Title VI Committee Elects Officers

Wolf Point’s Title VI parents committee held its first meeting of the school year at the high school on Tuesday, Oct. 28.

The meeting included the election of officers for the new year.

Officers unanimously selected were Rain Turcotte as chair, Imogene Lilley as vice chair and Breanna Calder as secretary.

Picked as teacher representative was Kayla Messerly. Selected as student representative was Jayla Big Talk.

The meeting included a presentation from Mike Jetty, Montana Office of Public Instruction Indiana Education specialist, done through Zoom.

Jetty mentioned the RISE Native Youth Leadership Group. One of the main focuses of RISE is a connection with personal culture as well as heritage.

He noted that Indian Education for All classes are available on-line for all teachers and the public.

Jetty said the main themes for essential understanding are diversity, culture, history and sovereignty.

He explained that OPI tries to spend a lot of resources on items such as maps and tribal names to educate people.

“Indian Education for All is a long journey, and we’re on the journey together,” Jetty said.

The purpose of Title VI is to ensure the school programs are based on challenging state content standards and student performance standards that are used for all students, and are designed to assist Indian students to meet those standards. Title VI parent committees must be involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of the project, and are advisory in nature.