Tribal Data Collection and Governance: Leadership, Advocacy, and Building Data Capacity Session 2
Facilitators: April Kateri Chavez and Daphne Littlebear
TITLE SLIDE: “Webinar Series – Tribal Data Collection and Governance: Leadership, Advocacy, and Building Data Capacity. Session 2, Wednesday, May 22, 2024, 1-2:30p.m. PT | 4-5:30p.m. ET”. Logos for CCNetwork Regions 15 and 13 , National Indian Education Association, Western Educational Equity Assistance Center at WestEd, and College of Population Health: Center for Participatory Research.
April Kateri Chavez:
Hello, welcome everyone. We welcome you all to the Tribal Data Collection and Governance webinar series. This is our second and final session in the series. And so I’d like to share that we are recording today’s session for the purposes of uploading it to the WEEAC website. And now I’d like to hand it over to Kate Wright, the Region 15 Comprehensive Center. Kate Wright?
Kate Wright:
Thank you, April. Welcome to the final webinar of the Tribal Data Collection and Governance webinar series. This series is designed for state education leaders, tribal leaders, tribal education directors, the Bureau of Indian Education, and the Office of Indian Education to amplify innovative partnerships and practices to exercise Indigenous data sovereignty and Indigenous data governance and education. Also, to highlight emerging and policy level approaches to tribal data collection to improve outcomes for American Indian, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian students. This series is made possible through the partnership of our five co-sponsors. This series is co-sponsored by the Region 13 and the Region 15 Comprehensive Centers and the Western Educational Equity Assistance Center who all serve the Western states and territories highlighted on the map.
Together, these federally-funded centers provide technical assistance, professional learning, research, and evidence-based practices to state and local educational agencies to better serve all students. We are also pleased to partner with the National Indian Education Association. NIEA advances educational policies and creates programs that support self-determination and development of comprehensive, culturally-grounded learning opportunities for native students. We are also pleased to partner with the University of New Mexico’s Center for Participatory research at UNM, whose team consists of faculty and staff who are dedicated to collaborating on community-engaged research among New Mexico’s diverse populations and beyond. We invite you to learn more about all of our partners. You can sign up for newsletters and follow more events and opportunities on this Padlet.
The Padlet is an online platform where you can find resources connected to today’s webinar and can support your ongoing learning. I’d now like to welcome our moderators for today’s session, April Chavez, representing WestEd (Kewa Pueblo & Diné), and Daphne Littlebear (Tamaya Pueblo, Mvskoke, Yuchi & Shawnee) from the National Indian Education Association.
April Kateri Chavez:
Thank you so much, Kate. Hello. I introduced myself in Navajo and Keres. I am from the Navajo Nation. My family is from Sanostee, New Mexico and also from Kewa Pueblo. And I’m happy to serve as one of your moderators today, and I serve as the tribal systems program associate here at WestEd. And very happy to welcome you all and also to be working alongside my fellow Pueblo sister and dear colleague, Daphne. Good afternoon, my name’s Daphne Littlebear, and I work for the National Indian Education Association as their research and evaluation manager. We’re excited to have you on the call today.
April Kateri Chavez:
So I see a few familiar faces, and I’d love to know, please feel free to share with us in the chat if you’re able to join us during our May 27th convening. Our first session was really to set the tone and set the foundation for today’s conversation. And so I just wanted to offer a few key takeaways from session one. During our time together, we had the opportunity to learn from Dr. Michele Suina, who was a member of the Cochiti Pueblo, as well as a member of the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, wherein she defined Indigenous data sovereignty as the right of Indigenous peoples and nations to govern the collection, ownership, and application of their own data. She also went on to define Indigenous data governance as the application of Indigenous ways of knowing and doing to the management and control of Indigenous data.
So Indigenous data governance is the doing or the action of Indigenous data sovereignty. We also had the honor of hearing from two amazing Indigenous educators, Dr. Hollie Mackey and Jerad Koepp, who really shared how their Indigenous data sovereignty presents itself in their work. And as you can see here, I wanted to include a screenshot of our time together. You can tell we’re jammin’ and we’re having a good time talking about our native babies. But also, during that really lighthearted but very powerful conversation, two truths were clarified. Two data truths came out of our conversation. One, that native peoples have always been data experts. And in fact, we are our own best data experts. This can be seen in the orientation of our irrigation channels, our community planning, our architecture, infrastructure, and even how it presents itself in our artwork, right? How stories and data are carved into poetry, excuse me, pottery and woven into our baskets.
So that’s something that Jerad was really important and generously grounded and offered for our conversation, right? Data is our stories. We are data. And we’ve always collected and analyzed data for the maintenance of our peoples. And so for these reasons, native values and methodologies need to inform this work. The second truth is that we are in a state of data dependency with non-tribal governments, right? So quality data matters. And states and tribal governments can’t make informed and equitable decisions with bad and inaccurate data, and data building, and notice I said rebuilding, not building, because we already have these really powerful, lasting systems in place, data systems, education systems that have maintained our peoples since time immemorial. So data rebuilding is resource intensive and human intensive, right? So it’s really going to require all of us coming together, being creative about the solutions, and thinking beyond compliance.
So fortunately in today’s session, we’ll have the opportunity to learn directly from states who are bringing people together in very impactful ways. So during our time together, we are gonna hear from two wonderful panelists. Sandwiched between that, we also invite you to engage in small breakout rooms where you can continue the conversations with one another. As Kate shared, we also have the Padlet that’s especially curated for both of these sessions, so we welcome you to to check that out. The structure of today is absolutely informed from you all. We, in session one, we sent out an evaluation and we listened to you and that informed today’s session. And so we also have a second evaluation that we want to pop into the chat for you all. It’s a very brief survey, and it really helps inform future sessions, future conversations and convenings.
And before I hand it over to Daphne, I’d be interested to know, again, around what the conversation around today is. Does your tribe or district or agency have any data sharing agreements? And that’s gonna be an important question that we’ll see later in today’s convening. So feel free to engage in the chat. Tell us yes, if you have some, and maybe just a little bit about any of your data sharing agreements or MOUs. That’d be great. Daphne?
