This story is a part of a collaboration on power absenteeism amongst Native American college students between The Related Press and ICT, a information outlet that covers Indigenous points. It’s reprinted with permission.
WATONGA, Okla. — Because the Watonga college system’s Indian schooling director, Hollie Youngbear works to assist Native American college students succeed — a job that begins with getting them to high school.
She makes certain college students have garments and college provides. She connects them with federal and tribal sources. And when college students don’t present as much as college, she and a colleague drive out and choose them up.
Nationwide, Native college students miss college much more ceaselessly than their friends, however not at Watonga Excessive College. Youngbear and her colleagues work to attach with households in a means that acknowledges the historical past and desires of Native communities.
As she thumbed by means of binders in her workplace with information of each Native pupil within the college, Youngbear stated a cycle of skipping college goes again to the abuse generations of Native college students suffered at U.S. authorities boarding colleges.
“If grandma didn’t go to high school, and her grandma didn’t, and her mom didn’t, it might probably create a generational cycle,” stated Youngbear, a member of the Arapaho tribe who taught the Cheyenne and Arapaho languages on the college for 25 years.
Associated: Turn out to be a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly publication to obtain our complete reporting immediately in your inbox.
Watonga colleges collaborate with a number of Cheyenne and Arapaho applications that purpose to decrease Native pupil absenteeism. One helps college students with college bills and promotes conferences for tribal youth. One other holds month-to-month conferences with Watonga’s Native highschool college students throughout lunch hours to discourage underage ingesting and drug use.
Oklahoma is house to 38 federally acknowledged tribes, many with their very own schooling departments — and help from these tribes contributes to college students’ success. Of 34 states with knowledge accessible for the 2022-2023 college 12 months, Oklahoma was the one one the place Native college students missed college at decrease charges than the state common, in response to knowledge collected by The Related Press.
At Watonga Excessive, fewer than 4 % of Native college students had been chronically absent in 2022-23, according to the college common, in response to state knowledge. Chronically absent college students miss 10 % or extra of the college 12 months, for each excused and unexcused causes, which units them behind in studying and heightens their probabilities of dropping out.
Associated: 3 Native American college students attempt to discover a house in school
About 14 % of scholars on the Watonga college on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation are Native American. With black-lettered Bible verses on the partitions of its hallways, the highschool resembles many others in rural Oklahoma. However student-made Native artwork decorates the classroom reserved for Eagle Academy, the college’s different schooling program.
College students are assigned to this system once they wrestle to maintain up their grades or attendance, and most are Native American, classroom trainer Carrie Compton stated. College students are rewarded for attendance with incentives like discipline journeys.
Compton stated she will get outcomes. A Native boy who was absent 38 days one semester spent a short while in Eagle Academy throughout his second 12 months of highschool and went on to graduate final 12 months, she stated.
“He had excellent attendance for the primary time ever, and it’s as a result of he felt like he was getting one thing from college,” Compton stated.
Associated: Faculty tuition breaks for Native college students unfold, however some tribes are unnoticed
When college students don’t present up for varsity, Compton and Youngbear take turns visiting their properties.
“I can keep in mind one 12 months, I in all probability picked 5 youngsters up each morning as a result of they didn’t have rides,” Compton stated. “So at 7 o’clock within the morning, I simply begin my little route, and make my circle, and as soon as they get into the behavior of it, they might come to high school.”
Across the nation, Native college students typically have been enrolled in disproportionately massive numbers in different teaching programs, which may worsen segregation. However the embrace of Native college students by their Eagle Academy trainer units a unique tone from what some college students expertise elsewhere within the college.
Compton stated a grievance she hears ceaselessly from Native college students in her room is, “The lecturers simply don’t like me.”
Associated: Native People flip to constitution colleges to reclaim their youngsters’ schooling
Bullying of Native college students by non-Native college students can also be an issue, stated Watonga senior Completely happy Belle Shortman, who’s Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho. She stated Cheyenne college students have been teased over elements of their conventional ceremonies and powwow music.
“Folks right here, they’re not very open, they usually do have their opinions,” Shortman stated. “People who find themselves from a unique tradition, they don’t perceive our tradition and every little thing that we’ve to do, or that we’ve a unique residing than they do.”
Poverty may play a task in bullying as nicely, she stated. “In the event you’re not within the newest tendencies, then you definately’re type of simply outcasted,” she stated.
Watonga employees credit score the work constructing relationships with college students for the low absenteeism charges, regardless of the challenges.
“Native college students are by no means going to really feel actually welcomed until the non-Native school exit of their method to ensure that these Native college students really feel welcomed,” stated Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma College’s Middle for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Related Press author Sharon Lurye in New Orleans contributed to this report.
The Related Press’ schooling protection receives monetary help from a number of non-public foundations. AP is solely accountable for all content material. Discover AP’s requirements for working with philanthropies, an inventory of supporters and funded protection areas at AP.org.