mentoring

Project Falvmmichi (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma)

Year

"It is not cool to hit or be hit" is the straightforward motto of Project Falvmmichi, a school-based program of the Choctaw Nation designed to tackle the problem of domestic violence. The program teaches elementary school students positive ways to deal with anger and resolve conflicts. Today, more than 300 teen mentors work with second graders in over thirty public schools. Violent behavior harms the Choctaw Nation’s citizens, families, and future–but through Project Falvmmichi, the Nation is building intolerance for violent behavior from the ground up.

Resource Type
Citation

"Project Falvmmichi." Honoring Nations: 2008 Honoree. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2009. Report.

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This Honoring Nations report is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Adam Geisler: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Adam Geisler, Secretary of the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians, discusses the diverse set of challenges he faces as an elected leader of his nation and discusses some of the innovative ways that he, his leadership colleagues, and his nation have worked to overcome those challenges. He also offers a number of pointers for how to lead effectively based on his own experience.

People
Resource Type
Citation

Geisler, Adam. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. November 6, 2013. Presentation.

"Thank you, Renee [Goldtooth], for inviting me out here. It's an honor to be here. It's an honor to have the opportunity to speak to all of you. You're probably looking at me wondering, "˜Who's this kid? What can he say, what can he share, what does he know?' I'm going to hopefully enlighten you a little bit on some of the challenges that I endeavored through. My name is Adam Geisler. I'm the secretary for La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians. I've been in office for five years. I have been working for my tribe since I was 14 years old and I guess I'll just kind of start with, 'Tribal council, are you ready?'...

A little bit about the photo. We have a five-member council. We have roughly 10,000 acres with about 700 enrolled members that live on and off the reservation. We have roughly 189 houses, about 15 miles of roadway, three separate water systems, and the major northern loop of the utility for feeding San Diego running through our reservation. I always like to talk about my council because I think a lot of times in Indian Country we hear about all the politics and everybody fighting and people don't like this or that, somebody didn't get a house because of this or that and the road didn't get taken care of. I'm really blessed to be able to sit with a council that works together, communicates well, and really has been a solid opportunity for me to learn some things. The woman in the middle is actually my mother. Her name is LaVonne Peck. She is the chairwoman for our tribe.

In the first two years that we were in office, we went through a process with UCLA law department to update, revise and bring back our constitution, all of our ordinances and all of our bylaws, because they hadn't been touched in about 30 years. So there was a lot of things that didn't make any sense when you read through them from everything from enrollment to land. The reason why I say that's my mom is because number one, I want to acknowledge the fact that she's my mom, but anytime we're doing business I call her 'LaVonne' or 'Chairwoman.' Nepotism exists in Indian Country. I'm not going to act like it doesn't, but I did run for a separate office. In my second term, I ran unopposed. The same thing goes for her and I just want...I guess I'm coming from a unique perspective because what I didn't realize coming into this was how challenging it would be working with a family member as close as your mother in this process, but it has been very rewarding and I'm very fortunate to be able to have gone through this.

Some other things that I didn't quite understand when I got in...I was always sitting out in the general membership kind of wondering, "˜Hey, why aren't they doing this? Why aren't they dealing with that? How come I didn't get a budget for this?' And I had no idea the type of time obligations that that was going to require and I had no clue when I got into office that this position was going to afford me the opportunity to learn about energy, learn about gaming, learn about finance and I'm going to highlight some of those as we move through this.

So something that I walked into right away that I wasn't prepared for, I got in council when I was 25 years old, I'm now 29, and I had no clue that I was going to have the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] show up one day on my doorstep and say, "˜Hey, the Mexican cartel just grew a field of marijuana on the backside of your mountain.' "˜Okay. Well, how do I deal with this?' "˜Well, why don't we take you up in the helicopter so we can take a look at this and understand how these guys are moving product in and out and how we can work with your law enforcement to make sure that we can monitor this more closely.' That kind of dives into Public Law 280. California is a Public Law 280 state, which means that we have concurrent jurisdiction. Some of you probably come from reservations that are directly funded through the federal government for your police, your prisons or jails. We're not. Although we can establish them if we have the money to do it, we're really relying upon the Sheriff's Department, which doesn't always respond in a timely manner because they're small not necessarily because they don't want to. The days of that are gone. But that's part of the situation that I wasn't aware of.

The other big aspect that I wasn't ready to come into was domestic violence. I have it in the letters on the bottom; we lead statistics in some really sad areas. I didn't know coming into office that a woman will go back to her abuser 11 times before she's either killed or before she finally leaves the guy. In a community as small as mine with 700 members, this was actually something very prevalent that our community was tired of and finally addressed. We wrote some grants, we held the first ever Domestic Violence Walk in the state of California, which is partly why I have that purple ribbon there, and we brought out all kinds of people from both tribal and non-tribal to support the efforts that we're making towards these things.

We sat through a ton of meetings in my first couple years dealing with these issues, where people were coming and talking about the meth head that lives next door or the dealing that might have been going on. And by the way, my community is a beautiful community. I'm just highlighting some of the challenges that are there. Making it sound like La Jolla, you're going to walk in, there's going to be like people high all over the place or something. It's not like that at all, but the reality is that you all have these, Native or not, you're going to have these folks in your family, you know who they are, and the funny part is that the neighbor who might not be in your family is coming to you telling you to deal with it and you're sitting there trying to figure out, "˜Well, man, how do I deal with my cousin? How do I deal with my brother or my uncle?' And those things are very real when you get into this office and there's expectations on both sides. Your families are going to come at you and expect you to protect them, the public is going to come at you and expect you to uphold the ordinances and the laws and enforce the job that you're there to do. And so right off the top, I had to realize that being impartial...I've always been fairly impartial about things, but these types of issues really started to test your ability to do that on a daily basis because these things just happen.

So DV [domestic violence], drugs, alcohol abuse, and then kind of figuring out how we address that; we formed a program called 'AVELICA.' As I mentioned, in our language that means 'butterfly.' Obviously the women coming out of their situation, being more aware on how to address the DV issues. And one thing that we did is we creatively developed the program, we hired and trained advocates from within our own community, we established domestic violence shelters for the women and these were all things that I walked in, I never had a clue about how to address. And I'll go over some training components later, but just realize this, if you're going to be successful when you come into doing this, if you're motivated, you have a heart and you're willing to get up every day and wear some broad shoulders, you'll be able to make through it.

Jobs; we talked about cousins, brothers, uncles, aunts, nieces. Jobs is always an interesting discussion in Indian Country because I appreciate the former, the presentation beforehand about reliance as opposed to... I don't know, I think sometimes our communities get really dependent on these programs that come in. And so... and unfortunately I'm in a community where when I walked in the social norm was seasonal employment. We have a campground. I'm not a gaming tribe, I know a lot of people think, "˜oh, you're a Southern California Indian, you're rich.' Nope, not me. I've got Harrah's Rincon, I've got Pala, I've Pauma, I've got Pechanga, Valley View, but not me. I have a campground that brings in almost 150,000 people a year and supports our tribal economic development and government operations. But back to the idea that people came in wanting to know, "˜Where's my job? I put you in office, I expect you to get me a job.' And I said, "˜When I asked for your vote, I made it really clear to you that I'm not going to promise you anything.' And so my comment about jobs is, when you get into office, don't make promises. The guys that were in there before me, they got in, "˜I'll get you a job. I'll get you on this project. I'll do this, I'll do that.' I have stated...I've stayed where I'm at as long as I'm at because I don't BS my people. Excuse the term. I know we're being recorded. I don't. You have to be up front with your folks. You have to be transparent. You can't be afraid to share with them the truths about the realities that you're in. If there are jobs available, see what you can do to hire your folks. Tribal Force Account is an amazing, amazing, amazing thing that you can utilize. It's a tool that I didn't realize.

Partnerships with, for example...here's a road, this is the picture. I guess talk about the picture for a second. This road is a road that was done by all Tribal Force Accounts, which is really rare in California because we don't really have the dollars coming in federally or always the personnel to be able to staff a full-time roads department or a full-time public health department. And what we were able to do is bring in about 30 tribal members to come in and basically create a road going through the middle of a mountain -- because I'm on the side of a 7,500-foot mountain, which makes development fun -- and we put our guys to work. And what was really amazing about this process was number one, Davis-Bacon [Act] doesn't apply because through our sovereignty, through exercising our sovereignty we created our own Tribal Force Account wages, we set a standard that was proper for what our people were doing and in some cases we are beating Davis-Bacon. By the way, this project, because of tax exempt abilities and delivery onto the reservation, we also built this for one third less than what any other public department could build in the county, in the state or from a federal standpoint. So recognize that.

I'm going to kind of couple this with TERO [Tribal Employment Rights Office]. How many of you guys have a TERO ordinance on your reservation? How many of you guys really use it? When I got into office, no clue about what the heck TERO was, I didn't understand what are these four letters representing, what's the point behind it, why is it here? I learned very quickly that this is another tool that we have in Indian Country that we can utilize, the Tribal Employment Rights, Opportunities and Ordinances that you can establish and then use that in working with the Department of Labor to go after federal contracts and dollars are awesome. That's the part I didn't know about TERO. I didn't realize... I thought TERO was, "˜Oh, you're going to build a project, I'm going to tax it, then I'm going to take it and I'm going to train somebody with that money.' There's a whole other side of TERO that I didn't know about that had to do with federal contracting and compliance.

And one thing that I want to highlight that we were successful in doing in utilizing TERO in San Diego was we actually... we have 18 tribes in San Diego County. How many of you guys have that many tribes in your county? The answer is none because we have the most in the country. Sorry. We have 18 tribes in San Diego County, which means that federal contractors are required to notify all of your tribes about the fact that there's jobs coming online and the reason why that's there... everybody goes, "˜Oh, it's an ethnic thing, it has to do with racism, the Indians.' No, it's a political relationship that the tribes have with the United States government, which is why if you're qualified as an Indian and they're qualified as a non-Indian, you go to the top based upon laws that were passed based upon your political standing. Not because you're Indian, but because of the sovereignty that your tribe exercises and you being a citizen of a nation.

