Concerns aired about Chinle school
Parents question change from BIA to grant facility

By Karen Francis
Diné Bureau

MANY FARMS — Concerned parents met for a Chinle Boarding School Parental Involvement Meeting at the school cafeteria on Tuesday to hear a report from Principal Gregory Mooring about the grant school conversion.

Parents say they were never consulted regarding plans to change the Bureau of Indian Affairs school to a grant school. Many are opposing the conversion, which will be implemented for the 2008-2009 school year on July 1.
“What’s going to happen July 1?” said parent Trudy Woody.

Though CBS school board members were invited to attend, none were present for the two-hour meeting. The parent involvement group will also be holding a special meeting this evening at the CBS school gym.

Mooring informed the parents that a team of five individuals has been at the school explaining options to employees. If employees wish to remain at the school, they must reapply for their jobs.

“We’ve got to start advertising from the executive director all the way to the cook,” Mooring said.

He said that staff has been doing inventories in preparation for the conversion.

Though the school has not met adequate yearly progress, parents in the audience expressed support for the teachers.

“We have highly qualified teachers here ... Why change it now?” said Nancy Teller. “All you’re doing is getting rid of the teachers.”

Jolene Tapaha added that all her kids were taught by the same teachers.

“To me, I’ve been very satisfied with their teaching skills,” she said

Teller, who has three children attending the school, said she didn’t understand the difference between grant and BIA schools and asked why the change was needed.
Mooring agreed that the school does have good staff — approximately 70 percent of teachers there have master’s degrees — but said that many of her questions had to be answered by the board, which approved the grant school application.

Parents asked Mooring if he had the authority to rescind the application or halt the process in some way, and he said he would have to do research on the subject.

He did tell the parents that the board makes the decision, and he is providing assistance to the board. He pointed out that with grant school status, there would be more local control, less red tape and more money for education.
“If we go grant and we’re not ready by July 1, I think we’re jeopardizing our kids’ education,” Tapaha said.

Tapaha, who is the vice president of the parent involvement group, said that the parents were only told that the school was applying for grant school status in 2006. She added that the parents asked the school board to bring more information to them in January 2007 but they never received the information and only found out in 2008 that the school would be converting to a grant school.

We didn’t hear it on KTNN. We didn’t see it in the newspaper,” she said. “How are they coming up with this idea that going grant is better?”

She said that the federal government must be held accountable to the Treaty of 1868.

One staff member said that the transition is already affecting school activities. He said that the special education children would not be able to attend Special Olympic activities at the state level this year and other sports activities are being canceled because of limitations in place for the transition.