Racism in Faith, South Dakota Schools?

Below is the abridged complaint that has been filed with the Office of Civil Rights. Kalli has requested that her name be included in the hopes that with much attention paid to the situation, the school will be under enough scrutiny to avoid further harming her children.

At this point these are alleged complaints, many of which have been accepted by the OCR for investigation.

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Faith School System - Faith, South Dakota

Approximately 300 students, approx. 3 miles from the Cheyenne River Reservation. Approximately 7 Native students in the school.

Mother: Kalli Johnson

Children: C. 6th grade, B. 5th grade, A. 3rd grade

The school is staffed solely by white people, many of whom are pleasant to Kalli and her family. Kalli's husband is white, her children could almost pass for white, however, Kalli is obviously Indian.

Kalli Johnson has repeatedly asked for her son's school records. When she goes into the office to request them, no one will act as if they hear her. The teacher has been keeping daily post-it notes in her day book, which she keeps on her desk, on C. which are said to be placed in his school records.

This past summer, two boys shoved A. in the dumpster and wouldn't let him out until he came out "stinking like an Indian." This happened off school property over the summer.

Recently, in September 2003, a woman came to Kalli's home and told her that her son had gotten into an argument and her son's shoe had been cut by A.. The woman, white, brought her son, S. to Kalli's home. She asks him to describe what happened and S. hemmed and hawwed then said, "A. cut my shoe." The shoe is ragged and is obviously torn, not cut. When asked, S. admits that he lied about A.. S. mother had gone to the principal and told them A. had cut the shoe. The superintendent asked Kalli about it, said that S. went to the police, went to other students and parents to say that A. had cut the shoe. When it was found to be a lie, she didn't go back and tell anyone A. had been innocent.

Last year, the elementary principal called Kalli and said that C. had thrown a football through a window. C. denied having done this. Kalli went to see the teacher, who said No, the ball was thrown to him but he missed. C. is frequently blamed for actions he did not commit, and that were committed by white children who are not punished for the same activities that C. would have been punished for, had he been guilty of the actions.

May, 2003: C. had mashed potatoes and they spilled onto his lap. He picked them up and put them back on his plate. Mrs. Reed, the principal, called Kalli and said she was making an official complaint of sexual harassment. The principal said that C. had said that the potatoes were some girls afterbirth. Kalli went to the school and told the principal and teacher that C. had never said it and asked who heard him say it and asked if it was taken as hearsay. The teacher then investigated and found that C. was not guilty. Instead, two white boys and white girl, S. B., B. M., and another boy said it, but they were not cited in the report. The complaint was made by the teacher Mrs. Alice Krausse, but she never investigated the other kids once it was found that C. was innocent. Complaints about white kids were not filed. It was never removed from C's file and this year there was a new principal who said he could not remove the report of another principal without proof. The principal said it must stay in file unless proven otherwise. As of October, it was still in his file. Not sure if its still there yet.

That same day, C. was dared to ask a girl to go for a walk. She said no, but he was cited as sexually harassing her and told by the teacher he could go to jail. Principal yelled in C's face that he was sexually harassing her. Other (white) boys ask girls to go for walks, and when the girls say no, no complaints are filed.

C. has been diagnosed with dyslexia, by Doctor King of Rapid City, an optometrist. He struggles in school, has been tested and found not to be ADD or ADHD. The teacher will not call on him in class and he is denied help with his disability. The teacher insists he does not have dyslexia, even though the proper documentation has been given to the school. C. asks for extra help but is not granted it. The white children do get extra help when they request it.

School refused to pay for his dyslexic testing, there is no school support for his disability. When he was in 3rd grade Dr. King said in his report that C. was struggling and frustrated. He has learned to spell and read because Kalli bought a program for the school to use but the school refuses to use the program. When C. was in 3rd grade his teacher was wonderful and helped C., which resulted in good grades. 5th grade teacher Mrs. Krausse refused to help and now C. is failing. When Kalli insists that C. be allowed to take books home so that she can help him since the school won't, the school denies her this.

September 2003:

Mrs. Dutton, C's 6th grade teacher and the wife of the principal dismisses his dyslexia and refuses to look at file in the report, insisting he does not have dyslexia. Kalli challenges her by saying the Mrs. Dutton must know more than the specialists.

Kalli went to the school board and asked for help for C's disability and they said no.

Kids tease him about being Indian. J. I. (white) fires spit balls at C. from behind him and does not get in trouble. But when C. says, "Stop it,"C. gets written up.

J. makes racial comments to C. and is not punished. If C. makes any comments back, he gets in trouble.

C. is good at football. J. threw his mouthpiece in the toilet. J. was not reprimanded and C. had to wear that mouthpiece for a week before the school got him a new one. The secretary in school and someone who is good to all children, made the school get him a new one.

Every time C. says or does something he is documented with a note on a post-it that is supposedly attached to his permanent record. J. gets away with making racial comments, getting into fist fights. When he made comments to C., J. got angry and they had a fist fight. Both were punished for fighting, but J. received no punishment for the racial comments. Punishment for fighting for both was one weeks suspension from football, but punishment was changed to two days by principal. However, the principal never told Kalli the punishment was changed, only J's family, resulting in C.s missing practice. J's mother was on school board at the time.

