"Fire swept through a dormitory of Crow Creek School in Stephan on April 24, displacing students and threatening the operation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school. The problem: how to erect a dormitory by August, when students return to school, at a cost of $2.2 million. And this is no mere dorm; for many students, who confront drugs, abuse and hopelessness on the reservation, the poorest in the nation, it is an anchor in a storm.Most of the campus, where 400 to 500 students are enrolled, is in various stages of disintegration. The tribe has been begging the BIA for money for decades - an exercise in futility.

The BIA, never a model of bureaucratic efficiency when it comes to the needs of Native Americans, can't even decide whether to raze the current structure and start over, or repair what remains after the fire. 'You just look at them and wonder what they're looking at,' Duane Big Eagle, tribal chairman, told Argus Leader reporter Terry Woster.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the BIA to act. The agency stands to lose more than $100 million from its budget in cuts proposed by the White House."

Get the Story:
Randell Beck: A real need, indeed (The Sioux Falls Argus Leader 5/10)

Relevant Links:
Crow Creek Tribal School - http://www.crowcreek.k12.sd.us

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