Daphne Littlebear:
Yes, and we are going to share this quote out to ground our conversation today. “Without quality data, policy makers and community planners cannot set policy goals, monitor implementation, measure impact, or plan for demographic shifts in an effective way. The absence of American Indian, Alaska Native, and also Native Hawaiian peoples in data and policy domains reflect the lack of national discourse on the status of our nation’s First Peoples. – National Congress of American Indians” And so we wanna think about that quote and think about quality data from all aspects: from tribal data, from state level data, from districts data, from school building data. What does that look like for our students? And I’ll pass it back to you, April.
April Kateri Chavez:
Great, thank you, Daphne. So on this next slide, we have a few barriers and Indigenous data gaps. And I don’t wanna spend too much time on them because my suspicion is that we all know them so intimately, right? So we have monitoring as a key activity. Data doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it’s not apolitical. So we have to think about how that data is emerged and how it’s being used. And I would say that Indigenous peoples in this country are some of the most surveilled peoples. And arguably, because we’re viewed as a threat because of our resistance and continued resiliency. We have aggregate as the norm. So we have state level qualitative data that has become kind of the standard in which we perceive our students. And whereas summative assessment data is really important, it’s limiting and it’s also limited, right?
Measuring derived from someone else’s cultural values. And this makes me think about, I served my Pueblo community as a social worker for many years, and we met with schools, administrators, teachers, and they would tell us on these really detailed PowerPoint slides all the ways that our students, that my kiddos were failing. And it just made me wish that they could see what I saw and know what I know, because what I was seeing was so many of my kiddos, and I say that as the babies of my community and my clients, many of ’em were contributing members of our communities, and for many of them were involved in these esoteric societies within our communities, where they were actively maintaining our languages, our vernaculars, these languages within our language, our dances and ceremonies. And they weren’t failing to thrive.
And in fact, I would argue the opposite. They were giving life to our community through the maintenance and caretaking and protection of our cultures, languages, and stories. And so right there’s that data gap that we need to bring together. We have exclusion from decision making, excuse me, processes, collection, and ownership of access to data, right? There’s so much power in data, and we need to be consistently involved in that process from all the different life cycles of our data, from the collecting to the analysis, and finally, to any conclusions that we draw from that data. This last bullet of course is really important and I think a very timely issue and one that we can really, really tease out hopefully in those breakout rooms. So accurate student data counts. According to the student Indigenous student project in the K through 12 public school area, they suspect that it may be as high as 70% of students are not accurately counted, right?
And that inaccuracy contributes to our invisibility and really compromises the federal trust responsibility to uphold treaty obligations and access to the appropriate programs and services that our babies really need, right? So in the next slide, Daphne will highlight that there are many tools that we can use to guide our thinking around these issues. Despite or perhaps in spite of some of the barriers, many sectors and disciplines are developing tools and resources to guide our practice in the K through 12 space to center Indigenous ways of knowing and rebuild our strong educational systems.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much, April, for that. And so we’re gonna go ahead and talk through these bullet points, systematic solutions and tools. And these bullets don’t encompass all of the tools, nor do they even encompass the breadth of work that is currently happening, not only here in the U.S. but globally. But these are some highlights of systematic solutions that we can share out today. So there’s memorandums of understanding and data sharing agreements and data use agreements. And so this is really between intergovernmental agencies, tribal state, tribal district, tribal, federal. And so for the first time in February, the U.S. government held a listening session on data sovereignty, and a lot of folks shared comments around access to certain data sets at this point in time. So these conversations are beginning to emerge.
And I wanna take it a step further, not just a listening session and not just like consultation, but also the design of these tools that we’re using to collect data, measurements, benchmarks, variables, all those definitions matters. And as I see in the chat from whose view, from whose worldview. And so when we think about what is true collaboration, meaningful collaboration look like when we’re starting to create these metrics in terms of collecting data. Also, I want to encourage everyone that this is really, you know, we’re lifting some very heavy work, and we’re also trying to think through systems that are coming from different standpoints and different perspectives. And so it is very important to think about data literacy within our tribal communities and even the workforce and encouraging foundations and federal agencies to think about what does it mean to build tribal capacity for data governance within our communities, as far as national and international data sets.
Like I said, we are not alone in this work. There was an international summit that took place two months ago in Pascua Yaqui in Arizona, and it was the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty Summit. And so it was international convening. So we’re not alone in what this work looks like, specifically to our work today is native of student data in the U.S. and the K-12 system, public school systems. So right now, AIR is doing an Indigenous student identification data count. And so that is in the Padlet, it’s in interactive, and I believe there’s a few folks here on the webinar, and so there’s contact information on the Padlet in their link. Feel free to reach out to them, and like really, you can engage with their tool and see what that looks like. And so we’re all thinking about what does data infrastructure look like, especially when we’re thinking data sovereignty from a tribal lens, and as far as collaboration, what does data accessibility look like and what is building capacity to share out that data look like? And so thank you, April.
Jackie White:
Good afternoon and good morning to everyone on the Zoom today. I am Jackie White. I’m currently the program director for Native American Education for the State of Oklahoma, as well as a national Johnson-O’Malley board member at large. And that is currently what I do.
Waquin Preston:
Well, good afternoon, everybody. So my name’s Waquin Preston. I am Diné. I am based out here in Phoenix, Arizona. Some of you might think of NIEA, even though we’re a national organization primarily based in Washington, DC. We do have staff based out throughout the country, so definitely moving more towards a regional model. But I am the tribal state policy manager, primarily work on a project called Native Education for All. So I’m sure we’ll get a little bit more into that in the discussion. But it’s great to be here, glad to be invited, and be on this panel with Jackie.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate that. And let me go ahead and start with the first question. Jackie, Waquin, can you please briefly describe the program you lead now, and how is it supporting native student data collection? And I’ll go ahead and start with Waquin and move over to Jackie.