So what we did is we realized that all these federal contractors were coming up and they did not know how to send it out to 18 tribes because some are rich, some are poor, some have fax machines, some have an HR department, some have something in the middle. And so we got everybody together because the federal contractors were tired of getting audited and fined and in all fairness, how do you communicate with 18 different governments that all operate differently? What we came up with was a website called nativehire.org and this... write it down, Google it later. You're going to like what I have to say about this. Nativehire.org was a concept that came out in working with the Department of Labor, in working with the federal contractors in San Diego County and in working with the tribes. What we did is we sat down and discussed how can we get this information out collectively for job availability, for contracts that are out there and then how can we also...our tribes ourselves look for these things. Nobody has ever thought about how to create this. Well, we did. We created nativehire.org. It's basically an Indian version of Craigslist and monsters.com mixed into one. You can be notified via email when jobs are available. You can be searching for jobs and the cool part is it's going to be coming actually out here to Arizona and shortly it's going to be heading nationwide because that's the Craigslist part of it. I want to work in Idaho. You click on Idaho and all of a sudden 15 different jobs come up in Idaho that you can be eligible for and that you can qualify for under TERO because they're trying to meet these guidelines. So TERO was something I didn't know a whole lot about. Since then I've created a website to help implement this utilizing the federal TERO policies to employ people, train people and so on and so forth. And I will say this, the Bureau [of Indian Affairs] -- people beat up on the Bureau a lot and sometimes it's deserving -- the Bureau worked with us actually very hard to make this a success because that was the beauty of what we recognized. It wasn't the tribes pointing the finger, it wasn't the businesses pointing the finger, it was everybody just sitting down at the table recognizing that we had some issues to work out and finding a solution for it and the Bureau actually was able to help us find the dollars to get this thing generated through a 638 contract. I'll go over 638 contracts. I didn't know what the heck those were either when I got into office. So nativehire.org.

Financial awareness. Obviously, financial partnerships are key for your tribes to succeed moving into the future. In California we have tribes that, yeah, they went out and they made their money in gaming, but the neat thing that we're starting to see is they're getting into banking. There are tribes that own banks. They're getting into real estate, they're getting into, I guess hotels are real estate. They're getting into tourism components. And all these things are capable because, yes, they cut their teeth on the casino development but they realized that through these financial partnerships in leveraging with different industries they were going to be able to grow and maintain the self-resiliency of their tribe. Let's get off the federal dole. I might bother some of you by saying that, but to be real honest with you, my goal by the time I'm out of office is to make sure that I don't need those federal programs. That's what it's about. If we're going to claim sovereignty, if we're going to claim the ability to exercise our own rights and take ownership of our own nations, then we need to understand that there's a financial component with that.

So some terms I wrote over here on the side: profit and loss. Man, my first council meeting where I got a financial statement was a trip. I sat there for probably three hours trying to digest what my CPA [certified public accountant] was feeding to me because he was talking about debits and credits and encumbrances and half the terms that I see over here on the side that I had no clue. Audits: I didn't realize the shape that my tribe was in quite honestly when I got into office. You always hear about, "˜Oh, that guy stole, that guy did this, that guy did that.' Well, when I got in I didn't find anybody that was stealing, but what I did find was that my tribe was on high risk because we had not done the SF425s, the IRA reporting documents, or federal documents. We had not done our reporting to the federal agencies so we went on high risk. And had our administration not come into office at the time when we did, the Bureau was actually ready to yank all of our funding and we were going to be operated and functioning out of the BIA office out of Riverside, our local area office. Luckily, we were able to get all the documents together, complete all the reporting and unfortunately I had to go back two years. So my first two-and-a-half months in office were really, really...they were really boring to be honest with you. There was a lot of stressing out and a lot of numbers, but I got to learn a whole lot.

GAAP, GASPI, the difference between government accounting and standard general accounting practices in the way that tribal governments are unique, and this is a thing I think that states really have a hard time digesting. They don't realize that we have the opportunity to operate both businesses and government, and unfortunately they don't do it very well when they try it. I think tribes are an awesome model of how you can exercise these things and they could really learn a lot from us. I will say this -- in San Diego I think that they are, they're realizing opportunities that are there. Leverage ratios. I never thought I'd be negotiating a multi-hundred million dollar casino deal and I have...this picture is actually with us signing our letter of engagement with Key Bank. I don't know if you guys know Key Bank. Some of you may, some of you may not. They came on to be our financial advisor for our tribe and the gentleman in the middle, his name is Jay Maswagger, and he used to tease us because he said, "˜By the time we're done going through this process you're going to have an MBA, a Maswagger MBA.' The gentleman is Indian from the Middle East, from the East Indian. And he started to give me this huge education on things that I never knew about; waterfall agreements, how to structure debt appropriately, leverage ratios. These guys use these big fancy terms and it basically boils down to, "˜Look, in order for me to give you $10 I need to see that you're going to give me $2 first.' So I learned about things like that.

Natural disasters: for whatever reason the other two photos didn't show up on here. I've been through two natural disasters, federally declared. My grandma's house burnt down, my mom's house burnt down, my businesses were devastated by flooding, and I had to learn the entire process about how to recover both immediately, so address and respond, but then go into long term and then find the money on how to do that. By the way, something that has changed in the last five years is that you as tribes can now declare your own federal disasters. You don't need to wait for the state to do that, which is huge, that you couldn't do in the past. You might not think it's ever going to happen and then one day it's going to hit you and you'll realize, "˜Man, I wish I would have gone to do some training.' You're actually required by law to get out there and become NIMS compliant, National Incident Management System compliant. So if at all today when you guys go back to your tribes or if you're in leadership positions, go back and ask...oh, there it is. There's grandma's house. If you can, go back and start asking questions. Emergency management is not just about fire chiefs and cops. It really boils down to your community members because they're going to be responding to the incidents first. That's who's there, it's your family, it's your friends.

Energy. That's Secretary Chu before he headed out. I was a year-and-a-half into my term and energy conference in D.C. and lo and behold here comes Secretary Chu and I made sure I sat right behind that guy because I wanted to talk to him about what kind of dollars were going to be available in Indian Country. And he and I had about 15-, 20-minute conversation. Have you guys ever sat down with a secretary of the President's cabinet? It's near impossible if you can ever get there and to get 15 or 20 minutes is almost unheard of. Snuck in there. So again, be motivated, get up every day and do your best to get where you can around these folks. We got to talk about some of the needs and the roll out that was going on under the stimulus program and this conversation really changed my opinion about how I thought about energy in general. I didn't realize how inefficient the homes are on our reservation. I didn't realize the need for R38 insulation. I didn't realize the need for LEED which is like a fancy term for building green. I thought green was like a roof with grass on it or going back to the old days for us with like mud lodges and things like that, although those are actually very energy efficient. But also looking about how can you control your own energy future. We're going to come back to the sovereignty thing. Another part besides being financially astute, aware and responsible is also controlling the energy itself. In the northern loop of San Diego County runs the main distribution line that feeds North County San Diego. Well, guess what, their easement's up in 2021. So in 2021, that means that I can either condemn their lines and they're going to have to go around my reservation, which is all federal land, impossible environmentally, or they can work with me and they can work with me to generate an energy production on my reservation. We're actually starting a 10 megawatt energy production facility of PV on our reservation right now; photovoltaic (PV), photovoltaic panels. So again, another thing that I really wasn't aware of.

Partnership. I'll just go point at these really quick. The main reason I wanted to put this up there is because partner with everybody. Try partnering with people that you think will never partner with you. Have those conversations. Have the uncomfortable conversations because those are the ones that are actually going to bear fruit I think in the end when you really need to talk with those folks. You guys ever heard of Bob Filner. He was our mayor that got booted out of San Diego. I just put this up here because he showed up at Native Hire, when we launched nativehire.org. These are all chairmen and there in the middle is Mr. Filner and I thought it was interesting because again, you never know where politics are going to lead you. You never know who you're going to meet. But partnerships wherever you can make it happen.

Training. You guys are here. Obviously you're proactive in trying to find training opportunities so just get out there. I was able to take financial training courses; I was able to take energy courses. They have these conferences. If you're elected into office, ATTG, Aid to Tribal Government dollars are a way that we have been able to afford to go out to these things. A lot of times there's scholarships available. I put this photo up here. That's not me speaking at NCAI. It's actually a gentleman from Pala and I put this up here because we're here talking about leadership. He's a former council member, he's actually a hard core conservative and he gave Romney's speech -- I don't know if you guys were there -- at NCAI in front of the whole delegation. And I don't put this up here to be political but my point is this: that's a heavy room to walk into and knowing what you're up against and knowing what people think and just generally how Indian Country operates and to have a man walk up there and speak his mind, speak his voice and exercise the way he thinks was just something that I thought was worth highlighting because he's educated, he's smart, Harvard background, pilot, but he didn't get there by just being lazy, not showing up to things. He got there because he was motivated and he wanted to train himself and it put him in front of a very large audience at a very heavy hitting conference.

Pass the knowledge. You're not going to be there forever. How many tribal councils out there actually picked out people out of their membership to go up and be trained so that they could be replaced into the future? We did. I'm 29. I don't want to be doing this forever, and the reality is that if you're going to do this job effectively on a day-to-day basis, you're going to get a little bit tired. It's not going to be something that you're going to be able to do, in my opinion, I know some guys can do it for 20 or 30 years, but a lot has changed in 20 or 30 years. And when you don't have the dollars like us that means that I'm doing it. I don't have staff, like I said, I don't have an HR department, I don't have an energy department; it's me and it's my council. We have two people that work with us intimately on these projects. So pass the knowledge both here and both with the youth. I should have put a slide up here on education. Maybe you can hit on the educational component a little bit.

Lastly, recognize your successes and your strengths. You wake up every day and you fight for something; water rights, energy, housing dollars, just motivating your people sometimes, but recognize that you do do that work. It's okay to recognize that you do work hard, in a humble way. But then also don't be afraid to share it. I'm happy to be here today to kind of talk about a whirlwind of things that I've been able to be a part of, but La Jolla's actually set the model in a lot of ways and I'll be happy to say it. We are the fastest recovery in Indian Country after our wildfires in 2007. No offense, but nobody's ever beat us in our recovery time; everybody back in their houses in nine months. We were the first tribe in a long time for the Bureau to actually hand us over $2 million and say, "˜Go build the road,' because everybody was scared, the old days of the Bureau. "˜We're not going to give you the cash. You Indians don't know how to spend it. You don't know how to operate your government.' I said, "˜Really? Watch this. Just give me the cash.' Government-to-government contract, here we go and we got the thing done. So don't be afraid to share those successes and if you guys have questions, I'll be happy to answer them later.

