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Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How Kids with Disabilities Will Be Impacted by Medicaid, Education Department Cuts
This article was originally published in The 19th News. This story was originally reported by Barbara Rodriguez and Nadra Nittle of The 19th. Jolene Baxter's daughter, Marlee, has overcome immense challenges in her first eight years of life. Marlee, who was born with a heart defect, has undergone four open-heart surgeries — suffering a stroke after the third. The stroke affected Marlee's cognitive abilities — she's in the second grade, but she cannot read yet. A mainstream class with neurotypical students felt overwhelming, so Marlee mostly attends classes with kids who also have disabilities. Her care includes physical, occupational and speech therapies. For years, Baxter has relied on Medicaid to cover Marlee's medical expenses while advocating for her daughter's right to an equal education. Medicaid — which covers therapies, surgeries and medication for Marlee — and disability protections under the Department of Education have been a critical safety net for Baxter, a single mom in Oklahoma City. Now Baxter fears that proposed cuts to Medicaid and those already underway at the Department of Education, which President Donald Trump has effectively gutted, will have a disastrous impact on her daughter. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter As the Trump administration overhauls federal agencies with budget cuts, layoffs and inexperienced leadership, parents of children with complex medical needs and disabilities told The 19th they are navigating uncertainty over how the federal government plans to maintain key pillars of their kids' lives. Baxter, who fostered and, later, adopted Marlee, fought to give her life-saving medical treatment when the child was an infant. Since Marlee was both an abandoned child and is Kiowa, the officials overseeing her welfare weren't invested in getting her the care she needed to survive, Baxter believes. Cuts to Medicaid would be yet another obstacle for the Baxters to overcome. Just getting Marlee enrolled in local public schools that tried to turn her away was a battle, Baxter said. Now, the mom is gravely concerned that her daughter will be left behind due to the restructuring of the Department of Education. 'I'll do everything I can at home, but she'll just fall through all the cracks, and she won't get the education that she deserves,' Baxter said. In March, Trump signed an executive order to close the Department of Education. The Republican-controlled Congress is also considering massive funding cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health insurance to millions of low-income Americans and is a key safety net for Americans with disabilities. 'It is 50 plus years of work to get these protections for people with disabilities that we could potentially see — maybe not fully diminished — but very deeply eroded, in a very short period of time,' said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Department of Education's primary duty has been to ensure that all students have equal access to education, and it is equipped with an Office for Civil Rights to investigate schools accused of discrimination. In March, the Department of Education cut nearly half of its staff, with workers who enforce students' civil rights hit particularly hard. Advocates worry how this could potentially impact students with disabilities, and a lawsuit filed in March began to paint a picture: Newly closed regional offices, frozen investigations and new alleged politically-based cases. The Trump administration claims that the nation's most vulnerable will be spared from his plans for federal downsizing. The White House has tentative plans to assign oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Conservative groups are calling for the Trump administration to refer civil rights complaints to the Department of Justice, an agency that has had an exodus of staff departures since Trump returned to office and changed its mission. Nicole Jorwic, chief program officer at Caring Across Generations, a national caregiver advocacy organization, said the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights receives about 20,000 complaints annually. She worries about the impact of staffing cuts on handling these complaints on the families of children with disabilities. 'Some of those staff were the ones who were looking into those complaints,' she said. It's not just OCR complaints, she added. When she was a practicing special education attorney, Jorwic turned to reports and guidance issued by the agency. That helped local school districts, superintendents and special educators know how to implement different laws or changes. 'The lack of that federal agency to provide that clarity is also important, as well as something that we're really worried about,' she said. Parents and advocates are doubtful that students with disabilities won't be impacted. Before the Department of Education was created in 1979, schools often denied these children a right to education with impunity. Dissolving it, families fear, could see a return to the period when states and schools failed to prioritize special education. Baxter's daughter, Marlee, is guaranteed the right to free and appropriate schooling by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975, which is enforced by the Department of Education. This federal law mandates that children like Marlee attend classes suited to their cognitive and physical abilities and that they get the services needed, such as speech, physical and occupational therapy, to attend school . Ninety-five percent of students with disabilities attend public schools, a higher share than the 90 percent of students overall who do — and that's largely because of the services federal policy requires public schools to provide. Kim Crawley, a mother to a teenager with medically complex needs, has a 25-year career as a special education teacher. As part of her training, she learned about the history of education, including how five decades ago, schools were not obligated to accommodate students' special needs. The agency never took power away from the states, she said, but stepped in to ensure that they educated all students equitably. 'We learn about this for a reason because we don't want to repeat it,' Crawley said. 