11th grade curriculum, which is a six lesson unit of study covering assimilation, cultural restrictions, the Indian Citizenship Act, Dawes act, federal state legislation, all women Tribal Council, 99 year land leases on Indian Land, Indian Religious Freedom act, tribal leadership and cultural heritage tourism. Single lessons will be developed for grades 4, 5, 6 and 7 for the Agua Caliente. Success is measured by knowing that the Agua Caliente curriculum is taught in local schools.

We have created model curriculum by which others may follow. To date, we have also worked with another local public school district to implement materials into their 9th grade ethnic studies, and just this year, a private school is implementing some of the curriculum into their classroom studies.

We were proud to accept a 2021 honoring nations award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for Curriculum Development of the Agua Caliente people curriculum third grade in addition, through another partnership, large portions of the third grade curriculum are currently being developed for online nationwide publication in partnership with one of the California History Social Science elementary adopted curriculum publishers.

We have worked diligently over the past several years to make this 20 plus year old dream of having curriculum in the public schools a reality, and there is much more work to be done. I am proud to be part of this incredible team to help realize this dream. Thank you for the opportunity to share some of this amazing work with you today.

Thank you so much for all your work that you're doing there in the Riverside County area, especially with building the relationship that's there and the MOU component. We'll have some more questions on that as now we move to our next panelist, who is Anthony Purnell, former tribal Council Member for Agua Caliente.

vanquie ended Miyehoy Miyehoy otmu Emma. Anthony Purnell good afternoon, Chairman Ramos and the Members of the Select Committee on Native American affairs, and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before you all today. My name is Anthony Purnell and I'm a Member of the Kawasik clan of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, a federally recognized Indian tribe in Palm Springs, California.

I'm also a formal tribal Council Member who is delegated to represent the voice of our tribe within the Palm Springs Unified School District's school curriculum. As a native who spent my life immersed in our culture, this collaboration between our tribe, Palm Springs Unified School District, and a philanthropic foundation resonates deeply with me. My mother was a founding board Member of the Awa Caliente Cultural Museum, a board which was established more than 27 years ago. I grew up attending cultural classes.

I listened to the stories that my family had passed down. I've learned the traditional bird songs and heard our elders explain the meanings behind them. I've listened to the recordings of our elders tell the stories of our creation and their lives on the reservation. I've learned it. I've lived it. Most students don't get a comprehensive, thoughtful, or even an accurate understanding of indigenous people and their culture.

For so many years, the story of our people and the rich history of this land has never been part of a classroom curriculum. We're proud to say that nowadays these students are learning the true stories of our ancestors who have lived on these lands since time immemorial. When we began creating this curriculum more than seven years ago, we wanted the students engaged and excited. We designed this program with a hands on approach to learning, all while exceeding state standards in education.

This approach allowed students to easily comprehend the information and come home to their families and discuss what they've learned. Through these lessons, students learn that we as native people don't always look similar. They learn that Native Americans are still here and that we don't live in the mountains and hunt with bows and arrows or sleep in teepees. But we are alive and living amongst everybody in our communities. We go to the same schools, we eat the same foods, and we wear the same clothes.

That is the most important lesson that we can teach these students. When these students visit our ancestral homelands and walk the same trails that my ancestors have walked for thousands of years, and they touch the artifacts that our trouble membership have created, they begin to understand who the Agokalenti people and our quia ancestors are. These students listen and understand the meanings behind the bird songs that my great grandfather, who was the last ceremony bird singer, sang and the songs we have sung for thousands of years.

Students will get a taste of Ivya, our kuya language, a language we have been fighting hard to preserve. Our creation story tells the story of this land that we have sustainably managed for thousands of years, cultivating, adapting, and passing down through generations. It's only right to continue that tradition and teach the community what our ancestors have taught us. After they finish these lessons, they grasp the true significance of this area and their perspective of history of Native American people will forever change.

I'm proud to see the students engaged and see the teachers committed to learning and teaching an accurate history of our people. I'm also grateful for the support of our entire tribal membership. They oversaw every aspect of this project and provided the input along the way. Seeing this project develop and implemented within our public schools is one of my greatest accomplishments serving as a tribal Council Member. As more schools push to include a native specific curriculum, they look to us to set the state and national model.

I'm honored to be part of this tremendous team as we have successfully developed this Native American curriculum and look forward to the opportunity to work with all of you in implementing a California Native American curriculum. Thank you.

Thank you so much for all of your testimony and the different panels that spoke prior, bringing to light. Right. The true impact of our own voices when curriculum is being created to teach the history in the State of California. I want to thank Assembly Member Eduardo Garcia for attending also. I'm not sure if you have any questions, comments?

