KU wins $1.75M grant to help Alaska students improve writing skills

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The University of Kansas campus, pictured in September 2021.

A University of Kansas center has won a $1.75 million grant to help improve the writing skills of Alaska high school students.

KU’s ATLAS Center — Accessible Teaching, Learning and Assessment Systems — will work to provide new learning models for about 3,000 students in 10 Alaska school districts that are in rural and remote areas.

The grant comes from the Alaska Native Education program and has been a focus of the Arctic Slope Community Foundation. That group serves villages so remote that they often can be reached only by airplane, and students face many unique demands that can make it difficult for them to excel in traditional classwork.

“It often comes down to choices like learning to write a resumé or learning to hunt with your dad,” Patuk Glenn, executive director of the foundation, told KU.

The grant is the latest for ATLAS, which does educational work across the country. It is known for creating “dynamic learning maps,” which have become part of testing programs in 20 states, according to KU.

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