Tough stuff. Five things. Most challenging thing about this job: ICWA [Indian Child Welfare Act]. I struggle so hard with ICWA because these are the kids, these are the future, these are people that don't have voices necessarily for themselves, and this is the hardest part. Our council meets quarterly with our ICWA representative, the county case workers, our clinic case workers, and these things just rip your heart out. If you have a heart while you're on council and you go to your first ICWA meeting, you'll understand what I mean because you're hearing horrible stories about these kids and their living situations and the way they were treated and the saddest part is it all boils back down to families that you know. That's the hard part and sometimes you can't do anything about it. Sometimes the mom that is using drugs that is smart enough to take the kid over to her other mom's house so that she can leave for the weekend to go do drugs is not being a neglectful parent because she was of right mind at least to take the kid out of the situation. Now to me I'm going, "˜Mom's using drugs, mom's not really being mom, mom maybe shouldn't have the kid.' Those are the types of decisions that you're going to run into that I was never expecting. And then, when you make the decision for placement, when the county comes to you asking for the recommendation or your tribal court or however your ICWA is set up and you make a recommendation based on the best interests of the kid's health...we had this. I'll be real honest. Our council agreed to take a child from a home and put them into a non-Indian home, which I understand that this is the point of ICWA, but the reality was that to find Indian homes in our area that were going to be healthy for the kid, didn't make sense at the time to transition them out because the home that they were in, the kid's not...how's it going with the kid in this home? 'They're not cutting themselves anymore, they're not drinking, they're not sleeping around,' and I'm going to take a kid out of that situation? ICWA is the hardest thing you're ever going to have to deal with when you're on council.

Last four things, most surprising thing, you guys just heard the whirlwind. If you've got a small council, you're going to deal with everything. You never know what's going to happen in a day. You're going to wake up one day and you'll be talking to Secretary Chu or you'll be talking to the governor and then you're going to get a phone call about the dogs chasing your kids home from the bus. That's just your day when you're on council, it's just how it is. I had to quickly learn about a variety of different laws. One thing I could change that I do a lot better now with is I don't sweat the small stuff. You can't do it all and I'm not saying that you give up by any means, but the sooner you recognize that there are just going to be things that happen that are out of your control, the easier it's going to be to lead more effectively when you're up there. And part of what's helped me do that really comes down to the last thing.

Effective leaders. Yeah, you listen. You guys are all here, you probably understand this. You all listen. You have to be patient. You have to be fair. But for me, the biggest way that I...the main core reason why I'm able to get through this on a daily basis is because I have a connection and a relationship with who created me. I have a religious understanding of how I work with god and how god works in everybody else's life and in mine. You need to stay centered when you're doing this because everybody is fighting with you. Well, a lot of people are fighting with you. There's a lot of great people encouraging you. There's going to be people pulling you this way, people pulling you that way and at the end of the day if you can't stay centered in what you believe, how you were raised and what you think, you're not going to be successful. You're not. You're going to get overwhelmed. So I would just end with sharing that. Wake up every day, reflect on who you are, reflect on what you know, and start there if you're going to get into office because it just gets crazy sometimes. Thank you very much for your time."

LeRoy Staples Fairbanks III: What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Leroy Staples Fairbanks III, who serves on the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Council, discusses some of the hard stances he had to take in order to do his job well and also shares an overview of some of the major steps thatthe leech Lake Band has taken in order to govern more effectively and use its resources more wisely and efficiently.  

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Fairbanks III, LeRoy Staples. "What I Wish I Knew Before I Took Office." Emerging Leaders seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. November 6, 2013. Presentation.

"Good morning. I introduced myself this morning. Like I said, I'm Leroy Staples Fairbanks III and I'm the District 3 Representative from Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, which is in north central Minnesota. Normally how...I've seen others introduce themselves in their language and so kind of how we would say it is I would say Boozhoo, which means hello, [Ojibwe language] is I'm Fox and I'm from the Bear Clan. Our tribe is located in like I said north central Minnesota. We have roughly 9,200 band members or band citizens. This is my first term and I was elected last year in July of 2012 and I wasn't going to say my age, but I'm actually older than this young fellow here. I was elected before I was 30 so I'll just say that, I won't say my age. We have a five-person council with four-year staggered terms. I would just like to say, I would like to thank the NNI staff for inviting me to be here today to share my experiences. I don't consider this much of teaching you guys but just sharing my experiences here with you and I would also like to say Miigwetch to the tribal leaders from this reservation here for welcoming us here to this reservation, this beautiful casino and hotel.

What I'm going to start with is campaign promises. I'm going to take a little bit of a different approach to the previous presentation, which was...it was an awesome presentation, very informative, and something I wish I could have sat through before I was elected into office. But I'll start off with campaign promises. When I ran my campaign to getting into office, it was based on honesty, ethical decision making, transparency, and you have a lot of people that support that, they support you. They say, "˜Yeah, this is what we want you to do. This is who we want you to be in office.' And you get in office and things just kind of switch. Those same people are asking, "˜Well, I did help you. Can I get a job? Can I get a raise? Can I get a house? Can I get a transfer? Can you appoint me to a certain position?' And it's difficult that the people that did help you, but you just kind of return the message back to them and you ask them, "˜Why would you put me in a situation like that when all that we talked about was maintaining integrity in a position?' So during my time in office I've had to have that conversation many, many, many times of telling people, "˜You wanted us to change the way that we do the hiring and the firing and the personnel matters with the tribe. We have an HR department, we have policies and procedures that outline how all the decisions are being made and how the hiring is...how it happens and employees rights as far as being a part of the organization,' but yet they want to jump straight to the council. And so we started to change those methods on how we handled it, but still the employees will say, "˜Well...' They'll try to get you back in your office and say, "˜Well, I gave you this many votes or I helped you in this way and you're obligated to help me,' and the easy answer is, no, you're not. I won by 30 votes. I had 919 votes and the other guy had about 890 and so everybody wanted to be a part of that 29 or 30 votes that actually got me into office. The easy answer for me is that 920 people voted me into office, but I still represent the rest of the band membership and that's the decisions that I have to make. I have to make it for the band membership and I don't make it to who voted me into office. That's just a process on how you get to that position.

And I would say that I didn't dream of running for office or I didn't dream of being a council member growing up. I had a little bit of a different type of experiences growing up. And so I've had quite a few experiences, but in my experiences of understanding what tribal politics and tribal government was on Leech Lake, I kind of had a sour taste in my mouth about it. I didn't have a good outlook on it. So I didn't really envision myself as this prestigious position and, "˜That's what I want to do, I want to get into tribal office so I can help my people.' It was more or less you see some of the negative outlooks and the negative aspects of what the office was looked at as, and so that wasn't my dream. My background is in human service. I'm a drug and alcohol counselor, and so in that field you aren't really involved as much in governmental operations. A lot of the things that he was talking about, you're not privvy to that information. You focus on helping the people that you help, your client list and that's your focus and so you put so much energy towards that, but it kind of becomes burnt out. And so when you carry yourself in a certain way in the community, people say those individuals that do carry themselves in a respectful manner, they kind of gravitate and people see those traits, they see the character, they see the behaviors and they kind of look to those people. And so I would just say that I think I was blessed that people seen some traits in me that they wanted me to start moving into leadership positions.

And so I managed a halfway house for a while and the tribal council asked me to come be a part of the administrative team as a deputy director, chief administrator basically, and I did that for a few years and that was my eye opener to what was going on with our reservation. There was a lot of things that I wasn't aware of on so many different levels because tribal government encompasses everything from top to bottom, it really does. I'm not so much hands on with all the little things like this gentleman has because we have...we employ 2,500 people. We have three casinos and we have departments that kind of handle a lot of that stuff and so we aren't so hands on with everything, but there's a great understanding and a learning curve that happened as a part of that position. But it's about training and helping people job shadowing and trying to train future leaders to take over those positions. My understanding of getting in this position was I wasn't going to be here forever. It's a four-year term. I'm hoping that there's enough movement in four years that if I choose not to re-run in four years that I've done enough to try to mobilize and prepare future leaders to take over these positions, because there's some bold things happening at home and we want that to continue.

I'll say one thing though is that I went through the [Native Nation] Rebuilders program. NNI partners with Bush Foundation out of St. Paul, Minnesota and there's a Rebuilders program that focuses on tribes in a three-state area: Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. And I was a part of the first cohort and I would say that I would attribute me running for office as being a part of that program because if I didn't go through that program, it probably wouldn't have motivated me enough to see some of the success stories outside of Leech Lake that gave me a big enough push to tell me that things can work, this is how tribes are working, because when you're in the middle of the mess sometimes it's hard to see out, and so you have to kind of step back and you have to take a look at how are other tribes doing it, what are other tribes doing, can we apply that here, how can we apply it here? And that's the most of what I got out of that program is seeing...they talked about some of the reservations and economic development up here this morning and those are the things that inspired me to, 'Yeah, there is opportunity and I'm going to bring that to my reservation,' and so that's kind of what got me to wanting to run for office.

I don't have a four-year degree and a lot of elders in the community, they told me, "˜Maybe you should just wait to run for office until you have that degree on your wall because that's going to validate your work in office and people can't question that,' but there were too many signs that were coming before me. There were signs that things just were happening the way they were supposed to be happening and I even told myself when I was working for the council, "˜I don't want to be in one of those positions.' I seen the mentality and I seen the behavior and I was kind of taken aback. I was like, "˜Ah, I don't want to be in that position. I can't do some of the things that they're doing because it's not right.' And so I told myself I wasn't going to do it. I went through the program, frustrations were building because of how things were going, and I said, "˜You know what, if I'm not going to do it, I don't know who's going to.' So I decided to take that step and it was a very big step. Tribal politics on Leech Lake is...can grow...I don't know how to put it kindly, but it can get kind of messy. And so it has been kind of messy. And I would say in the last year and a half things have stabilized, things are...they're progressing. I'll touch on how important nation building is to me.

I used to fly quite a bit when I was a little bit younger in airplanes and it didn't really bother me and for some reason that flying in airplanes bothers me now. I don't know if it's because I have a Twitter account and every...twice a day you hear about plane crashes or terminals being attacked, but I have a fear of flying. The last time I flew, I flew with the Bush Foundation up to go visit Salish Kootenai last year -- it's the last time I've flown out of state, otherwise I try to drive and it's just something that I have to overcome. Bush offered me an opportunity to speak down here in March on...I don't remember exactly what the title was about...I was going to be speaking about, but I ended up skyping in the presentation and we had a little bit of connectivity issues and I felt kind of bad about that and so this is...nation building and nation rebuilding is...it's the basis of everything that I'm trying to do back home and it's that important to me that I wanted to get on a plane. And it wasn't just a direct flight, I had a layover in Phoenix, and so that's two takeoffs and two landings. I get nervous about speaking sometimes too, but my hands aren't nearly as clammy today as they were when I was on the plane. It was tough.

