OCR Text |
Show Reservation News . . Education And The Three-Year Program The chief objective of the Education Ed-ucation Division of the Uintah and Ouray Agency for the past three years has been the integration inte-gration of Indian children into the local public schools of Uintah Uin-tah and Duchesne counties. The Uintah Indian School was closed clos-ed on June 30, 1952 and for all practical purposes the objective has been achieved. The Ute Indian In-dian boys and girls, except in a few isolated cases in need of institutions care, are now attending at-tending the local public schools. The termination of the Indian school actually began in Sept., 1947, with the .elimination of the ninth grade, in 1948 with the elimination of the eighth grade and in 1949 with the elimination elim-ination of the seventh grade. The first six grades were eliminated elim-inated in June, 1952, with the closing of the boarding school. The dairy herd was dincontin-ued dincontin-ued in 1947. Ninety-three per cent of the eligible Indian children on the reservation were enrolled in some school for the 1953-1954 school term with an average daily attendance of approximately approxi-mately 86 per cent. The per cent of attendance for non-Indian children in this area is approximately ap-proximately 94 per cent. Twelve Ute Indian boys and girls graduated from high school in May, 1954, 38 completed the? eighth grade and 47 six-year-olds will enter school for the first time in September. The Education Budget for the 1953-1954 school term was $36,-273.00 $36,-273.00 aid to public schools and $10,040.00 for administration, supervision and guidance of the public school program. The total to-tal education budget for the 1953-1954 school term was $46,-313.00, $46,-313.00, compared to $110,915.00 the cost of operating the Uintah Indian School the last year, 1951-1952. That indicates a savings to the federal government govern-ment of $64,502.00. The aid to public schools for the 1951-1952 year was $26,100.00 compared to the $36,273.00 for the 1953-1954 1953-1954 term. It will be necessary to provide pro-vide boarding school care for a limited number of these children chil-dren until they are properly adjusted ad-justed in a suitable enviroment. They are orphans or children from broken homes, or homes that are not conducive to' public school attendance for various reasons. The number in need of institutional care will vary from time to time determined by changing conditions. Eighteen were enrolled in non-reservation schools this year. The process of adjusting the Indian children and their parents par-ents to public school life is by no means completed. The wholesale whole-sale transfer of Indian children into the public schools has created cre-ated many problems for both the Indian families and the public pub-lic school officials. Many of the Indian families were unprepared for the sudden change of responsibility res-ponsibility for their children. They have had to make rapid changes in the mode of living, housing, finances, discipline problems, time schedules and many other responsibilities they have not assumed in the past. Many teachers were not prepared pre-pared to teach non-English speaking children and have been required to made radical changes in classroom procedures. proced-ures. Additional classrooms and busses had to be provided on short notice to care for the additional ad-ditional enrollment in the heavily heav-ily populated Indian communities. commun-ities. However, both the Indians and the public school officials have met the problems with wisdom and vision. The public school program on .this reservation reser-vation is successful. The large majority of the Indian parents prefer to keep their children in the home and send them to public schools. Only a limited number of Indian parents would return to the boarding school system. R-N |