Mr. Chair, my apologies for my arrival. We were chairing our Committee upstairs, but just appreciate all the participation that's taken place today and your leadership on this issue. I can't help but think of your work on the legislation where the effort to change a word from May to shall and how significant that is today, now more than ever.

We're not asking anymore that you might be able to, or you should consider. I think we're asking that you need to incorporate the histories of native people and the idea that even amongst the local community tribes, working closely with the leadership of the school districts around those communities so that all people there locally are understanding the history of the local native people.

I come from the Coachella Valley, and I think it's important that all students and families recognize the history of the Kuya people and the uniqueness of the various clans of Kuya people, whether it's in the eastern parts of the Coachella Valley or the western parts of the Coachella Valley, and in between the stories of the Shimwebi people relevant to the 29 Palms people who live also in between the Kuya nations.

And so I recognize and value the importance of hearing like today and hope that this type of dialogue continues to take place in the state capital, which in the last few years has been unprecedented and historic, to say the least. And so just thank you all who have participated today. And thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to say a few words.

Thank you so much for those comments. Just a few questions. First one, to Dr. Nicole Crawford talked about the different timelines, 3rd, 8th, 11th grade. But you also talked about, I believe, tribal representation and success Matrix that are there when students who are Cahuilla are learning about the Cahuilla history along with those that are not Native American, but they're learning together for the community. Can you touch a little bit more on the success matrix of those when they're learning about who we truly are?

Sure. So we actually survey our students multiple times a year, and one section of our survey on our panorama data is about sense of belonging. And we are able to disaggregate the data based on ethnic background. And we did notice originally, when we would first survey our students, our indigenous students ranked themselves relatively low when it came to sense of belonging.

Once we started doing the curriculum about the Cahuilla people, our students'sense of belonging, especially our indigenous students, soared significantly because now they realize they're being acknowledged, they're being recognized, because a lot of times we are othered. So for them to be able to have a sense of pride in the classroom and to teach their friends and colleagues in the class, like this is my heritage, this is my culture, this is where I derive from, and this is where we live, is significant for them.

And I think it's very important also that our teachers are learning as well, because a lot of our teachers are not indigenous. So for them to learn about tribal history, the different artifacts, the ancestral lands themselves, I think is also very important because as we know, our teachers are the ones affecting our students. So for them to be educated as well is very significant in this growth.

Thank you. And that sense of belonging and learning about the history of culture, did that translate also to academic success?

Yes, of course. And anytime student sense of belonging increases, absenteeism decreases, grades increase, expulsions and suspensions decrease.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And pointing out one of the most important components of this is getting true history and culture of California's first people into the curriculum is that sense of belonging, but also that drive for academic success. And we know where the data puts our students at. And next for Kate Anderson, you talked about an MOU with the tribal government and the local school district. Do you believe that that is beneficial, that that could be a model for MOUs throughout the state?

Absolutely. For our position, it was crucial because we wanted to make sure that the partnership, that the agreement lasted throughout time and administrations and continued on into in perpetuity.

So what was the General term of an MOU then, if it outlasted superintendents?

Absolutely. So our MOU is still a current MOU, and it recognizes the relationship between the tribe, the school district itself, as well as the school district's foundation. So all three entities, organizations are partners on the MOU. And it sets forth the work that is to be done and to be carried on through time as we not only develop the curriculum, but as we maintain it for years to come.

Thank you. And the process that you're using, I guess for all panelists, you have a third grade curriculum, 8th grade and 11th grade. So that's pretty much embedded within the Riverside County schools, Palm Springs area in General. So everyone, regardless if they're Native American or not, is being embedded in the culture, the history of the community itself. And I think that's something that we have been discussing here. Certainly third and fourth grade, you're able to bring that local approach together.

8th grade, the true history of the state. Right. The atrocities, the bounties, all those things that came towards our people. 11th grade is an area where you start to learn about the federal, the state, local governments. There's always been that will to include tribal governments in that section, because many tribal governments supersede local governments and even state governments, for that matter. So I'm interested to see how that continues to transpire. And there's that also within the wheelhouse of the thought of process.

Yes. And, Chairman, the curriculum is mandated by the School Administration, so it is absolutely essential that the teachers are trained properly so that they can engage in the classroom and represent the curriculum properly. And so our tribal government representatives go hand in hand with the school district when we do the teacher training every year.

And anytime that we need to coordinate for any kind of questions or anything else comes up during the school year, we are there as liaisons to the school district at just a moment's notice.