I had some conversations with people on the airplane about...they were asking about, "˜What is your take on the Redskins issue?' And I said, "˜I don't know. It's not something that I necessarily think about day to day.' And she's like, "˜Well, what do you think the inception of the name was? It wasn't intended to be disrespectful, do you think?' And I was like, "˜Well, I don't really know the history behind the name. I would say that it's not one of the biggest things that bothers me, but I can understand how it gets under people's skin. I understand why there's a movement to change the name because it's not necessarily the owner of the Redskins is out depicting Native Americans in a certain way, it's how the fans, how the people...you get the people doing the...with the headdress and the tomahawk chops in the arenas and that's not very respectful and there's a lot of things down that line that I don't agree with.' It's just...it's something I didn't...I was kind of taken aback by and she's like, "˜Well, I live in San Francisco and there's not a lot of Natives so I don't really get to talk to a lot of Natives and ask them this question so I just wanted to know.' That was on one flight.

On another flight, they're asking about how gaming came to be. "˜Did the Indians want it or did the federal government want to give it to the Indians? Who regulates it?' I said, "˜Well, there's a commission.' "˜Okay. Well, are you guys represented nationally?' I'm like, "˜Yeah, there's national organizations that represent gaming.' There was another lady who was kind of sitting by me and she was like, "˜I feel so bad about Indians and their addiction.' I'm like, "˜Well, what do you mean?' These are just some of those things and she asked me, "˜Well, how much money do you guys get in per capita payments at your tribe?' And I'm like, "˜We don't get anything in per capita payments because we have 9,200 band members, we live in a very remote area, and we don't generate enough to do per capita payments and I'm not even in favor really of per capita payments because it kind of promotes...it promotes dependency and there's a few tribes in Minnesota that have big per capita payments like Shakopee Mdewakanton [Sioux Community]. They have less...around 500 band members. They're located very closely to Minneapolis, the Twin Cities area and they have a lot of money and they do give money back out to other communities, which is...it's very good on their part.

I would say that in getting into office you're challenged. You're challenged by naysayers; you're challenged by people who don't agree with your viewpoints. I was challenged on my knowledge of history of Leech Lake and my knowledge of history of the Ojibwe people and Native history in general and I would say...I kind of revert that back to...because these are supposed to be the experts in the community and they say, "˜Well, what do you know about this, what do you know about this?' And I say, "˜Well, I'm still learning. I probably don't know as much as I should yet. I will though.' But I revert that back to those experts and I just wrote a column in our newspaper last month and that's basically kind of what I said to them. I said, "˜I challenge all of you history experts in the community to ask yourself what are you doing to ensure that the younger generation in our communities are learning this stuff instead of being hoarders of information.' And that's what we have. We have a lot of hoarders, because people are scared because information is power and so you have to kind of go and find all the cracks and crevices of information to empower yourself and that's basically what I've done. I'm a quarter way through the room, through the house. There's plenty and many more things that I have to learn, but I'm not going to stop. But that's what I challenged all the experts on. I challenged them to ask themselves what are they doing. And there was this one guy who one time told me, "˜Well, I went and spoke to this one class and they liked it.' I said, "˜One class, one time. We have many more band members in this area that need learning. There needs to be system changes, there needs to be systems set up so we are preparing our kids and our next generation to understand who we are, how we've become to where we're at today and how we're going to be moving forward.'

I'll talk a little bit about my first days in office. I worked with the council for two years and I thought I had an understanding of what it was going to be like on council and I guess I didn't know because my first days in office there was probably 45 people to see me...45 to 50 people to see me every single day the first couple of weeks in office and I was like, "˜Whoa!' And the basis of what they wanted to come and see me for was assistance and sometimes I feel...I'm not embarrassed to say it, but I feel bad that the state of my tribe was so dependent on...and basically it's kind of exploiting the band members about assistance, that it's their money, that I need to give you this money. That's not the case. It's not equitable distribution of resources if 10 percent of the membership are getting 90 percent of the resources. There's other percentage of band members who deserve equal access to those and so I was very taken aback. I thought it was going to be like, "˜Oh, okay, I'm going to get in there, we're going to start addressing some of the deficiencies programmatically,' that we were going to get into office, we were going to start tackling a lot of that stuff and it took time. It took a whole year to make some drastic changes as far as assistance methods go and I would tip my hat to the Salish Kootenai Tribe on their human [resource] development program, because when I flew up there last year I got to see a small snapshot of what that program is about and that is kind of something that I tried to apply back home is consolidation of assistance programs, that it's more easily accessed, for band members to be able to access services and it's not scattered all about and people are luckily enough if they catch a program who might be able to help them.

I guess...I wrote down in my notes that it might seem far-fetched to some tribes about the mentality of assistance, but we all know the power of the dollar and so it's, 'What can you do for me?' is very powerful sometimes and it's very powerful during those elections. And we have an election coming up next year and I keep talking to our council and talking to the membership that just because there's an election doesn't necessarily mean that there's an overhaul. We need to conduct business in a different way. The train doesn't necessarily need to stop and turn back and go the opposite direction because there's new council or new council members who are elected. Take what the successes are and how can you build upon those? But the communities are so split that sometimes it is drastic measures that they want to see done all the way from left to the right and right to the left and that's how progress fails. If you aren't able to capitalize on movement, you're not going to progress and that's why I would say that we are a little bit behind in development at Leech Lake. But like Ian [Record] talked about this morning, it's...you have four years and it might seem like a long time. It's not a long time. I've been in office a year and a half and it seems like a couple of months and so you want to make drastic change and people want to hit those home runs, but it's about institutions, it's about the system changes and starting with your foundation and that's a lot of what the first year, year and a half has been and I didn't think it would take that long. And so that's something that I came to terms with in being in office that government is slow; it's very, very slow. I guess in the size of government it makes the difference.

We had NNI and Bush facilitate a GANN process. They do a GANN, it's a Governance Analysis of Native Nations that we brought to Leech Lake and we focused on three things. We focused on changing our assistance methods and that's what it took -- a whole year. We changed those on July 1st so the tribal council doesn't have direct assistance. We had...prior to getting in office we had a budget, I won't necessarily say how much, but we had a budget. Each council member had their own line-item budget for assistance that was never adhered to. And so we have an emergency assistance program that basically was doing some of the same things that the council were doing, but it's very convenient if you have that money at your fingertips to try to help people. And you want to help people, but is it really helping people by giving direct assistance? Are we spending our time effectively by handing our assistance? Yeah, we're speaking with our band members, we're getting in touch with what the issues are, but we sure aren't putting enough energy towards a real solution and just providing assistance. And so that's something, that it took a little bit of change and it was very tough because there's a high percentage of band members in the communities who had that expectation of that's what tribal council does. And it's trying to change that mentality, it's been very difficult, but it's a work in progress and it's moving forward.

The second thing that we had was bylaw revision and I'm not sure of the political makeup of a lot of tribes, but in Minnesota there's seven Ojibwe tribes and one of them is Red Lake and they're kind of separate and they have their own constitution and whatnot, but the other six Ojibwe tribes in Minnesota are part of a Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. It's kind of an organization that has oversight of all the tribes constitutionally, and that's something that I would say I'm not in favor of because it's not self-determination if you have a tribal council member who is representing 1,000 people in one of the tribes and you have another tribal council member who is representing 20,000 members on the other end of the spectrum and they both have equal access and authority in the decision making of this tribal executive committee. And so it's not fair representation. And so that was the basis of what I was trying to do is revise and reform. And there is movement and through that GANN process that was one of the things that we identified is reform, but we can't reform what we can't change so there's systems that we have to make changes to first.

The other thing was you see economic development talked about this morning. And so my point on economic development in government is that they don't necessarily mix together -- he talked about it -- but there has to be a separation because at Leech Lake the tribal council is supposed, the government is supposed to be providing service and how are you supposed to be providing service or how are you supposed to be building a business and letting it invest in itself and grow the business and start more business development if your services are depleting your economic resources. And so there is a separation that needs to be made and I think you guys will talk a little bit about that here today and tomorrow, but that's another, that's the three steps that we moved on.

I will talk a little bit about accomplishments that have been there that necessarily might not have been there before getting in office: community center, a bike path. There's a bike path on a road where there's been about three deaths in the last couple of years and there's been other kids who are hit because it's kind of on a road by our casino and there's a lot of traffic that's on the road. And so we had a bike path that was put into place to try to alleviate the traffic actually being on the road and we partnered up with the county to get that going. We broke ground with an assisted living facility this fall for our elders, we secured funding for a treatment center on our reservation because a lot of the band members felt that a barrier to their success was going off the reservation for their treatment and they wanted to try to get their treatment or they wanted to heal at home. We broke ground with a $3 million library and archive center at our tribal college. We started an athletics program. This is the first year for our basketball teams at our tribal college. We broke ground with a government center last fall, a $4 million government center.

I'll say a little bit about transparency because that was basically what I was about in getting in office. With the assistance, the council had so many different ways of giving assistance, it's kind of crazy, but when I got into office I started to publish all expenses that I had authority to give, is I published those in our newspaper for them to see. It was how many...it was basically how much was being...how much was going out in resources, but it was also how many people were accessing those resources. So it could kind of give people a picture of who is really getting the assistance or who is this really benefiting and it's a small percentage of the actual membership that was accessing it though, so it kind of gives them a picture about that. I had open forums monthly. And the full council, they didn't want to do it monthly. We have quarterly meetings that we have to put on in the communities every quarter and there's a small open forum session for that and in those open forum sessions the band members kind of get riled up, they kind of...they like to build the fire prior to the open forum session so they can kind of vent and release during that time. And so I thought, "˜Well, if we do them every single month, maybe that'll kind of keep the fire from building so big and it'll allow people to say what they've got to say, it'll allow them to be heard, it'll allow them to ask the questions they really want to ask,' to alleviate from like rumors and whatnot that are building in the community that...they spread like wildfire too. So it gives them that opportunity to voice their concerns and then be heard. And so I did that as well.

