St. Joseph's Indian School

Today’s guest blogger: Donna

Greetings! I’m the Human Resources Director for St. Joseph’s Indian School.

As you can tell by our recent guest bloggers, St. Joseph’s Indian School is much more than simply a “school.” It takes dedicated staff in many occupations to provide a safe, welcoming environment and experience for our Lakota (Sioux) students.

When describing St. Joseph’s to friends and family, I tell them that when you drive onto the property, it looks like a small college campus. On St. Joseph’s Indian School’s campus, you’ll see the homes in which the children reside, the school building itself, Our Lady of the Sioux Chapel, administration buildings, the Dining Hall, Rec Center, Health Center, business offices, the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center and workshops for our Facilities crew. I mention these buildings (my list is incomplete) to give you a flavor of the variety of employees we have.

Our employees are a dedicated group. Like most businesses we have some staff who are just starting with us. But in many cases these personnel have worked here for 20, 30 or even 40 years. Often a person will come to work “for a year or two” because they’re interested in working with Native American youth. But they fall in love with the children and the mission of our school and decide to make St. Joseph’s a life-long career.

The Human Resources Department is fortunate to work with extraordinary staff. The work is hard – particularly for those who interact with the students. Days can be long, physically demanding and both intellectually and emotionally challenging. But our houseparents, teachers, counselors and others who work directly with the students often receive rewards commensurate with the challenges – a relationship with a child that exceeds their expectations.

In addition many employees who do not work directly with the children, find it equally rewarding to be associated with such an exceptional organization. We appreciate all of the unique skills and talents that these women and men are willing to share with St. Joseph’s.

I recognize that I may be making it sound like working for St. Joseph’s is similar to Eden or Shangri-La. Certainly that’s not the case. We have our warts just as all businesses do. However we are graced by many people who understand that their work here is not a job, but a mission.

Today’s guest blogger: Karen

Hello to all. My name is Karen and I am one of the Family Service Counselors working with 1^st through 5^th grade boys here at St. Joseph’s Indian School. I am beginning my 4^th year here. I am new to blogging, so please take that into account.

Work here at St. Joseph’s Indian School in the summertime has a different pace than the rest of the year. It’s a time when we spend some time visiting our students in their own homes and interviewing those who are applying, which is part of the admissions process. Yesterday, I travelled to Mitchell, South Dakota to interview a 2^ndgrader and his mother. He really enjoyed being interviewed and asked about his favorite foods and things like that. It’s always good to see where our students live and meet other family members that we may not have had the chance to meet before.

During the summer time, I do some planning for my next year’s guidance class as well. We each are assigned a particular grade and are responsible for planning guidance lessons and activities each week for a 45 minute time period. My assigned class is 1^st grade so they are students new to school and possibly, away from home for the first time. We talk about homesickness, support systems and usually take walking tours of the campus so they can begin to learn their way around. Some may have siblings that go here also.

Summertime at St. Joseph’s also means summer camp for kids from Lower Brule and Crow Creek. Those camps are two weeks long for each group. They have activities and fun lessons in the morning, eat lunch followed by some more activities and then a bus ride back home. St. Joseph’s also offers a summer break home for our students who would like to spend about 6 weeks here in the summer. They stay here on campus with houseparents and do a lot of field trips and fun activities. The Missouri River is extremely high this year, so the park in town where kids enjoy playing is now under water! I try often to have lunch with the students in the summer break home and they’re always excited to talk about the fun they’ve been having. One student won a bike for perfect attendance and he rides that bike all the time and absolutely loves it! The summer break home closes in early July so that every student has about 5 weeks at home before school starts again.

I thank you for your continued support and wish each of you joyful days.

Today’s guest blogger: Sherry

Hello, my name is Sherry. I am one of the 1^st-5^th grade girls Family Service Counselor here at St. Joseph’s Indian School. I am also St. Joseph’s Indian School’s FAST (Families and Schools Together) Trainer. I came to St. Joseph’s in 1999 where I began as a Child Care worker with the 6^th-8^th grade community. While I was a Child Care Worker, St. Joseph’s Indian School graciously allowed me to pursue my Master’s Degree which led to the current position I hold at this time.

