by: Carol Berry
© Indian Country Today August 12, 2008. All Rights Reserved
 
DENVER - Tribal sovereignty and Native culture sparred with the federal bureaucracy July 23 over evaluation standards and the big picture for Indian Head Start programs affected by shrinking dollars and tightened regulations.

Issues of culture and control underscored the national Office of Head Start tribal consultation meeting in Denver, one of four held nationwide and attended by tribal council members and educators from several states including South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas and Nevada, as well as Colorado.

The meetings' official purpose was to discuss ways to better meet the needs of Native children and their families, considering ''funding allocations, distribution formulas and other issues'' affecting Head Start in their areas.

Danny Wells, Chickasaw and the president-elect of the National Indian Head Start Directors Association, said requirements for tribal-state collaboration related to Head Start ''would more appropriately be tribe-to-federal,'' addressing the sovereignty issue also raised by other attendees.

Congress' reauthorization of Head Start after a decade of inaction includes measures that convert Head Start programs' formerly open-ended grants to five-year grants and requires substandard programs to improve or compete with other potential providers.

Underperforming Indian programs would be supplanted by other Indian providers and, if no Native providers were available, by non-Native programs on a temporary basis until a qualified Indian provider became available, officials said. The process would require tribal collaborat ion on-reservation.

But the OHS officials were told by Kevin R. Shendo, Jemez Pueblo education director, that they could create a ''whirlwind of problems'' if federal trust responsibilities or other agreements with tribes were short-changed.

Head Start instead should be a catalyst for revitalization of Native language and culture in collaboration with tribes, he said.

Shawn Bordeaux, Rosebud Sioux, said some tribal nations would not want non-Native nonprofits, for example, to fill the Head Start function, even ''supposedly with Native emphasis''; and if there is an attempt to have a non-Indian or nontribal provider, ''we will have a fight.''

Bordeaux said that at Rosebud they would like to have education from prenatal through Ph.D. stages and ''we protect that right that we have'' to language-learning and other cultural patrimony.

Jose Rodriguez, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, said the community determines who comes into the area and ''they can't tell us how to run our culture.''

Gil Vigil, Tesuque Pueblo, said Head Start urges ''high-quality'' programs but he questioned how the term is defined, noting: ''We have our own standards, too.''

The days of 100 percent one-shot facilities funding are past, though some money may be available for down payment, attendees were told.

Concerning such funding constraints, John G. Baca, Santo Domingo Pueblo, said it seems ''unfair'' that the Iraq war and natural disasters are absorbing U.S. resources and that the U.S. is20''rebuilding other countries'' while ''we are falling further and further behind.''

''The needs and wants of the child in New Mexico'' are ''the same as any other child in America,'' he said.

Patricia Brown, acting OHS director, said Head Start program evaluations should be ''transparent'' and tailored to tribes' specific needs, and there should be ''no surprises.'' Other officials said underperforming Indian programs would be assisted under the new plan in an attempt to bring them to the required standard.

OHS urged those concerned with new rules affecting the Indian Head Start programs to comment on proposed implementing guidelines when they are published in the Federal Register in December.

For example, tribes concerned with the official definition of ''high quality'' as it pertains to Head Start can comment on the need for it to reflect cultural needs, officials said.

Wells pointed out some practical difficulties in achieving satisfactory ratings, citing just under 2,000 existing performance standards.

''You are trying to be compliant in all those areas - and they may be expanded under the new regulations,'' he said.

Other proposed changes that may concern NIHSDA in the coming year center on changes in the governing board of tribal Head Start, he said. The board usually consisted of the tribal council, but now is required to include an attorney and an early childhood specialist. That requirement may pose a difficulty for some tribes.

If there is Head Start expansion, NIHSDA would like it to include facility or staff improvements, not just additional slots for children, Wells said.