The other thing that I'll say that I didn't know I was -- well, I didn't know the outcome of it -- but prior to getting into office I talked about giving back. And so that's kind of one of the things I was supposed to talk about in March when I was supposed to be down here is an endowment that I set up at our tribal college. People thought it was a political ploy and it necessarily wasn't because it came to fruition, but I basically said I was going to give 12-and-a-half percent of my gross salary to an endowment for scholarships and education at our tribal college. I got into office, I did the first installment in December, I got another installment going in December and I have people that ask me, "˜What was the intent?' I said, "˜Well, it was to challenge the other council members to see...to ask themselves what were they doing to give back in the communities.' They asked if I felt like...do I feel bad about doing it now because none of the other council members gave back. I'm like, "˜No, I don't feel bad at all.' When I first gave the first installment of the...for the endowment, there was...the act of giving I guess, it kind of...it'll multiply. And so after that, there was other community members in the community that donated either to my endowment or to other scholarship programs at our tribal college and so there was a lot that came out of it, but I think long term the success of what the act will do is...it's not necessarily to show our tribal council members to one-up them, but it's basically to show our kids and our younger generation in the community that in order to grow, everybody needs to be invested and everybody needs to give back and that was a good way of me showing that I wanted to give back because I believe education is empowering and it allows a person to not be so dependent on somebody else. Dependency doesn't breed productivity.

I got the stop sign. I could keep going, but I'll stop there because I think we're opening up for questions and answers. Thank you for allowing me to present to you guys. [Ojibwe language]."

The Morongo Learning Center Tutoring Program

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

This video, produced by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, explains why the Morongo Learning Center Tutoring Program is a major reason the high school graduation rate of Morongo students is now at approximately ninety percent, the highest in the Band's history.

Citation

Morongo Band of Mission Indians. "The Morongo Learning Center Tutoring Program." Best Video Production. Banning, California. 2007. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

[Music]

TO THE CHILDREN: “As an eagle prepares its young to leave the nest with all the skills and knowledge it needs to participate in life, in the same manner so I will guide my children.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

[Music]

Morongo Band of Mission Indians

Morongo Band of Mission Indians Tutoring Program

Jillian Esquerra:

“I can’t emphasize education enough with students, especially Native students. I want them to be able to realize that that’s their way. They can make their own way and their own path and be able to do what they want to do through education.”

Karyl Martin:

“A tribal member back in the early ‘90s had a dream. And her dream was -- and the dream of many of the other tribal members were -- to increase the students’ reading scores, to have a chance to see test scores that were more in line with the test scores of the other students in the district and they wanted to see their students graduating from high school. Many families had not had that opportunity and this is what they wanted for their children.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“There’s a sense of empowerment when you know you can achieve and you know you can be successful. You feel empowered. You feel as if, ‘I can do anything.’ And you don’t shut yourself down and say, ‘Oh, I can’t do that, I’m not good at that.’ No, instead you feel an opposite zeal and a thrust of, ‘I can do this! It’s not as hard as I thought.’ And that comes from the patience and the dedication of the tutors.”

Mason Patterson:

“The feeling that you get when you walk inside those doors; those kids are excited to come. I stand out there on field trip days and I give high fives and we say, ‘Let’s go,’ and we have a great time. Here we’re able to let kids get excited about education.”

Audrey Garcia:

“Having a passion to teach and to work with children covers just about everything. If you love what you’re doing and you love teaching children, then you’re going to be good at what you do.”

Erika Garvin:

“People ask me why I don’t teach public school. And the reason is I like to work with the kids one-on-one because I know I can meet their needs that way. I know I can help them. I know I’m making a difference. I can see it.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“If they do have someone in there in a mentor or a role model, anything you want to call a tutor, it just…it has helped the students to become more confident in themselves.”

Karyl Martin:

“Our graduation rate here is 91 percent of all tribal members and descendants.”

Student:

“When we walk down the aisle, we can always look at our new friend and they’re the tutors and just look down and smile. We’ve done it, we succeeded, we completed high school and we’re going to our new journey. So the tutoring program really helps, it really helps you achieve your dreams and goals.”

Karyl Martin:

“Many more students are going to college, and once again our dream is growing bigger and we’re expanding our program to include online college classes.”

Sue West:

“We are extensively hoping to make that grow because we think that there is an option out there for not just our kids coming from high school, but we’re hoping that as these students have taken classes after they graduate they might talk to their mother and they might say, ‘I’ve always wanted to take a college class.’”

Jordan Livingston:

“With the program that we have they can do their independent study work with us. So they can come in here and they can do the work or they can stay at home and do the work. The flexibility is what makes it so interesting for adults in the real world.”

Karyl Martin:

“When we started this program we were carrying all of our materials around in the trunk of our car. Then eventually we were able to use the Tribal Hall when it was available. We moved into one single room that was left in the preschool that they were not using. But in 2005, we moved into a facility that gave us approximately 4,500 square feet and within the next two months that will double to over 9,000 square feet. As the programs continue to grow we’re going to even outgrow that facilities.”

TO THE COMMUNITY: “The Indian community provides many things for the family. The most important is the sense of belonging; that is, to belong to “the people”, and to have a place to go. Our Indian communities need to be restored to health so the future generation will be guaranteed a place to go for culture, language and Indian socializing.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

Dr. Kathryn McNamara:

“I think it works because of the commitment both of Morongo and the school district. And the reason I think it’s spectacular is because one, it keeps kids in school, it keeps kids coming back and learning and hoping to achieve that wonderful thing called a diploma. So I really feel that the program is successful because it keeps kids in tune with school.”

Curt Walch:

“What I’ve noticed again working in the districts for about nine years, they are starting to model the district’s own after school program actually after the tutoring program from Morongo.”

Mason Patterson:

“I feel this program works because of the emphasis that the tribe has put into making it work. There’s a tremendous amount of caring.”

Karyl Martin:

“In 1999 in January, four additional tutors were hired and I was made supervisor of the program and now we could offer students to help two or three times a week.”

Tutor: How many less?

Student: Oh, four. 19?

Tutor: Yeah.

Karyl Martin:

“It became a situation where a tutor could work with a student for several years. Maybe they would start with second grade and move on to third grade and fourth grade with them. They would know that student so well that pretty soon the district relied on the tutors to tell them about the students.”

Audrey Garcia:

“We start working with the kindergarten student and we have them until they’re in the fourth grade and then they go on to the middle school. You watch that child just grow and thrive and just become successful and you have a huge impact on their lives.”

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“When they hit fifth grade, learning becomes more and more complex. And as they get into sixth grade, it’s even deeper and it’s more abstract and it’s more involved and it’s a lot more complex. And watching their minds develop and absorb all that information, it’s just incredible. And then by the end of sixth grade, they’ve gone into being pre-teens and they look more like young adults, not these little children that came in fifth grade and it’s just a great time to just watch them grow and develop and change and learn.”

Student:

“I’ve been in this program since I can remember. I was so little. I say I was in my end of elementary school.”

Sue West:

“They know us. That is the unique thing about this program is that because they work with one liaison when they’re at this grade level, then they’re passed off onto another liaison, but they don’t stop seeing that person. They still see them. So if they’ve had a connection that connection is still maintained. By the time they get to the high school level they know every one of us as a person, not just as a liaison but as a person that they can say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ and we can feel well enough to say, ‘What are you doing, what have you done. What are you planning to do?’ and they feel we are family.”

Student:

“The tutors would tell me, ‘Well, if you want to do this then you can go ahead and do it. It’s not like anyone’s stopping you.’ And they encouraged me and they encourage everybody else at the school and they’re just really fantastic about it.”

Liaisons’ Backgrounds and Qualifications

Karyl Martin:

“There isn’t a criteria for the type of tutors to hire for a program. Obviously they’re going to need college, probably two or three years, and they’re going to need experience in an educational field. But depending on the grade level, whether it’s a nurturing situation at the elementary level or a more demanding situation at the high school level where graduation requirements have to be met, each level, each tutor is a little bit different and a little bit unique. Some of the tutors came out of social services, some of the tutors came from education backgrounds, some of the tutors are working on credentialing and two of the tutors have master’s degree.”

Erika Garvin:

“I think what’s really helped with the tutoring is my experience in teaching. I’ve tutored high school students, I’ve taught college classes of 50 freshmen, I’ve taught adult school where I was teaching English to immigrants ages 18 to 88 and I’ve taught all levels of elementary, junior high and high school in small groups. So I’ve taught a lot of things to a lot of different ages, a lot of different kinds of people.”

Audrey Garcia:

“I started working in an all-age classroom at the elementary school that I work at now and we had children from kindergarten through fifth grade in that class and I worked in that classroom for five years. Then I worked as a secretary in the office for the same elementary school for 19 years and then I came here as a tutor after that. After I came here, that’s when I decided that I really wanted to further my education and get into being a teacher. I saw the beauty of teaching and being with the kids and having an impact on their lives, I wanted to be a part of that.”

Student: My sister gave me a present for Christmas

Audrey Garcia: Good job.

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“When I saw the posting for this job, it was something that I had the qualifications for and it allowed me to work more with the students, more one on one. I started out wanting to be a counselor. I’ve wanted to be in psychology since I was a teenager. I’ve known that that was the route I wanted to go and I love kids. And working with them and being able to teach them and watch them grow and develop put me on the thought that I wanted to do more educationally. Now I am working on my master’s degree in psychology with an emphasis on educational therapy.”

Sue West:

“When I was right out of high school I went into the California junior college system and got my AA. But then I got married and had kids and I stayed home as a stay at home mom until they were in junior high. And then I decided to go out back to work and this job came available. And because of all my experience with my own children and I also was the leader for a Girl Scout troop in town for many years and I had served on many PTA and parent committees and I was well known in the school district, they thought that was enough experience to especially work at the high school level. I was the first tutor to ever work at the high school level. I opened up the doors there. I was able to actually go into the classrooms more in the freshman level and the freshmen would go ahead and they’d let me sit with them and we could work together on math. And I started to check on other kids’ grades and tell them they were missing homework and help provide some research paper and gradually we won them over. Now the kids come to us and say, ‘Are you coming to my classroom? Are you going to…how come you weren’t there?’ They expect us. They not only want us, they expect us to be there.”

Student:

“To have the tutors in the classroom it makes me feel a sense of relief. I feel a lot better having them there. It’ll make things clearer and they know how to explain. They’re like family, they’re really close to us and yet still professional. It’s nice to have them in the class.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The tutors get along really good with the kids. They communicate with the kids. They’re not…they’re stern when they need to be. They’re stern when they need to be, when they need to tell them to quiet down, when they…but yet they talk with the kids, they get along. I see them and they’re laughing with them and talking with them and joking around with them and I think that’s why the kids trust them. When you see that your kids trust them, that helps you too. As a parent you watch them, but I’m pretty sure a lot of these tutors know a lot of what goes on in the kids’ lives also.”