During the summer time, I am busy with traveling to visit my families on my caseload. I enjoy this part of the summer because it allows me to visit with the Native American families and students in their own environment. The students and families are usually happy to see me and share with me what has been going on since summer break began in May. One of the big questions when I go out is,

When does school start again?

One of the other important things along with travel that I do in the summer is Admissions. I go out and meet with the new families and students. We fill out a social history to get to know the family and then the child will also answer some fun questions about themselves, so I can get to know them a bit on a personal level. Once the information is collected in the files I have for the summer, I then share the information with the Admissions Board and then it is decided whether or not St. Joseph’s Indian School would be a good fit for the family and most importantly for the child.

This summer, I was also fortunate to be able to be recertified as the FAST Trainer for St. Joseph’s Indian School. I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin where I spent two days going through the rectification process. FAST (FST Inc.) is an eight week researched based, family program that helps parents become the primary prevention agent in their child’s life. The goals of the FAST Program are to enhance family functioning by strengthening the parent-child relationship and by empowering the parents. The second goal is to prevent school failure, by improving the child’s performance and behavior in the school, empowering the parents to take a role in their child’s educational process and increasing the family’s affiliation with the school. The third goal is to prevent substance abuse in children and families by increasing knowledge and awareness of this problem and its impact in child development and linking families to assessments and treatment services and the final goal is to reduce stress parents and children experience in daily situations by developing informal support systems and linking with community resources and services.

These goals are met through the different activities the parent(s) and child(ren) complete together during a FAST night on campus. A typical night of FAST generally last for about two and half hours, in which the families play games and share a meal together. Some of the activities other than the meal are: making a family flag, scribbles (drawing activity), feeling charades, kids time, buddy time, parent group, closing circle and rain. On the 7^th session we have a Substance Abuse Prevention presentation by our Prevention Specialist or one of the other counselors. The families and staff alike enjoy doing the activities.

I hope that you all are having a wonderful summer!

Today’s guest blogger: Mary Beth

Hi, my name is Mary Beth – a first-time blogger as well! I oversee the production area of the development office here at St. Joseph’s Indian School. The development office is where fundraising efforts take place for the school and our outreach programs.

Right now, we are conducting our annual inventory and audit. We mail out about 15 million letters each year from our office, so we have millions of pieces to count! The auditors are here to check and verify our practices and provide an accurate report to our Board of Directors and to you.

We have machines that cut, fold, insert, seal and apply postage to all the letters and packages sent to friends like you. The postal service has guidelines that we must follow so we are eligible for the biggest discounts on the postage costs. Every penny saved is another penny available for the programs that serve the Native American children entrusted to us.

Postage costs are a constant concern, so it is very important to keep abreast of the changes and look for ways to save money. I work with the US Postal Service to mail as efficiently as possible. We are able to haul some of our larger mailings to a distribution center. This cuts our cost by thousands of dollars each year.

I have worked at St. Joseph’s Indian School for almost 29 years – I have enjoyed the opportunity to be a good steward and help provide for the long-term viability of the programs and services offered here. Please know that you are included in my daily prayers for all our tiyospaye – our extended family!

Today, one of our larger mailings is ready to go; we will have two semi-loads heading out. Perhaps one of the letters we are mailing will arrive at your mailbox soon! Hope you have enjoyed this little insight of my service to the needs of our school. I better go see what the auditors are looking at!

Today’s guest blogger: Mike

Hi, my name is Mike and I am the Food Service Coordinator for St. Joseph’s Indian School. In addition to feeding lunch to the students every day, we operate a grocery where the homes on campus can get food for the students. In addition, we purchase and prepare fresh fruit and vegetables for the students’ snack at the school in the mornings and cater special events for students and staff on campus.
This has been an exciting year for our Food Service and St. Joseph’s Indian School as we received the Healthier US Challenge Silver Award from the USDA. To get this award we improved the school lunch meals by incorporating more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and by using less fat, sugar and salt.

The students are also provided nutrition education and at least 45 minutes of physical education each week. St. Joseph’s Indian School is only the second Native American school to receive this award and the first to do so under new, more stringent USDA guidelines.