Waquin Preston:
Yeah, thank you. Like I said, I primarily work in the program called Native Education for All. But before I delve too deeply into that, I do want to recognize all the work that’s been done by those people, those folks, those staff, those NIEA members who have come before us. If you don’t know NIEA, we are a national organization. Again, we’ve primarily been known for our policy pieces out in DC, but we’ve been moving more aggressively into the state tribal field, again, becoming more regional. But in the past, we have actually passed a resolution by our membership. And our membership is very inclusive. Includes not only federally recognized tribes, recognized tribes, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. And so very diverse group of educators, advocates, community members, students who came together and passed a number of resolutions that guide the work that the staff at NIEA does.
So in 2016, we passed an Improving American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian Student Identification in Public K-12 and Higher Education Institutions resolution. It’s gonna very much along the work of trying to identify where our native students are. Just recently this past year, through some of our allies who are on this call, we passed a resolution called “Calling on the U.S. to Include More Comprehensive Data Collection on Native Affiliations.” And then one of the ones that I had to dig a little deeper to get through was a resolution called, “In Support of Amending FERPA to Include Treating Tribal Education Officials as Equals with Federal, State and Local Education Officials in Terms of Access to Public School Student Records.” So that should kind of give you an idea, from a policy perspective and and a programming perspective, of some of the things that our membership has tasked us to be working on when it comes to data, and specifically native student count and how tribal nations are treated within these government to government relationships and trying to have access to this data.
So in the Native Education for All program, where we really overlap with the data issues is in that trying to facilitate those tribal state relations, specifically looking at tribal relations trainings. We look at Minnesota as a pretty good model, and they have, with their Department of Transportation, a tribal relations training that’s really meant to facilitate those jurisdictional issues when it comes to transportation and roads, road constructions coming from tribal trust land to state land. And those are very issues that may not be the same, but are very similar in terms of the implications, the government to government frameworks that are being used in those talks. And so those are the types of frameworks we’re looking at moving into and to help facilitate and develop these tribal state relations. So very much we’re in the middle trying to facilitate those government to government relations, and we do have an eye, of course, Daphne is our researcher at NIEA.
So we very much are also looking to bridge out into collecting our own research and helping tribes to develop their own research, but also data gender as data sets. So that kind of gives you a very top view, large idea of what we have going on in what I work with on a day-to-day basis when it comes to especially the policy and advocacy side of data.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thanks, Waquin for sharing that good work and lifting it. I will move over to Jackie. Can you please briefly describe the program you lead, and how it’s supporting native student data collection?
Jackie White:
All right, again, I am the program director for Native American Education for the State of Oklahoma. And I think data is a real key. When I arrived at the agency in 2020, according to our student management systems, we had only 80,000 students that were identified as Native American or Alaska Native. Today, we have 157,000 of our students within our public schools that have identified themselves as Native American or Alaska Native. Oklahoma passed a bill called House Bill 1104, which says by law, all students that enter into a public school and identify themselves as Native American or Alaska Native, the school is to put that in their student management system. And they cannot argue that. That is a self identifier by federal law. It is then upon that school to identify whether they’re Johnson-O’Malley eligible for services or under the Title VI program.
The greatest part about what’s happening now in Oklahoma is that the data team that’s at the State Department of Education, she and I both had worked in public schools before. Starting in the fall of ’24, ’25 and Nikki, you’ll find this wonderful, we’re rolling out a new system that if you are Native American, the system will go through the student data teams, those vendors, and it will now break it down to what tribe, especially if you are two or more races. What you discover, if you’re not careful, if a student checks Native American only, it will populate that. But if they’re two or more races, or if they’re Hispanic, yes or no, you do not have good data. So we met at the Johnson-O’Malley State Conference, and we had standing room only, and all of our program managers for Native American Education in Oklahoma were there. And they were the first ones to see what was happening.
They were so excited because usually they’re the last ones to know what’s happening. So you’re gonna see a big difference in Oklahoma. And the intent of that by data, I need to know how many of our native students are valedictorians. I wanna know how many are in special education. I want to know how many are at risk of failing. And this is going to pull all of our information with all the departments at the OSDE so we can together serve students that are Native American and/or Alaska native. By breaking down that barrier of data, I’m gonna have a true indicator by tribe. I will let you know that in Oklahoma, out of the 574 federally recognized tribes, we have 474 of ’em within our boundaries, at least one or more. So I want to make sure that we’re serving all of our students, that we’re supporting the data, and I’m sharing that in collaboration and consultations.
I actually had a tribal leader look at his data recently and said, “Jackie, that is not correct.” We have more students than that. So again, it’s called communication. And my staff and I are out there. I don’t believe behind a desk, you could serve schools. So we travel a lot, and we do a lot of presentations, and we share a lot of information.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much, Jackie. It’s really inspiring to hear the collaboration, the review of the student counts, and looking at tribal numbers and what they’re reporting. So that’s amazing to hear. Waquin, can you briefly share what some of the major policy challenges, or excuse me, can you share what some of the major policy challenges Native Nations experience when seeking control over state data on their native students?
Waquin Preston:
Yeah, so I think when you really dig into this issue, it really comes down to the relationship with the state, and the larger context for this all has to do with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, so FERPA. And this has been a longstanding issue. I think in 2005, there was some action where the Native American Rights Fund was actually trying to poke around, get an opinion from the Office of Indian Education on what exactly tribes could request and what the states were required to give in terms of student data to tribal education agencies. And so through this back and forth, the Student Privacy Policy office, on behalf of OIAE, gave the opinion that the status conferred to tribal education authorities, those full rights, privileges, and obligations as local educational agencies, was not in fact what tribes were perceived to have.
They found no legal authority on which to conclude that educational agencies and institutions may disclose education records to TEDs without the, and TEDs being tribal education departments, without the prior written consent of the student’s parents. So essentially saying that the states were under no obligation under FERPA to share that data, but instead, what states could do is they could come into agreement with those tribes in order to share that data. And so the first major challenge, of course, and this is something, again, a resolution that NIEA had put forward, is to try and create parity with those tribal education agencies and state agencies so that when they’re requesting data, there’s a little bit more push behind those requests as opposed to it necessarily just relying on those relationships built with the state. But it is, in fact, can be the treaty trust responsibility that the federal government has with tribes. So that would be the first kind of barrier.
