Last updated on 2018-05-29
Receiving a briefing from the Department of Education at its first meeting yesterday, the House Education Committee wondered whether it should refer to Don Kirkegaard as the Secretary-Elect, Interim Secretary, or what.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe would rather Kirkegaard’s title be “Unemployed.” Yesterday the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council unanimously approved a resolution opposing Kirkegaard’s appointment to that post, based on concerns that “Kirkegaard was a consultant to Dakota Education Consulting and had longstanding ties to the people directly involved in the GEARUP Scandal and that conflicts of interest date back for many years through Dakota Education Consulting until 2016 when his name was removed from the website….” (See my November 2017 post on Kirkegaard’s involvement with Rick Melmer’s consulting company.)
Senator Stace Nelson tweeted this image of the resolution this afternoon from the Capitol, where, for a second day in a row, the State-Tribal Relations Committee on which he serves apparently held another “unofficial” meeting. Since this is an “unofficial” meeting, we may not get any official minutes or SDPB audio of the meeting to tell us what if anything State-Tribal Relations said about this resolution from the tribe.
At an official meeting in December, State-Tribal Relations voted 9–1 to oppose Kirkegaard’s nomination. Senate Education will take up Kirkegaard’s nomination at a later meeting.
Are Oglala Sioux Tribe schools state schools? The I look for them on the DOE web site I can’t see their test results.
It appears Oglala Sioux Tribe schools fall under the Department of Defense managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. If that is accurate why do they care who is on the state DOE and why should they even have a say in this?
If I remember right this is the same organization that shut down their only grocery store in 2012. Maybe they aren’t the best judge of others. . .
In his testimony to House Education yesterday, Kirkegaard said he has already visited two Indian schools and plans to visit with every tribe about state-tribal cooperation through DOE. The state applied for the GEAR UP grants to help the tribal schools. Evidently there’s lots of state-tribal interaction in education. Next issue, Old Sarg….
They should nominate Mr. H.
Kevin Vogel gets it wrong.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation government schools are operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Education and are not associated with the Defense Dept. in anyway.
There are also parochial schools on the reservation mostly operated by the Catholic Church.
Additionally, there are South Dakota Public Schools on the reservation to accommodate mostly non-Native students.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe rightly shutdown the Sioux Nation Shopping Center in 2012 for public health concerns. The store reopened after safety concerns were corrected.
Again, Kevin Vogel goes off the deep end and not checking his facts.
Oglala LAkota County school district. is a public school on the Pine Ridge formerly known as Shannon County School District. There are several BIE/tribal grant school systems and one Catholic system on the reservation. In addition many tribally enrolled students open enroll to other public schools districts in the region. Test scores and report cards are only available for public schools.
These schools are public schools and under the umbrella of the South Dakota Department of education. They are not tribal schools.
The only district that is a state district is Oglala Lakota and at this point provide K-8 education in 4 schools with some high school students in a virtual school. For high school students have a choice of Pine Ridge, Little Wound, or Red Cloud. All the others receive funding through the BIE or donations. Get the facts straight.
Grudz, I would be hard-pressed to accept a demotion from teaching to administration. However, I would enjoy the opportunity, as your Secretary of Education, to publish all e-mails sent from my Department’s servers since 2003.
Personally, I could give a rats butt who the state puts in the DOE but for the Tribes to complain just means they don’t understand who runs the schools their own children go to and bitching about the state DOE doesn’t do a single thing to help their own kids. 1) The Department of Defense (DoD) receives its funding through the Defense Authorization Budget. In turn the DoD provides it’s funding to the 2) Department of Interior (DoI). The DoI provides funding to the 3) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIA funds the 4) Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). 5) Secretarial Order 3334 in 2014 reorganized the BIE to more supervise Native schools (notice I didn’t say “better” supervise). The BIE assigns Education Line Offices (ELOs) to decide on what the schools can teach, how to teach and what qualifications your educators must have by creating School Support Solution Teams (SSSTs) . SSSTs recruit the principals and teachers, manage the finances of the schools, acquire new schools for the tribes (anyone seen a new school lately?) and even evaluate the staffs. So, given that the Tribes do not manage, supervise or operate the government schools, the Tribal members turn their children over to, why would your Tribal Council be more concerned about who the state puts in their Department of Education than who is actually teaching their own children? Face it, the Tribal Schools in South Dakota are failed schools. If I were a tribal member and it were up to me (and I’m not and it’s not) I would ask Congress to directly fund the Tribal schools eliminating the bleeding of the money from the DoD, DoI, BIA, BIE, ELOs, and SSSTs so instead of paying a bunch of Generals and Civil Servants that don’t know what a reservation even is you would have the funds to hire quality teachers, build great facilities and promote success within the Native American culture instead of doing what “The Man” decides for you. Just my thoughts. . .
OS, like Trump, your language coarsens public dialogue and distracts from the issues at hand. Do you have any thoughts on what the Oglala Sioux Tribe is actually saying about Kirkegaard’s involvement with Dakota Educational Consulting, his potential conflict of interest, and his fitness to serve all South Dakotans, including the OST, as Secretary of Education?
SDDP should strongly consider supporting the OST resolution, big time.
Nothing to lose there, Leslie. Why not stand against the Melmer crony machine?