Kennedy-Stiffarm takes over as HPS Indian Education for All director

Havre Public Schools has a new director of Indian Education for All in Jessica Kennedy-Stiffarm who is in her opening weeks in the position looking to evaluate where students and parents believe there are gaps when it comes to education about Montana's Native American tribes, their culture and their histories.

Kennedy-Stiffarm has spent 15 years in health care as a nurse with a master's degree in public health and has children in the district.

She said she grew up in Billings, but after fifth grade moved to Hays, attending a Catholic school on the reservation before moving to Harlem, so she has a breadth of personal experience through many different kinds of education and she seeks to bring that experience to this new position at Havre Public Schools.

"I feel like I can speak to different perspectives," she said.

Indian Education for All is a state-recognized program present in schools across Montana that seeks to preserve and teach Native and non-Native students about the distinct and unique cultural heritage of the tribes around them.

Under this program, teachers are required to be able to teach students about these subjects in a culturally responsive way so that the students understand the culture, history and practices of Native Americans and their tribes, which will increase knowledge and understanding.

"I see it as a tool for Indigenous people, if it's implemented correctly, for us to go forwards," Kennedy-Stiffarm said.

She said her position deals with developing curriculum, professional development and setting up cultural activities, and, while she certainly has her own ideas, she wants to spend her opening weeks talking to students and parents about what they feel they need.

"I want to ask the students and the parents 'What do you think is missing?'... We need to start somewhere," she said.

To that end, Kennedy-Stiffarm said, they've set up monthly meetings of the IEFA Parent Advisory Committee which is looking for new members and input from the public.

She said the committee is primarily looking for parents or guardians of Native American or Alaskan Native children in the school system to talk about issues that affect their children and offer recommendations about how to improve the educational experience at Havre Public Schools.

She said the program needs more parental engagement, and while she is mostly looking for the parents and guardians of students with Indian heritage, parents who are just generally interested in the topic are welcome to attend.

"Help me help the students," she said.

The first meeting will be Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Havre High School Library and subsequent meetings will be held on the second Monday of each month, provided it is not a holiday.

Details for all meetings are on blueponyk12.com website on the events calendar and the meetings will be noticed in the Havre Daily News.

Kennedy-Stiffarm said she wants to stress that she is not some ultimate authority on the various tribes and their cultures, that there are elders throughout the state and in the local area that she will be in contact with who know far more than she does, and whose knowledge can help the program grow.

She said she's worked with Havre Public Schools staff members before, including Superintendent Craig Mueller and the previous IEFA director, Karla Geda, who has since retired, providing them ideas, like having an honor song at graduation.

She said she was approached by Mueller about the position after Geda left and she thinks there's much that can be done to build the program up, but that will take a committed and sustained effort.

"We need to start from the ground and work our way up," she said. "It's going to be a marathon not a sprint."

Kennedy-Stiffarm said she's identified one big goal in her first few weeks, and that is to enhance Native student's cultural identities by reflecting their people's influences in history and culture, to provide reflections of them in the curriculum that will make them proud and create community.

Kennedy-Stiffarm said she knows first-hand how important a robust education is, having grown up in a single-parent household after the death of her father.

She said there is no way she would be in the position she is today without quality schooling.

As the bison were vital to her people throughout their history, she said, so is education just as vital to modern students who need it not just to survive but thrive.

She said the knowledge someone obtains through education is something that can never be taken away, and it's important to understand that this program is not about her, but about the students above all, and she hopes to make it as great as it can be.

"I'm gonna give it my best," she said.