Racism, lack of cultural awareness confronts those who seek better education off reservation
FORT THOMPSON — The days when Peter Lengkeek was called various racial slurs while attending school in Chamberlain are still fresh in his mind. The Crow Creek tribal member said he heard the words “prairie n*****” and “dirty Indian,” among others, uttered toward him.“It’s always been a fight here,” he said.
By: Melanie Brandert, The Daily Republic
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FORT THOMPSON — The days when Peter Lengkeek was called various racial slurs while attending school in Chamberlain are still fresh in his mind. The Crow Creek tribal member said he heard the words “prairie n*****” and “dirty Indian,” among others, uttered toward him.
“It’s always been a fight here,” he said.
Lengkeek, who graduated in 1991, is now a tribal council member and Crow Creek Tribal School Board member living in Fort Thompson. He would like to keep his three young children in elementary school closer to home, but he sends them on a 30-mile bus ride to Chamberlain because he believes that the school there offers a better education.
“Even with that, you have to pick the lesser of two evils,” he said recently. “Do I send my kids to the reservation where the teachers aren’t as qualified as they should be and (children) get a lesser education? Or do we send them here to Chamberlain, where they get education, but they put up with the racism and the name-calling and the prejudices? What do we do?”
Lengkeek’s predicament is an example of the struggle that tribal parents face when deciding where to send their children to school. That struggle was brought to light with recent events in Chamberlain, where six white students wore “White Pride World Wide” T-shirts to school on April 28. Two students changed and stayed in school, while the other four went home with an unexcused absence.
A group called The Coalition for Cultural Equality is working with the Chamberlain School Board on a resolution to establish cultural standards in the district. That resolution is scheduled to receive its third reading and final vote Monday night from the board. The final draft of the resolution says, among other things, that the district will attempt to measure progress in achieving a culturally positive learning community and will attempt to incorporate inclusion, equity and diversity into the community.
A common predicament
In central South Dakota, the Crow Creek Tribal School is just one of the places where tribal parents face the public/tribal school dilemma that Lengkeek spoke of. Similar situations exist at Lower Brule Tribal School and Marty Indian School.
Public school district borders often cross over tribal boundaries. Chamberlain’s district, for example, extends into the Crow Creek reservation and a small part of the Lower Brule reservation. According to school officials, tribal parents can enroll children in a public school if they live in the district or open-enroll them if they don’t. Tribal parents are not required to attend the local tribal school if they live in that community.
St. Joseph’s Indian School in Chamberlain is unique among area Indian schools, because it is a private boarding school that houses students from several tribes in first through eighth grades. Though there’s no high school at St. Joseph’s, students can open-enroll in Chamberlain High School and live at St. Joseph’s.
Because of the open policy for public schools, the percentage of American Indian students varies greatly in the public school districts near the Crow Creek, Lower Brule and Yankton Sioux tribes — the three tribes in The Daily Republic’s coverage area. At the high end, Andes Central in Lake Andes has 75 percent of 444 students in the district who are American Indian, compared to Chamberlain, with 36 percent of students who are American Indian among 858 total students.
By comparison, Crow Creek Tribal School has 460 students, Lower Brule has 230 and Marty has 300, and virtually all American Indian. Non-Indian students who live near tribal schools have attended them, along with some foreign exchange students.
Academic comparisons
Academically, students in area public schools typically perform better than K-12 tribal schools on reading, math and science test scores, according to 2009 data from the state Department of Education and the federal Bureau of Indian Education.
On average, Crow Creek Tribal School had 2.78 percent of students who were advanced in reading, while 26.32 percent were proficient and 70.99 percent had basic skills in 2008-09. That compares with 23 percent of Chamberlain students who were advanced in reading, 49 percent who were proficient and 27 percent who had basic skills.
Except for Lower Brule in 2006-07, none of the tribal schools in The Daily Republic coverage area have met adequate yearly progress on No Child Left Behind standards in recent years.
Out of the area public schools attended by tribal students, only Andes Central Elementary School was identified as needing improvement in 2009.
Because St. Joseph’s is a private school, its test scores are not posted on federal or state education websites. An attempt to obtain test score data from school officials was unsuccessful this week.
