Senate Amendment Proposes Changing Indian Education To Recommendation

A bill that would revise the laws requiring Indian education in Montana’s public schools is making its way through the Legislature, although its sponsor maintains a recent amendment weakens the mandate included in the state constitution.

The Senate voted 47-3 to pass the amended Indian education bill this week. The amendment includes reducing the tribal history curriculum, known as Indian Education for All, from a public school requirement to a recommendation that is “encouraged.”

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, said he will challenge the amendment in a conference committee. He said he planned to “refuse to concur” with the amendment, giving him time to rework the bill’s wording.

“I said, ‘Whatever you need to do to get the votes on that, get it the hell out of there, then do what you gotta do,’ because I’m going to ‘do-not-concur’ anyway,’” Windy Boy said in an interview with Montana Free Press and ICT.

Windy Boy introduced House Bill 338 after several claims that the required curriculum isn’t being taught in many Montana schools, a contention also brought in a lawsuit filed in 2021 against the Montana Office of Public Instruction and the Montana Board of Public Education.

Windy Boy’s bill would require stronger reporting from public school districts to prove the curriculum is being taught to standards. Schools that don’t meet those reporting requirements would risk losing funding for the program.

“If you receive one Indian Ed for All dollar then you’re going to have to report what you’re doing,” Windy Boy said during the Senate Education and Cultural Resources committee hearing in March. “If you’re not doing what the court case says that you’re going to do as far as implementation of Indian Ed for All then we are going to hold your money back.”

The amended version of the bill, requested by Sen. Shannon O’Brien, D-Missoula, changed language in the title from requiring the Office of Public Education and the Board of Public Education to implement Montana’s constitutional mandate of Indian education.

Instead, according to the amendment, the requirement, despite being outlined in the state’s constitution, would be encouraged.

“The reason that I proposed the amendment was because I wanted to, number one, ensure that the bill would pass out with the committee,” O’Brien said in an interview with MTFP and ICT. “I had reason to believe that it was not going to pass out of committee without the amendment, and it worked.”

The bill did pass out of the Senate committee unanimously, 11-0, on April 5. Now the bill is headed back to the House to be deliberated again with the amendment attached.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana and the Native American Resource Fund filed the lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of several Montana individuals and six Montana tribes.

Last week a Montana district court denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit; a trial is expected in the summer of 2024.