'We don't want to have to start over again. To think of losing everything we have gained through the Department of Education over these years is scaring not only parents but teachers. Teachers are scared because we don't know where this is going to end up for those kids. And that's why we go to work every day.' Critics of closing the department and redirecting disabled children's needs to other agencies say that it will create a bureaucratic nightmare for parents. Instead of one federal agency overseeing research on students with disabilities, state funding for special education or discrimination claims, multiple departments would be involved. Families might not know which agency to reach out to with questions and concerns. As it is, families are sometimes unaware of the services legally available to them — a reality that has cost them time and energy in the past and could be even more complicated in the future. Baxter, for one, pulled Marlee out of class for two years to homeschool her after the child's kindergarten teacher retired and subsequent teachers did not know how to educate her properly, she said. It was not Baxter's first choice to homeschool Marlee, an option unavailable to most working parents, but one she made after multiple public schools said they could not accommodate her child. 'Our special needs are full,' Baxter said they told her. 'We don't have room for her.' When an acquaintance told her that public schools could not lawfully refuse to enroll Marlee, Baxter finally got a local public school to admit her. But after her ordeal last year, she has no faith that the federal government will hold schools that discriminate against children with disabilities accountable if the education department is disbanded. 'We have enough stuff to worry about [with] making sure that she gets taken care of as far as medical care,' Baxter said of parents like herself. 'We don't need to worry about what we're going to do as far as their education.' For some families, the potential Medicaid cuts could both unravel a child's well-being and their family's finances. In Philadelphia, Meghann Luczkowski has three kids with varying levels of specialized health care needs, including a 10-year-old son who spent his first year of life in a hospital intensive care unit. 'His ability to grow and thrive and be part of our family and part of this community is dependent upon significant health care support at home,' said the former special education teacher, who now works in public health. Luczkowski said her husband has robust health insurance for the family, but it does not cover a lot of her son's home-based medical needs — a reality for many families whose children are on Medicaid for care related to a disability. Private insurance never paid for his ventilator to breathe, or home health nurses that allow family caregivers to sleep at night. 'It doesn't pay for the nurse to go to school with him, to make sure that he can be at school, accessing his education with his peers,' she said. 'That's all been provided through Medicaid.' In the first months of his second term, Trump has mostly indicated support for Medicaid when asked about his budgetary plans for other popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. But the president has also said he supports cutting fraud and waste — a description that health policy experts warn could be used to defend more expansive cuts. Congress is considering hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts, a dollar figure that goes way beyond known cases of fraud. Among the considerations are work requirements and a cap on Medicaid enrollee spending. Such restrictions could have ripple effects on state education budgets and subsequent reductions in services for students with disabilities. Medicaid is one of the largest providers of funds to public school districts. It is the responsibility of school districts and states to find funding if Medicaid reimbursements are insufficient. Trump has not addressed general concerns about how such spending cuts could impact disabled children and adults. 'We know that before 1975 and the passage of IDEA, 50 percent of kids with disabilities were not educated at all. So we know that this is a crucial piece of legislation, and that mandate to find funding for these is really important,' said Linscott, who previously worked as a special education teacher in New York City. 'But we also recognize that school districts and state budgets are so limited, which is why we want Medicaid to be able to provide as robust funding and reimbursement as they possibly can for students and for these services.' Jorwic said federal funding for special education services is crucial, and local governments cannot make up for the lost funds. The federal government currently spends more than $15 billion annually on special education services, and Medicaid funding accounts for about $7.5 billion annually in school-based services. Jorwic said Medicaid cuts could also translate into higher taxes on a local or state level. This week, the Democratic Kansas governor said she had asked the state's congressional lawmakers not to cut Medicaid in large part because of the ramifications on services. 'There's no state, even the wealthiest states, that could afford cuts to those programs, either when it comes to education or when it comes to providing home and community-based services,' Jorwic said. Rachael Brown is the mom of a medically complex second grader in Washington, D.C., who receives special education services and multiple therapies at his public school. Brown's son, who has autism and cerebral palsy, has a rare vascular anomaly in his brain that has required multiple surgeries. He receives extensive support from Medicaid and IDEA, which are crucial for his care and education. Brown is concerned about how cuts to Medicaid would impact her son's care and her family's personal finances. She noted that pediatric hospitals are heavily reliant on Medicaid. If the rate of that reimbursement is cut, those hospitals' operational costs would be on the line — impacting everything from how many doctors and other health care providers are hired to what therapies are covered for her son. 