A cultural tradition survives in the face of historical adversity: Firmly grounded in the collective Lakota past, the honor song as a graduation celebration has become a contemporary tradition that confers all-important community support, recognition and respect for student achievements. Photo ARDIS MCRAE/NATIVE SUN NEWS STAFF
CHAMBERLAIN, SOUTH DAKOTA –– A request to have a Native American honor song performed at this year’s high school graduation has been met with strong resistance by this small, dual-reservation border town’s school board. The request came recently from a Native American parent and community member in recognition of the school district’s large population of Native students. Situated on the eastern banks of the Missouri River in the south-central portion of South Dakota, Chamberlain sits in the shadow of not one but two reservations: Crow Creek and Lower Brule, which both lie just to the northwest, separated from each other only by the river. Jim Cadwell, who asked the seven-member, non-Native American Chamberlain School District 7-1 Board of Education to seriously consider allowing a traditional Lakota honor song for the May 20 commencement, is a member of the Santee Sioux Tribe and grew up on the Crow Creek Reservation. Cadwell says he figures it’s about time. “There has never been such a ceremony before, and I didn’t just ask for the Native kids, I asked the school board to have an honor song for all of the seniors,” he told Native Sun News on May 11. However, some of the board members balked at the idea. “They brought up that the honor song is religious and shouldn’t be allowed at a school event,” said Cadwell. In light of Chamberlain High School’s annual baccalaureate, which is a pre-graduation religious service, Cadwell calls the claim as well as the board of education’s hesitancy a “double standard.” “I told them they can’t have it both ways,” he said. With graduation drawing closer, Cadwell indicated the board is running out of time to act on his request. Of the 50 seniors set to graduate this year, 19 of them are Native American. CHS has a current total enrollment of approximately 300 students. Many of the district’s Native American students are bused in from both the Crow Creek and Lower Brule reservations. In addition, 38 of CHS’s Native students come from the town’s St. Joseph’s Indian School, a Catholic boarding school that offers on-site classes for students in grades 1-8 only. Four of the students from St. Joseph’s high school program are seniors, said Jona Ohm, the boarding school’s development/child services liaison. According to Cadwell, the high school’s Native population is somewhere around 45 percent. According to Chamberlain Middle and High School Principal Allan Bertram, however, the population of Native students at the high school level is a little less: “It’s 38 percent,” he said. Bertram said he could not comment on the matter of Cadwell’s request and referred NSN to the school district’s superintendent, Debra Johnson, instead. On May 11, Johnson said Cadwell’s request to have a Lakota honor song performed at graduation is on the agenda for the school board’s May 14 meeting. She couldn’t say whether Cadwell’s request will be approved or not. “We have to have the discussion. Right now, I have been getting input and feedback from school administration that we will keep our graduation ceremony as that tradition (that has been) in our school for many years. We haven’t altered it, and at this point, we are keeping it the same,” said Johnson. “There will be discussion at the board meeting on (May 14).” Some Native American parents within the Chamberlain School District have reported to NSN that their children are routinely discriminated against by the district. In response to these allegations, Johnson said, “That has not been brought to my attention lately. (Parents) may have called (Native Sun News), but they haven’t called me and talked with me. And I’m not aware that they have talked to our administrators.” Johnson then immediately contradicted herself by saying she isn’t aware of any claims of discrimination being brought forth by Native American parents within the district in the past. As far as some school board members expressing concern that Cadwell’s request is a matter of religion, she said, “I have not had a board member say anything to me about that.” Johnson also said she can’t determine if the request has anything to do with religion because she is not familiar with the variations of the honoring song. “So I would need to be educated on that before I could give an opinion. I know that there are many different honoring songs, and I don’t know what honoring song was going to be brought forth.” According to Johnson, as broken down by percentage, 29 percent of this year’s graduating class is Native American, while 27 percent of the total high school population is Native American. She added that 11 percent of students in grades 9-12 identify themselves as being of two races – that is, Native American and another race. As a percentage, this mixed-race figure brings the total population of Native students at CHS to 38 percent, corresponding with Bertram’s claim. Johnson said she can’t say if the inclusion of a Lakota honor song will become an annual graduation ceremony tradition at CHS. “I know that (Chamberlain School District’s administration is) going to take it under advisement and work with our Native American Club at school and see how we could work together to figure out what we could do as some type of honoring ceremony. We’ve talked with some other schools as to what they do. I think right now what we need to do is work with our Native American Club and our students and parents and see what we possibly could do in the future. That certainly is open.” The school district does incorporate Native American history and culture into its curriculum, according to Johnson. “(Native American history and culture are) integrated in many different subject areas, in many different lesson plans throughout the school year. We do the best we can … ,” she said. School board Chairperson Ted Petrak offered a rambling, unclear explanation when asked if the district will vote for having a Lakota honor song for all of this year’s high school graduates. “We’re, as a board, still considering more than that or what to do – if (what is already planned for graduation is) enough or what. We haven’t, I guess, rather than jump into anything, we’ve been considering everything pretty closely and trying to come to a majority decision on the board about what we should be doing and what’s fair to the kids,” said Petrak. “I guess we haven’t really come to a decision on anything yet, that’s why nothing has changed this year. We’re still going to do other things that we have been doing. Right now, I guess nothing’s changed. Thanks so much for calling.” Petrak then abruptly ended the telephone interview by hanging up. Board