Article #5 >>>>> >Journal of the K-12 Revolution: Essays and Research from Minneapolis, Minnesota< >>>>> Volume VI, Number 11, May 2020 >>>>> Existence of MPS Department of Indian Education Is Mandated By the State of Minnesota, So That in the Absence of Dismantling, Departmental Thrust of Activity and Staff Must Be Overhauled

The Department of Indian Education, which exists under a Minnesota legislative mandate, brings special cultural programming in Minneapolis Public Schools sites that have the highest enrollment of American Indian students;  the department also reaches out in family engagement efforts.

 

The MPS Department of Indian Education conducts admirable cultural programs but contains no scholars among staff members.

 

Jennifer Simon, Director (Cheyenne River Lake) has no training in a key subject area at the core of the curriculum. 

 

Otherwise, the department has an office specialist, three counselors, two social workers, a staff member focused on special education , a family engagement specialist, a youth engagement specialist,  four district program facilitators, and a school success program assistant.  The latter five staff members are the only members of the MPS Department of Indian Education with some focus on academics;  none of these staff members is a scholar with graduate training in a key subject area in mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, history, government, economics, music, or the nfine arts.  

 

The lamentable absence of serious academicians or any effective focus on raising academic performance yields no annual improvement in the wretched academic performance of American

Academic students:

 

Proficiency rates as measured by performance on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) for American Indian students enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools for academic years ending in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 are given as follows:

 

Math                       2014        2015       2016       2017       2018       2019

 

American                23%        19%      19%       16%       17%      18%

Indian

 

Reading

 

American                21%        20%      21%        22%       23%      25% 

Indian

 

Science                                   

 

American                14%        16%      13%       16%       13%      17%

Indian

 

Anishinabe Elementary School is attended overwhelmingly by Native American students, with information pertinent to school profile as follows:

 

Anishinabe Elementary School                 Principal >>>>>   Laura Sullivan

 

Math                     2014       2015       2016      2017      2018    2019

 

                                  6%          12%         8%          8%          8%       11%

 

                                (186)      (172)      (156)     (156)     (98)      (109)

                                                                               

Reading               2014       2015       2016      2017      2018      2019

 

                                  7%           9%          9%          6%         16%      12%

 

                                (186)      (172)        (156)      (156)    (98)     (114)

 

Science                                2014       2015       2016      2017      2018    2019

 

                                   1%         7%           2%          2%         14%        8%

                               

                                 (69)       (59)          (45)        (44)      (21)      (36)

 

Student Population

 

Enrollment:  not tabulated as yet by MPS officials

 

                                                Percentage of                   Percentage of

                                                Enrollment at Site           Enrollment

Districtwide

 

Native American                     78%                       4%

African American                    10%                                     36%

Asian American                                         0%                                       6%

Hispanic American                 10%                                     20%

White American                       2%                                     34%

English Learners                        1%                                     24%

Receiving Free or                   97%                                     63%

         Reduced Price Lunch

Receiving Special                   18%                                     14%

         Education Services

     

Contact Information

 

3100 E. 28^th Street

Minneapolis  MN  55406

Grades PreK-5

Principal:  Laura Sullivan

Hours:  8:40 AM-3:10 PM

Phone:  612-668-0880

FAX:       612-668-0890

Email:  laura.sullivan@mpls.k12.mn.us

Website:  anishinabe.mpls.k12.

 

District information on the academic performance at American Indian/OIC is sketchy.  The reading proficiency rate in academic years 2013-2014 and 2016-2017 was fourteen percent (14%);  The science proficiency rate in academic year 2015-2016 was seventeen percent (17%).  Data for other categories and in other years is missing, raising questions regarding attendance and fulfillment of assessment obligations.

 

Staff at Takoda Prep/American Indian OIC assert that the school is “focused on helping all students make advances in reading, writing, and mathematics while making a strong connection to American Indian culture.”  Those at NaWayEE School seek to serve at-risk students as described in MN Statute 126.22.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

 

There has been quite a bit of turnover in the Department of Indian Education since last academic year 2018-2019.