'There's just a ripple effect for our whole community,' she said, adding: 'We are relatively privileged. There's a lot of families who aren't. It would be much worse for families for whom Medicaid is their only insurance.' Brown said she lives in fear and worry about what happens next, and it's exhausting. While she and other advocates have some experience fighting for health care rights given previous political battles, 'this time, everything feels a little more cruel.' On Wednesday, Luczkowski planned to travel to D.C. — taking a day off from work and rearranging child care needs — to advocate for Medicaid as part of a multi-organization advocacy day. She said parents of kids with medically complex needs and disabilities often aren't able to get out and advocate as much as they would like to, in part because of the needs of their families. 'Despite the fact that it's an incredible hardship on my family for me to be in D.C. talking to legislators and being at rallies on the Capitol steps, that's what me and a great number of families are doing — because our kids' lives depend on it,' she said. 'We're hopeful that our voices will be valued, and our children will be valued.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘She'll fall through the cracks': Parents of kids with disabilities brace for new reality
Jolene Baxter's daughter, Marlee, has overcome immense challenges in her first eight years of life. Marlee, who was born with a heart defect, has undergone four open-heart surgeries — suffering a stroke after the third. The stroke affected Marlee's cognitive abilities — she's in the second grade, but she cannot read yet. A mainstream class with neurotypical students felt overwhelming, so Marlee mostly attends classes with kids who also have disabilities. Her care includes physical, occupational and speech therapies. For years, Baxter has relied on Medicaid to cover Marlee's medical expenses while advocating for her daughter's right to an equal education. Medicaid — which covers therapies, surgeries and medication for Marlee — and disability protections under the Department of Education have been a critical safety net for Baxter, a single mom in Oklahoma City. Now Baxter fears that proposed cuts to Medicaid and those already underway at the Department of Education, which President Donald Trump has effectively gutted, will have a disastrous impact on her daughter. As the Trump administration overhauls federal agencies with budget cuts, layoffs and inexperienced leadership, parents of children with complex medical needs and disabilities told The 19th they are navigating uncertainty over how the federal government plans to maintain key pillars of their kids' lives. Baxter, who fostered and, later, adopted Marlee, fought to give her life-saving medical treatment when the child was an infant. Since Marlee was both an abandoned child and is Kiowa, the officials overseeing her welfare weren't invested in getting her the care she needed to survive, Baxter believes. Cuts to Medicaid would be yet another obstacle for the Baxters to overcome. Just getting Marlee enrolled in local public schools that tried to turn her away was a battle, Baxter said. Now, the mom is gravely concerned that her daughter will be left behind due to the restructuring of the Department of Education. 'I'll do everything I can at home, but she'll just fall through all the cracks, and she won't get the education that she deserves,' Baxter said. In March, Trump signed an executive order to close the Department of Education. The Republican-controlled Congress is also considering massive funding cuts to Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health insurance to millions of low-income Americans and is a key safety net for Americans with disabilities. 'It is 50 plus years of work to get these protections for people with disabilities that we could potentially see — maybe not fully diminished — but very deeply eroded, in a very short period of time,' said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Department of Education's primary duty has been to ensure that all students have equal access to education, and it is equipped with an Office for Civil Rights to investigate schools accused of discrimination. In March, the Department of Education cut nearly half of its staff, with workers who enforce students' civil rights hit particularly hard. Advocates worry how this could potentially impact students with disabilities, and a lawsuit filed in March began to paint a picture: Newly closed regional offices, frozen investigations and new alleged politically-based cases. The Trump administration claims that the nation's most vulnerable will be spared from his plans for federal downsizing. The White House has tentative plans to assign oversight of special education to the Department of Health and Human Services. Conservative groups are calling for the Trump administration to refer civil rights complaints to the Department of Justice, an agency that has had an exodus of staff departures since Trump returned to office and changed its mission. Nicole Jorwic, chief program officer at Caring Across Generations, a national caregiver advocacy organization, said the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights receives about 20,000 complaints annually. She worries about the impact of staffing cuts on handling these complaints on the families of children with disabilities. 'Some of those staff were the ones who were looking into those complaints,' she said. It's not just OCR complaints, she added. When she was a practicing special education attorney, Jorwic turned to reports and guidance issued by the agency. That helped local school districts, superintendents and special educators know how to implement different laws or changes. 'The lack of that federal agency to provide that clarity is also important, as well as something that we're really worried about,' she said. Parents and advocates are doubtful that students with disabilities won't be impacted. Before the Department of Education was created in 1979, schools often denied these children a right to education with impunity. Dissolving it, families fear, could see a return to the period when states and schools failed to prioritize special education. Baxter's daughter, Marlee, is guaranteed the right to free and appropriate schooling by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975, which is enforced by the Department of Education. This federal law mandates that children like Marlee attend classes suited to their cognitive and physical abilities and that they get the services needed, such as speech, physical and occupational therapy, to attend school . Ninety-five percent of students with disabilities attend public schools, a higher share than the 90 percent of students overall who do — and that's largely because of the services federal policy requires public schools to provide. Kim Crawley, a mother to a teenager with medically complex needs, has a 25-year career as a special education teacher. As part of her training, she learned about the history of education, including how five decades ago, schools were not obligated to accommodate students' special needs. The agency never took power away from the states, she said, but stepped in to ensure that they educated all students equitably. 