Book Description

A Senate committee hearing received testimony about high dropout rates and other problems at seven off-reservation boarding schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) or by tribal groups under BIA contract. The schools are Pierre Indian Learning Center (South Dakota), Sequoyah Indian High School (Oklahoma), Wahpeton Indian School (North Dakota), Chemawa Indian School (Oregon), Flandreau Indian School (South Dakota), Riverside Indian School (Oklahoma), and Sherman Indian High School (California). Together, these seven schools enrolled 2,623 students at the start of the 1993-94 school year, but had only 1,557 students in attendance at the end of the year. In addition, persons associated with the schools had expressed concern that inadequate funding made it impossible for the schools to deal with rising numbers of court referred students and students with serious social and emotional problems. Testimony from BIA and Indian Health Service administrators, school administrators and board members, tribal leaders, and students discussed the feasibility of the therapeutic community school model, whether the model can be developed for implementation in off-reservation boarding schools, per-pupil funding at the seven schools compared to funding at comparable state residential institutions, needs for psychiatric and other mental health services, substance abuse, parent participation, school monitoring and evaluation procedures, and inadequate dormitories. An appendix of additional materials includes school mission statements, descriptions of service delivery models, a review of the Indian School Equalization Program (ISEP) suggesting that ISEP funding is inadequate, investigations of student criminal activities, profiles of student needs and problems, concept papers on the development of alternative schools, data on academic achievement and mental health indicators, federal boarding school evaluations, research reports on student tobacco use, and a summary of identified school strengths and needs based on correlates of effective schools. (SV)