All of the boys were playing on the playground. In order to climb the slide, each boy had to say Pussy kitty.Ó The teacher told all the girls to write down what C. had said and that what he had said was sexual harassment. They were not told to report on what all the other boys, who are white, had said, although all the boys had said the same thing.

Whenever Kalli makes any kind of complaint to the school, Social Services shows up. They have said they were called because the children had no clothes or food, but found these to be untrue when they inspected the home. Kalli is now afraid to make complaints.

When Kalli was in NY with her youngest twins, she left the food card for Bill to use. When he went to store to get groceries, a young girl who works there was speaking loudly and embarrassing him for using it. When Kalli came back from NY she asked C. to go get paper towels, and as he came around the corner, he bumped two bars of soap off of the display. The young girl who had yelled at Bill stills works there and screamed at C. The manager has to stand in the store to make sure she is nice to Indian people. Kalli told the children they could each pick out candy but the young woman in the store told them to put the candy back, told Kalli she couldn't afford it. Kalli's husband is humiliated when he goes to the store because of his food card.

Last year, B. (was 9, now 10) came down from bed, couldn't sleep because she got into trouble. She had been accused of calling the gym teacher a sexist, but B. wasn't involved in it. The principal grabbed her from gym and took her to the office and told the child she was sexually harassing the teacher by saying that. B. said she never said it, it was said by J. A. and one of the S's girls, both white. The principal again grabbed her arm, and dragged her back down to the gym. The teacher's aide admitted it was the other kids. B. never gets into trouble and gets good grades. When B. relayed the story to her parents, she said, "They said I called the teacher Septist."

Kalli and her husband tell the children that they should do nothing to bring attention to themselves, not to get involved in anything, to be invisible and that it could be worse. Kalli's husband tells the children to come home from school, draw the curtains, and not to go outside. They have been terribly frightened and have hesitated to file a report for fear of retaliation. However, this past Thursday Kalli received a call from a friend. She wanted to let her know that the principal, Mr. Dutton, assaulted C. at school that day. She asked C. why he didn't call her. He said that Mr. Dutton won't allow that so he didn't try. She asked why he didn't tell her after school. He said that if she goes up there it will only make it worse for him. An email from Kalli read:

When Mr. Mayer, who is now the superintendent was principal, he was fair and all children were treated equally. (With the issuance of this report, the superintendent resigned. Assumedly so as not to be associated with the school.)

Chief of Police Hoss Franfurt said, "We don't have any Indians here." Because an Indian couple with children had tinted windows and lights on their car, Hoss said they were run out of town right away because they were gang members.

When Kalli went to the police to report the assault by the principal, he told her it wasn't an assault. The principal had picked C. up and shaken him to the point that he felt ill that night, which caused Kalli to take him to the hospital. Since she wasn't sure how hard he had been shaken, she feared he might have a concussion. When Kalli arrived at the Police Station that evening, they sent her to the tribal police who have no jurisdiction in the town of Faith. The next morning, Kalli went back to the Police Station and was told by the Chief of Police that he was going away for a week and wouldn't be able to begin work on a report until he returned. Kalli is sure nothing would be done, so we are considering turning it over to the FBI as we are all seriously concerned with the safety of the family.

Michelle Hulm went to court to keep Kalli from using the checkbook for the Girl Scouts when Kalli was a troop mother. Kalli's friend Linda told her that Michelle said that something bad could happen to that Indian girl meaning Kalli. Linda said, I am scared for you. When Kalli went to a Boy Scout meeting, none of the other parents spoke to her. It was so obvious that her son asked her why they didn't speak to her.

This past summer, C. was walking down the street where some teenagers were painting a house. When they saw C., they came and painted him brown, called him a gay Indian and told him to Go away.

Every week, Kalli has to go to the school to prove that C. did not do what they said he did. They blame him for anything anyone does. They will not show Kalli C's records although she has requested them many times. They ignore her, do not respond to her words. It would seem they are doing this so that it cannot be said that they have refused, yet their actions are a refusal in themselves.

Recently, Kalli went in to speak to the principal and C's teacher. The principal screamed in Kallis face and when she asked him to stop, he continued and said he would stop if he wanted to stop. She said his behavior was completely abusive towards her.

C. does not want to go to school anymore. He doesn't finish his school work because he feels it's a lost cause because he doesn't get help with his work or his disability. He is not acknowledged in class by his teacher, and has been cited with a complaint for getting a drink of water after recess. Kalli was called to the school because he took a drink of water. All the kids come in talking after recess, but if C. speaks, he gets written up.

They think of moving, but they just bought this house, and feel they couldn't sell it as it sat on the market for twenty years before they bought it. They want the children to get a good education and say not everyone in the school and community is racist, but many are, and they feel threatened. C. does fight back, but the two younger ones just come home from school and cry.