Sue West:

“They have a problem they come to us and say, ‘Can you fix it? I…you have a…I have a…I want to change my class. I want to talk to the counselor. Do I need this?’ They know that they can come to their tutors to get what they need and to talk to their teachers to tell them how they really feel.”

Student:

“If you need something, you just ask the tutor and they can help you.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The kids talk to them and they trust them. I know that my daughter was talking to one of the tutors one time and the tutor, I don’t remember…I wish I remember what the tutor had told her and my daughter told her, ‘What does that mean?’ and she goes, ‘Look it up in the dictionary.’ And I was laughing cause I was like, that was perfect. If you don’t know what I mean, look it up in the dictionary. But they just have that communication with the kids so it’s really good.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“Working here has made me realize that more and more I do want to go back to my reservation and not just my reservation, but I want to go to the different reservations and see the different aspects of their culture and their expectations of education. I just don’t want to stay here. I want to go to the northeastern, the just different types of…so this job has really helped me realize that what is missing and what isn’t missing and trying to put it all together and hopefully I’ll be able to be a positive role model anywhere and everywhere I go for other Native students. The most difficult part of my job is actually the social aspect. Every student I see though that they are trying to find their groove and trying to express themselves but they don’t know which way to go or how to do it. So they come to you and they ask you the different questions and you have to be ready all the time because they always have something different every single day. If it’s not one thing, it’s the next.”

Student:

“Being on the reservation with the program it’s just like, they feel a lot safer I guess you would say because most of them grew up on the reservation and they would feel a lot better being closer to home than to like an industrial area.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“That’s really something that I struggle with every day with them is that they’re coming from the reservation, they’re Natives, they’re survivors and they have to be able to do that, that can do anything they want, anything, just the fact…and the people when they come in they don’t really understand where they’re coming from and for them to be able to relay that now they’re becoming adults, I’m Native and this is…I need to stand tall and to be able to just show their environment how great they are now as junior high students.”

Passion and Teamwork

Karyl Martin:

“Each reservation that might develop a program like this has to decide what their needs are, what their children’s ages are, where they’re going to place the tutors and what they’re going to ask of the tutor as far as what kind of a background and what they want in order to hire. But what they really need is a passion; they have to have a fire. They have to have an inner feeling that they can make a difference and they can make education fun and exciting for the Native American students.”

Mason Patterson:

“We have these people that come in with these different talents, we allow them to use their talents to make this program special, and I think that’s why it’s special is because everyone around here is valued for the talents they have and we make it work together so that everything gets done and everything is done well.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“I have to be able to know that I can go into a situation and do this but if I can’t do it on my own, I can reach out and branch out and be, ‘Someone can you please help me with this type of situation. I don’t know what’s going on or what is a better way that I can go around the situation or head straight into it.’ Working with the team they always put their input. There’s always different angles that can come out because I’m sure they’ve been through a similar situation.”

Mason Patterson:

“We all have different kids that we work with, we all have different jobs that we do. However, when the time comes that we need to change, we change. When we need to help, we help each other. One of the other great aspects is having a good coach and we have a good coach. Our director is an excellent administrator and she helps us to develop our skills and to also develop the team feeling that we have. And if you were to even go larger than that, once again the tribe works well with us just like a team and so does the school district. And so in that case we’re a team that gets a little bigger and a little bit bigger and we work hard together and that’s what we want.”

Karyl Martin:

“And we started an after-school program so the tutor could go to the school site during the day, work with the student, find out what work they might be missing or work that they might not have understood or work they needed additional help and they were able to bring it back to the after-school program and help them there in addition to help them complete their homework.”

Elsa Rice:

“They know that if they didn’t understand it the first time that even if they’ve asked me for a second time to go over it that they have someone else that’s going to be there to help them.”

Student:

“Sometimes you learn from them more than you learn from your teacher. The teacher always has a harder way to explain things to you and the tutor, all she’s got to do is say a sentence and you’ll get it. Like, ‘Oh, oh, yeah.’”

Jordan Livingston:

“We’ve created an atmosphere where they feel when they come here they enjoy being in the classroom, they enjoy being at the Learning Center. I literally have to ask them to leave sometimes because they want to keep working because they like it when they’re here, they really like it when they’re here.”

Relationship with the School District

Karyl Martin:

“When you work with a school district they usually require a memo of agreement. And in that memo of agreement you’ll need to work out whether your tutors are going to be background checked and fingerprinted by the school district or whether you’re going to do it on the reservation and assure them and give them proof and documentation that you have done this.”

Sue West:

“There isn’t a lot of extensive paperwork. We do have to have a release form signed every year after their initial enrollment papers. Then they sign a release form which is an agreement that the school district requires that allows us to get into their, access to their paperwork, to have access to the report cards and to actually have let the teachers et al talk to us because without that release form confidentiality maintains that the teachers cannot talk about that student. We also keep access of their grades and for us we need to make every day notes so that we know that we see all the children enough to help them in their program.”

Karyl Martin:

“Ultimately on any district campus, the principal is going to be the main person to decide what he’s going to allow a tutor to do. In many school sites, we only work in classrooms, but in other school sites they have noticed how much we can accomplish what we can do as far as make up work and giving tests so they’ve allowed us to do pull out programs if space is available. This is something that will happen as the program continues and as you develop that rapport with your teachers and your school site administrators.”

Sue West:

“Teachers -- when we first came in -- thought of us as aides. They were not real receptive to people coming in and out of their classroom. They did not understand our program. They did not know what we could offer.”

Mason Patterson:

“They weren’t always very excited because teachers naturally are a little bit defensive about their students and they’re not always willing to change cause there’s lots of standards and all these things that we put in this box that we call education. But now after working with them years and building these relationships of trust, the attitudes are completely different. I go in and the teachers respect what I have to say and they want to know more.”

Curt Walch:

“How does the teacher not feel threatened is knowing and understanding what exactly the purpose of these people coming into the classroom is. We are on the same team and it’s to help these students. And if there is any adult who wants to come in and help that would be wonderful, but here we have dedicated personnel who know the students because they work so closely with them, much better than I possibly could.”

Elsa Rice:

“The tutors have a wonderful working relationship with the teachers. They’re there to work with the students and they don’t really interfere with any of the workings of the classroom. They’re there just basically as a helper for that child.”

Laila Valdivia:

“On a daily basis I go in and out of classes and see all my students. I’ll make sure that they’re taking notes, that they’re paying attention, that they get copies of the worksheets that they need. If they’re absent, I’ll make sure and get work for them. I’ll give progress reports to make sure that they’re staying on track and getting caught up on their grades. If they’re missing tests, I’ll schedule a test for them. I help them study for tests and make notes.”

Sue West:

“Every day we make notes of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. So in six months if somebody says, ‘What was my child doing?’ we can dig back and go, ‘Oh, yeah, we were working with him on this subject. He had a little difficulty with that.’ So I can see now how come he’s having difficulty with this.”

Janet Mendoza:

“The teachers have the feeling that they’re responsible for those students and so they have a hard time giving those kids up to somebody else but as soon as they start to see the success that those kids get with the gains if they make they’re more apt to let you take them and work with them. So I think that working collaboratively and as a team is the big key.”

Elsa Rice:

“The tutors just make the child feel very special and it’s something that a regular teacher tries to do but when you have a full class sometimes it’s hard to get to each child.”

Sue West:

“They can come to us and say, ‘We’re having some problems. We need this student to do a little bit more,’ or ‘He’s falling behind, can you see what’s going on?’ and we catch those and not so many students fall between the cracks anymore. We have stopped a lot of the children [from] being lost.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I know that I have the tutors as my back up. If I don’t check, they’re calling me. ‘Okay, they need, they’re behind on this or they’re behind on that.’ So it’s kind of like a team thing that everybody is helping the kids.”

Curt Walch:

“There has to be a certain bond I think between the students. Students will respond a lot better when they know that the adult cares about them. Obviously the education liaisons here do. So if I’m having a struggle with a student that I’m just not reaching, then I can turn to her and say, ‘Would you…what do you suggest, help me out with this.’”

Mason Patterson:

“The best result of this is being able to make people realize or to help people to realize that each of our students have different educational exceptionalities and that in order to educate a child we have to look at that child individually.”

Janelle Poulcer:

“I would rather have the tutors. It’s another person to help; it’s another helping hand. It’s getting a group of students, be it any group of students, to get an extra support so that you know that between the two of us we’re going to really tag-team the student.”

Curt Walch:

“The schools are of course always worried about test scores. We always need to raise test scores and this is one of the easiest ways to get those up when we have students that are achieving at a higher level because of this program.”

Janell Poulcer:

“At the beginning of the school year or when students come in, if there’s a problem, a lot of times we try to help them plan out where all their kids are together in certain classes so that it’ll help them keep track. For example, if we have a teacher who teaches English 11, they might have five sections of English 11 and we try to make sure that all their students are within that one teacher, not with another English 11 teacher. Because they tend to have the same type of assignments and so for the tutors it helps to follow what each one of their students should be doing. So we try to get them in the same class so they can follow them a little bit better but our main goal is at least to get the same type of teacher so that they’ll know the assignments that each one is responsible for, for their classes.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“There are huge benefits to the program. It’s that diploma, it’s that higher grade in reading, in math.”

Audrey Garcia:

“We’re getting more and more kids all the time, more and more parents are trusting us to help their children. The program is growing by leaps and bounds and when we first started out we started out small and we have just grown immensely.”

Karen Corbin:

“Both my children are two different children, opposite ends of the spectrum and it helped with both of them. One had a hard time in school and one had an easy time and it helped me with both situations.”

Curt Walch:

“We have high students and low students. The low students are being helped at their level and the high students have that time to be challenged and work with enrichment materials so that they’re not sitting back and not saying either, ‘I don’t get this’ or ‘This is way too easy for me.’ But with that individual help it is at their level. They are never bored it seems and every day they are learning.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“Kids are coming to school, they’re achieving at greater rates and they’re graduating. Those are three very important components for academic success and it’s been proven time and time again as a result I believe of this program.”

