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At Avant-Garde, we take a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to helping communities across Alaska prepare their young people for bright, successful futures. Our current initiatives include:
Alaska Native Teacher Initiative
Rural Alaska is facing serious challenges when it comes to education. Teacher turn-over is high. The number of Alaska Native teachers is low. And teacher recruitment is increasingly difficult. The mission of the Alaska Native Teacher Initiative (ANTI) is to increase the number of Alaska Native teachers in rural Alaska and, through the development of a statewide consortium, improve Alaska’s ability to recruit, graduate and retain our own teachers. To learn more, please click on the link below:
Meet ANTI Teacher Candidate: William
Meet ANTI Teacher Candidate: Priscilla
Meet ANTI Teacher Candidate: Martha
Meet ANTI Teacher Candidate: Kinka
Meet ANTI Teacher Candidate: Valarie
Skills Alaska Program
Alaska’s schools have among the highest dropout rates, lowest test scores, lowest graduation rates, and lowest number of students attending and graduating from college in the country. Our Skills Alaska Initiative is an intervention program that is intended to target the significant achievement gap in Alaska’s schools. Working in partnership with school districts, parents, communities and students, the initiative aims to improve student learning and academic success in Alaska’s K-12 schools. To learn more, please click on the links below:
Alignment Project
Too many Alaska students don’t have the skills they need to move on to the next stage of education or to get good jobs. Too many drop out of high school, and too few of those who graduate go on to college. In an effort to investigate and address the issue of student preparedness in Alaska, we have undertaken this alignment project. To learn more, please click on the links below:
Alignment of Alaska’s Educational Programs from Pre-School through Graduate Study: A First Look
Science Initiative
Science – it’s a subject taught in school, but it has implications far beyond just a grade on a student’s report card. Science education is also a proven way to develop students’ logical thinking, problem-solving skills and academic achievement, which in turn helps meet workforce demands, enhances job performance, and develops responsible and informed citizens. Helping Alaska schools improve science education – and, in turn, helping students succeed – is the goal of a new initiative being led by Avant-Garde Learning Foundation and generously funded by Shell Oil.