'We learn about this for a reason because we don't want to repeat it,' Crawley said. 'We don't want to have to start over again. To think of losing everything we have gained through the Department of Education over these years is scaring not only parents but teachers. Teachers are scared because we don't know where this is going to end up for those kids. And that's why we go to work every day.' Critics of closing the department and redirecting disabled children's needs to other agencies say that it will create a bureaucratic nightmare for parents. Instead of one federal agency overseeing research on students with disabilities, state funding for special education or discrimination claims, multiple departments would be involved. Families might not know which agency to reach out to with questions and concerns. As it is, families are sometimes unaware of the services legally available to them — a reality that has cost them time and energy in the past and could be even more complicated in the future. Baxter, for one, pulled Marlee out of class for two years to homeschool her after the child's kindergarten teacher retired and subsequent teachers did not know how to educate her properly, she said. It was not Baxter's first choice to homeschool Marlee, an option unavailable to most working parents, but one she made after multiple public schools said they could not accommodate her child. 'Our special needs are full,' Baxter said they told her. 'We don't have room for her.' When an acquaintance told her that public schools could not lawfully refuse to enroll Marlee, Baxter finally got a local public school to admit her. But after her ordeal last year, she has no faith that the federal government will hold schools that discriminate against children with disabilities accountable if the education department is disbanded. 'We have enough stuff to worry about [with] making sure that she gets taken care of as far as medical care,' Baxter said of parents like herself. 'We don't need to worry about what we're going to do as far as their education.' For some families, the potential Medicaid cuts could both unravel a child's well-being and their family's finances. In Philadelphia, Meghann Luczkowski has three kids with varying levels of specialized health care needs, including a 10-year-old son who spent his first year of life in a hospital intensive care unit. 'His ability to grow and thrive and be part of our family and part of this community is dependent upon significant health care support at home,' said the former special education teacher, who now works in public health. Luczkowski said her husband has robust health insurance for the family, but it does not cover a lot of her son's home-based medical needs — a reality for many families whose children are on Medicaid for care related to a disability. Private insurance never paid for his ventilator to breathe, or home health nurses that allow family caregivers to sleep at night. 'It doesn't pay for the nurse to go to school with him, to make sure that he can be at school, accessing his education with his peers,' she said. 'That's all been provided through Medicaid.' In the first months of his second term, Trump has mostly indicated support for Medicaid when asked about his budgetary plans for other popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. But the president has also said he supports cutting fraud and waste — a description that health policy experts warn could be used to defend more expansive cuts. Congress is considering hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts, a dollar figure that goes way beyond known cases of fraud. Among the considerations are work requirements and a cap on Medicaid enrollee spending. Such restrictions could have ripple effects on state education budgets and subsequent reductions in services for students with disabilities. Medicaid is one of the largest providers of funds to public school districts. It is the responsibility of school districts and states to find funding if Medicaid reimbursements are insufficient. Trump has not addressed general concerns about how such spending cuts could impact disabled children and adults. 'We know that before 1975 and the passage of IDEA, 50 percent of kids with disabilities were not educated at all. So we know that this is a crucial piece of legislation, and that mandate to find funding for these is really important,' said Linscott, who previously worked as a special education teacher in New York City. 'But we also recognize that school districts and state budgets are so limited, which is why we want Medicaid to be able to provide as robust funding and reimbursement as they possibly can for students and for these services.' Jorwic said federal funding for special education services is crucial, and local governments cannot make up for the lost funds. The federal government currently spends more than $15 billion annually on special education services, and Medicaid funding accounts for about $7.5 billion annually in school-based services. Jorwic said Medicaid cuts could also translate into higher taxes on a local or state level. This week, the Democratic Kansas governor said she had asked the state's congressional lawmakers not to cut Medicaid in large part because of the ramifications on services. 'There's no state, even the wealthiest states, that could afford cuts to those programs, either when it comes to education or when it comes to providing home and community-based services,' Jorwic said. Rachael Brown is the mom of a medically complex second grader in Washington, D.C., who receives special education services and multiple therapies at his public school. Brown's son, who has autism and cerebral palsy, has a rare vascular anomaly in his brain that has required multiple surgeries. He receives extensive support from Medicaid and IDEA, which are crucial for his care and education. Brown is concerned about how cuts to Medicaid would impact her son's care and her family's personal finances. She noted that pediatric hospitals are heavily reliant on Medicaid. If the rate of that reimbursement is cut, those hospitals' operational costs would be on the line — impacting everything from how many doctors and other health care providers are hired to what therapies are covered for her son. 