Tribal leaders joined a class action lawsuit regarding Montana Indian Education.

During the second day of the full board meeting, tribal in house attorney Cher Stewart informed the council the status of the lawsuit and asked if the Tribes were interested in joining. This is being done at no cost to the Tribes, and it can have a far reaching impact in education.

Tribal leaders voted to approve this with a vote of five for (council members Rita Weeks, Jestin Dupree, Lawrence Hamilton, BJ Johnson, Wayne Martell) none opposed, four (council members Roxanne Gourneau, Marva Chapman, Stacey Summers and Terry Rattling Thunder) not voting and three (council members Carolyn Brugh, Dana Buckles, and Bryce Kirk) absent.

The lawsuit, Yellow Kidney, et al. v. Montana Office of Public Instruction, et al., was filed in Montana District Court in Cascade County by the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, Fort Belknap Indian Community, Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Little Shell Tribe, and Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, and 18 individual student plaintiffs against the agencies and officials responsible for implementing the state’s Indian education provisions: the Montana Office of Public Instruction (MOPI), the Montana Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) Elsie Arntzen, the Montana Board of Public Education (MBPE), and Montana Board of Public Education Chair Darlene Schottle.

Since 1972 Montana’s Constitution has required that all public school students receive instruction about the first peoples of their state. Implementation of the constitutional provision was specifically addressed in 1999 when the Montana Legislature passed the Indian Education for All Act. At the direction of the Montana Supreme Court, dedicated annual funding by the legislature for the Indian education provisions began in 2007.

Yet the lawsuit demonstrates there is little evidence of comprehensive, statewide compliance with the provisions being directed by state agencies and officials. MOPI fails to require uniform reporting by school districts of their Indian education or monitor how the schools use Indian education funding. MOPI and MBPE are not monitoring whether Indian education is even being taught, and there is no reporting or monitoring of cooperation with tribes in Indian education.

To ensure that the state agencies and officials implement and comply with the Constitution and statutes in the future, the class-action lawsuit asks for declaratory and injunctive relief such as the creation and monitoring by the state, in consultation with Montana tribes, of minimum IFEA reporting and compliance standards.