Indian students find hope, success in program

The drumbeats echoed down the empty Virginia High School halls.

At first loud and steady, sometimes wavering into disharmony before drawing back together again, the drum beats are an audible sign of a student population that once felt invisible.

That’s how it was in 1995, when Dorothy Oie joined the district as head of the Indian Education program.

American Indians made up about one percent of the Virginia Schools student population, and “they didn’t feel like they were part of the school,” Oie said. There was a small Indian Education program, but the students still felt isolated, she said -- and the drop-out rate for American Indian students was high.

The same was true for American Indian students across the state, and the country, according to the National Alliance for Education. The agency’s study of state 2005-06 graduation rates found that 79 percent of all Minnesota high school students were expected to graduate in four years; that included 84 percent of white students and 40 percent of American Indian students.

Virginia Schools Indian Education Director Dorothy Ole leads the after-school Anishinaabe club in a language lesson. Students learned and reviewed the Ojibwe names for animals found in the north woods. Photo by Janna Goerdt Part of that statistic is attributed to the lingering effects of the culturally traumatic Indian boarding school era, when American Indian children were often forcibly removed from their families and punished if they spoke their native language or practiced their cultural traditions. Drumming would have been out of the question.

Historically, “school hasn’t been a good place for Indian people,” said Lowana Greensky, director of the American Indian Education program for the St. Louis County School District.

Once students feel like they don’t belong in a school, and if their grandparents and parents had negative feelings towards organized education, it’s not surprising that graduation rates were low, Oie said.

Virginia students gathered after school for their drum group. Lead by Indian Education Parent Advisory Committee member Jim Branstrom, students practiced traditional Ojibwe drumming and singing. Photo by Janna Goerdt So Oie started going after federal and state grants to boost the Virginia Indian Education program. She and her staff, which now include two nearly full-time educational assistants, offer one-onone academic assistance to students throughout the day. The Indian Education program classroom door is always propped open, and students pop in and out of the classroom. Any student is welcome to come to the after-school Anishinaabe club, but the classroom focus remains on pushing American Indian students to achieve.

“The over-all goal is to get them to graduate,” Oie said. She focuses the program on improving academics and attendance, involving parents, exposing them to post-secondary enrollment options, and including cultural activities into their lives – at all age levels.

“There is more time to work with kids,” said Susan Pearsall, high school academic advisor for the program. “This has become a safe place for them – this is a constant in their life.”

And the program seems to be working. From 1991 to 2000, the Virginia School District graduated 17 American Indian students, Oie said. From 2001 to 2009, the district graduated 26 students – a more than 50 percent increase.

The graduation rate fluctuates from year to year – there are no American Indian students scheduled to graduate in 2010, Oie said. But today, Oie said parents feel more comfortable with contacting and working with the school, and that extra support helps keep kids in school.

A fall gathering and spring banquet for American Indian students and their parents helped break some of those barriers. The program is also guided by a parent advisory committee, which oversees the program’s budget and activities.

“Kids today are more willing to participate” in school activities, said Marrianne Carter of Biwabik, a member of the Virginia Indian Education advisory committee. “Parents have pushed for that more, they work with the kids more.”

Elementary students poured into the high school Indian Education classroom on a recent afternoon, primed for a helping of Anishinaabe club. After the students had a quick snack, Oie began pulling out plush animal puppets from a duffel bag, and the students began reviewing the Ojibwe names for each.

“What’s this?” Oie asked as she held up a squirrel puppet. “Ajidamoo,” the students answered – some recalling the name from memory, some from the worksheet in front of them. Oie proceeded through the puppet bag – bear, skunk, rabbit, and raccoon – or makwa, zhigaag, waabooz and esiban in Ojibwe, before she passed out puppets and reviewed the names over and over until students were calling them out on their own.

Next came a lesson in counting. Oie walked the students through the Ojibwe words for numbers one through ten, from “bezhig” through “midaaswi.” Ten year-old Tiana Leecy volunteered to count aloud on her own.

Tiana makes a habit of practicing the language, partly because her family encourages her to learn Ojibwe, she said, and partly because the club is just fun.

“We have a strong, well-run program here,” said Virginia Schools Superintendent Chuck Futterer. “It seems like there is a lot of cooperation between the parents, and the program, and the community…to provide help for the students to graduate. It’s a combination of the family, community, the school and the child.”