'There's just a ripple effect for our whole community,' she said, adding: 'We are relatively privileged. There's a lot of families who aren't. It would be much worse for families for whom Medicaid is their only insurance.' Brown said she lives in fear and worry about what happens next, and it's exhausting. While she and other advocates have some experience fighting for health care rights given previous political battles, 'this time, everything feels a little more cruel.' On Wednesday, Luczkowski planned to travel to D.C. — taking a day off from work and rearranging child care needs — to advocate for Medicaid as part of a multi-organization advocacy day. She said parents of kids with medically complex needs and disabilities often aren't able to get out and advocate as much as they would like to, in part because of the needs of their families. 'Despite the fact that it's an incredible hardship on my family for me to be in D.C. talking to legislators and being at rallies on the Capitol steps, that's what me and a great number of families are doing — because our kids' lives depend on it,' she said. 'We're hopeful that our voices will be valued, and our children will be valued.' The post 'She'll fall through the cracks': Parents of kids with disabilities brace for new reality appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Military Matters: The History of Fort Sill
FORT SILL (KFDX/KJTL) — If you look at Fort Sill today, you'll see a modern military installation training the future of American artillery. But buildings at the fort's center remind us of its storied past through the mid-1800s. The old section of the fort is now a historic landmark under the watch of curator Noelle Scarfone. 'Our first mission as a fort was to keep the peace in the area, with the Kiowa and Comanche, with settlers passing through,' Scarfone said. 'And then our mission switched to keeping outsiders out of the reservation area.' From its establishment in the 1860s, Fort Sill was active through the American Civil War, the Indian Wars, and beyond. Many forts in the American West fell into disrepair over time, but not Fort Sill. 'Because we have the field artillery school that was here, we have been in continual use since our establishment. So that makes us unique,' Scarfone said. As the fort remained active, it maintained its old buildings. As the fort's mission changed over time, the fort's buildings also adapted. 'In fact, the visitors center was the office for the Apache prisoners of war. And then in addition to that, they served as storehouses and different things,' Scarfone said. 'So basically, they were just repurposed.' From I-44, which bisects the fort, the only visible part of the old quadrangle is the stables. Further up the hill, however, is the rest of the idyllic quadrangle with a flagpole at the center. 'We come back over here to the housing, all along the east side and north side of the Old Post quadrangle is housing. It was officers' housing back then, and it still is today,' Scarfone said. Throughout much of the fort's history, it has been home to American soldiers from all walks of life. The barracks of Buffalo soldiers from the 9th and 10th cavalry are still preserved. Many Native American soldiers served as well, like I-See-O of the Kiowa tribe. The fort continues to house a veritable melting pot of soldiers to this day. 'We get soldiers here from all over the country, from all ethnicities, religious backgrounds, and they all come together for one purpose, which is to serve our country,' Scarfone said. As time passes, Fort Sill will continue to be a window into America's past and future. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Language lives on for tribes in Oklahoma despite determined erasure attempts
Sarah Liese (Twilla)KOSUMore than a century after U.S. Indian boarding schools attempted to erase Indigenous cultures and languages, tribal nations in Oklahoma are working to reclaim and teach their languages to the youth. Despite research showing how language learning can improve mental health outcomes, world language credits are not required for graduation following recent state a public school district in Lawton, a city of about 90,000 residents situated on the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation, high school students have the option to enroll in three Native American language courses relevant to the nearby tribes: Comanche I, Comanche II and Kiowa plains and rolling hills make up most of the land in Lawton, located in southwest Oklahoma, and the history of that land is complicated. A Comanche County District judge recently ruled that the reservation, also referred to as the KCA, was disestablished in 2021; however, all the tribes affiliated with the KCA recognize the reservation as still intact due to a violation of a key treaty and the federal government's broken languages, much like the area's jurisdiction, carry a story of desecration and a community fight to reclaim what was once rightfully a Comanche language course at the Lawton Public Schools' Life Ready Center, more than a half a dozen Lawton high school students sit in a circle, repeating after their teacher, Martie Woothtakewahbitty."Soobesʉ Nʉmʉnʉʉ sʉmʉoyetʉ̠ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉʔeetʉ,' she said. 'Ʉkitsi nʉnʉ tʉasʉ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉ̠hutuʔ tʉasʉ Nʉmʉ niwʉnʉ̠hutuʔinʉ."Woothtakewahbitty asks her students for an English translation, and they reply, 'We spoke Comanche. We speak Comanche now, and we will speak Comanche in the future.'The meaning of those sentences, once shared by Carney Saupitty Senior, held particularly more weight last September, after Woothtakewahbitty taught the students about federal Indian boarding schools and their targeted efforts to stamp out Comanche and other Native American languages. It was a couple days before the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools or Orange Shirt Day.'The effects that it's had on the language so far and and how it was once taken, and now that it's here, that's important for these kids to know that this is rare to have a language, especially an endangered Indigenous language, inside of a public school,' Woothtakewahbitty said during her class. 