If you’re in a state that really has good relations or has some type of solid infrastructure, I like to call, those are committees, action groups, advisory councils, legislative bodies that are able to interface with tribes regularly and in good relations. And in those cases, it’s much easier to get access to data. And I think there are several states, several models out there. Arizona, Michigan just recently passed some legislation, some policy on collecting tribal affiliation data. And then coming of course Oklahoma, I’ll leave it to Jackie to kind of cover that. And so that would be really the first major issue. But then in those states where you do not have those formal practices and policies, it really comes down to creating those tribal state relations almost from the ground up, creating that infrastructure, these tools that states and tribes can come together and interface and formalized agreements as when you see those MOUs, things like that. So I’ll go ahead and keep it brief and leave it at that for now.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much, Waquin, for explaining how significant those relationships are, especially when it comes to passing legislation or sometimes what can be challenging to navigate those conversations. And I will move to Jackie. Jackie, I have a different question for you. Jackie, can you briefly walk us through how OSDE goes about creating the MOUs, data sharing agreements with tribes, and what are the key provisions that are non-negotiable that you include in your government to government agreements?
Jackie White:
All right, we’ve already done that, as he knows ’cause he grinned. When House Bill 1104 was passed, it gave us that opportunity to go into those MOUs with tribes. We currently had five of the tribes make application, and I will tell you the Muskogee nation is completed. The issue becomes attorney to attorney, making sure that we’re all on the same page. We now have an MOU because we have a set of new attorneys, and we all know that as you change leadership, things change. But we actually gave that out to all of the tribes that are a part of our STEP grant. And ours is actually on the website, and we’ve shared that with some other states. It’s real important for everyone to know that you still have to honor FERPA. We give out data that we’ve done for years and that’s how many Native American students are in Title I programs. And if you really follow the intent of the Title VI collaboration, consultation process, information should be going out.
And as we’ve traveled, we’re seeing more and more of our students and more and more of our schools and more and more of our tribes who are actually sharing the data. I agree with you, if it’s something very specific to a child, in fact, I just received one today where a parent has given me permission to work with the special education department at the STE and the school, we’re working together as a team to provide services to a Native American teenager that needs all of us working together. But I think it’s really important that the security of that information is kept, and it’s real important to understand that we cannot validate that all the information that we receive from the schools is accurate. And I think we all know that it’s garbage in, garbage out. And I think that’s why I am excited about June in the data office working with my office and working with every school in Oklahoma.
For those who don’t know, we have 541 schools in Oklahoma. We’re probably gonna have right at 415 Title VI programs, and we have 39 tribes within our boundaries. That’s a lot. And we wanna do it right the first time. So our MOUs are happening. But again, just have to understand that all we can pull and all we can show you is what’s entered at the school level. But it does give me the opportunity to work with some schools, and I already have the list that need to improve their RTI or improve how they do school improvement. And my office has been given that authority to work with every department, which is nice, because then we can reach out and serve our students.
Daphne Littlebear:
What are some key provisions or non-negotiables that you include in these agreements?
Jackie White:
I think part of it, and I don’t have one in front of me, I didn’t even think about pulling it, but it’s not individual information. That’s just not gonna happen. You’re gonna get data that pulls by tribe, because we’re gonna be better at this this fall, and it will be information that is no different than what you could give to a newspaper. And I’m gonna say that because we do not give out personal information. We’re not gonna do that. And again, we do have a clause in there, ’cause someone laughed at it the other day, that says, if it doesn’t look correct, just get with us because we’re pulling from student management systems that information. Again, then that gives us the authority to go out and work with that area. And I’m gonna give a kudos to WestEd right now. We really started this journey when I arrived doing circles of reflection, because what I discovered was, tribes had not talked to schools, schools had not talked to the state department, and we all were not communicating to each other.
And that was a very hard conversation, because that was about the time that we were allowed to do that, to share information and 1104. So it’s hard to look at someone and say, “Hey, you do a poor job.” But it’s also an honest opinion. And from that, we’ve grown tremendously.
Daphne Littlebear:
We’ll go ahead and go to our final question for these two panelists. Looking at OSDE and NIEA has made impact changes throughout the state and nationally that support Indigenous data sovereignty, what recommendations do you have for further improving state-district engagement with Native Nations on data collection?
Waquin Preston:
Yeah, so I think big picture, you really have to understand that these are all policy decisions. And so there’s nothing here set in stone. There’s nothing inherent about any of these policies governing data about how data is shared with tribes, why it’s not shared. That these are all decisions that have been made by people, whether that be congress on federal side, on the state side, the local district level. And so I know engaging in policy can sometimes seem really obtuse. You don’t know where to start, you don’t know where to dig in to find where these threads are, where this language, specific language comes from. But big picture that that language, there are experts out there, whether that be at NIEA or any of our partner organizations that are actually looking and digging into this language.
So that’s big picture, but specifically, I know engaging with our federal representatives, especially on these specific listening sessions or consultation sessions they have, so just on June 13th, there will actually be a consultation session with the U.S. Department of Education. And I know that at the very least United Southern Eastern Tribes, which is a tribal consortium on the east coast, always brings up the issue of FERPA and how tribes are treated under FERPA and bringing up those longstanding concerns of tribes not really being viewed on parity with state education agencies or the federal government. So always trying to find those avenues to engage, and they hear it so they know, these officials know, they hear it from Indian country constantly. But on the second level, it’s really trying to find those ways to build and further move out those tribal state relations.
And I think one of the things that’s really interesting to me with the tribal remedy framework coming out of New Mexico, with the Yazzie/Martinez case is the idea of these tribal state technical centers. And those are ways and avenues to be creative to think about how states and tribes can share data, where it’s still a collaborative effort. It’s not simply in those states that are specifically not very interested in just handing over data, we’ll create the collaborative space, create the technical expertise for tribes, and trying to really engage, and on the federal level, trying to, again, ask for funds for these tribal assistance centers, ask for funds for honoring the tribal state, excuse me, the tribal sovereignty, that government to government relationship with the federal government by creating those resources that tribes can use. And I think on the tribal side, I know there really is a movement to develop out what data looks like for them, what data is useful for tribes.
