🔴 Rapid City Central High School Students Organizing a Walkout

NDN Collective

So happy to learn about the Lakota Empowerment Club in Rapid City,
South Dakota Central High School Students and their September 12, 2021 walkout. Not unlike so many of our youth here in Texas, these are a group of young students who want their culture—that they refer to as their Oceti Sakown Essential Understandings—to get taught in the schools. They describe their public education as "Genocide Part 2," that involves erasing their cultures and language.

What a wonderful concept to advance, "Essential Understandings." And what a far cry from sterile discourses like "standards" and "skills."

Right now—and despite the anti-CRT agenda in Texas—the Texas State Board of Education is establishing a TEKS-aligned high school elective course in Native American Studies.

Thanks to Paco Robles for letting me know about this mobilization by youth. I hope that these students prevail.

-Angela Valenzuela