Here we are again preparing to present to our legislative committees the need for a new high school. prepared by Lil manthei and ted rowland


Takini High School is getting ready for the 2010/2011 school year to begin. At this time last year, Takini high school was utilizing a building that had previously been condemned. This temporary high school was necessary while waiting for five new units which were being sent to replace previous units that had been destroyed by weather the previous year. The new units finally arrived in late September early October, and where ready for occupation the last week in November. In January of 2010, a winter storm caused a power outage that lasted for two weeks. Due to no heat in the new units, all the water lines and sewers lines were frozen and broke; which caused flooding and damage to the new units.

Takini High School first opened twenty years ago. 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.

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. At that time, the high school was housed in a metal structure that was referred to as the Blue building. This building was utilized until 1993/94. At that time, it was determined that a more permanent structure was necessary. So, five modular units were brought in temporarily, until a permanent structure could be built. These temporary units were used until 2008, when spring storm damage caused them to become unusable.

When this damage occurred, it was determined that it was necessary for a more permanent structure to be built to house Takini High School. Since it was an emergency situation, five more temporary modular units were brought into Takini to house the high school until a permanent structure could be provided. Again Takini High School was utilizing temporary accommodations.

Here we are again, at the beginning of another school year, in temporary units that have sustained serious damage due the sever weather conditions of our area.

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty Article VII states:
“… the necessity of education is admitted, especially of such of them as are or may be settled on said agricultural reservations, and they, therefore, pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school, and it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that for every thirty children between said ages, who can be induced or compelled to attend school, a house shall be provided, and a teacher competent to teach…”

This section of the 1868 treaty guarantees Lakota children the right to education in buildings that are safe and equipped to ensure a quality education. Minniconjou leaders like One Horn, Iron Horn, Blue Cloud and Spotted Elk signed this paper with the assurance that they were providing a future for their descendants.

When Lakota students at Takini School, on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in western South Dakota are learning about this treaty, they look around their classrooms at water stained carpets and ceilings caving in above their heads. The air is thick with the musty, dank smell of mildew and mold. They see bathrooms that are not useable. They wonder what the Minniconjou leaders, their great-great-grandfathers, who signed this treaty, would think of the conditions of their grandchildren’s education system.