BIA HEAD PROPOSES CHEMAWA MAKEOVER

An Official Recommends a "Total Restructuring" of the Bureau's Indian
Schools, Including the One in Salem Where a Girl Died Sunday

The head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is calling for an overhaul
of Chemawa Indian School in Salem and other bureau schools by lengthening
the school year, tying teachers' pay to performance, and mandating random
drug testing of students and staff.

The purpose of the proposals from David W. Anderson, the Interior
Department's undersecretary for Indian affairs, is to make the schools
safer and more effective in educating nearly 60,000 Native American
students. The plans are also in response to the death of a 16-year-old girl
in a cell on the Chemawa campus nearly one year ago.

"We need a total restructuring of our entire school system," Anderson told
The Oregonian. "When you have a majority of your students dealing with
alcohol and substance abuse problems in their own lives and their families'
lives, I don't think that simply having math, reading and discipline is
enough."

This is the first time Anderson has publicly addressed Cindy Gilbert
Sohappy's death and the scope of problems in the BIA schools.

According to BIA records The Oregonian reviewed in February, a video
surveillance camera in Sohappy's cell captured her flailing on the floor
Dec. 6, 2003. A school dormitory worker was supposed to monitor her,
including stepping inside the cell with her every 15 minutes, according to
BIA records.

But the girl's blood-spattered, motionless body lay unnoticed for more than
two hours, according to records. Her blood alcohol level was 0.37 percent,
4 1/2 times the legal limit for Oregon drivers.

In recent weeks, momentum has been building for some kind of response to
her death. On Friday, attorneys for Renee Sohappy, the girl's mother,
notified the Interior Department and the BIA of the mother's intent to sue
for wrongful death and violations of Cindy Gilbert Sohappy's civil rights.

Last month, the Senate Finance Committee heard testimony about the death.
This month, the Justice Department is reviewing a new report from the
Interior Department's inspector general about Chemawa policies and
procedures that may have contributed to the death. One assistant U.S.
attorney who read the report called it "horrifying."

Amid that scrutiny, Anderson quietly convened a committee of BIA educators,
including Chemawa's superintendent, Larry Byers, to develop his ideas.

Anderson has made a point of visiting BIA schools, where he tells students
about his own experiences. He grew up with parents he describes as
"victims" of bureau education. He struggled with alcohol and kicked his
addiction in treatment.

After building Famous Dave's of America Inc., a successful chain of
barbecue restaurants, Anderson, an Ojibwe, founded the nonprofit Lifeskills
Center for Leadership in Minneapolis. It teaches Native American youths
success principles and the benefits of an alcohol-free life.

He'd like to import those lessons to bureau schools.

The reforms he proposes range from firing poor educators and hiring
better-trained staff to plastering posters bearing positive quotes on
dormitory walls and starting students' days with motivational chants. He
also would keep the students in school year-round, make cafeteria menus
models of diabetes- and heart-healthy diets, and add classes about
homeownership and saving money.

He'd teach leadership, too, because in recent decades many leaders in
Indian Country have been graduates of bureau boarding schools.

"Since I have been on board with the educators," Anderson said, "I have
said, 'Do you realize what you have in your hands? You are not only
teaching kids, but you can change the course of Indian history by what you
teach them.' "

Few BIA directors have taken so much interest in the schools, which are
generally run by the bureau's Office of Indian Education.

Anderson's proposals, which are still in their infancy, are not without
barriers.

A presidential appointee, he could be out of a job if the administration
changes after Nov. 2. Anderson also will need to reallocate money within
the BIA's budget or get Congress to authorize money for the program.

But even if Anderson has the time, money and opportunity to enact his
education ideas, he faces a system of 185 schools and dormitories, many of
which are failing by the standards of No Child Left Behind. Chemawa's
records have stated for years that about 80 percent of students have
substance abuse problems, and the annual dropout rates at Chemawa and the
three other off-reservation boarding schools in the country are about 50
percent.

Similar reforms have been tried in recent decades. At a 1994 Senate Indian
Affairs Committee hearing, Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, referred to a
failed 1969 plan to deal with boarding schools that at that time were
described as "dumping grounds" for students with substance abuse problems.
At the same 1994 hearing, Gerald Gray Sr., former superintendent of
Chemawa, asked for money to remake the four off-reservation boarding
schools in what he called a "therapeutic model," an idea along the same
general lines as Anderson's. It never got off the ground.

"The bureau is caught in a situation of the off-reservation boarding
schools enrolling students with very serious need for intensive therapy,"
said Rick St. Germaine, a history professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire who wrote a BIA-commissioned report for the hearing.
"Congress has put very little focus on the therapeutic needs."

But Anderson may have the clout as undersecretary to get the ball rolling,
St. Germaine said.

Anderson is reluctant to place all guilt on the government, when he knows
from his own alcohol treatment that individuals have to take responsibility
for themselves. Some days he wonders why he has taken on managing a
bureaucracy like the BIA.

"The easiest thing for me to say is that I'll go back to selling ribs,"
Anderson said. "But I think my message is getting heard. I come from a
belief that children really need to be cared for."