Montana school debuts first Crow language class
Educators hope to spur language revitalization
In eastern Montana, a specialized charter school that’s part of Billings Public Schools now offers the district’s first standalone class to teach students how to speak the Crow language.
The district teaches approximately 16,000 students, many of them from the nearby Crow and Northern Cheyenne reservations. This school year, for the first time, certified Crow instructors are teaching a unique class to middle and high-school students at Billings Multilingual Academy.
The Crow language is classified as “definitely endangered” by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. The Billings Gazette’s Alex Mitchell reports that earlier efforts by Billings Public Schools paved the way for the new class, and three other Indigenous languages are offered online by the Billings Multilingual Academy.
The new class utilizes resources from the Crow Language Consortium, which offers many of its instructional materials on its website.
- 1.Alex Mitchell. Billings Public Schools offering Crow language instruction for first time. Billings Gazette, .
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