NEWS :: Red Cloud Indian School

Endangered Native language on Pine Ridge Reservation receives boost of support from Administration for Native Americans
posted on October 28, 2009

Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has been awarded a $150,000 grant, the first part of a two-year $300,000 gift from the Administration for Native Americans, to continue the growth and development of a comprehensive Lakota language curriculum. The award is equal to a recent record-breaking grant at Red Cloud for the Lakota language program from the Sieben Foundation.

“This grant from the Administration for Native Americans furthers our efforts to do something that has never been done before: to develop a comprehensive kindergarten through 12th grade Lakota language curriculum,” says Robert Brave Heart Sr., superintendent of schools. “The work already happening is unprecedented, and the students are poised to benefit from it for generations to come.”

In the early days of the United States, more than 300 Native languages were spoken. Today, that number has dropped severely to 175, with only 20 languages taught to children, according to the Administration for Native Americans website. Those numbers, the organization says, classifies Native languages as deteriorating or nearing extinction.

On the Pine Ridge Reservation, about half of the population spoke the Lakota language in the early 1990s, according to a study by the University of California at Los Angeles. Today, that number has fallen to less than one-quarter of the population, and is as low as 4 percent on other Lakota reservations.

“We are working toward a curriculum that not just preserves the Lakota language, but allows it to flourish,” says Brave Heart. “It’s heartening to watch our students truly embrace this initiative, and walk along with us toward this ambitious goal.”

This award significantly moves Red Cloud’s funding goal of $1.8 million for the five-year project forward, he says.

Along with the Administration for Native Americans and the Sieben Foundation, Red Cloud has formed partnerships with the Grotto Foundation, The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community and Endangered Language Fund for the Lakota language program. A team of elders and experts from the reservation and Indiana University in Bloomington are working together to develop the program.

Already, urgent efforts are underway to turn the tide of language loss on the Pine Ridge Reservation, with course requirements in the Lakota language implemented for all new freshmen at Red Cloud High School this year. In addition, Lakota studies are integrated within the curriculum across Red Cloud’s three schools: Red Cloud High, Red Cloud Elementary and Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School.

The Administration for Native Americans promotes the goal of economic and social self-sufficiency for American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and the peoples of Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The federal organization administers approximately 220 projects annually.

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