WATONGA, Okla. (AP) — Hollie Youngbear, the Indian education director for the Watonga school district, starts his work by ensuring that Native American kids get 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. governmentboarding schools,” Youngbear said as she flipped through folders 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.
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The Associated Press and ICT, a news organization that reports on Indigenous affairs, collaborated on this story about frequent absenteeism among Native American schoolchildren.
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A number of Cheyenne and Arapaho programs that work to reduce Native student absenteeism are in partnership with Watonga schools. 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.
Students are assigned to the program when they struggle to keep up their grades or attendance, and most are Native American, classroom teacher Carrie Compton said. Field trips are among the incentives used to encourage students for attending class.
According to Compton, she achieves results. During his second year of high school, a Native lad who missed 38 days of class briefly attended Eagle Academy before graduating last year, she added.
He had perfect attendance for the first time ever, and it s because he felt like he was getting something from school, Compton said.
When students do not show up for school, Compton and Youngbear take turns visiting their homes.
I can remember one year, I probably picked five kids up every morning because they didn t have rides, Compton said. 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.
Around the country, Native students often have been enrolled in disproportionately large numbers in alternative education programs, which can worsen 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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Associated Press writer Sharon Lurye in New Orleans contributed to this report.
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