Some public school officials are hesitant to use test scores as a comparison of the type of education offered by tribal and public schools.
“I don’t think it’s one place that offers a better education,” Wagner Superintendent Susan Smit said.
Some other school officials — including Pat Mullen, Marty Indian School acting superintendent, who declined to comment by phone — were hesitant to say anything about the public/tribal school dilemma.
But other tribal school officials say they are making strides in improving the quality of education.
Silas Blaine, Crow Creek Tribal School superintendent, said the school completed curriculum mapping this year to align teachers’ lesson plans with state standards, and he hopes that will lead to improved test scores.
“Sooner or later, these parents that send their kids to Chamberlain will see that we make progress and they might change their minds to send their students to Crow Creek,” he said.
At Lower Brule, which is no longer a boarding school, Superintendent Cody Russell said the school plans to hire math and reading specialists who will work with both students and teachers, along with a curriculum specialist. Math and reading stations will be set up for students who aren’t proficient in those areas and will be mandatory for them to attend, he said.
Factors facing families
Public school officials say the factors in tribal members’ decisions about where to send their children to school run the gamut from a parent having a job in a certain town, to the quality of academic and cultural programs.
“If they stay in the tribal school, maybe it’s easier for (children) to fit in because they are with the same kind of race,” said Tim Mitchell, superintendent of Chamberlain schools. “Or is it better for them to come to Chamberlain and be with students of mixed races? All parents look at that situation to see if it’s positive for the child or not.”
Andes Central Superintendent Darrell Mueller said he knows of families who send children to both public and tribal schools, and he said that transfers of students among Marty, Wagner and Andes Central are frequent.
“I wish kids would stay in one school,” he said. “It would be better for them so there is continuity.”
Lyman Superintendent Bruce Carrier and Wagner’s Smit cited their respective district’s academic programs as a reason they think Indian parents enroll their children there.
“It gets down to what a parent wants for their child,” Smit said. “It’s as varied as the number of days in a year.”
Lower Brule Tribal School conducted a survey in recent years among parents on why they sent children to Lyman public school. Results showed parents were concerned about bullying, a couple of gangs forming and safety issues, and they believed that the Lower Brule school didn’t offer the same subjects as Lyman, Superintendent Russell said. He disputes the latter notion, saying it’s a misconception.
“Parents seem to believe non-Indian curriculum is stronger than Indian curriculum,” he said.
Lower Brule has been tackling its issues, which also include absenteeism, by creating a joint resolution with the tribal council on a stricter absence policy, as well as hiring security at both of its schools and establishing a dress code. The gang presence is declining, Russell said.
“There are some people who still think we do a good job and want to keep their children within an Indian atmosphere,” he said.
Crow Creek lost students when the school’s dormitory was destroyed by fire in 2005 and its campus, especially its gym, was condemned the previous year. The school, which has been using temporary, modular buildings, opened its new gym last year and broke ground in May on a new $35 million school and dormitory.
Superintendent Blaine said he has since seen students active in basketball who went to neighboring districts return to Crow Creek. And he is even more optimistic that students will flock to the school when its new structure opens in January 2012.
“For six years, we didn’t have a gym. We didn’t have a place to call home,” he said. “I think we’ll get a lot of kids back when this new school is built.”
Mixed experiences
Shannon Shields, a Crow Creek tribal member and tribal school board member, sends her son, Jarren Estes, 11, to Chamberlain because she said the district’s standards are higher.
But now he wants to attend Crow Creek. Some incidents have occurred in Chamberlain between white students and her son and his Indian friends, she said, in which the latter were called derogatory names.
“To me as a parent, it broke my heart,” said Shields, who attended elementary school in Chamberlain. “The racism was there then. I think I looked at the bigger picture — the education. I didn’t want to see the racism part of it as far as my children go until my son encountered it himself. I was upset.”
Chamberlain Superintendent Mitchell said if he knows about incidents that occur and are reported, they are investigated and administrators ensure the proper consequences are doled out to staff or students if their actions were inappropriate.
“If the incident was reported, I believe it was handled with the appropriate consequences,” he said. “If it wasn’t, there should have been some sort of complaint filed, which we have no record of.
