PORT ANGELES — Lower Elwha Klallam tribal history and culture will be taught at the elementary and middle school levels starting next semester.
Port Angeles High School has offered Klallam language courses since 1998.
But for the first time, local Native American history, culture and language will be formally added to the curriculums at Stevens Middle School and Dry Creek Elementary School, said Jamie Valadez, Port Angeles High School Klallam language instructor.
And a catalyst is Tse-whit-zen, the newly rediscovered Klallam village on the Port Angeles waterfront property that was to have hosted the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard.
Valadez is currently authoring a pilot eighth-grade social studies curriculum at Stevens Middle School, where students from the Lower Elwha reservation attend.
She said the initial lectures will give an overview of Tse-whit-zen village.
The lectures will examine the history, culture and language of the 2,700-year-old village, partially unearthed during construction of the onshore dry dock in which pontoons and other components were to be built for the Hood Canal Bridge east-half replacement.
The project was shut down by the state Department of Transportation last month at the request of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe because of the extent of human remains, artifacts and village structures archaeologically unearthed.
Valadez’s lectures at Stevens Middle School will form the first phase of a nine-unit curriculum developed in tandem with other educators and funded by a grant from the Administration for Native Americans in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dry Creek Elementary
The grant also pays for the development of a similar curriculum geared for third-graders that will be piloted at Dry Creek Elementary School next semester.
Wendy Sampson is authoring the curriculum for the third grade.
“I’m very excited about this,” said Valadez, a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe who has been recognized regionally and nationally for the Port Angeles High School coursework.
“While the [eighth-grade] students’ social studies book teaches about Native cultures in Washington state, I’ll be teaching about this one village [Tse-whit-zen] that happened to be in Port Angeles.”
Valadez pioneered the first Klallam language course at Port Angeles High School in 1998.
She now teaches two classes on the campus.