TED Rowland Takini School Superintendent


This report shall serve as the justification to the Bureau of Indian Education and to the Bureau of Indian Education Facilities Management programs that the Takini School has been, and still is, waiting for the buildings to properly accommodate the addition of grades 10-12 to the originally planned facilities for grades K-9.

This is a brief overview of what transpired in the 1980s on the western end of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Historically, the children who graduated from the elementary schools located in Red Scaffold, Cherry Creek, and Bridger had to travel to the BIA Boarding School in Eagle Butte, approximately 100 miles away, if they wanted a high school education. At that time, the school in Red Scaffold was a K-9 system, the school in Cherry Creek was a K-6 system, and the school in Bridger was a K-8 system. In 1986 the Red Scaffold School Board contracted with the BIA to start a high school in Red Scaffold.

The Contract Grant School in Red Scaffold was a K-12 system with approximately 180 students. The physical plant consisted of the main building, which contained a library, offices, and high school classrooms, and six portable elementary classrooms. The Red Scaffold School Board leased the multipurpose gymnasium and the cafeteria and kitchen facilities from the community of Red Scaffold.

The elementary schools located in Bridger and Cherry Creek were both BIA-operated schools and were apparently determined to be adequate to serve the educational needs of the student populations from those communities. Approximately 70 students were enrolled in the K-6 system in Cherry Creek and approximately 35 students were enrolled in the K-8 system in Bridger. For the first time in history, parents were able to walk their children to school in their own community.

Progress was being made. Indian education had evolved from students being taken away from their parents when they were six years old, sent hundreds of miles away, and returned when they were 16-18 years old, to students attending elementary school in their communities and then traveling to the east end of the reservation for high school, to students attending elementary school in their communities and then high school on the west end.

As a result of the BIA decision to build a K-9 school in a central location, the elementary buildings in all three communities were demolished. The new facility was not designed to accommodate grades 10-12.

Progress was halted. In fact, Indian education, from the perspective of local Lakota families, had deteriorated. The elementary schools in the communities were torn down, the new facility was built for only K-9, and students needed bus transportation to attend elementary school when before they could walk to school.

The new facility was designed as an elementary school but the academic program was expanded to include high school. The BIA approved the expansion when they granted a high school to the west end. Since Takini School opened in 1989, high school classes have been taught in temporary facilities. In accordance with federal government regulations, these students have been classified as un-housed students.

To develop an outstanding academic program, we must have at least an adequate facility. This is what we want and this is what we need. At the present time 195 students are enrolled at Takini School, 136 elementary and 59 high school. They attend school in the deplorable conditions pictured in these photographs.