And I know that’s a conversation that kind of leads into your wheelhouse, Daphne. But I think there’s also a need for that side of the conversation as well, which is, well what data do we need? What data do we find useful? What measures do we want? And I think that’s moving somewhat in another direction, but at at some point, there will be a time to have that conversation with our federal and state partners about what data should look like, what data is useful for us, especially if we’re doing nation building projects. So that’s kind of, again, big picture. Don’t really have the time to get into a lot of the details, but I think those are some good key points to start building towards.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much for that, Waquin. And you’re right. Again, we’re really focused on what does federal and state data agreements in terms of data access look like. This does not encompass the conversation of tribes collecting their own data sets, tribes collecting their own measurements, tribes thinking of what that looks like. Again, is there any final words, thoughts you would like to share, Jackie and Waquin, before we close out this session? And I’ll go ahead and move over to Jackie.
Jackie White:
I think one thing, Daphne, I wanna say to everyone, and this is if you don’t communicate, then you don’t know. And every month, I send a Zoom invite out to every tribal leader, to every tribal educational leader, to every superintendent, to every program manager. We’re at 700 right now, and those are individuals that can make an impact in us working together. And I think that’s a key to communication. And on those Zooms, we have resources available and we feature tribes. I mean, it’s not just a school issue, it’s everyone. So I think that communication going out every month, and we’ve actually created a newsletter that goes to the tribes and one that goes to the schools out of my office, and they give us information. It’s called communication, and we’ve actually updated the Wave. And again, we collect all the part two Title VI apps. That gives us information after those schools send it in.
And if those are in areas where there’s tribal concern or tribal support, we share information. But I really believe when we send that out, I’m a former special education teacher, so I’m of the opinion, you take the barriers down. And by sending out those Zooms and inviting everyone to the table, I think that’s what’s made the difference with what we’re doing in Oklahoma right now. And I have a great team. I have to do kudos to them, because I’m sure there’s days I make them totally crazy because I send them so much information, and we’re a team and we have the support. It makes it go well.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much, Jackie. Waquin, can you share a brief ending comment or thought to close out our panel?
Waquin Preston:
Yeah, so I think the way we’ve traditionally thought about these tribal state relations has primarily been in sovereigns in contention with each other, especially in the policy field. But I really do think, and I like the language of the tribal remedy framework, again from the Yazzie/Martinez case, where they talk about moving more towards a shared responsibility between governments, especially in the data space where this really is about the students, native children. And I know that’s meeting in the middle, and Native Nations may wanna take that somewhere else, towards like nation rebuilding. And the state may wanna take that somewhere else where they’re attempting to get funds or showcase their state as exceeding at a particular level. But I think really trying to think collaboratively in terms of a shared responsibility I think is really the message and where these state tribal relations and even federal relations really should be moving towards and kind of bringing that language more into the policy realm.
Daphne Littlebear:
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, thoughts, and wisdom, and how you’re lifting this work. I’m going to pass it on to April, and we’ll be moving into breakout rooms.
April Kateri Chavez:
So now we’re going to spend 10 minutes in our breakout rooms. And this is really an invitation for you all to just connect more intimately in a smaller setting. We provided a few guiding questions, but again, this is really, you all can take the lead. In each breakout room, we have an assigned note taker, and so they’re going to just take some very high level notes. These notes are gonna be confidential, and these notes will contribute to the eventual high level summary of today’s session. For those folks, we recognize that you may have to take a phone call or need a bio break. We have provided an opt out option known as the quiet room. So Brianna, in about 30 seconds, is going to randomly assign us all to breakout rooms. And if you know that you’re not able to engage in the conversation and would rather step away, please feel free to click Leave Breakout Room. It is the blue button on the far right hand side of your screen.
And again, please enjoy the conversation and make those really important connections. Coming back, we will continue on with our conversation with Chief Benjamin Barnes. So enjoy your time together.
Hello, well, welcome back everyone. I hope you enjoyed your time, and as you can tell, it’s always great to make new friends but also see some old friends as well, so I’m glad we’re making those connections today. Now we’re going to transition into a conversation with Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, who was elected into his position in 2019. And I recently learned that he co-authored a book, “Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country,” which provides a theoretical and practical guide to community-engaged scholarship with Indigenous communities in the U.S. and Canada. So to learn more about his full bio and about his book, we welcome you to visit the Padlet.
And so Chief Barnes, I know you’re extremely busy, and so it is absolute pleasure to have you here today. And so I just have a handful of questions, and if you’re willing, I’m happy to jump in.
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
Thank you for the invitation. We’re having our employee retreat today, so I had to sneak out to a quiet place out in my jeep.
April Kateri Chavez:
Awesome. Well, of course your community and the celebrating of them takes priority, absolutely. So my first question is, as a tribal leader, you’ve advocated for our Indigenous students and families at various levels across the state, local, and federal systems and across sectors. Most recently, you testified to members of Congress to advocate for legislation that would establish a truth in healing commission to investigate Indian boarding schools here in the U.S. And so that leads me to my question is, why is Indigenous data sovereignty so important to your nation right now and certainly to the people we have in the audience today?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
So my first encounter with our children’s data in the education systems, I was on a Johnson-O’Malley Title VI parent committee, and I was the council person at the time. And seeing the way that school systems are using data of our kids and not actually having those important conversations with the tribal nations, they forget those students are citizens of another nation, and they’re not taking time to have those important conversations about not just the programming and education within the schools, but also about how they’re using the data on those kids, how that data’s following them along in the school process, and even in communicating to the tribal nations. These are the IEP programs, the educational plans for kids that have special needs, and this is how we could come in and supplement those. But we’re not getting that information on the backside, well they’re not coming back to us.