'When you speak a different language, you see the world from a different perspective.'Down the hall in the next period, about a dozen other high school students recited phrases in Kiowa, such as 'à óñ:táñ:dáu' or 'I am happy.' Inside the classroom, brightly-colored pictures of Kiowa words with correlating images were displayed, similar to the Comanche language is among a group of tribal citizens recovering the Comanche language because she knows firsthand how going deeper into its epistemology transformed her life and sense of self-image.'So when I started learning the breakdown [of the language] for myself, I started learning why I am the way I am, why I do things the way I do, why I talk the way I do, even in English,' she said. 'That would be the biggest surprise for me: how much I learned about my own identity.' Assimilation efforts designed to trample Native American languages, identities Indigenous children living in the Lawton Public Schools district are experiencing a stark contrast to what their relatives lived through more than a century Comanche Nation — or Nʉmʉnʉʉ, which means 'The People' in Comanche — was once made up of a larger group that included the Shoshone. But following the separation of the two camps, the Comanche headed west, migrating across the plains in what is now known as New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, among other states. They eventually settled in southwest Oklahoma, establishing their tribal headquarters in members of the Kiowa Tribe specifically, they were displaced multiple times, both by other tribes and later by the federal government. Following forced removal and allotment, Kiowa children and young adults were subjected to assimilation at Indian boarding schools, as well as Comanche young folks, endangering the language, culture and, consequently, well-being of tribal history has left scars in Oklahoma and across the United States in the lives of Indigenous said her family was reluctant to teach the Comanche language because of what occurred at those schools.'A lot of folks that went through boarding school, like my great grandparents, who were abused in a boarding school, didn't want to pass that on because of that fear,' she said. A 2015 research study published in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling examined interviews from 11 Native American elders of various tribes located across Turtle Island. Three themes emerged: traumatic historical events, the impact of boarding schools and internalization of of the participants mentioned boarding schools in their elder described their experience at a federal Indian boarding school as humiliating, saying, 'I remember they would have us stand on a little box, and we had this sign on us that they put around our neck. I guess it said 'I'm a dumb Indian, because I can't speak English.''Survivors' experiences varied at roughly 80 federal boarding schools in Oklahoma listed by the DOI. But stories like this one — and studies citing poor physical and mental health impacts — were cataloged in the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report led by the Department of the these findings show that Indian boarding schools caused 'an intergenerational pattern of cultural and familial disruption' and heightened stressors that can still be felt to this day, evident in epigenetic inheritance – the genetic markers left in people's DNA of ancestors' trauma. A lasting result is that Indigenous children face high rates of mental health disparities. Data from the CDC shows one in four American Indian and Alaskan Native high school students seriously considered suicide in 2023, and 45 percent felt sad or Oklahoma, those numbers are comparable. About 43 percent of Native American high school students surveyed reported they felt depressed for two or more weeks, impacting their usual activities, according to a 2020 Oklahoma State Department of Health research points to potential reasons why those numbers are so high. A 2022 synthesized research review highlighted the distrust and cultural incompetence Indigenous people may feel toward healthcare professionals stemming from a turbulent history, as well as shame and stigma when receiving help. Additional problems include access to care, such as long waitlists, no access to a computer for telehealth services or transportation to physical services and geographical isolation from mental health services for those in rural a Department of the Interior report, one recommendation for remedying the harmful and traumatic effects of boarding schools was to revitalize Indigenous languages, pointing to positive mental health and socioeconomic outcomes for current and future intergenerational trauma through language learningJill Fish is a psychology professor at Macalester College in Minnesota and a descendant of the Tuscarora Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in New York. Her research builds on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model — which explains how different environmental 'layers' influence a child's behavior and development — by centering Indigenous peoples' present experiences and propping up history and culture's important role in their lives today. Fish said that includes settler colonialism, racism and the assimilation agenda.'So when we think about these different environments like schools and health care systems and sports and our friends… the Indigenous model asked people to question to what extent is an Indigenous person's history or culture present in these other environments,' Fish said in a Zoom interview. 'And also, how do these broader institutions need to change to be more congruent with our cultures and histories, and what dismantling do they need to do?'Fish explained Indigenous people may have to survive by 'walking in two worlds,' where they have to adopt a bicultural identity and shed layers of their authenticity to fit in, which decreases self-confidence. She said that shouldn't have to be the case, and in some Oklahoma public schools, it's Stanley is Lawton Public Schools' Indian Education Director, who has long advocated for Native American culture to become an integral part of her students' experience. She's been a driving force in the district's language offerings and has promoted Native American clubs and events, such as handgame and stickball, expanding the district's classes to be more inclusive of Indigenous students.'We're trying to make every student feel the impact of their culture, be comfortable and be able to succeed,' Stanley said in an interview. 