OPA

DeGree Construction Co. of Bend, Oregon, will construct a $69,895 four classroom school building at Warm Springs, Oregon, under a contract awarded by the Indian Bureau, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Six other contractors submitted higher bids ranging from $77,500 to $94,937.

Approximately 230 pupils are now enrolled in the Warm Springs School which is operated by the Indian Bureau. New classrooms will relieve an overcrowded condition, and, in keeping with the Bureau's aim to provide adequate educational opportunities for Indians, the additional space will permit the school to meet standards set by the State of Oregon.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has scheduled eleven field hearings to discuss education policies and standards for Indian schools funded by the Bureau, Director of Indian Education Programs Earl Barlow announced today.

Policies for the Bureau-funded schools were published October 9 in the Federal Register and a draft statement of standards has been circulated by mail to tribal officials and school boards.

At the field hearings the policies will be explained and comments received for future changes. The statement on standards will be presented for initial comments to be used in drafting proposed regulations for publication not later than May 1, 1980.

The development of the regulations is part of the Bureau's implementation of the recent Indian education legislation (P.L. 95-561).

The hearings will be at Anchorage, Alaska November 1-2; Billings, Montana,

November 14-15; Aberdeen, South Dakota, November 19-20; Minneapolis, Minnesota,

November 26-27; Portland, Oregon, November 29-30;

Nashville, Tennessee, December 3-4; Norman, Oklahoma, December 6-7; Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 7-8; Window Rock, Arizona, January 10-11; Phoenix, Arizona, January 14-15 and Sacramento, California, January 17-18.

For additional information contact the local BIA Area Office or the Office of Indian Education, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 19th and C Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20240 (202-343-2175).

The Bureau of Indian Affairs has announced the appointments of Everett Prince as Superintendent of the Bethel, Alaska agency and Irving Billy as Superintendent of the Western Navajo agency at Tuba City, Arizona. Both appointments were effective November 4.

Prince, the land operations officer at Bethel since 1976, had served as an education specialist for the agency from 1973 to 1976. He joined the BIA as a teacher in 1961 at Chinle, Arizona and subsequently taught at Tuba City and Crownpoint, New Mexico. He graduated from Oklahoma State University and earned a Masters' degree from the University of Western New Mexico.

Billy, 40, was administrative manager for the BIA at Gallup, New Mexico since 1975. He had previously worked at Tuba City as employment assistance specialist, 1973-75, and administrative assistant, 1971-73. He attended Phoenix College and Northern Arizona University. In 1976, he was the nominee from the Navajo Area for the Department of Interior Managers Development Program Award.

Applications for grant funds for Indian tribes and organizations to use in the establishment and operation of Indian child and family service programs are now being accepted, Interior Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard announced today.

A notice published in the Federal Register sets January 18, 1980, as the deadline for this initial application period. The grants are authorized under Title II of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 95-608). Additional periods for the receipt of grant applications be announced later if funds remain available after the first grant application period.

The Assistant Secretary said that the grant fund distribution formula, designed to provide a proportionately equitable share of available funds to all approved applicants, is also being published in the Federal Register.

Application materials and related information may be obtained from Bureau of Indian Affairs Area Offices.

Applications for this initial application period will be accepted in anticipation of appropriated funds for Title II purposes. All grant application approvals will be subject to availability of funds.

American Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages have completed balloting on a distribution formula as required by the 1978 Education Amendments Act (P.L. 95-561). After a year long effort, the Indians and Alaska Natives voted to keep the Johnson-O'Malley Act funding formula used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the last four years.

The Johnson-O'Malley Act provides funding assistance for supplemental programs in non-Federal schools serving Indian students. In fiscal year 1979 the appropriation for this purpose, serving approximately 171,000 students, was $31,675,000.

Public Law 95-561 established that the distribution formula should be chosen by a majority vote of the tribes and Alaska village groups.

A task force appointed by the Interior Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs published proposed formulas, received numerous contents and held hearings before submitting eight formulas to tribal vote last spring. Since none received the necessary 51 percent, a run-off election involving the two formulas receiving the greatest number of votes was held this fall.

The winning formula, by a vote of 153 to 108, provides straight per capita payments for all students, with increases allowed for states which spend above the national average for education.

The other formula was a straight per capita plan which made no allowance for cost of education in the state.

