New school facilities in 17 Indian communities of eight States are being opened this fall by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.
They include 11 new schools and three additions to existing schools--enough to accommodate nearly 6,000 students, mostly in the elementary grades. Three dormitories, built to house more than 1,300 Indian youths who live too far away for commuting, also were completed in time for the fall season.
New structures include a shop building for Haskell Institute at Lawrence, Kansas. Starting this year, the Institute no longer will offer high school classes, but will devote its entire effort to post-high school vocational training. The new building is equipped with training facilities for 192 vocational students.
Two of the schools were built in Florida for the Miccosukees on the Tamiami Trail and the Seminoles at Big Cypress. They will provide about 120 Indian youngsters with elementary instruction that is specially adapted to their needs. The Miccosukee building replaces a one-room, portable structure loaned to the tribe two years ago by Dade County. Located 40 miles west of Miami on U. S. 41, it is part of a complex of new buildings erected by BIA for the Miccosukee Tribe.
It was only four years ago that the Miccosukees made the big leap from their seclusion in the Everglade swamps to a Twentieth-Century mode of living. Kin to the Seminoles and Creeks but always aloof from both tribes, they gained recognition as an independent tribe in January 1962, and were granted a strip of land adjoining the Tamiami Trail near Miami.
With the aid of BIA funds, they have built 15 "chickee" dwellings which are similar to their thatch-roofed native huts in design but contain four large rooms plus kitchen and bath. Tribal members own and operate the restaurant and service station, competing for Florida's tourist dollar. They also plan to build a community center as part of the same complex.
The Big Cypress school is located deep within the Seminole Indian Reservation south of Okeechobee. The school will serve Seminoles at the settlement and those living in some 50 camps within a mile radius.
Other facilities are located as follows:
Alaska: New elementary schools at Port Lion, Kasigluk and Elim.
Arizona: New elementary schools at Kaibeto, Many Farms, and Gila Crossing, with additions to elementary schools at Shonto and Teec Nos Pos; and a new dormitory for the high school at Phoenix.
California: New dormitory for high school and special students at Sherman.
Mississippi: New high school at Choctaw.
New Mexico: New elementary school at Chuska and high school at Fort Wingate.
Oklahoma: New dormitory for Chilocco High School.