Parents Point of View

Karyl Martin:

“You become an advocate in many ways for the school district because you are able to explain their needs and what they need from a parent and give it to the parent in a way that makes it more understandable. But most of all these are parents who felt they had absolutely no rapport with the school district and no way to talk with the district, that no one was there for them. And when there’s a tutor in place, you become that liaison to the district for them. This makes it so much easier and gives the parents a better understanding of the educational process.”

Sue West:

“We keep daily attendance notes to know where we’ve been and who we’ve seen and if there’s any especially at that the high school level, is there a child who’s been missing a lot, a certain period.”

Tina Velasquez:

“It’s just like part of a family. You know that everybody is chipping in to watch over the kids, to watch, make sure that they stay on task.”

Mason Patterson:

“The most essential part of an after-school program is parent commitment and involvement. We can make it fun and we can do a lot of things here in the after school program to make it easier for the kids to learn but in the end this is, especially for younger children this is another couple of hours of school and yet we manage to fill this room with kids in our after-school program and that’s because of our parents. Our parents make sure their kids are going. They make sure that…they come and talk to us when there’s a problem. We talk to them when there’s a concern or good things or whatever. Our parent involvement is excellent.”

Karen Corbin:

“Before the tutoring program when my son was in grade school, I was at the school almost all the time 'cause he was a difficult child and not that he was bad, he just couldn’t sit still and learn. And so after the tutoring program though they came in and did a lot for me, so I didn’t have to be at the school all the time 'cause I work a full-time job. And after that I didn’t have so much contact with the teachers.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I have a 10-year-old grandson that, he comes here and he fought me tooth and nail. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to and I told him, ‘Your aunts went there and they go there and they come out and they’re doing their work.’ And so he started coming and he’s fine. His situation is a little bit different. He…we found out he had leukemia two years ago and so he was out of school for a whole year because he was in and out of the hospital. So then when we finally did put him in school we had to play catch up and that’s when we decided to bring him into the tutoring. And they were really good on helping him focusing on what he needed, which I was pretty lucky because he was a pretty smart kid to begin with. But just them going over the books, they went to the school to find out what he needed and what he had fallen behind on and brought it and helped him focus on that.”

Karen Corbin:

“Whether it’s good feedback or bad feedback, they tell me what is absolutely going on in the school that I need to know.”

Tina Velasquez:

“Works out really well for me 'cause I’m not the only one on the kids to, ‘You need to get your work done, you need to stay on top of things.’”

Academic Achievements

Karyl Martin:

“In 1999, when the program started we began to track test scores for California state testing and in 2002 when we compared 2000/2001 test scores we found that our children -- which is something almost unheard of -- the Native American students had scored higher or above the district average at almost every grade level. In fact in 2006, the district accredited our program with a 22 point raise in API scores.”

Student:

“I’m going to go to college of course, Hawaii Pacific University, major in mechanical engineering, which I always wanted to do since my mom was always telling me about how she was a mechanic.”

Student:

“I’m more and more leaning towards Stanford 'cause I hear they have a great medical program and I’m interested in medical and stuff cause I like kinetic physiology and I’d like to grow up and become a doctor. I could achieve my family’s dream and my own.”

Karen Corbin:

“Whether it happens right away or later, but yeah, college. And they encourage that and they help them with that and they keep them…in high school they tell them what classes they need to take and help them with that so they know what they need to get into college. And they even helped Elena apply, send out letters with colleges also.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The next step would be after high school, which would be college. And my daughter signed up for that also, to take online classes here at the Tutoring Center for college. She wants to be a registered nurse.”

Sue West:

“We are hoping to get the adults who’ve been out of school for awhile and they would say, ‘I can go do that.’ So we’re hoping to get people here that maybe need something for their job, to expand their job a little bit and maybe to get a little bit…and they’re going to utilize our program also.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I have another daughter that graduated in 2003 and she had asked me, she found out that my daughter’s registering for online classes and she asked me to talk to the Tutoring Center and see if she could do it also and they told her yes so she’ll be coming in in the next week or two and sign up for classes. So they are coming back, they know that this is where they can get help.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“We have a higher graduation rate among our Native students and that’s very important and our test scores have improved among our Native students and that’s very important. Our attendance rates for students attending school has also improved. Those are three very clear pieces of evidence that this program is working.”

TO THE CHILDREN: “I will encourage education. I will encourage sports. I will encourage them to talk with the Elders for guidance; but mostly, I will seek to be a role model myself. I make this commitment to my children so they will have courage and find guidance through traditional ways.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

Karyl Martin:

“From your initial program will grow additional programs. We have an entire department that grew out of the tutoring program which is our alternative education.”

Jordan Livingston:

“We cover GED. We cover any adult schools. We cover independent study. We cover reading and math programs. Anything that’s not with the school district and regular school is alternative education.”

Karyl Martin:

“We also have a program K through 8 summer school, which has been highly successful.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“It’s about people trusting. It’s not about the district saying, ‘No, we’re going to run summer school. You can’t run summer school. We’re going to do it and we’re going to do it our way.’ No. Instead it’s about saying, ‘You know what, do you think you can run a summer school program? We’ll help you. We’ll tell you what materials, we’ll give you a teacher to help, whatever you can do to make this successful.’’

Elsa Rice:

“The summer school program has accountability. We do use the state standards and apply that to their work that they’re doing here. The student is given credit for attending summer school. If the students were attending summer school in the public school they’d probably have about 30 kids in a class to one teacher. But here on the reservation with this tutoring program, our summer school has approximately one tutor to every two or three students. In that situation the students are given individual attention, whatever that child really needs is provided to that student by the tutors.”

Mason Patterson:

“I love the summer program because it’s education how it ought to be done. It’s experience. It’s individualized lesson plans. It’s care. Like I said, we have a team with lots of different talents and things that they can do and we let them run wild during the summer. We let them make the best, most individualized program that they can. We also, we’re able to do things that we’re not able to do in a school summer school. We take the kids on trips. It’s one thing to tell someone about the beach and the animals that life there. It’s a whole other thing to take them there.”

Sue West:

“Field trips take a lot of planning. We’re talking 70, 80 children and as many, not as many as adults, but we always have a very small amount of child to adult ratios on our field trips so that the kids can be experienced not just looking at stuff but can ask the questions that they need to ask when they see things.”

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“We learn as much from the children as they do from us during the summer. We learn about them, we learn more cause we’re with them longer, we learn more about how they learn and it helps us develop a deeper rapport with them. When they’re with us longer then they develop more of a trust in us. We spend time learning about their culture and we learn a lot about them and how they view culture.”

Elsa Rice:

“We have Native American stories, legends, art and music is woven into their daily lessons.”

Tina Velasquez:

“My grandkids are a set of twins. After they got out of kindergarten they came to tutoring and they come back learning, singing songs and it was cute because they’d be getting ready in the morning, showering and singing their songs. I had no idea what they were saying but it was nice to hear them.”

Elsa Rice:

“The students do enjoy learning about their culture. They sometimes say, ‘Oh, I remember grandpa talking about that,’ and that really makes them feel good to know that we’re including things from their family’s past and sometimes we have words from Native languages that they can learn and they feel very special to be able to speak them and to know them and apply them to their own talking at home with their family. They’re able to have this here on the reservation, something that we couldn’t do in the public school and so this time in the summer is special for that.”

Mason Patterson:

“We want them to go out there and create a path in life that is filled with the things that they want, that is filled with the things that they think are important and that’s part of what…part of our go-and-see attitude for our summer program. ‘Let’s go and see, you can see something different and see if you like it and see if you don’t and see what you want to do in the future. And whatever we can do we’ll help you with.’”

Tina Velasquez:

“My grandkids are attending the summer program and my youngest daughter, well, my last three kids actually did. And it was nice because they took them on trips and they’re not like to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm, they’re very educational, the aquarium or they take them to the museum and the kids come back so excited and coming back and telling you what they learned.”

Mason Patterson:

“We have our little critters that we have around here during the summertime. We used to have a millipede and one of the best essay questions and lessons that I ever taught was taking that millipede out, giving him to the kids and seeing -- see, feel the segments, feel the legs, see how it moves, see the little bugs that live on it. See this, see that and those kids were mesmerized. And all of a sudden we went from, ‘Can you please describe this millipede,’ from ‘It’s long and it’s brown, it’s got tentacles or whatever,’ to ‘Well, it’s got his many segments, it’s got so many pairs of legs, it feels like a brush when I walks up and down you arm.’ And the kids were really able to describe and learn and appreciate what we were teaching. And so one of the biggest things that I tell people when we’re looking for new tutors is, the teachers that I talked to, I said, ‘Now in your school setting you’ve got so many resources, you’ve got so many things that you can do but you come over and work for us and you have a good idea it’s going to work and we’re going to run with it and you’re going to go and you’re going to find…usually you go to the school place where they keep all the supplies and there’s a little bit of this and a little of that. Come see what we’ve got. You want to make something colorful; we’ve got papers for colorful. We’ve got scissors and glue. We’ve got everything that we need. We’ve got the best computer programs, research tools. We have a wonderful library just across the street.’ Honestly, just from the teaching aspect, the summer program is ideal for any teacher and any student.

“There are more Indians going to school, more Indians becoming professional people, more Indians assuming full responsibility in our society. We have a long way to go, but we’re making great strides.” N. Scott Momaday

Mason Patterson:

“Education for a lot of groups has been like a hammer without a handle. They’re just pounding, pounding away and work gets done, but it’s not efficient. You put a handle on that hammer and all of a sudden you can do a lot more a lot faster and it gets done the way you want it to get done. And that’s what a program like this does. It puts a handle on a hammer.”

Karyl Martin:

“We saw the dreams that we had dreamed along with the tribal members and the council and we saw these dreams realized and realized that these dreams could go further, they could go…actually there’s just no end to where they can go because education is something that is a lifetime and not just something that happens up through the graduation.”

Elsa Rice:

“It’s a gift of knowledge, of learning and a gift of knowing that they’re special.”

Karen Corbin:

“How many parents in town say how blessed we are to have that advantage? And sometimes they have to pay for tutoring, extra help like that and that doesn’t even have them work with the teachers as well as our Tutoring Center does.”

Janelle Poulcer:

“Anyone who has a chance to get this program running in your school because it can do nothing but help students succeed and that’s the end result we’re all looking for.”

Student:

“The tutoring program has been a great experience. They help out a whole lot. They make a really big difference. You’re not just getting your homework done, you’re making yourself a new friend and they care so much that you’re getting your work done, they’re kind of like a parent and also like a best friend.”