Today, about seven percent of the Virginia student body is American Indian, Oie said. Most of the students are from the Bois Forte Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and they come to Virginia from several surrounding communities.

The Virginia enrollment area borders that of the St. Louis County Schools Indian Education program, which has a very long and strong history.

The county schools began offering Indian Education shortly after the 1972 federal Indian Education Act was passed. The act “recognizes that American Indians have unique, educational and culturally-related academic needs and distinct language and cultural needs,” according to the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. This act ushered in a more culturally-sensitive – and better funded – era of Indian Education.

About 10 years ago, the district expanded beyond its own boundaries to offer services in other area districts, Greensky said, and today the district’s consortium also serves Eveleth- Gilbert, Mt. Iron-Buhl, Mesabi East and the Northland Learning Center.

After students started open enrolling in other schools, district officials found that American Indian students would transfer into a district with no support services. Often, those students would transfer back to the county schools, but not before that interruption in academic service had taken place.

There are about 330 American Indian students in the district, Greensky said, with most students concentrated in the Orr, AlBrook, and Tower-Soudan schools. The district includes portions of both the Bois Forte and the Fond du Lac reservations.

More than 80 percent of American Indian students in the district will graduate from high school, Greensky said, a statistic that’s remained fairly consistent. The district works hard to keep American Indian students in school, she said, but the graduation rate is somewhat distorted because some students transfer to other school districts briefly before dropping out. A drop out statistic is credited to the last school the student attended.

Greensky said she and her staff try to make sure American Indian students have the academic credits they need to graduate. If a student starts falling behind in their freshman or sophomore years, she said, it can be almost impossible for them to rack up the number of required credits. Support staff tries to step in before that happens.

“We lose approximately three Indian students a year,” she said. “…But even losing one Indian student is a shame.”

The Indian Boarding School era began to end in the 1930s, which meant that the grandparents of today’s students were shaped by what was largely a negative experience. The grandparents’ experiences influenced their children, which in turn influenced students today, Greensky said.

“Education [for American Indians] was not a good experience,” Greensky said. “So when you start having problems, you have all those old feelings coming back,” she said.

And graduating from college is an even bigger challenge, as shown by a 2007 study of students who graduated from all Minnesota colleges with a four-year degree or equivalent. Of the 25,473 students who graduated that year, 171 were American Indian or Alaska Native.

More recently, Oie has started pushing postsecondary education options to her students. She has organized bus trips to the University of Wisconsin-Superior so her students can be exposed to more possibilities.

Oie told the story of one of those students; a senior named Joe who toured the University of Wisconsin in Superior. Admissions counselors at the university caught wind of Joe’s high test scores, Oie said, and wanted him to attend. A few years later, Joe was ready to commit to college, and scored an academic scholarship. He graduated and is now a teacher; he recently had a teaching stint in Korea.

After an hour of Oie’s very active Ojibwe language class, most of the students slipped on their backpacks, zipped up their jackets, and headed home. Three young boys stayed behind – first to munch from a bag of Doritos, then to wipe their hands clean, choose from a selection of padded drum beaters, and take their places around a huge drum that lay flat on the floor in Oie’s office.

The drummers were brothers Travis Running Bear, Christopher Running Bear, and friend Domingo Aguilar, all of Virginia. Joining them as a drum leader and teacher was Jim Branstrom of Virginia, who has been working with American Indian education programs in Nett Lake, Tower- Soudan, and Virginia for years.

“OK, let’s sing some songs,” Branstrom said as he took his seat. The four drummers – three of them alternately squirmy and serious, the fourth attempting to focus their attention on the drum – drummed and sang as the afternoon passed and the school building emptied.

That there are active after-school and drum groups is one sign of success for the Indian Education program, but there remain many challenges. When Bois Forte band members turn 18, they have access to a portion of casino revenue that has been set aside for them. Oie has seen some students drop out of school once they receive the money, only to realize later that the allocation is not nearly enough to live on.

And poverty issues continue to pose challenges. “When I started, there were some[student] homes without phones, you had to do home visits” to reach those parents and students, Oie said. Today, nearly all of the programs’ students’ families have phones, but there remains a cycle of unfinished education and the resulting poverty, she said.

“There are a lot of socio-economic factors that work against these kids,” Oie said. “But I have never met a parent that doesn’t want their child to be educated.”