It has been a busy summer here so far feeding the Rising Eagle Day Camp campers and St. Joseph’s students. We are now doing inventory, summer cleaning and restocking the grocery for school to start in a short six weeks.

Today’s guest blogger: LeRoy

Hello, I am LeRoy, St. Joseph’s Indian School’s Fleet Manager. The maintenance garage here at St. Joseph’s Indian School is a 3,600 square foot facility that has four stalls for working on vehicles and equipment. It was built in 1985. It also has a wash bay with a car wash. There are two hoists for lifting vehicles. The facility also has metal-cutting and welding equipment for fabricating many items for plant projects. The shop is well equipped with hand tools, diagnostic and testing equipment that is required for the many areas of repair that are performed.

The garage facility employees two full-time Technicians that maintain and repair over 70 vehicles for St. Joseph’s. Vehicle range from a 65 passenger bus, to pickups, suburbans, cars, vans and even Japanese mini trucks. In addition, there are 10 pieces of heavy equipment (such as road grader, pay loader, back hoe, etc.) and dozens of smaller construction and lawn care equipment items that are also maintained and repaired.

In the office, we keep records of all work performed and part used on all the vehicles and equipment. We record and keep record of fuel and vehicle mileage monthly. We buy and sell vehicles and equipment as needed. We assign all the vehicles and parking to all the various areas and departments. We have 12 vehicles (which include 4 minibuses) that stay at the garage and are for out-of-town travel for all departments. We keep the schedule for these vehicles and have them ready for travel every day.

I have been managing the garage and the fleet for eleven and a half years now, and my technician has been here for 15 years. I love my job and enjoy working with all the staff and students here at St. Joseph’s Indian School. Thanks to all that make it possible.

Today’s guest blogger: Julie

Hi, my name is Julie and I am the Clinical Services Director at St. Joseph’s Indian School. I have worked at St. Joseph’s since 1987. I began my work here as a Child Care Worker. I have also been a Residential Coordinator, Counselor for the college program that we had in Mitchell, South Dakota and a Family Service Counselor for 1^st– high school students.

I currently oversee the Clinical Department and the Health Center. During the summer months, the Health Center is not as busy as it is during the school year. We see less activity as there are fewer students on campus. We do however, provide services for the staff and their immediate family and have a nurse on call when students are here.

The Clinical Department is very busy during the summer months. The Family Service Counselors visit the homes of the students that are on their caseload. The reason for these visits is to remain in contact with the student and their parent/guardian to see how their summer is going and to see if they are in need of anything. The counselors are required to visit a number of their families over the summer, but they enjoy seeing and hearing about what is going on in their lives. The counselors will then update staff when the new school year begins in August.

The Family Service Counselors along with the Clinical Support/Admission staff will be working on admission files. Our admissions process begins with the parent/guardian filling out and sending in the application for St. Joseph’s Indian School. Once we receive the application, the student is put on our waiting list. These files are divided up over the summer months and the counselors go out to interview the student and their parent/guardian using our Social History form. Admission meetings are then held in July and August for student acceptance.

We hope and pray that you all are having a wonderful summer and thank you for your continued support.

Today’s guest blogger: Mike

Greetings to everyone from St. Joseph’s Indian School. The technology department has a very busy schedule during the summer months. Many hours are spent installing new computers, rebuilding older computers and making sure everything will work when the students and staff return for the new school year. Computers are put on a five-year rotation and the teachers are on the top of our list this year. They will be excited to see new computers when they return in the fall. Before that, we must take out the old computer, clean it up, vacuum it out, remove all the old data and rebuild it to be put back into a classroom for student use. These are used as standalone computers for educational games for the students.

We are also installing eight promethean boards in the school classrooms. Promethean boards are student interactive learning systems that greatly enhance student education. As you might be able to sense, the technology department builds some muscle in the summer!

Along with computer changes, there are many software changes that need to be made over the summer. We write a lot of our own computer programs here at St. Joseph’s Indian School. The programs range from keeping information on each student to tracking their educational progress. Creating our own computer programs, enable us to “tweak” the program to our exact needs. The summer is the time to make these changes. The list seems to grow each year with minor changes to some programs, adding a few reports to other programs or creating a whole new application for staff to use in the fall. Don’t forget the training on these new programs – we’ll be preparing for that as well.

