Posts Tagged ‘Little Wound School’

28
Oct

Protestors question S.D.’s Little Wound’s policies and support for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome children

   Posted by: admin    in Native health, Oglala Sioux Tribe

Fetal alcohol syndrome and its toll on families are front and center in this Native Sun News piece:

Roxie High Bear holds protest sign across the street from Little Wound High School. (Randall Howell, Native Sun News)

Roxie High Bear holds protest sign across the street from Little Wound High School. (Randall Howell, Native Sun News)

Photographed and written by Randall Howell, Native Sun News Correspondent

KYLE – They’re numbers may have been small, but their voices were strong.

“Don’t Steal Children,” said a sign carried by Leonora Young Bull Bear.

Young Bull Bear said she has lost two grandchildren – both with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) – to the state’s Department of Social Services.
During her protest across the street from Little Wound School in Kyle on Thursday, Oct. 21, Young Bull Bear, Kyle, said her children belonged at home with her and their family members, “not in some boarding school in Aberdeen or who knows where.”
As a spotted eagle circled high overhead, Young Bull Bear was joined by Josephine Kills Enemy, a protester who also said her challenged children were taken from her and that now she has “visitation every other weekend” instead of raising them at home.

“I’m trying to get my great grandson, Jessie, back,” said Kills Enemy, also from Kyle. Jessie Black Tail Deer, 16 months old, has yet to meet his father, Bryan Kills Enemy, said the demonstrator. “He (the father) wants to meet him.”

During a gusting October wind, the demonstrators made it clear that they were displeased with the “lack of support” from Little Wound High School – a school “that’s supposed to provide transportation, supervision and instruction for my boys,” said Young Bull Bear, who has been raising her FAS boys for nearly 10 years now.

The boys, Aleondreaux Shae Peters, 16, and Micha Lamar Peters, 15, are her sister’s daughter’s children – teens who “will not learn beyond their current level,” she said. “They were happy at home,” said Young Bull Bear. “They just needed the support that Little Wound was supposed to provide for them. Instead, they (LOWO) took them away. I’m not even sure where they are … I think one’s in Aberdeen.”

One of the Peters boys is visually handicapped; the other is both visually and hearing handicapped, said Young Bull Bear, who was driving them to and from school daily, despite the district’s published special-needs policy of providing transportation.

In most cases, last week’s protestors said they already had tried to get redress from the Little Wound School Board, the school’s instructors, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the state Department of Social Services and the South Dakota State School for the Visually Handicapped – all to no avail.

Young Bull Bear said she was scheduled for an October custody hearing on the teen boys, but instead the teens were “picked up and taken … They just showed up and took them.” That’s why, she said, she made a protest sign that said: “Don’t Steal Children.”
Meanwhile, Kills Enemy also said she had tried the court system.

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11
Mar

Red Cloud Indian School files complaint over officiating after losing championship basketball game

   Posted by: admin    in Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Sports

Red Cloud Crusaders' head coach, Matt Rama, reacts to a call against his team. (Toby Brusseau/Rapid City Journal)

Red Cloud Crusaders' head coach, Matt Rama, reacts to a call against his team. (Toby Brusseau/Rapid City Journal)


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It wasn’t exactly a close game when Red Cloud Indian School from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota lost a regional championship to St. Thomas More, 71-54.

But Red Cloud school superintendent Robert Brave Heart Sr. says it could have been closer, and he’s going to file a complaint over what he says was unfair officiating during Tuesday night’s game.

“The sentiment of a lot of people, including myself, is that the officiating wasn’t good,” Brave Heart tells the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal, here.

And, he says, “There’s comments using the term racism. That’s what people are saying. This has nothing to do with St. Thomas More. We’re not being sore losers. The issue is with the officiating.”

As the Journal’s Jim Holland reports:

    Red Cloud was whistled for 21 fouls, including the two technicals, with More capitalizing on 21-of-26 free-throw attempts.

    The Cavaliers were called for eight infractions, with Red Cloud hitting on 7-of-9 from the stripe….

    Red Cloud head coach Matt Rama and some of his players had to restrain some of those on his bench following the technical fouls, but it didn’t stop fans behind the Red Cloud bench from throwing garbage toward the court in the fourth quarter Tuesday night.

Wayne Carney, who heads the state High School Activities Association, says the complaint will be investigated, but that there’s no timeline.

Similar allegations were made about a 2007 Class A boys championship game between St. Thomas More and Little Wound School, also on the Pine Ridge Reservation

” I don’t know if (a complaint) is going to do anything,” Brave Heart says, “but at least I want my voice being heard.”

Gwen Florio

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6
Mar

In the midst of funding delay, Cobell to travel to Dakotas to take questions on Indian trust settlement

   Posted by: admin    in Blackfeet, Cobell vs. Salazar, Elouise Cobell, Indian trust funds, Interior Department, Oglala Lakota


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Even though Congress has twice delayed approval of more than $3 billion settlement mandated in an Indian trust case (see previous post here), the lead plaintiff in the case is forging forward.
Elouise Cobell, who fought for more than a decade on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Native people owed money because of federal mismanagement of royalties from the use of their lands, will be in South Dakota next week to answer questions about the case.

As the Rapid City Journal reports, here:

Elouise Cobell (Billings Gazette)

Elouise Cobell will take questions about the case on various reservations next week. (Billings Gazette)

    The House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee plans a March 10 hearing on the Cobell settlement, which comes amid growing complaints that the settlement was reached without adequate input from tribal governments. Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls is slated to testify at the congressional committee hearing.

    Cobell’s tour of South Dakota reservations begins on Pine Ridge Reservation with an informational meeting from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Oglala Lakota College center in Kyle. According to a tentative schedule, it continues with a 1 p.m. meeting Monday at Sinte Gleska University in Mission on the Rosebud Reservation. She will attend a meeting from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Eagle Butte High School Auditorium and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., on Standing Rock Reservation.

    Two Bulls will host a public meeting about the negotiated settlement at 10 a.m. Monday at the Little Wound School in Kyle, but it is unclear if Cobell will attend.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe has yet to take a position on the settlement. But Myron Pourier of the tribe’s Fifth Member’s Office says he personally opposes it.

“I feel like we’re settling for pennies on a dollar again,” he tells the Journal. “We need to bring it back to the drawing board.”

In addition to her speaking tour, Cobell answers questions about the case online every week in her Ask Elouise column. You can access it directly here, or look for a summary and links weekly on Buffalo Post.

Gwen Florio

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