Thank you. And thank you for pointing out those areas. And Council Member. Once a Council Member, always a Council Member. Certainly we've been there and certainly working with the school body there, the elected body within the school boards. I think one of the things that we continue to push is presence right from our people.

And do you believe that if we had tribal Members on the school board itself, that some of these challenges that are met throughout the state could be resolved if we had that presence there?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And absolutely, I think that would be very effective to have our own people on these boards, to be able to not only create a streamlined pattern to answering questions for anybody would have, but to be right there within the school districts and being able to answer questions or anything that they need.

And thank you so much and to your family for maintaining the songs and keeping the tradition moving and for your work in ensuring that the different programs and the embeddedness of the culture is being taught within the school system itself. We continue to move pieces of legislation to bring that educational awareness forward. And so AB 173 brought American Indian task force together. We have a current piece of legislation that's moving forward that inserts the word shall.

I think it's time that we start to learn that there is models out there within the State of California that school districts can partner with, whether it's through an MOU or just coming together and working through the true history that's there. We know that some districts and tribal communities are willing to work together, and we know that there's some areas that still need a little convincing to work together on both sides.

But if we're not able to get that curriculum and the idea of true history moving forward from our earlier panels, from education teachers in the classroom to ensure that that's taking place, that we have to make sure that that voice is being heard, and then to the Superintendent of public instruction attesting there's a $20,000 process for teachers to be recruited, that we would push that out to Native Americans in the State of California.

And we do know that when we talk about the Spanish colonization period, California had its original lands intact from tribes that walked across all the lands of the State of California. I think that history also has to resonate and be told in the State of California.

And certainly in the gold rush era, we've seen that tribes were relocated, some genocide that went on that still has not reached the true history and the educational component, even just the statement of the first Governor putting out bounties on California Indian people, bounties that meant shooting and killing Indian people. That was paid for by taxpayers'dollars here in the State of California, that ultimately the state asked the Federal Government for reimbursement for those militia campaigns, and the Federal Government reimbursed the state.

Just even getting that into the curriculum has been challenging because some think that didn't exist, that we're just making some of these things up. But you go back and you research the books and the history of the State of California that academia believes in, you'll see that right there. It's time that we have that voices be told that our voices are part of the planning process from the beginning to the curriculum to the books.

It's time that the voice of California's first people is ingrained in the process, just like you're doing the embeddedness in the district itself from the different grades. So when they go through, they're touching on the history all over again. It's the same embeddedness that we need the voices of California Indian people in, in the whole process moving forward. I want to thank you for your presentation.

I want to thank the Members for joining us here today and open up the dais if there's any comments that you would like to share. So I just want to thank Assembly Member Avalinio Valencia for joining us. Assembly woman Soria Esmeralda Soria and Assembly Member David Alvarez, also who just joined us and we went through the topics of Indian education, successes and challenges.

And one of the things we brought to light was when the students are learning about themselves and their culture, the success of that matrix skyrockets. No longer is the data and statistics showing where our students are at, but now, because they're truly engaged in a sense of belonging, they have excelled. And that's part of the process of education. So I do want to thank all the presenters for being here. As now we move to public comment. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Committee. Thank you all. I'd like to say, first of all, my name is Peter Roybal. I'm with the Pow Wow on Parade Foundation. We're a Native American foundation to promote and conserve Native American heritage through art, education and culture. Thank you, Assembly Members, for your long hours and hard work for the State of California and supporting native affairs. And especially you, Assemblyman Ramos, for the work that you do as a cousin. We're proud of you and thank you for all that you do.

What we do, we work with different partners. And it looks know there's a lot of different curriculums. We're trying to figure out which one to implement or which one will tell the story right or tell the truth to history or change the native narrative.

And what we do as a foundation, we go to local school districts, public schools, charter schools, and we try to encourage and inspire those school districts to promote this agenda, AB 1703 and to maybe work with the task force and to implement new curriculum and to tell the truth to that history.

So we do that by bringing storytellers, orators, dancers, singers, and we invite teachers and executives, executives, board Members to come and participate in these meetings and these lectures and learn why it's important and have them go back to their school districts and to their schools and to their classrooms and want to teach this and want to participate in these programs. So that's what we do. We look forward to meeting with some of you and all of you and sharing notes and working together for the future of California natives especially.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments, any other public comment. Thank you for attending and your testimony here in these chambers. And certainly the voice of California's first people is something that should resonate throughout these halls and all the different topics that we discuss. And I want to thank the legislators for being here and taking the time to be here, to hear firsthand from the testimony that's there. I just want to thank you all for attending. As now we adjourn the Select Committee on Native American Affairs.