Fort Peck Tribal School Aims To Open In 2027
Discussion of a future Fort Peck Tribal School included plans and goals during a meeting in Wolf Point on Wednesday, Sept. 24.
The group received a three-year fellowship to design a tribal school and this fall is the start of the second year of the fellowship.
Rain Escarcega-Turcotte is the leader of the project. She previously was a dean of students at an elementary school in Wolf Point. She is certified to be a principal and superintendent in Montana. She explained that while she was working in Wolf Point that she felt a conflict of what she wanted and what she was doing.
She said the tribal school will be located in Poplar. A mobile classroom complex will be used during the first few years until enough funds are secured for a building.
Classes will be provided for kindergarten and first graders starting in the fall of 2027. Each following year, another class will be added. The plan is for 15 students in each class during the first year.
All teachers will be certified. The hope is to have a school board in place by the end of 2025.
“We want the school to revitalize the language and culture of who we are,” Escarcega-Turcotte said.
Current goals include establishing school board applications, establishing a design team and establishing a leadership team. Upcoming meetings are scheduled for January and March 2026.
Escarcega-Turcotte said it was previously agreed to have a charter school rather than an independent school. Charter schools are publicly funded and tuition-free.
The school’s vision statement reads, “We strive to develop students, families and community members embraced by cultural ways of knowledge, speaking the language, hearing elder stories, listening to creation stories, understanding tribal history, singing traditional songs, sharing tribal dance ways and living and perpetuating our cultural livelihoods.”
“This is what we envision for our students,” Escarcega-Turcotte said.
The school’s mission statement reads, “The mission of the Fort Peck Tribal School is to restore and revitalize the Nakóda and Dakhota languages and cultures through strong partnerships with our communi- Wolf Point School Board, provided a welcome at the meeting. He sees a need for the Fort Peck Tribal School.
“Public schools might not be the best fit for some of our kids,” Turcotte said.
He added that the existence of the Fort Peck Community College proves what can be accomplished in the area.
“We’re simply here for our kids,” Turcotte said.
