The Future | Professional Development

Native language teacher Dallas Winishut Jr. helps Warm Springs students connect with their heritage.

These days, the future is much on the minds of those who care about Warm Springs. After a drop in enrollment in the mid-1990s due to an aggressive tribal birth-control education program referred to as "the Norplant years," the birth rate is up again. A surge of kindergartners is expected next fall. The tribal government is working with the district to build a new school on the reservation to accommodate the newcomers and to add the fifth grade.

Julie Quaid, director of the tribal Early Childhood Education program, feels strongly that kids from Warm Springs need more time to build self-confidence and firmly establish their academic skills before they leave for school outside the community. "These kids already have a lot of challenges, and then at age 12, to pull them away from the school and community they've known all their lives and to put them in a strange environment with a mix of other cultures, with teachers and children they don't know, that's very hard."

There are good reasons for concern. Out of 100 students who started first grade at Warm Springs Elementary in 1986, only 12 graduated from Madras High School last spring. "We're able to retain them in grades five and six," says Quaid, "but by grades seven and eight the dropout rate is drastic." Quaid supports a plan, once the new elementary school is built, to convert the old school into a middle school. This will allow Warm Springs students the option of staying on the reservation through grade eight.

The lack of Native American teachers is another concern. Smith remains one of only two certified Native American staff at the school. "The Warm Springs people have struggled to produce their own teachers, and that's been a problem for a long, long time," says Smith. "But now the tribes have a teacher education partnership with Eastern Oregon State University. Right now I've got a college student coming once a week, and next year she'll do her practicum here. Another Warm Springs teacher graduated from Arizona State last year, but I didn't have an opening so she went to the middle school in Madras."

That Smith can casually mention she didn't have a job opening last year indicates just how far Warm Springs has come. If pressed to name the one thing most responsible for turning the school around, Smith would say it's been her staff. Her staff would say it's been the principal. Smith speaks for both sides when she says, "If it weren't for the people here, willing to sacrifice and to change the way they're doing things, to try something new, we'd never be where we are."