The Anchorage School District released its annual ethnicity report showing that for the first time in the city's recent history half of its students are minorities.
For years, the number of minority kids among the district's 50,000 students has been climbing. Last year, 46 percent identified themselves as nonwhite.
"It really reflects the world," said district Superintendent Carol Comeau. "Anchorage truly is an international city and I think it really tells that story. ... We need to embrace that diversity but, at the same token, it requires all of us to learn as much as we can about the number of different cultures and races that are here."
In 1976 when the district starting keeping track of its diversity, 13 percent of the students were minorities.
The study complements similar recent findings that show Anchorage is becoming more and more of a melting pot. According to a 2006 study by the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research, 36 percent of Anchorage residents under the age of 20 are Native or another minority. Of those over the age of 40, 21 percent are.
"We're becoming a majority-minority district," said Diane Hirshberg, assistant professor of education policy at ISER, when asked about the school study. She did not participate in the district's report.
"Our children in our schools are growing up with an understanding of a global society. They are understanding that the world is a multicultural place. And they are developing, hopefully, different skill sets for dealing with people who are different than themselves," Hirshberg said.
Comeau said a challenge is to increase the diversity among teachers and the administration. The vast majority of Anchorage's teachers are white. Even at some of the district's most ethnically diverse schools there are only a few minority teachers, like the elementary schools at Abbott Loop, Airport Heights and Ptarmigan, according to the School District.
The closest the district comes to matching the percentage of minority students with teachers is at Sand Lake elementary, where 48 percent of the kids are minority compared with 33 percent of the teachers and staff. Many of the minority teachers are involved in the school's Japanese immersion program.
Some of the growth in diversity from last year to this year in the ethnicity report can be attributed to new reporting methods according to federal guidelines. Comeau said she believes the new questionnaire is a more accurate reflection of the district. Among its insights, it shows a significant jump in the number of Hispanic children, particularly children from Central America, Comeau said.
There are 95 languages spoken by kids in the district. Other than English, Spanish is the most common, and other top languages include Samoan, Hmong and Tagalog.
Comeau said the ethnic diversity goes beyond language. Kids from different cultures learn differently and have different manners in the classroom. She said the district needs to make sure "that we are teaching with sensitivity and reaching out to parents and family members so that they feel welcome in our schools."
Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.
Multiple languages
Bilingual enrollment in the Anchorage School District on a day in October this year:
Spanish 1,294
Samoan 754
Hmong 657
Tagalog 605
Yupik 222
Lao 190
Korean 174
Russian 92
Mien 77
Inupiaq 54