 

Longtime ineffective Department of Indian Education Anna Ross resigned in spring 2019 and was soon replaced by Jennifer Simon.  Other new department members by autumn 2019 included the following:

 

>>>>>    Jennifer Simon, Director

                (Cheyenne River Lake)

>>>>>    Diane Leskey, Office Senior Specialist

>>>>>    TBD, Counselor on Special Assignment

>>>>>    TBD, TOSA, Special Education

>>>>>    Anjanette Parisien, District Program Facilitator

                (Turtle Mountain)

>>>>>    Shane Thompson, School Success Program Assistant

                (Seneca)

 

Including MS Ross, the members were no long with the Minneapolis Public Schools Department of Indian Education as of September 2019:            

 

>>>>>    Anna Ross, Director

>>>>>    Terry Bignett, School Success Program Assistant

>>>>>    Tami Johnson, Counselor on Special Assignment

>>>>>    Ida Downwind, District Program Facilitator

>>>>>    James Vukelich, School Success Program Assistant

>>>>>    Odia Wood-Krueger, District Program Facilitator

 

As of September 2019, then staff at the MPS Department of Indian Education was as follows:

 

Department of Indian Education Staff, September 2019

 

1.    Jennifer Simon, Director

       (Cheyenne River Lake)

2.    Diane Leskey, Office Senior Specialist

3.    Jodi Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

4.    TBD, Counselor on Special Assignment

5.    Tracy Burke, Counselor on Special Assignment

6.    Alicia Garcia, Social Worker

       (Taos Pueblo)

7.    Braden Canfield, Social Worker

8.    TBD, TOSA, Special Education

9.    Anjanetter Parisien, District Program Facilitator

10.  Gary Lussier, District Program Facilitator

        (Red Lake)

11.  TBD, District Program Facilitator

12.  Shane Thompson (School Success Program Assistant)

        (Seneca)

13.  Christine Wilson, Family Engagement Specialist

        (White Earth)

14.  Miskwa Mukwa Desjarlait, Youth Engagement Specialist

        (Red Lake)

 

The Mission of the Department of Indian Education is given as follows:

 

Improve Native American achievement and graduation rates through academically rigorous culturally responsive instruction, family and student engagement, and collaborative partnerships with schools and communities.

 

The Vision of the Department of Indian Education is given as follows:

 

All American Indian students are empowered as lifelong learners to be fully engaged leaders, stewards, and citizens.

                                                                               

Despite declaration of goals to raise academic achievement for American Indian students the record is abysmal:

 

The Department of Indian Education exists by Minnesota legislative mandate;  hence, the department, unlike the Office of Black Male Achievement, must abide.  But the department must be transformed for focus on academic achievement.  Staff should be evaluated.  The cultural programming is laudable and those who are effective in this capacity should be maintained in their positions.  

 

But academics is the main reason for any locally centralized school district.  The students themselves are fully capable, and their lives depend on going forth as culturally enriched, civically prepare, and professionally satisfied adults. 

 

Only a knowledge-intensive, skill-replete education will facilitate the realization of those aims;  accordingly, staff retained or added to the Department of Indian Education should work closely with thoroughly retrained teachers to impart an academically ambitious education of the sort that must be delivered by the Minneapolis Public Schools to students of all demographic descriptors.

 

The MPS Department of Indian Education conducts admirable cultural programs but contains no scholars among staff members.

 

Jennifer Simon should dismissed as director of the department and evaluated for reassignment. 

 

Academic programming for MPS American Indian students should be designed by the independent and university scholars who must be hired to create knowledge-intensive curriculum sequenced logically across the preK-12 years and to train teachers capable of imparting such a curriculum. 

 

All students should know above the first Americans, the 10,000 years of prehistory that ensued before the arrival of Europeans, the different life patterns for Native American groups as one moves from the Northeast to the Southeast, Mississippi Valley, Woodlands, Plains, and on to the Rocky Mountains, Northwest, and Southwest.  All students should know about federal Indian removal policy of the early to middle 19^th century, the treaty period of the middle 19^th century, the 1887 Dawes Act, the culmination in the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee of wars for territory, the assimilation policy of 1887-1930, the Indian New Deal of the 1930s and 1940s, the Termination policy of the 1950s, and the self-determination and legislative rights period from the 1970s.

 

Native American history is every student’s history. 

 

Knowledge-intensive curriculum is everyone’s curriculum. 

 

As Native American students continue to receive the special cultural programming that is the strength of the Department of indian Education, they must have the same challenging curriculum as do students of all demographic descriptors, with access to coursework across the preK-12 years in the liberal, technological, and vocational arts.

 

Hence, the scholars brought into the district to design curriculum common to students of all demographic descriptors should work closely with the cultural and engagement specialists in the Department of Indian Education to assure that American Indian students are properly prepared to learn the key knowledge and skills sets imparted to all students of the Minneapolis Public Schools.