A telecommunications company created by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has tribal officials hopeful that it will enhance education on the reservation and give the local economy a boost.
Standing Rock Telecommunications (SRT) is the first tribal-owned telecommunications company in the nation that offers cellular phone and wireless broadband service.
Beginning with an $11 million investment in 2007, it has put up 18 towers within the reservation that straddles the North Dakota and South Dakota border and secured locations for two branch stores and a headquarters.
SRT General Manager Miles McAllister said the tribe saw a connection between prospering communities and wireless access.
Improving education on the reservation is synonymous with creating the foundation for a better quality of life, McAllister said, and SRT will offer discounted rates for needy families.
And increased access to the internet will allow students on reservations to take advantage of online tools made available by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI).
Through its National Education Initiative (NEI), NMAI has begun to offer historically accurate and authentic educational materials about American Indians. NEI’s mission is to share American Indian knowledge through educational excellence and, like in North and South Dakota, many of the reservations where American Indians live are in rural areas.
“We know there’s need for this content,” said Tim Johnson, associate director for museum programs at NMAI, at the National Rural Education Technology Summit held at the museum on July 21. “Teachers and curriculum supervisors need in-depth educational materials that integrate native perspectives.”
NEI offers a number of online resources, including videos, lesson plans, and other tools, as well as professional development to train teachers about integrating Native American perspectives into lessons.
Students also would be able to access the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) forthcoming Online Learning Registry. The registry aims to provide access to historical, artistic, and scientific primary-source materials.
“Knowledge knows no boundaries, and we cannot allow distance to stand between students, education, and opportunity,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said at the summit. “We have the hardware, the latest software, and huge investments are being made in the build-out of the National Broadband Plan to connect us as never before.”
Jesi Shanley, work force liaison for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said getting families connected will go a long way in assisting with the traditional education process but will go even further in exposing Native American children to the rest of the world.
“There are people that live here that never even get to go to Bismarck (N.D.), let alone tap into what China is doing,” she said. “It’s going to increase our children’s awareness of what this whole world looks like. They won’t be so isolated.”
The Standing Rock Reservation is about 70 miles south of Bismarck.
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