 - The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes are initiating the process to “take back” St. Stephens Indian School, a legislative committee heard last week. ){kind=link}
(Riverton, WY) – The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes are initiating the process to “take back” St. Stephens Indian School, a Wyoming legislative committee heard last week.
St. Stephens has been operated by the Bureau of Indian Education since 2022, when the Wind River Intertribal Council terminated the school board and local school administrators due to reports of “widespread wrongdoing” following an independent federal investigation.
But this month, Northern Arapaho Business Council Chairman Keenan Groesbeck said the Tribes are planning to draft a letter notifying the BIE that they “want to engage and get the school back again.”
“We’re starting (that) process now,” Groesbeck told the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on Tribal Relations during a meeting last week. “It might be a couple (of) years out, but we’re starting that process all over again.”
Wyoming Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, who co-chairs the Tribal Relations Committee, said it was “hopeful to hear that you’re thinking about doing that,” noting that “we worked hard to get (state) funding for St. Stephens,” and he was “kind of disappointed (to) have everything be turned upside down.”
The state pulled its funding for St. Stephens after the BIE took over operations at the school, citing “unsuccessful” negotiations with the federal agency and local school officials.
“(The Wyoming) Department of Education was unable to continue those negotiations and reach an agreement with the Bureau of Indian Education to keep taking state money,” WDE Native American Education Liaison Rob Black told the Tribal Relations Committee last week. “So there hasn’t been any funding from the department for the last three years.”
Instead, the money the state budgeted for St. Stephens has been transferred to the Wyoming Department of Family Services for Tribal children’s family services and for placing Tribal foster children with high behavioral needs, according to a memo from the Wyoming Department of Education.
“So the Tribes are still getting the money – it’s just not going to St. Stephens,” Black said.