member Dallas Thompson says the honor song request is still up for discussion. “But I haven’t seen it or taken a vote either way.” The matter wasn’t presented to the school board until just a couple of weeks ago, said Thompson, and as far as the song being a religious issue, that has to do with the song’s meaning not being understood. “Board members were wanting a translation of the (Lakota) song in English, and that’s what we’re working on getting,” he said. “It’s just something that we’ve never done in the past, and as far as being Native American or Caucasian or any other race, we traditionally have not done any school songs for any race. We do the national anthem, which we’ve done for years as a tradition.” Thompson says he is concerned the Lakota honor song is divisive and not good for the unity of the class of 2012. “Anything that comes to separate us is not good for the unit as a whole,” he said. In response to the claims of some Native American parents that their children are discriminated against by the school district, Thompson said, “I do not agree with that. If the kids were just left alone to be kids, they’d all be good kids. But some of them bring issues to class that they bring from home, and that’s not good, on both sides.” Thompson said the school board does make the effort to better accommodate parents from Crow Creek by holding meetings on the reservation, in Fort Thompson, on a regular basis. “But the attendance is usually very few to none,” he noted. District parent Audra Alberts, who is of Cheyenne River Sioux, or Mniconjou Dakota, descent, thinks holding a traditional Lakota honor song at commencement is a good idea. “All cultures and traditions should be recognized in some way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an all-out ceremony, but I don’t see anything wrong with a song, especially considering the number of Chamberlain High School students who are Native American,” said Alberts. She has a daughter graduating from CHS on May 20 as well as a daughter finishing up her sophomore year there. The family resides in Chamberlain. Alberts said her 12th-grade daughter told her many of this year’s seniors are not impressed with one of the songs school administrators chose to have performed at graduation – one of the same songs chosen every year in keeping with tradition. “So my daughter asked me, ‘Why can’t we listen to a Lakota honor song? What’s five more minutes out of the ceremony going to hurt for another song?’” And just because Native American parents don’t attend school board meetings regularly doesn’t mean they don’t have a voice in what goes on within the school district, said Alberts. “By not wanting to have the honor song, it seems to me that the school board is penalizing Native students for their parents’ actions, or inaction,” she said. Alberts said the Chamberlain community is notorious for its discriminatory attitude toward Natives. She pointed to an incident that occurred at CHS two years ago as an example of the town’s generalized attitude of discrimination. “Six white students came to school one day wearing ‘White Pride World Wide’ T-shirts,” she said, “and a lot of Chamberlain’s residents didn’t see much wrong with it.” In an April 2010 interview with KELOLAND News of Sioux Falls, one of the female students involved in the incident explained, “We knew we would be in trouble. We knew something would happen, but it was kind of to prove a point that racism happens both ways, not just whites racist toward Native Americans.” The student said the idea came when she overheard some kids talking about how Caucasian students in the district get more privileges than Native American students. Just prior to this incident, a group of parents in Fort Thompson, Lower Brule and Chamberlain had begun working with school officials on passing a resolution establishing districtwide “cultural competence standards,” as reported by The Associated Press. With regard to Native American history and culture being integrated into the curriculum, Chamberlain High School, at least, does not offer Native American history as a class, but it does have a Native American Club, according to Alberts’ graduating daughter. “So I think the superintendent, Debra Johnson, may have flat-out lied when she said the district includes Native American history and culture in its curriculum,” said Alberts. In addressing the hesitancy of some school board members to approve the Lakota honor song because they see it as an issue of religion, Alberts said, “Since when is being Native American a religion?” The CHS parent says going ahead with the honor song would truly show the district’s support of its Native students. “The graduation rate is low for Native American students to begin with, so why not give some encouragement by way of a song to the ones who are graduating and the ones who are on their way to graduating? A little bit of culture never hurt anybody. And really, are the school board members and the citizens of Chamberlain going to be that offended by a simple song honoring not just the graduating Native American students but all graduating students?” At the May 14 school board meeting, the decision to not hold a Lakota honor song at graduation on May 20 was finalized, according to Johnson. On May 15, Johnson told NSN Cadwell was in attendance at the meeting to formally present his request again, but she presented him with an official denial letter. “The other day, after I had gathered some input, (the school board and I) had talked administratively that we weren’t going to have an honor song at graduation, but we will work with our Native American Club in putting on an honor ceremony or a feather ceremony for our Native American students,” said Johnson. “And that would be something we would plan next year. We didn’t plan it this year with them as the request came a little bit late to be able to notify parents, but we will be working with (students and parents) next year so that we can do something like that.” She said the board listened to Cadwell’s request but didn’t take a vote on it. To explain the reasoning behind the school administration’s denial – which is based in devout traditionalism – Johnson read her letter to Cadwell: “The graduation ceremony program will continue as it has in the past. It is a CHS tradition with very few changes over the years. We have had requests in the past to add to our program, and the requests have not been granted. Examples: announcements, having specific adult guest speakers talk on a certain topic, awarding of scholarships. We’ll take the request under advisement, but there’ll be no changes to the 2012 graduation ceremony.” Johnson said a request to hold a Lakota honor song ceremony at commencement had also been brought before school officials last year, but that request was not granted. (Contact Jesse Abernathy at editor@nsweekly.com)
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