Karyl Martin:

“The students that I had in the very beginning years now have children of their own and these parents are very active and very involved in their children’s education and they’re the ones requesting tutoring and requesting help for their children. And this is a direct result of the way we have been able to help them understand the educational process.”

Student:

“They want to make sure you succeed in life.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“I think it’s a very valuable program for them, a good sense of self-esteem, a good sense of, ‘Yes, I am successful, I’m someone who can participate. My voice can be heard.’”

Karen Corbin:

“The tribal kids need to be out in the community and get the full mingling with all nationalities and I think if they are segregated until they’re high school and then go out it’s too hard, it’s too difficult.”

Karyl Martin:

“Ultimately the sovereignty of the Native American reservation is going to be protected as these children grow and become the leaders of tomorrow. They become the tribal council members, the tribal chairman, they become the voting members and besides this we have a reservation such as this one that is growing with tribal enterprises and becoming larger every year. These will be the students that will be in management.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“That’s something I feel is very important and I try and tell them, ‘You want to be running your own tribe.’”

Mason Patterson:

“Our director looks at this program like one of her kids and she loves it and she’s built and worked and cared for it.”

Karyl Martin:

“It’s very hard to explain a program like this to you without having you come and visit us so we invite all of you that see this video to come and see our program, visit with us, spend a day with us in the classroom, come to our summer program, watch us teaching Native American culture, watch the children’s enthusiasm and the joy of coming. We started with 20 children in our first summer school program and we have 85 this year and they want to come, they beg to come and start asking in February when the program is going to begin. So we know that not only are we achieving educational goals but we’re achieving the love of education. So we hope that you’ll come and visit us and let us tell you more about what’s been accomplished here and what Morongo has been able to do for their children and we hope we can help you if you would like to start similar programs on your reservation.”

The Morongo Tutoring Program
is supported and funded by
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians.
11581 Potrero Rd, Banning, CA 92220

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ So if you want to make a difference in a child’s life, then a program like this is definitely the way to do it.”

[Music]

For more information please contact:
The Morongo Learning Center
Karyl Martin, Director Education Services
11952 Potrero Road, Banning, CA 92220
Phone (951) 755-5250 Fax (951) 755-5256
Email Karyl_Martin@Morongo.org

This video was made possible by
an award of High Honors from the Honoring Nations Program
presented by
The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
October 3, 2006

Produced and Directed by
Tonje Cicilie Nordgaard

Editing
Monica Fischetti-Palmieri Williams

Camera
Time Otholt
Tonje Cicilie Nordgaard

Grip
Calvin Borden

“Ancient Memories”
Written and performed by Scott August
“Heart of the Sky”
Written and performed by Scott August
“Mockingbird Canyon”
Written and performed by Scott August

From the recording New Fire.
© Cedar Mesa Music. Used by permission

“Ancient Trails”
Written and performed by Scott August

From the recording Distant Spirits.
© Cedar Mesa Music. Used by permission

Very Special Thanks to

White Bison Inc.
for the use of the quotes
from their website

© www.whitebison.org - used by permission

Best Video Production
www.bestvideoproduction.com
PH: 323-842-3116 

Honoring Nations: Joyce Wells: Project Falvmmichi

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Choctaw Nation Healthy Lifestyles Program Director Joyce Wells describes how a 16-year-old Choctaw citizen transformed her idea and passion into a comprehensive education and mentoring program that seeks to prevent domestic violence in Choctaw communities. 

People
Resource Type
Citation

Wells, Joyce. "Project Falvmmichi." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 16-18, 2009. Presentation.

"And I just wanted to kind of start today to tell you about our program. It started back in 2004 and it was started by a 16-year-old student. She is a Choctaw member and in fact, we have her in the audience today; she goes to Harvard, her name is Claire Richards -- she's back in the back. We're just really thrilled to be a part of Claire's life and for her to have allowed us to work on this program. Like I said, it started back in 2004. She had got a proposal together basically -- at 16 years old -- and went and met with tribal leaders with the Choctaw Nation and let them know that she had some concerns and had done some research. She had found out that for the Choctaw Nation in our rural area, there was a great number of individuals with diabetes, with obesity, with domestic violence, with depression and she just felt like that the domestic violence was something that she wanted to try and change in those communities. She also found out that in the Indian child welfare cases that a high number of those did relate back to domestic violence. With that said, she wanted to train high school students to be mentors to elementary students and to teach those students that it was 'not cool to hit.' That's just a phrase that you hear all the time, those second graders know automatically. That's the main phase in Project Falvmmichi. Claire reviewed dozens of existing curriculum and she visited with state professionals, with volunteers, with tribal individuals, people that [were] educated in the causes of domestic violence and she pulled from all of that information to develop the curriculum for Project Falvmmichi.

She chose the name Project Falvmmichi because in Choctaw 'Falvmmichi' means 'to reclaim,' and she wanted to reclaim youth from the continuing cycle of domestic violence. She wanted to teach the children to learn new ways to deal with anger. Instead of hitting or lashing out at someone else, to figure out and to give them new ways to deal with those thoughts instead of hitting anyone. In May of 2006 Claire handed over Project Falvmmichi to the Choctaw Nation Healthy Lifestyles Program and in partnership with the Youth Advisory Board that's with the Choctaw Nation. Now in its sixth year, we went from five schools in the very beginning and we're now currently in 35 schools of our 76 schools in the Choctaw Nation. We're in 63 classrooms a month, so we're seeing around 1,300 second-grade students and we have over 300 mentors, high school mentors. What we call the mentors or what Claire chose to call the mentors was [Choctaw language], which means 'friend' in Choctaw. The Choctaw Nation is also blessed to have many adult sponsors that are just volunteers throughout the community that helps to work with those mentors. We also, with Choctaw Nation Healthy Lifestyles, we have several staff that are able to go out and assist when possible or when needed.

The teen mentors are in 8th through 12th grade. We usually have a training at the first of each school year. They're trained on what domestic violence is, they are also trained on confidentiality, what the lesson plans are and what the crafts and activities will be when they go into the classroom. Once trained, the mentors go into the second-grade classroom for 45 minutes a session and they are there for eight months of the school year. They go in every month. Each lesson consists of a puppet skit, a craft activity and always the message is around the single thing that it's not cool to hit. After the skit, the mentors talk about the message with those second-grade students and they answer questions, they summarize the points, they talk about anything with those second graders that might be on their mind. They then break into small groups, usually there's no more than maybe six, and they'll have one teen mentor with those six students. The second graders love those teen mentors and will confide in them about anything. Our mentors are trained that if it is a situation that they find out about with that second grader that's concerning to them, they know to go to their adult sponsor and then the teacher and then they'll handle that through the counselor at the school.

A poster is also left in the classroom to help the teachers and the students to remember throughout the month that it's not cool to hit. With that said, the second graders are not the only ones that are learning something in this process. The teen mentors learn how to be a good listener, they learn how to be compassionate, patient and encouraging, they learn to praise the children and to acknowledge their strengths, they learn to display good habits as the second graders are always watching them. Our communities are extremely small, so they see those high school students everywhere. The mentors also learn to -- they become leaders. We've seen that happen in a lot of the communities with those students that we're working with. At first some of them are a little bit leery of getting in front of even the second-grade students but usually, within a few, couple of times of the practicing and getting in there, they're ready just to take the show on the road. They have...it really boosts their self-esteem as well.

As I said, Claire did hand the program over to us. Our desire is to be in every second-grade classroom within the Choctaw Nation. Like I said, we're currently working on that. We have been able to gain a few more staff in the past years and we're hoping to do so hopefully in the next couple of years. We've seen that in some instances that it has made a difference. We've seen where that in some of the second-grade classrooms that counselors did find out about some domestic abuse or child abuse that was going on in homes and those have been reported and taken care of. The first year that we [were] in the program when Claire was still along with us before she went off to college, one of the schools, they had a second grader that they had been in the class with and that second grader had had a surgery and passed away. And so the next day the kids were in class and they were trying to bring in counselors for those students and the students asked for those teen mentors. They wanted them to come in and they needed their consoling. That's just one of the many stories that we hear now.

There's been a few cases where that there was maybe a few children that might have been acting out in the second grade and when they moved on to third grade, some of the mentors would pull that student in to help them go into the second graders' classroom to teach them again that it's not cool to hit, and so they felt like they were being a leader and in return that helped them to kind of close off the hitting aspect of it. That's our program in a nutshell and I'll be glad to talk to you afterwards if you have any questions. Thank you." 

A Lifetime Journey: Alabama-Coushatta Name New Chiefs

Author
Year

For the first time in nearly two decades, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas is welcoming a new principal and second chief. The 1,200-member tribe, located on 4,500 acres of land north of Houston, elects its chiefs to life terms. An inauguration ceremony held January 1 was the first such event since 1995. The ceremony is revered because it may be witnessed only once in a lifetime, tribal spokesman Carlos Bullock said...

Resource Type
Citation

Landry, Alysa. "A Lifetime Journey: Alabama-Coushatta Name New Chiefs." Indian Country Today Media Network. January 30, 2014. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/a-lifetime-journey-alabama-coushatta-name-new-chiefs..., accessed February 24, 2023)

A Better Education for Native Students: The Morongo Method

Year

The Morongo School offers a promising way for Indian nations and communities to educate their children so they have a firm foundation in their own culture, and acquire skills to gain entry and complete college...

Resource Type
Citation

Champagne, Duane. "A Better Education for Native Students: The Morongo Method." Indian Country Today Media Network. September 03, 2013. Article. (https://ictnews.org/archive/a-better-education-for-native-students-the-morongo-method, accessed February 23, 2023)

Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship: Success Factors and Challenges

Year

Aboriginal people (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) and their communities in the north face many obstacles and challenges. There are, however, tremendous opportunities to promote and enhance Aboriginal participation in the economy. Aboriginal youth entrepreneurs are key to building a healthy economy both on and off reserves.

The economic landscape for Aboriginal Canadians has changed considerably in the last two decades. The Canadian economy has expanded rapidly, outstripping the supply of skilled labour in many fields and pushing development farther into every region of the country. This economic evolution presents real opportunities on a broad scale for Aboriginal Canadians especially given that between 2001 and 2026, more than 600,000 Aboriginal youth will have come of age to enter the labour market, including more than 100,000 in each of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario (Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, 2008)...

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

The Aboriginal Economy Working Group. "Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship: Success Factors and Challenges." Northern Development MInisters Forum. Thunder Bay, Ontario. 2010. Paper. (http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Programs/Chnook/Students/~/media..., accessed August 27, 2013)