To the editor
I am writing concerned about the
article on June 19 entitled, “American Indian parents demand
changes in St. Paul School programs. It seems to me that the article
was written with information from one source and that information was
not checked for accuracy. As the former supervisor of the Indian
Education program I have listed the inaccuracies that I am aware of
and the documentary source to check them out.
Angie Thorn hill’s
comment on “the JOM board is a governing body, where parents decide
how Indian Education funding can be spend.” The JOM committee only
is a governing body of the JOM funding and JOM program, which in
2012/2013 was approximately $24,000 of the full Indian Education
budget.
Documentation: Margaret Vanderhoff,
accountant at SPPS for budget figures. The contact person for JOM
funding and guidelines is Billie Annette.
Angel Thornhill comment
on “ Grants have not been in compliance for some time.” All
grants have been in compliance which SPPS yearly Federal audits can
support (St. Paul Public Schools can speak to this). SPPS has never
received a non-compliance letter from any funders in my 13 years as a
supervisor. In fact in our SFTF, Chemical Prevention (DHS) grant we
were asked to speak at their conferences since they viewed the
program as one of their exemplary programs. In addition, in 2013 the
JOM program received an award for being the exemplary JOM program
across the state, in which Angie, the JOM parent committee member and
I accepted.
Another inaccuracy, “WhiteShield
found was that some positions weren’t in line with any of the
grants. They were piecemealed together.” As grants ran out of
funding to support a staff, new grants were sought to offset the
staff program. So, some staff were paid out of two or more funding
streams. All staff during my tenure only did the work according to
each grant and signed off as such with SPPS time and efforts as proof
that they were spending their time on the grants into which they were
assigned. We also each year shared a full budget and staff FTE with
the parent committee and with the community in the yearly public
hearing.
Documentation: Budget shared are filed
within the IE files and Gail Lamson, business clerk
Time and Effort of Indian Education is
filed with the SPPS office.
As far as evaluation of the program,
each year a public hearing was held and documented. In my tenure two
strategic plans took place in which parent committee, staff, parent
and students all were in focus groups in developing it (we have all
the document of this in the files/ they were funded by Otto Bremmer).
We also did a yearly parent and student survey every three years
Documentation: Indian Education Files
(Gail Lamson, Business Clerk), Kim Vanderwall was the individual
consultant in charge of the plans. All public hearing are on file
within the Indian Education office (also within the JOM office
above). Parent and student surveys are on file within the Indian
Education office.
“Thornhill was impressed … WhiteShield
wanted to partner with different people in the community.” Indian
Education has always partnered with all AI agencies within the
community. If you go back to all our newsletter (which they have in
their files and I have copies) we would list all of our partners
within each newsletter. In fact we collaborated so widely at times it
was hard to know what services we provided and what other agencies
were in charge of, which speaks to the “heart” of true
collaboration.
Documentation: Indian Education past
newsletter.
Nicole Other Medicine states, “two
social worker and one counselor position had been eliminated.” My
understanding is that an EA, a Parent Intervention Specialist and a
Lead Teacher (licensed as an AI culture and language teacher with the
state) were let go due to reorganization. The Indian Education
Counselor took advantage of reassignment herself and the Chemical
Prevention Worker retired.
I am appalled that an article with so
many inaccuracies was written by your paper and that time is not
taken to check out what individuals are staying. These inaccuracies
could possibly hurt the future Indian Education Program for
competitive funding.
Kathy Denman Wilke