“If someone is upset, they certainly have avenues to bring forward complaints if they did not feel their situation was handled correctly.”
Shields also had another son who went to Chamberlain until the second semester of 2009. She transferred him to Crow Creek because no busing existed for high school students.
For some parents, the motivation to transfer is academic.
B.L. Tote Carpenter, a Lower Brule Tribal School Board member, enrolled his stepdaughters at Lyman public school in the fall 2006 and 2007, and they transferred back to Lower Brule in fall 2008. His two stepdaughters, who excelled in other subjects, had difficulty with math. Carpenter said he and his wife asked for a tutor to help the older girl.
“My (older step) daughter never received that,” he said.
The older girl struggled with math when she initially returned to Lower Brule, but her skills have improved with a better work ethic, Carpenter said.
George Langdeaux, a Wagner School Board candidate and Indian Education Committee chairman at Wagner, has had a unique experience with four of his five children.
His oldest daughter attended public school in Wagner through eighth grade, then transferred to Marty Indian School, where she graduated as valedictorian. Two younger daughters graduated from Wagner after attending there for almost three years and previously attending Sioux Falls and Bon Homme schools. His son, a sophomore this fall, attended Marty through third grade before he switched to Wagner.
Langdeaux said his oldest child wanted to follow in her parents’ footsteps by graduating from Marty, but he would rather have seen her finish school in Wagner because it would have been more of a challenge for her.
“Some say it’s because of culture,” he said of parents’ reasons for sending their child to attend the tribal school at Marty.
As for Langdeaux’s son, he noticed the boy was falling behind at Marty, reading at a second-grade level as a third grader.
“He just wasn’t getting the attention he needed as far as one-on-one on special education,” Langdeaux said, adding his son has since caught up at Wagner.
Adapting to both worlds
Mitchell brought up the issue of institutional racism at a Chamberlain School Board meeting in Fort Thompson three months ago. He said last week the perception exists at times that people are treated fairly or unfairly at Chamberlain.
“You have to be cognizant of what people’s perception of the situation is and always address it by making sure you have open dialogue,” he said.
Lyman Superintendent Carrier said he believes that students have gotten along well, but he isn’t naive to think that no problems exist. District officials won’t condone bullying or any racism, he said.
“Kids know we are not going to tolerate that from anybody,” Carrier said.
Mueller said he doesn’t see any racial tension at Andes Central. Students of all races belong to the Native American Club.
“Children of both races date each other, go to prom together,” he said. “If there is a problem in the district, I don’t know about it.”
Given Chamberlain’s unique situation with St. Joseph, the latter school provides support services so their students can be successful at Chamberlain High School, Mitchell said.
“We try to focus on making kids comfortable with their environment.”
Wagner hired a cultural coordinator, Dorothy Kiyukan, two years ago to work with teachers and students to integrate culture into the curriculum, Superintendent Smit said. Programs have been conducted for students and the community.
“Our goal is to help all of us better understand each other’s culture because, in doing so, we better understand who we are,” Smit said. “Then we can better understand who is sitting by us in the next desk.”
Except for short units in history, Lyman has no special Indian activities or programming to benefit that portion of its student body, Carrier said. Unlike at Chamberlain, Andes Central and Wagner, no Indian Education Committee exists at Lyman to help provide input to administrators.
Several years ago, some parents made a request to incorporate more Indian culture, Carrier said. But the school board rejected that request because they deemed the curriculum was solid.
“We treat all our kids fairly and consistently,” Carrier said.
A Mitchell woman serves as an example of the benefits that can be obtained from both tribal and public school experiences.
Tammy LaRoche Wagaman, a Lower Brule native, credits her varied educational experiences for molding her into the woman she is today. She attended St. Joseph’s Indian School through eighth grade, Chamberlain for two years, then graduated from Lower Brule in 1988.
She said she initially experienced some discrimination at Chamberlain and Lower Brule, but she didn’t let it affect her. LaRoche Wagaman is a nurse at Indian Health Services in Wagner and was recently named St. Joseph’s Indian School’s distinguished alumna of the year.
“Both opportunities just shaped me (into) who I am today … being able to interact and understand life on and off the reservation,” she said. “I’m able to adapt to either situation and live in both.”
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