15-04-2025
Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings revised
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — Some Native Americans pressed the South Dakota Education Standards Board to hold off a year so that formal consultations could be held on how public schools should present information about indigenous people and cultures to their K-12 students.
But the governor-appointed board's five members are instead following the recommendation from South Dakota Education Secretary Joseph Graves and have gone ahead with approval of a revised version of what are known as the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings.
The board also decided during its meeting on Monday in Rapid City to adopt a first-ever set of computer science standards for K-8 students and approved a revised set of standards for English language arts.
Pronounced oh-chet-ee sak-oh-in, the understandings originally came together through work by a group of indigenous elders and educators in 2008. South Dakota law requires teachers take a three-credit course in South Dakota Indian studies. But decisions on how to use OSEUs are left to local school districts.
The main complaint voiced Monday about the OSEU revisions was that state government failed to formally consult with any of the nine tribal governments. Several people called for the state board to pause a year and allow time for the consultations.
'A rushed process cannot produce strong standards, but an inclusive one can,' said Deborah Bordeaux, executive director for the tribally-run Commission for Oceti Sakowin Accreditation and a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
The state board spent a half-hour listening to testimony from Bordeaux and eight others, and then considered for another 30 minutes what to do on the proposed OSEU revisions.
Secretary Graves defended the preparation of the OSEU revisions, telling the board there was a complete review by a committee of 34 that was double the normal number and included anyone who asked to be on it. He said the review committee spent three days developing the revisions.
Monday marked the last of the four public hearings that state law requires the board to hold before adopting or changing K-12 standards. The Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings had also become a regular agenda item for the state Indian Education Advisory Council, whose members include all nine of the tribal education directors, as well as a variety of other appointees chosen by the governor.
'So this was not a rushed process,' Graves told the state standards board. He added, 'If we continue to pause, my fear is we're simply going to pause forever.'
Sarah White, an Oglala Lakota who founded and is executive director for the South Dakota Education Equity Coalition, said the Indian Education Advisory Council has been 'gagged and censored,' the group's meetings are scheduled without consideration for other duties of the tribal education directors, and that state Office of Indian Education director Fred Osborn has been 'superficial' in his dealings.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem moved the Office of Indian Education from the state Department of Education to the state Department of Tribal Relations six years ago. 'To date not a single tribal consultation has taken place,' White said.
State law says the Department of Education is to consult with the Indian Education Advisory Council to develop and review the OSEUs.
The state board's president, Steve Perkins of Sioux Falls, said he was born and raised at Pipestone, Minnesota, a place of significance in Plains Indian culture. 'This is important to me,' he said.
Perkins acknowledged that school districts vary in their use of OSEUs and said South Dakota generally was 'moving in the right direction' in recognizing the importance of indigenous people and history. But he also said that the state board and the state Department of Education clearly need to work harder on communication.
Gov. Larry Rhoden, who succeeded Noem earlier this year, has called for a restart of relations between state and tribal governments. 'That's going to take some time,' Perkins said.
He assured the people who had called for a pause that he wasn't voting against them. He said the process of revising the OSEUs was similar to what was done on the science standards that the board approved a year ago. The science standards weren't everything he wanted, Perkins said, but they were an improvement over the ones they replaced.
'This is even more important than that,' Perkins said.
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