Telephones are another responsibility for our department. Our current telephone switch is quite old so plans are underway to replace it. New telephones need to be setup to be compatible with the new system.

Since every piece of technology always works here, we don’t have to worry about technical support. What am I saying? Of course, it’s normal around here, there always seems to be something not working somewhere. We provide technical support for the entire campus which means days filled with nothing else. This can make our days very interesting and also very frustrating, but we enjoy it very much! We strive to be a very user-friendly technology department.

Today’s guest blogger: Robyn

Good Morning! My name is Robyn and I am a Family Service Counselor at St. Joseph’s Indian School. I work with 6^th-12^th grade girls and have been a counselor here for the past 7 years. The past few weeks have been quite busy. I was able to visit some of the students that I work with down in Marty, South Dakota. Marty is a little Native American Indian Reservation community about two hours south of Chamberlain, not too far from the Missouri River. It was so good to see the students’ smiling faces. I really enjoy having the opportunity to visit with families. Next week I will be traveling to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Rosebud Indian Reservation, both located in South Dakota. I have also been working on admission files for the upcoming school year. We have been busy requesting school and medical records and conducting interviews with families.

We continue to get rain and the Missouri River continues to rise. The flooding remains in the local area and people have been pulling together to help and support each other. St. Joseph’s Indian School’s campus is on the river, but has not flooded. More than likely, the water will not reach any of our buildings or roadways. It is quite a sight to see the waters continue to spread.

We appreciate your continued support and are very blessed to have such wonderful people invested in St. Joseph’s Indian School. I am so fortunate to be part of an organization that is making a difference in the lives of American Indian children and families that we serve. It is truly a gift to be able to follow your passion and calling from God. Thank you for continuing to provide me with that opportunity.

Today’s guest blogger: Amanda

Hello everyone from Amanda. I am a Family Service Counselor here at St. Joseph’s Indian School; my caseload consists of about 20 6^th-12^th grade girls. This is my second summer here at St. Joseph’s and I must say I love everything about working here. During the school year there is a nice hustle and bustle with students and staff; however, in the summer things are more laid back. During the school year I am often busy seeing students for individual sessions, conducting counseling groups, attending meetings, keeping in touch with staff and visiting homes. During the summer, I along with the other family service counselors,visit our students at home along with interview prospective students for our admissions process.

A few of the students I work with stayed on campus for the summer programs offered; however, they are all now at home. One of the students who will be a senior next year completed and passed driver’s education. She was so excited that she passed and looks forward to cruising around next year. We are starting to look at life after high school. She is excited yet scared to think about leaving St. Joseph’s Indian School and being on her own. Another one of the students I work with returned last week from the Germany Exchange Program. She along with another student and staff were in Germany for about three weeks. She had so many wonderful stories to share along with pictures. She described her trip as a once in a life time opportunity and she was very grateful that she was chosen to represent St. Joseph’s Indian School!

Last week, I traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota to visit two of the students I work with and their families. Summer travel is one of my favorite things to do. It is nice to see the students in their home environment and hear about the different things that they have done or are planning to do. I also made a trip to the Lower Brule Indian Reservation to visit five students and interview four children for admissions. Some of my students asked how much longer break was because they were ready to come back to St. Joseph’s Indian School. One of the students I work with said,

Being at home for so long was too boring and the temptation to give in to peer pressure was getting hard and hard to turn down.

I spoke with the student about the things she wanted to accomplish in her life along with how she has seen firsthand the consequences of using drugs and alcohol. We brainstormed a plan of action to help her resist giving in peer pressure.

Yesterday, I traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Wanblee to visit one of my students and interview four students for admissions. It was great to sit down and chat with my student and her guardian. We established a game plan together to help her raise her grades and be more motivated. The drive to Pine Ridge is breath taking; it makes you think of all the history the South Dakota Badlands hold.

Today I was supposed to travel to Eagle Butte to visit a family. However, due to the recent rain and high river we canceled our trip for safety reasons. I will be volunteering to help fill sandbags this afternoon to help ensure that businesses and homes in town stay dry. Thank you for your time and God Bless!