They still are treating those students as all the other students without recognizing that they have specific political status that gives them special consideration under the law. And that also applies to our university students who are now facing challenges under efforts to get rid of DEI programs. So DEI and Indian education is now suffering because it’s getting lumped into the DEI political bucket. So what my tribe has done, and I would be willing to share this with any of you or any of your tribes, we hired our lawyers to explain exactly why, in a white paper, why Indian education programs in the university setting is not DEI, why equal protection does not apply to Indian students, federally recognized students that are natives. So we have been sharing that with our institutional partners at universities and elsewhere. So when those systems come under flack, how come our kid can’t wear eagle feather to graduation?
How come we’re getting rid of Indian education or language support programs in university settings or even in school systems, if we wanna teach Shawnee language in a Daycare or Head Start. We wanna protect those type of initiatives. And so that helps give us some protection to add to the quality of our kids’ education in those systems. So I think that’s part of my concern. There’s larger intellectual property rights concerns about who owns the data. When they collect it on those kids, it’s not just their parents are worried about what happens with their data, so are their nations. We are worried about what happens with that data.
April Kateri Chavez:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, and thank you for providing the perspective of a parent as well, in addition to being the leader of your nation. So you kind of alluded to, and we’d be interested to see that white paper, of course, because it’s not just enough for natives to be having this conversation. We already know what’s at stake, right? But it’s also the education piece in various forms. And in this case, I think the white paper is gonna be really effective. So this is kind of a similar question. I’m wondering, so what are some other mechanisms that tribes can use to encourage educational agencies and organizations into supporting Indigenous data sovereignty for tribal governance, access and visibility? Any other examples or recommendations?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
Well, I’ll touch back on that white paper. We seek to have that published in a law journal so that it reach a broader audience, so that the lawyers that work in Indian law across the country can help disseminate that message that we are exempt from equal protection clauses. So we were getting that information out to universities, even now as I’m speaking. So could you repeat your question again specifically?
April Kateri Chavez:
Yes, of course. So what mechanisms can tribe use to encourage educational agencies or organizations to support Indigenous data governance for tribal governance, access, and visibility?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
I think a lot of it lies on tribal nations where we have to see what content we have that we can help with educational systems, our cultural center. Prior to COVID, we were sending out educational units to school teachers where we’d set up these boxes, these educational toolkits on specific aspects of Shawnee people and Shawnee culture history. And so we would provide these little lessons in a box that they could add to their history curriculum or world culture, whatever the classes are exploring. I do also think that it’s incumbent on us within our educational department to start looking at our kids earlier, start looking at middle school era, I mean, in their middle school years, and start talking to those kids about pathways in education, that it’s not always academic settings. Sometimes, I have been encouraging for a long time for young men and young women to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ’cause they’re making $82 an hour.
But that’s another kind of education that we have to also tell our kids. “This is a good path for you.” And really, at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is build up community. And so for us at tribal nations, we have to look inward and also ask ourselves about our communications and media mechanisms. Are we getting this education message out to our citizens, and are we doing our kids any justice? If we only talk about them going to college, we also have to talk about other systems of education where they can have rich and fulfilling lives and not have to move away from their communities.
April Kateri Chavez:
Absolutely, thank you. And I really appreciate kind of the strategic planning that you’ve brought to mind in terms of as tribes, what we need to do is also, we’re not only our best data experts, but we can also be our best communication strategists. I really like the idea of a lessons in the box. And so I think that’s gonna require all of our tribal entity, departments to kind of think strategically about what, as a tribe, what are we putting out there, not only for the sake of the non-tribal view, but also what we’re sharing out there for our communities. So I really appreciate that. It’s something I hadn’t thought of before. So Chief Barnes, I have a little bit of a confession. I don’t know, I’m sure maybe I’m like other folks in here where I oftentimes get trapped in the Google or Google Scholar wormholes. I fall in love with the poetry of native leaders and scholars. And so I stumbled upon this quote, and I’m hoping you can tell me if it sounds familiar to you.
The quote is, “Until we attempt to communicate with each other what it is that we’re trying to protect and discover, neither side will have the fullness of knowledge, and that is what we really want.” Does that sound familiar to you at all?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
Yeah, that came out of a conversation I had with the man, Judge Gregory Bigler. He’s was a Muskogee Creek Nation justice. He got me interested in making sure we were represented in international arenas. We talked about our people and human rights and what true sovereignty is. But when we’re having these conversations about these big issues, if we can’t distill them down, we can’t have these conversations in our own houses, in our own families, in our own communities, then how can we have those big discussions with people in DC or in state capital or in school systems that don’t even understand what Indian community’s like? So we have to first be able to articulate the conversation to our own selves and to our own families and our communities before we can take these issues on the road and go to state capitols, universities, et cetera. So I hope that gives a little more clarity and a more plain language to that thought.
April Kateri Chavez:
Yeah, absolutely. And I read it, again, I was in one of those wormhole when I found it. It was a 2013 blog post. I was reading some articles around NAGPRA, which is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. And I just fell in love with it, and it just happened to be written by yourself, so thank you for that. And it makes me think, you know, the line “fullness of knowledge” really stuck with me, and I think it offers up the possibilities of those processes never really being complete and they’re ongoing. And so that brings me to my next question. If you could please share an example of effective consultation and what makes it so impactful, given your breadth and depth of experience?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
When I was first came to tribal council, myself and Roy Baldridge, he’s now our second chief, he and I were just council people at the time, and we asked a lot of questions, a lot of questions about why the tribe wasn’t doing or was doing things. And our tribal leader at the time sent me and Roy on the road to do consultations with federal agencies, forest service, park service, universities, et cetera. And it was out of those conversations, well ironically, and this is not true across the United States, but in eastern United States, mostly region nine, which is Ohio, Indiana, it’s everything above the Ohio River going as far as into Missouri. Those Forest Service had a lot of native people employed in them as tribal liaisons and in other positions, including archeologists. So we had a really good conversation.
