Important Information Regarding all
Native American Children in New Jersey
Schools
Please be sure your children are
listed as “American Indian” “Non-Hispanic”
for all school records and the new State data system.
It is crucial to the future of all Native people now and in the future!
The State of New Jersey has
devised a new data system that is mandatory for all schools to upload pertinent
information on all students attending school.
This data must be finalized and uploaded by December 1, 2006.
Two different sets of data are be uploaded, first as of June 30th,
2006 which is 2005-2006 school year and the second is for the 2006-2007 school
year. This system is called “New
Jersey Smart.” NJ Smart will
be accessed my many different types of state and federal organizations to gather
all types of data.
There is one flaw with this data collection. Currently, the schools only ask your ethnicity, either Hispanic or Not-Hispanic and Race, American Indian or others on the Free/Reduced lunch application. If you do not participate in this program, the school must then make a determination of your child’s race either by last name or general appearance. A count is taken as of October 15th of each year. This can very easily be overlooked!
Please be sure your Native children are classified correctly in the two
major categories:
Not-Hispanic and American Indian.
If you choose multi-raced or
unknown, the counts for Indian people will diminish because you can only be
counted in one race category.
Please contact your child’s
school today to make sure this information is correct or have their records
changed if needed.
Sincerely yours,
TA Gould
Sample Letter
To: (Your Local Public School)
Registrar/Records
From: (Your Full Name)
(Your Address and Phone number)
RE: Permanent Records for: (Last Name), (First Name), (Date of Birth), (Age), (Grade), (School, if necessary)
Please check and fix if necessary, the following information on all records, including NJ Smart, for my above referenced child(ren) to read as follows:
Ethnicity: Not-Hispanic
Race:
American Indian
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me immediately. I may at some point ask for verification that this information is correct. Please be sure this letter is placed in each child’s permanent records.
Sincerely yours,
(Name)