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Forrest J. Gerard said today (December 4) that the challenge of educating Indian children is in the hands of tribal governments.

Gerard, speaking to the eleventh annual convention of the National Indian Education Association in Denver, said the tribes face a challenge "to raise a whole child, to instruct the intellect in the laws of nature, to educate a nation." "Children of the 1980's will determine the future of the Indian people," he said.

"The generation of the 1980's will receive the benefits of the crucial federal Indian policy changes of the 1970's--just as the legislation of the 1970's resulted from the unfinished agenda for racial and social justice in the 1960's," said Gerard. "The coming generation may take passing academic note of many of the bold initiatives achieved through great personal sacrifice by many in this assembly."

Gerard said another example of the Carter Administration's support of Indian education was the last stages of the implementation of public laws 95-651 and 95-471, Indian Education Amendments Act and the Indian Controlled Community College Act. He said that both of these acts were "milestones in Indian education which place authorities in the hands of the tribes and school boards unlike any of the past."

The Department of the Interior has recommended enactment of legislation extending the life of the tribal government of Oklahoma’s Osage Indians until 1984, it was announced today.

The principal function of the Osage tribal government, which is scheduled to expire in 1959 under existing law is to participate with the Secretary of the Interior in the execution of leases for development and extraction of the minerals that were reserved to the Tribe in Osage County, Oklahoma, under 1906 legislation.

Although the original reservation of the minerals was for only 25 years, this has been extended by subsequent enactments to April 8, 1983. For this reason, the Department favors the enactment of S. 1417 which would extend the life of the tribal government for a similar period.

The tribal government consists of a principal chief, an assistant principal chief, and eight council members. All are chosen at a general election held at Pawhuska, Okla., every four years.

Regulations governing the off-reservation treaty-rights fishing of the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan were published in the Federal Register November 15, Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus said today

The Federal regulations were developed pursuant to a September 5 memorandum of understanding between the tribes and the Interior Department concerning the regulation of treaty Indian fishing in the Great Lakes and connecting waters.

Under this agreement the tribes were to develop one joint comprehensive set of regulations governing the fishing of their members. These regulations were to be developed in consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The Interior Department was then to review the joint tribal regulations to see that they met conservation needs and to publish them as Federal regulations if they did so.

Several suggestions made by the State of Michigan have been incorporated into the regulations, with the acquiescence of the tribes. The Secretary has also included in the regulations a closure of the Lower St. Mary's River to net fishing as necessary for conservation purposes. This provision was inserted, without the consent of the tribes, under the Secretary's authority to act to protect the fishery resource.

Because of the immediate need for regulatory protection of the resource, the regulations became effective upon publication as interim regulations. Comments on the regulations, which would be considered for future changes, should be sent within 60 days to the Department of the Interior, Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs, 18th and C Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20240.

Sanders Construction Company, Ltd, of Farmington, New Mexico, has been awarded a $51,513 contract for construction of additional dormitory facilities at Aztec, New Mexico, the Department of Interior announced today.

Two higher bids for the work, ranging from $52,647 to $57,389 were received by the Indian Bureau.

The contract calls for construction of a metal kitchen and dining hall building and extensions of two metal dormitory buildings.

Over 120 Navajo children enrolled in the public schools of Aztec are quartered in the dormitories which are operated by the Bureau as a part of its program aimed at making available educational opportunities for all Indian children. In keeping with the Bureau's policy of encouraging younger children to remain with their parents, only students above the fifth grade or age 12 are permitted to stay in the dormitories.

Award of a $136,837.21 contract for grading, draining, and crushed-gravel surfacing of 11.6 miles of road on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Shannon County, South Dakota, to Roy Kindt of Winner, South Dakota, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Roy Kindt was the low bidder. Five other bids were received, ranging from $140,927.37 to $161,914.18.

This project will complete the improvement of 38.4 miles of road from U. S. Highway 18 north to Wounded Knee, Porcupine, Sharps, and Rockyford on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The road when completed will provide all-weather transportation for 200 Indian families residing in the central section of the reservation.

The principal items of work under this contract are 350,000 cubic yards of unclassified excavation, 25,000 cubic yards of crushed-gravel surface course, and 4,300 linear feet of various sizes of culvert pipe.