And while their agency leadership was hesitant to use some of the international human rights language that we would like people to aspire to use, which is “free, prior, and informed consent,” we found region nine of the forest service to be very much have that idea in anything that they did that would impact our historic lands or impact the interpretation or would involve native people, the native communities or our tribal nations. They always made sure the conversation first happened with us, not about us, not to us, but they made sure we was in the room at the very beginning of those conversations so that those projects didn’t get put off on the wrong foot. And we’ve seen that in other regions. Particularly in the west, sometimes in region eight, which is in southeastern United States for the Forest Service. So having those free, prior, and informed consent attitudes and being willing to be a champion of that language.
We have friends with the National Park Service who are now adopting this language, specific language, that actually uses the language of the United Nation’s declaration on the rights of Indigenous people. And likewise, it’s also in the organization of American States, their declaration of rights of Indigenous people where it specifically said, free, prior, and informed consent. That should be the standard, that should be the goalpost. That’s what we should be working for in every consultation. Even when we fall short, we’re still getting better than what we have right now.
April Kateri Chavez:
Yeah, great, agreed. Thank you, thank you so much. And in our breakout rooms, I was joined with a few folks where what’s happening now, fortunately, is people are reaching out to tribes or tribal education departments and saying, “We have these opportunities of consultation.” And I’m just wondering, for the purposes of the conversation we had in the breakout rooms, do you have any other elements of consultation when it comes to some of these exchanges or consultations related to education that you would wanna elevate for folks?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
My advice would be to have the conversations as soon as possible. Best time to plant a tree is yesterday. So whenever we start these things, start ’em immediately, and don’t wait to have the consultations or the conversations, because a lot of times, we’ll get communications turned off, and they’ll give us two weeks window. Like that’s not enough time for us to get the personnel together to even understand whatever the consultation is about. But the relationships or whatever, it’s not the consultation that’s most important. It’s the relationship that generates free, prior, and informed consent. So building those relationships up with the tribal nation is what I think is important. And we see that bearing fruit in places like, in Ohio, tribes came together to get world heritage status for a set of pre-contact earthworks. We’re seeing that in university settings where we’re able to offer specific programs for our citizens that actually benefit our communities.
And not only that, as the tribal nations are building more and more robust structures within ourselves, now, we’re going beyond these two and three-year grant windows offered by ANA or other agencies, and we’re starting our planning looking at 10, 20 years, 50 year time spans, so that we can promise funding for language and those big problems: education, scholarships, creating foundations to make sure that our citizens are supported in their educational endeavors.
April Kateri Chavez:
As soon as possible, got it. Yeah, thank you, yes. And I think the basis of that consultation, like you said, is those partnerships and finding new, making sure that those are at the center of this work. Thank you, Chief Barnes. In session one, our panelists all touched on how native student data is not just numbers, right? Native students’ data is our stories, our ancestors, it’s living, it’s relationships. To your point, oh, did he jump off? He might have lost connection. Brianna, do you still see him?
Brianna:
It looks like he disconnected, yeah. Maybe he lost connection.
Daphne Littlebear:
Maybe he lost connection. But I do see a question in the chat that I can add some insight to, Donna. In Colorado, we have two tribes located here. However, our population is over 200K with multiple other tribal nations representation. Our governor and state organizations will only work with the two tribal nations to support our students. What do you suggest? I think this is a urban native question, urban native student question. And so I think that’s really tough in terms of like government to government and looking to other tribes. I don’t know if there’s urban native organizations within your community. I think having those collaborative conversations with organizations and experts that have a good pulse on urban native communities and brainstorming with them as thought partners in thinking, what does this look like in terms of having more collaboration for our native, our urban native populations in the inner cities?
Because that is a tough position to be in. Yeah, you know, I think at this point, it’s really difficult to provide like some really like tangible solutions, because we’re all faced with these different challenges. But I would encourage you to look at other urban native organizations. Maybe if they’re not in Colorado, look to your partner states. Oh, I’m turning different colors now. Look to your partner states and even like look to different areas. There is a urban Indian house organization in Washington State, and I know it’s public health, but they have some really good mechanisms for collaborating with tribal governments to support urban native populations. And so there might be solutions. If it’s not in our field, other fields or other states. And then you can most definitely reach out to us as well. And we’re happy to be a connector of organizations for folks here.
April Kateri Chavez:
Thank you, Daphne, and I appreciate you plugging the Urban Indian Health Institute. That is also located on the Padlet. And I just wanted to reiterate that when it comes to these conversations in the K-12 space specifically, while it feels new, this definitely, this data conversation is a movement, and it’s occurring in so many different disciplines and sectors that we can really draw from, and that’s kind of why there’s so many extensive and wonderful resources on the Padlet. So definitely check those out.
Daphne Littlebear:
I see another question in the queue that I can address as well, Henry. How would you advise school district leaders who have more than one tribe that they should consult with? So I’ve actually been on the district side and worked in the inner city where they did have multiple tribes that they had to consult with. Actually, two school districts that I worked with. And I also worked at the state prior to my position here with NIEA. You have to consult with all tribes, and one of the unique ways that I’ve seen it happen, it’s usually a one day or a two, like one to two day set aside in your calendar, and it’s really putting that calendar hold for the district leadership and sending out invitations as quickly as possible to all of the tribal entities to gather in that one day.
So that way, you’re presenting the data in kind of one presentation, and you’re having dialogue among different tribes, and then doing some follow up meetings to that one day convening if the tribes require more time and more meaningful consultation. Some tribes may not want to do that or may not have the capacity, but you’re giving the offer and that you’re providing the space and the offer for that.
April Kateri Chavez:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Daphne. And I see that we have some questions from Jackie. Again, we realize the connectivity on the res is always a challenge, and so I’m wondering, since we didn’t have the opportunity to pose some questions to our first panelists, Waquin and Jackie, I’m wondering if we can bring them back on the screen. And folks, if you had any questions, it’d be great to just really dig our teeth into that and post some questions to them directly.
