WATONGA, Okla. (AP) Hollie Youngbear, the Indian education director for the Watonga school district, starts his work by ensuring that Native American pupils arrive to school.
She ensures that pupils have school supplies and clothing. She puts them in touch with tribal and federal services. Additionally, she and a coworker drive out to collect up pupils who fail to show up for class.
At Watonga High School, Native kids do not skip school as much as their counterparts do nationwide. Youngbear and her coworkers strive to establish a connection with families that respects Native communities’ needs and heritage.
“A cycle of skipping school goes back to the abuse generations of Native students suffered at U.S. government boarding schools,” Youngbear said as she flipped through binders in her office that had information of every Native student in the school.
“It can create a generational cycle if grandma didn’t go to school, and her grandma didn’t, and her mother didn’t,” said Youngbear, an Arapaho tribe member who spent 25 years teaching the Arapaho and Cheyenne languages at the school.
In order to reduce the absence of Native students, Watonga schools work with a number of Cheyenne and Arapaho initiatives. One supports conferences for native youngsters and assists students with their educational costs. To deter underage drinking and drug usage, another meets monthly during lunch with Watonga’s Native high school students.
There are 38 federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma; several of them have their own education departments, and their assistance helps students succeed. According to statistics gathered by The Associated Press, Oklahoma was the only state with data available for the 2022–2023 school year where Native pupils missed school at lower rates than the state average.
According to state data, less than 4% of Native students at Watonga High experienced chronic absences in 2022–2023, which is consistent with the school average. For both excused and unexcused causes, students who miss 10% or more of the school year are considered chronically absent, which hinders their learning and increases their likelihood of dropping out.
Native American pupils make up about 14% of the Watonga school on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reserve. The high school is like many others in rural Oklahoma, with Bible scriptures in black lettering on the walls of the hallways. However, the classroom designated for Eagle Academy, the school’s alternative education program, is decorated with Native artwork created by students.
The majority of the students are Native American, and they are placed in the program when they are having trouble maintaining their attendance or grades, according to classroom teacher Carrie Compton. Field trips are among the incentives used to encourage students for attending class.
According to Compton, she achieves results. A Native boy who was absent 38 days one semester spent a short time in Eagle Academy during his second year of high school and went on to graduate last year, she said.
“He felt like he was getting something from school, which is why he had perfect attendance for the first time ever,” Compton explained.
When pupils fail to attend class, Compton and Youngbear alternately go to their houses.
“One year, I think I picked up five kids every morning because they had no rides,” Compton recalled. So at 7 o clock in the morning, I just start my little route, and make my circle, and once they get into the habit of it, they would come to school.
Native students are frequently overrepresented in alternative education programs across the nation, which can exacerbate segregation. But the embrace of Native students by their Eagle Academy teacher sets a different tone from what some students experience elsewhere in the school.
Compton said a complaint she hears frequently from Native students in her room is, The teachers just don t like me.
Bullying of Native students by non-Native students is also a problem, said Watonga senior Happy Belle Shortman, who is Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho. She said Cheyenne students have been teased over aspects of their traditional ceremonies and powwow music.
People here, they re not very open, and they do have their opinions, Shortman said. People who are from a different culture, they don t understand our culture and everything that we have to do, or that we have a different living than they do.
Poverty might play a role in bullying as well, she said. If you re not in the latest trends, then you re kind of just outcasted, she said.
Watonga staff credit the work building relationships with students for the low absenteeism rates, despite the challenges.
Native students are never going to feel really welcomed unless the non-Native faculty go out of their way to make sure that those Native students feel welcomed, said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.
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