Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight
MITCHELL — Gov. Kristi Noem leveled accusations against Native American parents and political leaders Wednesday while saying she wants to help Native American students succeed.
She made the comments during a town hall meeting in Mitchell, where she signed two education bills into law, and at a later town hall in Winner.
Chronic absenteeism among South Dakota’s Native American students attending public school increased from 31% to 54% from 2018 to 2023 – the highest among all South Dakota student demographics. A third of Native American public school students don’t complete high school, 84% are not considered college and career ready, and only 7% take the ACT, according to the latest data from the state Department of Education.
Noem told town hall attendees in Mitchell that she is “only as good and doing as good a job as the kids that are suffering the most” in the state. With three of the five poorest counties in the nation located in areas of South Dakota with tribal lands, she said there’s work to do.
“My next step would be to do what I can to get a tribe to participate with me to help their kids be more successful,” Noem said. “Because they live with 80% to 90% unemployment. Their kids don’t have any hope. They don’t have parents who show up and help them. They have a tribal council or a president who focuses on a political agenda more than they care about actually helping somebody’s life look better.”
Tribal leaders ‘personally benefitting’ from cartels, Noem alleges
Earlier this year, tribal leaders and tribally enrolled legislators criticized comments Noem made about drugs on South Dakota reservations during a speech to lawmakers about the U.S.-Mexico border. In that speech, Noem made multiple references to the ravages of fentanyl and other drugs on reservation communities, and said the drugs are coming from Mexican cartels.
On Wednesday afternoon, Noem expanded on those comments during her town hall in Winner.
“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefitting from the cartels being here, and that’s why they attack me every day,” she said.
South Dakota Searchlight reached out to several Native American legislators and a tribal president after Noem’s town hall comments, including some who were critical of her border speech. None responded with comments by the time of this article’s publication. The Oglala Sioux Tribe banned Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation after her border speech.
Lyle Miller, a Mitchell-based Native American artist and veteran who taught art at Crow Creek Tribal School for 20 years, told Noem during the Mitchell town hall that the problems Indigenous people face are connected to “trying to secure their identity.” Many tribal communities experience generational trauma from colonization and policies that stripped Native Americans of their culture, language and religion.
“There’s a history between the United States government and the Lakota people and other tribes here in the Northern Plains,” Miller said. “Those students are struggling to understand American education, but it’s hard to understand something that isn’t very inclusive of who you are, who your identity is.”
The state passed standards in 2018, the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings, to teach South Dakota students about local Native American history and culture. But according to a 2021 survey by the state Department of Education, less than half of teachers taught the material.
State Department of Education Secretary Joe Graves told South Dakota Searchlight after the town hall that the state is working on a number of initiatives regarding Native American student success. One is to increase competition in education by further supporting alternative education.
“We have seen some really promising things come out of the Native American community specifically in what they’re doing in forming private or alternative schools that are focused on language and culture,” Graves said. “So, we want to support that in every way.”
Rapid City Area Schools had a Lakota immersion program in 2021 but struggled to find qualified teachers, so the program is on hold, Media Relations Manager Bobbi Schaefbauer said. The school district has a dedicated staff member for implementing the Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings and other Native American education programs.
Bills fund phonics training, require higher teacher pay
One of the bills Noem signed allocates $6 million toward phonics literacy training for teachers in an effort to improve students’ reading proficiency levels. The effort was one of Noem’s legislative priorities this year after she announced the initiative during her December budget address.
The other bill mandates a statewide minimum teacher salary of $45,000 and requires districts to raise their average teacher compensation by 97% of the annual increases in state education funding. The law is intended to increase teacher salaries in the state – and thereby improve teacher recruitment and retention – since South Dakota ranks 49th in the nation for average teacher salaries.
Sioux Falls Republican Rep. Tony Venhuizen, one of the legislators who supported the teacher pay bill, said during the Wednesday event that the law will allow teachers to “teach in the best way possible.”
“Studies tell you the number one factor in school for effective education is not facilities, it’s not spending, it’s not class size – it’s having a quality teacher in the classroom,” Venhuizen said. “Well, if you want to have quality teachers enter the workforce and stay in the workforce, you have to pay them.”
Carbon pipeline discussed
Aside from discussions about education, Noem took questions from the Mitchell audience ranging from potentially being picked as former President Donald Trump’s running mate to workforce recruitment efforts to signing a group of pipeline bills into law last week. Those bills add new legal protections for landowners affected by a proposed carbon dioxide pipeline in eastern South Dakota, while preserving a regulatory path forward for the project.
Michael Boyle, a pastor from Parkston, asked Noem why she didn’t veto the pipeline bills. Noem said the bills had been through thorough debate, were deemed constitutional and passed by legislators.
“I’m not Xi Jinping and I’m not a dictator and I’m not somebody who’s going to come in and say, ‘You know what? The constitution doesn’t matter. I’m going to force my will on people,’” Noem responded.
Noem told town hall attendees that if they have any concerns about the pipeline bills they can bring them to her or their legislators ahead of the next legislative session. The 2024 legislative session ended last week, and the 2025 session will begin in January.
Quantum computing, local cybersecurity bills
Earlier Wednesday, Noem visited Dakota State University in Madison, where she signed a bill providing about $3 million in state funds to establish a Center for Quantum Information Science and Technology, which involves multiple state universities doing research into the developing field of quantum computing.
In a news release about that, Noem said she also signed a bill providing $7 million to start a cybersecurity initiative for cities and counties.
The amount is roughly what South Dakota would have received from the federal government over the last several years if the state had enrolled in a grant program aimed at bolstering local government cybersecurity. South Dakota is the lone state in the nation not participating in the program, after Noem’s administration said there were too many strings attached to the offer.
Noem also held a town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon in Winner and is scheduled to host a town hall at 9 a.m. Mountain time Thursday at Common Grounds in Spearfish.