'I think when you give that student that cultural awareness and self-confidence, they're going to reach their goals. They're going to set their goals higher.' Studies have shown language use and revitalization can improve mental health outcomes in Indigenous communities by creating a sense of belonging, empowering students and improving cultural study found that youth suicide rates saliently decreased in communities where more community members could speak conversationally in their Indigenous research suggests 'Indigenous populations experience the most positive developmental outcomes when they are able to access their histories and cultures in their environments, and less desirable outcomes when their environments prohibit this.'Caden, a 16-year-old Comanche language student at LPS of Comanche and Kiowa descent, was raised by her mother, who could not teach her about her Comanche and Kiowa heritage because that came from her father's side of the family. It wasn't until she enrolled in Comanche that she could step into her Native identity.'This is one of my favorite classes,' said Caden, whose last name isn't used because she is a minor speaking about her mental health. 'I feel like it's more of a like spiritual connection learning about all this stuff and getting kids connected.'Caden said it's cultivated a spark within her, pushing her to keep learning Comanche and raise awareness about the impact of boarding schools. This growth in Caden's self-worth and other Indigenous students like her is why world language programs are vital, says Cathleen Skinner, the Program Manager of the Oklahoma State Department of Education.'So when your language is recognized when your heritage or your culture is recognized, and if it's accepted, students then feel like they're valued when it's welcomed,' Skinner said. 'And that value that knowing you're accepted and valued really impacts your self-efficacy and confidence and perception of yourself.'Native language programs grow in Oklahoma public schools, but erasure attempts still presentTribes and school districts are expected to collaborate when offering Native American language programs in Oklahoma public schools, and Skinner explained that districts are required to contact the tribal nations in the district's area.'In most schools where there are Native American students, they are really interested in supporting every student, all those students, and so they are going to do what they can,' Skinner said. 'But at the same time, the way that public school works is [prioritizing] the cost. There typically has to be a certain number of students per class in order for it to be considered viable.'Stanley at LPS said the district's need for teaching Comanche and Kiowa languages was evident, but finding an accredited Kiowa teacher came with obstacles.'Because with Native languages, they have to be accredited through their tribe,' Stanley said. 'Their tribe has to say, 'This person can teach this.' Then, they have to go through the state hoops. We give them all the framework they need, but then finishing it is up to them.' In the 2013-2014 school year, nearly 50 districts offered Native American language courses and about 915 students enrolled in those classes.A decade later, the number of districts grew to 65 and the number of students in Native American language classes rose to more than 2, 13 Indigenous languages — including Osage, Potawatomi, Cherokee, Muscogee and Choctaw — are taught in Oklahoma public schools, according to Skinner. At LPS, they started the year with 59 students in the Comanche class and 10 in the Kiowa class's first research showing the positive impacts of language learning, world language credit is not a requirement for graduation for Oklahoma high school students due to recent legislation.'We're working again to try to have the legislature reconsider where world languages fits into this,' Skinner said. 'We've heard districts talking about how they're going to address that. And some districts I've heard are moving to a single year of a world language.'The Kiowa language, a member of the Tanoan language family, is considered critically endangered, according to the Endangered Languages Project. For English speakers, it is difficult to learn because an error in pitch or tone can alter the meaning of a Comanche language is blunt and direct, according to Woothtakewahbitty. She said it can make her students, no matter their background, become more assertive.'It might make them a bit more mouthy, but that's OK,' Woothtakewahbitty complaints Skinner has heard about world languages are that students may be unable to use them in the real world or that the classes they take don't give them enough time to fully understand them. While she agreed language acquisition comes after years of speaking the language, the results of learning a new language are evident and significantly benefit Oklahoma students.'We've seen this in Oklahoma looking at our dual language and immersion students, we can see that students who have been in these programs outperform their monolingual peers,' Skinner said. 'It strengthens concentration and enables a person to have multiple perspectives when it comes to problem-solving, looking at people… and the most recent studies show that it has proven to strengthen the brain against dementia.'The future of cultural preservationMoriah is a citizen of the Kiowa Tribe and a junior taking Kiowa I at LPS. When she learned her Native language would be taught in her school, she knew immediately that she would enroll.'I was sitting at my desk, and I heard them say 'if you want to take a Kiowa class at LRC,'" Moriah said. 