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Every charter school has its own “story,” which makes it unique and special to its community. I want to share the story of the Bay Mills Ojibwe Charter School in Brimley, Michigan. Before I joined Team Mosaica, I had only been to the UP (as Michigan’s “Upper Peninsula” is known within the State) one time. When I was in college, a group of us gathered up our packs, desert hats and water bottles and drove up for a few days of hiking among the canyons and red rock bluffs around Mt. Arvon, Michigan’s highest point. But Mosaica has broadened my horizons, especially after we were introduced to the Bay Mills Indian Community.
In mid-2000, Bay Mills Community College, a federally chartered tribal college, determined that it could grant charters without regard to the cap that restricts other authorizers in the State. Its policy interests grew out of frustrations the tribe had encountered in attempting to establish a tribal school. As a result, it wanted to contribute to school reform, especially in helping to educate young people who might otherwise fall through the cracks, and it also desired to increase educational options on the reservation. We were invited to submit charter applications, and in November 2000, I made another trip to the UP. This time I went with founders of the Pontiac and Bay County Public School Academies, and we formally presented our case for those two schools to the BMCC Board of Regents. The charters were granted, and both schools opened in the fall of 2001—the first Bay Mills-chartered schools in the State.
Tribal leaders continued to importune us to partner with them to develop a school on the reservation itself, and we agreed to do so. On my latest foray to the UP, in December, I trooped past the slot queens in the Kings Club Casino (the first tribally owned casino in the United States) and went across the street for my first visit to the Ojibwe Charter School, which opened last September with 81 students. (Jackson Arts & Technology Academy and Richfield Academy also opened in September, meaning that Team Mosaica currently manages five of the dozen schools BMCC has chartered.) On my December visit, I also met with members of the Tribal Council and witnessed their pride in OCS, which is far more than a school to them. It is the realization of a dream of a Native community to create and oversee an educational program for its own children.
The U.S. government had long ago breached its treaty commitments to maintain a tribal school on the Bay Mills reservation. Since 1941, as part of a federal policy known as “coercive assimilation,” Ojibwe (Chippewa) students were required to attend the Brimley Public Schools. Although some Native students had positive experiences at those schools, the general perception was that they were not responsive to the tribal community’s needs and that the children from the reservation were treated condescendingly and were not afforded equal educational opportunities. Many were suspended or expelled; others dropped out because of the seeming double standard. The discrepancy in test scores was striking: on the State MEAP tests in 2002, for example, the Caucasian students’ passing rate was 33% higher than that of Native Americans.
Under the leadership of CAO Diane Benjamin, the new school is off to a great start. It interweaves Ojibwe cultural norms throughout the educational model and allows the Bay Mills community (90% of OCS’s students are Native American and/or reside on the reservation) to establish high academic standards, while encouraging parent and community involvement. In short, like all schools managed by Team Mosaica, OCS gives its students and their families a chance to own their educational experience.
Submitted by Michael J. Connelly, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mosaica Education, Inc.
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