Decoding the Future in The Aleut Community of St. Paul

By Stacy Hayden

Shaffer Evaluation Group is proud to be working on another grant with The Aleut Community of St. Paul Island Tribal Government (ACSPI) in Alaska entitled, Decoding the Future.

Pribilof School District serves students living on the two inhabited Pribilof Islands: St. Paul and St. George. After contact with colonizers, the Unangan (Aleut People) were forced to stop speaking their traditional language. Due to this, children did not speak the language at home, and it began to disappear as a living language. Compounding this issue was the loss of speaking elders; by 2017 there were only 13 elderly fluent speakers of the language on St. Paul Island. ASCPI launched the Unangam Tunuu (UT) Program to combat this issue in 2006. Since inception, the program has successfully produced 72 fluent listeners of UT and three individuals who have some speaking proficiency.

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Indian Education funds are being used to support the expansion of their existing Native American Language Program, the UT Program. Further, the project will support the integration of the UT program with an existing computer coding program. Integrating these programs will allow for “students to capitalize on their own excitement around learning and using 21st century tools in a setting to define a new world in a traditional manner” (Grant application, 2020).

Shaffer Evaluation Group serves as the external evaluator for this grant, along with The Aleut Community of St. Paul Tribal Island’s college and career readiness grant, funded in 2018. If you would like more information about our services, including grant evaluation, contact us.

Early Grades Coding Curriculum Pilot Study Launches Online

By Dr. Patricia Moore Shaffer

This month, SEG launches a pilot study with its partner DevTech Research Group at Tufts University in elementary schools in Arkansas and Minnesota. DevTech is leading development and implementation of Coding as Another Language, a comprehensive, high-quality integrated Computer Science curriculum for students K-2. The curriculum is based on the popular ScratchJr app, the first programming language explicitly designed for children 5-7 that utilizes block programming to allow children to create their own imaginative stories and games. SEG is monitoring fidelity of implementation and assessing students for improvements in computational thinking and coding skills, math, and language development. The full-scale study will be launched in 2022 as a randomized controlled trial study in Norfolk Public Schools and is designed to meet What Works Clearinghouse standards for educational research.

Black Lives Matter: Prioritizing Racial Equity

By: Patricia Moore Shaffer, PhD

Principal & CEO

We stand with our Black colleagues and friends against racism. The recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless more victims are a consequence of the historic structural and systemic racism that is a foundational building block of the United States. Racism has been allowed to grow and flourish in this country dating back to Jamestown in 1619, when the first enslaved women and men were brought shackled to these shores. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the effects of systemic racism on the health and well-being of Black and Brown communities. Shaffer Evaluation Group follows the American Evaluation Association's guiding principles, which address systematic inquiry, competence, integrity, respect for people, and common good and equity. These principles include honoring the dignity, well-being, and self-worth of individuals and acknowledging the influence of culture within and across groups; and striving to contribute to the common good and advancement of an equitable and just society.

Following these principles, we pledge to hold ourselves accountable for revealing systems and structures of bias and work toward a future where Black Lives Matter and our society truly celebrates, respects, and protects Black people, Indigenous people, and all people of color.