Special Report: Problems persist within federal schools for Native Americans
The federal government has begun to reckon with the ugly history of its system for educating Native American children, but that system never entirely went away. Nor have its problems entirely been resolved. In a series of stories, Lee Enterprises Public Service Journalism reporter Ted McDermott has investigated the use of psychotropic medications at one of the nation’s few remaining Indian boarding schools, Flandreau Indian School in South Dakota, as well as allegations of abuse, neglect and even death within the BIE system more broadly.
(8) updates to this series since Updated
The Department of the Interior’s Office of Inspector General is calling out the Bureau of Indian Education for allowing problems to persist at Havasupai Elementary School in Arizona.
The BIE has known about concerns involving the Flandreau Indian School since fall 2023. But attempts to access public records and get answers about the bureau's response have been unsuccessful.
A lack of training and a disorganized system contributed to “med errors,” including some students being “given the wrong medication," said one long-time teacher at the BIE-operated Flandreau Indian School.
"Why are they doping up our children like this?" one parent said. "Why do they deserve to do this?"
The Flandreau Indian School Student and Parent handbook explicitly states, "Failure to take prescribed medication is a Health and Safety issue and can result in FIS disciplinary action.”
As Native American students face what one BIE superintendent called "extreme challenges," Circle of Nations School welcomed a reporter and photographer inside. "We want the exposure," an administrator said.
Within the federal government's sprawling Bureau of Indian Education school system, allegations of abuse, neglect and even death at BIE schools have emerged over the past two decades.
Thousands of reports designated for recording abuse, neglect, injuries, life-threatening incidents and death have been filed since 2008 at the 55 schools the BIE operates directly.
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe members are working to identify who rests in an unmarked gravesite on the former grounds of the Immaculate Conception Mission Catholic boarding school.