Jackie White:
This Zoom that just happened proved something, Waquin, that is really important to me in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has a law that’s been passed that students will be able to wear regalia at graduation. It’s law in Oklahoma. I had over 3,700 students that I know for sure wore regalia, and I have amazing documentation. Well, as I heard your leadership talk, I’m thinking I work so much with the program managers at the tribes because tribal leaders have so many other things going on. And I just text my staff, “We’re going to the Shawnee Nation. We gotta communicate.” But there is a law that governs that. And I’ll tell you, I’ve had two schools or two parents call that are concerned about how their superintendent handled it. Well, they’re calling me. Then we go out and work with schools. So as I listen, I know where my gaps are and what we need to do.
And Daphne, you’re right, with two or more, it’s very difficult in Oklahoma because of having so many tribes. But I encourage them to, if you have to break it down to two, do some face-to-face and then set up Zoom for those who can’t be there, because in Oklahoma, I travel two to four hours anywhere to get to a school. I mean, we’re so spread out. But you can set up consultation and collaboration with a face-to-face and do Zoom. I mean, use every avenue you have to communicate. That’s very common here, very common in Oklahoma because we are so diverse. But I’m looking, and I think I clarified on the data, it is a problem if students check Hispanic yes or no, because it’ll go to a box. And a lot of students don’t understand the dropdown. You can put Native American, but systems don’t pull it that way. Oklahoma had 11 student management systems. Now we have four ’cause we can work with four.
And we’re teaching them about the dropdown. If I can show you my last report, it’s horrible. I can’t, it’s horrible. But now with the new way, I can break it down, and it’s going to say the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, it’s going to say specifically what their federal titles are. And I’m hoping, but I want everyone to know we do have a law in Oklahoma. Regalia can be worn at graduation, even if it is an eighth grade graduation. So that’s where I need to get out. I meet with the five tribes, and I’ve reached out to several of the small tribe leaders to see if we can have a quarterly meeting with all the small tribes in Oklahoma. That would be a huge group. I do have question. Jackie, I had difficulties for those schools who do not allow bead work on caps or on gowns. Kim, I will tell you that if I know the issue ahead of time, I have dealt with it and they will wear it. And they have honored that.
Oklahoma has 64 brand new superintendents who were principals and counselors, and they are uneducated. I will tell you that in Oklahoma, now, it is mandatory that all new superintendents go through training. And guess who’s gonna be a part of their training this year? The Office of Indian Education. So we asked to be a part of that. And this is a good example. I do have two schools that I was made aware of after graduation, and it was given through third party. And I’ve asked for the parent to notify me personally. I don’t do “you said, I said, we said.” I wanna know from the family what happened and do my research. But in Oklahoma, I’m not sure who’s in charge of that bill. I get the call, so. I say this respectfully, Kim, to anyone on here that’s a administrator, I don’t care if you don’t like it. It’s law. It’s what’s right.
And we’ve worked hard to get that law passed. And I ask all schools to monitor it, to make sure it is regalia. And we do not get off of, it’s not a show, it’s not a costume, and that’s an education process that we’re doing here in Oklahoma. But just listening to him on things I need to do more of, and I don’t take it as a criticism. I take it as a… I don’t know what word do I want. It gives me an idea of how I can do it differently with smaller tribes. When I’m listening to him, I’m going, “Oh no, we have a law,” but I didn’t wanna put it on chat, ’cause you don’t do that. You go and work with the groups. So yes, I have two difficulties out of 541 schools. So I think I did well. If I only have two, and I think they’re eighth grade, so it wasn’t a high school. So that made me feel better. They’re eighth grade.
April Kateri Chavez:
Thank you so much, and I believe that Chief Ben Barnes is able to rejoin us. I just wanted to open it up and offer, if there’s any, if there’s one thing that you hope for the people in the audience to do as a result of our conversation, Chief Barnes, what would that be?
Chief Benjamin Barnes:
Invite more tribal leaders to talk to your kids in school. And I’m not saying this because I have things to say to them. I actually went, at the very beginning of my tenure as Chief, we had a newly created communications department, and I went back to my hometown, and I spoke to a bunch of seventh graders. They invited us, and I took the opportunity to do it. And that seventh grader asked me something that was a gift. He says, “What’s the job of a chief?” And I had never had anybody put it so simply to me. And so what he gave me in that minute was a guidepost for the rest of the whole time I’ve been doing this. And truly, what that gift was is it set a beacon on what my job really is and that’s to undo the effects of our removal. So everything it seems like I will touch seems to be a human rights issue.
Everything that I touch seems to be trying to undo the effects of our removal from our homelands and reacquire our community through strength, health, education, sustainability, as well as just profitability for our people. So going into our community, I think there’s, asking us, inviting tribal leaders to come and speak to those kids. The real gift is them talking to us, ’cause it’s just incredible the experiences you will get from talking to little kids.
April Kateri Chavez:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your closing remarks, and I want to thank Jackie and Waquin for your time today, and Daphne for supporting and moderating. So as we close, I wanna say in the opening, I shared some data gaps and barriers, and through the panels, we can see how this is a really build as you go type of endeavor that requires fierce commitment to Indigenous data sovereignty, educational sovereignty, the ability to celebrate our cultures and our languages as we are. And so again, we shared that we’ve always been data experts, and we are our own best experts. But moving forward, that’s really going to require fierce partnerships, a commitment to working together. And so I really appreciate your comments, Chief Barnes. And again, I thank you for all of our support and our note takers. I encourage you all to connect with all of our wonderful co-sponsors for today’s session. I’m going to hand it off to Tiffany to close this out.
Tiffany:
Thank you so much, April. Today concludes our session and our series. Just to let you all know, within the next month, we will be posting the slide deck, the recording of this session, some key learnings from the evaluation, and then some high level discussion themes. So please keep an eye out for that in the Padlet link that you received earlier. And just one more plug, we would really appreciate your participation in the brief evaluation survey. This is an anonymous survey, but it’s really important for us to hear from all of you in terms of the things that worked really well, things you’d like to see continue in our future series. And so again, we’d like to thank all of our partners for working with us to put together this wonderful series. And we’d like to, again, just really thank all of you for spending your afternoon with us today.