'That's all I heard. And I was like, 'I'm going to that.' I was excited.'When Moriah told her grandmother the news, she couldn't believe it.'She was just kind of like, 'What? They are teaching Kiowa now?'' Moriah the two can speak the language together, a bond that Moriah and her grandmother are happy to share.'Learning my own language, I feel like itself is a reward — to be able to go home and tell my grandma like, 'Hey, I learned a new phrase,'' Moriah the Indigenous mental health expert from Minnesota, said when a language that once ceased or rarely is spoken in a family begins to be declared again, it spurs intergenerational familial bond, strengthened through language and culture, is helping to repair the damage caused by early colonizers, federal government leaders and Indian boarding school teachers, among others. Fish calls it a testament to the perseverance and will of Indigenous people to not only survive but to thrive and recultivate what was never entirely lost.'When I think about boarding schools and how language would, literally, be beaten out of youth at such a precious time in their lives that for people to go back and to be able to share that and speak that with pride can really be felt, I think ancestrally and spiritually,' Fish the first day of the class, Moriah knew how to pronounce one Kiowa word: the name of her grandmother's cat, talí, which means boy. Now, she knows how to introduce herself.'Sometimes I'm nervous she's gonna tell me I'm saying [a word] wrong,' Moriah said about her grandmother. 'But yeah, she's proud of me.'KOSU is part of the Mental Health Parity Collaborative, a group of newsrooms that are covering stories on mental health care access and inequities in the U.S. The partners on this project include The Carter Center and newsrooms in select states across the country.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'All we have left is the dining hall': Fire claims Kiowa tribe members' historic church
Faith leaders of Rainy Mountain Kiowa Indian Baptist Church held services in a dining hall Sunday morning after their 131-year-old Baptist church, now demolished, burned to the ground the day heavy winds and wildfires devastated communities and destroyed hundreds of properties throughout Oklahoma. Fallen power lines had struck the back of the Kiowa County church and started an uncontrollable fire in the late afternoon of March 14. "The winds were so high out here, gusts of 75 to 80 miles an hour," Pastor Gerald Haunpo said. "We had some power lines hidden behind the church that, I guess, rubbed together or sparked, and rubbed on the roof of the back of the church, and that's what sparked the fire." The fire spread rapidly, he said, and left little to salvage of the historic property off Aim De Co Road in Mountain View, where tribal member Gotebo composed the first Kiowa hymn, according to historical records. Natalie Bear, 50, a church caretaker, recalled how she and her 13-year-old granddaughter first sensed the church was in danger. "My granddaughter and I were outside prior the fire, because we were putting out a fire that got hollowed out from a piece of wood that got a spark and caught fire," Bear said. "Then, we smelled smoke and we thought, 'Maybe we should go check the church.'" More: 'The fire kind of took them over.' Oklahoma fire death toll rises to 4 with more risky weather forecast Bear and her granddaughter spent several minutes in and around the church but couldn't find the source of smoke, she said. Her husband called the fire department and hurried her out of the building. It took around 25 minutes for the fire department to reach the area, she said. "All we have left is the dining hall," Sharon Hunter, the church treasurer said. The Gotebo dining hall, located just behind the now-shattered remnants of the Rainy Mountain Kiowa Indian Baptist Church, received considerable window and roof damage but remained sturdy enough for leaders to do some patch-up work and continue church services. Haunpo said he was glad firefighters managed to save the space. Tribal and church leaders began cleanup efforts Saturday, bringing in heavy equipment to move the remnants of the church. Elders told church leaders to consider rebuilding the church, which now has been burned twice ― last week and in 1948 ― at another location. Haunpo expects the congregation will decide to move. The pastor added that the church has started fundraising efforts aiming for $15,000, but he said he believes it would take around $20,000 to $30,000 to bring the building back to an "ideal condition." "They dug ― we dug ― a deep, deep hole and pushed everything in ... But when it's all said and done, everything that was there in the church is going to be buried right where it stands," he said. The church was one of many properties destroyed during multiple raging wildfires throughout Oklahoma during March. Four deaths and the loss of hundreds of homes and structures have been blamed on this month's wildfires and strong winds. More: Trump approves major disaster declaration for Oklahoma's November 2024 tornado outbreak In January 1894, the Kiowa tribe donated 160 acres of land and with the help of the American Baptist Church organized the Immanuel mission, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. Several months later, in November, a chapel was built and soon after it was renamed Rainy Mountain. In its early years, the church was led by the Rev. Howard Clause, who would set up mission stations in Red Stone, Saddle Mountain and Cache Creek throughout his 27-year career. The church fostered "Christian identity that incorporated Kiowa culture," according to the Oklahoma Historical Society. "Generations of Kiowas, beginning with the earliest converts, made this church their spiritual home and their families today continue in this manner," the church said in a news release. Haunpo said though old records were not present in the church during the fire, there were other objects, plus newly purchased Bibles, a donated communion table and memories of loved ones. "There were some sentimental things in there, some things of value," the pastor said. "Luckily ... no one was hurt. No one was injured." Community members, including many families from the Kiowa tribe, were shocked by the fire and the loss of the church, Haunpo said. Many attend Sunday services every week and have celebrated special occasions like birthdays, weddings and dedications at the church, he said. "Though most of the elders have passed away, their families have stayed connected in so many ways," he said. "Even if they live far away, even out of state, they still consider this their home church. When you think of all the historical significance, and I believe the introduction to Christianity and first convents, this church had a powerful impact on them, because they know where it all began." This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Kiowa County community mourns loss of historic Baptist church
