History of the NWA Kannada Shaale:

It all started when one of the parents in Bentonville, Nataraj Siddalingappa, wanted to teach his kids Kannada. Then some research began in finding Kannada classes around Bentonville, but there was none around NWA. That's where the idea of starting a new Kannada shaale here in Bentonville came into effect. After reaching out to couple of friends, who were equally interested in teaching this language to young children got together for a meeting. Soon, a team of enthusiastic and passionate teachers was formed and we ordered some books to use in order to teach the children. Without the support of these people, this idea of NWA Kannada shaale wouldn't have been possible.

In person classes were going on well in the old house, part of the NWA Hindu Temple, for about a month, until COVID-19 happened, and everybody went into quarantine. Classes had stopped then, and we had months of nobody able to teach the students, since we were not sure about how to group the children.

Fortunately, someone in St. Louis told us about Kannada Academy. So, Nataraj got into contact with Naveena from Kannada Academy to start a new school. After getting everything done, classes resumed with the same teachers, only difference this time it was online.

Now we are regularly doing classes once a week, the day based on what batch each child is in (batches information located in the page "Calendar") , via Google Meet and Google Classroom.

We hope we can go back to in-person learning again soon.