Voices of Indigenous Educators Series: “We are still here, and we are going to flourish” – Dana Haukaas

This post is based on an interview on December 14, 2023 with Dana Haukaas, who is in her ninth year as the principal at Todd County Middle School in Mission, South Dakota. She is a graduate of Todd County School District herself and she and her family are from the area. They are ranchers and tribal members. In her introduction, she says, “I love everything I do in this job…I never wanted to be in education, and it just seems like the universe was pushing me toward where I ended up, and I’m so grateful that it did…This is my home.” 

What is the opportunity for learning that you are running towards? Why is this important in your community now? 

In recent years we’ve seen a lot of grassroots movement of reclaiming our culture and reclaiming our children and reclaiming how we do things and not being forced into the Western view of how things should be and really embracing how things ought to be for us. The learning that we have been investigating and pushing towards is one of experiential learning and customized learning. 

If you look at any of the NAEP testing that we do every year, Native Americans across the country are the only minority group [for whom] the gap is widening. The other minorities are closing the gap. And why is that? 

School doesn’t connect a lot within Native communities. It’s not been a good experience for our ancestors, and the boarding school era still plays a role every single day in what school looks like. So we wanted to go back to how children were taught and cared for, you know, supported, loved, and you got [teachings] when you were ready, not because you were supposed to be at this level, because you’re 12 years old. Maybe they’re not there yet, then you embrace them and love them anyway, and not shame them for being where they are. You help them get those skills to move them to the next level. We’re proposing that we still use the standards and identify what skills we need to develop in our kids, but really they get away from, “Well, you have to know this by the time you’re a sixth grader. Well, this is the standard and this is how you progress along that.” And look at it: we have these children for three years. So in three years, how do we design a path for them, for each child to be as successful as they can be?

And that’s important to the community because this system cannot continue to fail this community in the way that it has. Historically, Todd County for the last 40 years has only graduated about half of the freshmen that start. And then, out of those graduates, we have maybe 5 percent of them pursue something after high school. A lot of our students leave without a plan. Or if they do go away to college or whatever their dream is, they’re normally back within half a year. And without a plan or a way to contribute, we’re just perpetuating generational poverty. 

We’re not getting any better. And you can see that our communities are struggling. And if we can engage kids and help them feel successful at this age, adolescence years are the important years where you start identifying who you are. If we can hook them into education or into having a plan on what they want to do or become or what path they would like to follow, that would be powerful for this community. We don’t have time to wait because we’re struggling. The time is now and I think we have the support behind us to change. 

Who is helping you with this work?

Well, I try to recruit anybody that will listen to me. I look for support in any way that we can get, through tribal education and partnerships that we can form with outside agencies that are interested in changing student outcomes for Native American youth.

I go into things with the mindset that I don’t see how anybody could disagree with what we’re trying to do. So I just assume they’re going to get on board and want to be a part of it because who would not want to be a part of something that could truly transform a community, but also change the outcome. Even if it’s just one kid, it was worth it.

Just this last week we partnered with a peer mentoring program through the tribe. They showed the documentary Bones of Crows, and they used our facility. We invited all of our staff to go and be a part of that and learn about the boarding school era.

It’s always amazing to me; I didn’t know anything about the boarding school era until I was out of college, and I grew up here. It’s just interesting that the story isn’t out there, and I take it for granted that everybody knows the story. So that was powerful. We partnered with the tribal emergency management department, and we just made 2000 dry soup mixes. Last year we had that huge blizzard, and people couldn’t get food, and they had to be airlifted, so now we’ve got mylar bags full of soup mix that all they have to do is melt snow, and they can have 16 servings of soup to take care of themselves over whatever may happen, whatever emergency comes up. 

We know that the work that you’re doing is hard on a lot of levels. It takes a lot of time to achieve the full actualization of your dream. What does this look like and feel like?

The vision that I have for students as they leave us is that they are empowered and they know that they are able to advocate for themselves and say, “No, this is not enough. I need this, this, and this to help me be successful.” And I know that’s a lot to ask from a middle school kid, but that’s the dream.

I want them to walk out of here able to be an advocate for themselves and to others. And when something isn’t meeting their standards or giving them what they need, they have the ability to say, “No,” or “Can we try it this way? This is how I learn best. Can you show me or can you help me?”

I want kids to walk out of here with a plan and not any fear. To be fearless in facing the unknown, which is the next step, would be high school and being able to see beyond that: What can I be? What can I do to help my relatives? What can I do to contribute? You know, I don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer or have a professional degree. I can be the very best mom and this is what I need to do it. I can be the very best mechanic and this is what I need to get there. To have that idea of contribution and to see that we all have a role in our community and within our tribe. That’s historically how we do things – we all have a part to play based on our strengths.

And I want kids to be able to identify that and move forward in that way. And it would feel amazing. I can’t even imagine. I think about what it would be like to walk into a school that did this on a regular basis with kids that had that strength and those skills. It would be a dream to come to work. It would be just like, “Oh my God, today’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait to see what happens.” Instead of, “Oh God, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” you know? And not have that connotation of fear. To just have that optimism of all the greatness that could come of this day.

Where do you think you are on the path to that vision? And what are some of the next steps that you plan on taking? 

We are just at the very beginning because the school that I’m describing is not the school that we are. When I say “we,” it is really a group effort because I have an amazing group of educators who work here who are willing and have committed to being a part of this vision that every child succeeds, that every child leaves this building 100 percent at grade level, at eighth-grade standards.

They’re making the plans. They are building the mechanisms and the systems to do that, but we are just in the infancy. We have so many questions about it, we know how we want it to feel, but how do you do that every day in a classroom? And how do you embrace student voice and choice when all I’ve ever done is be the dispenser of knowledge?

I think that’s a lot of fear that I don’t know how to shift my role to facilitation, and we’re kind of stuck right there right now and building that momentum to reassure teachers that we can do this and that they are very capable.

A lot of them are just like, “Can I just do this now?” But we don’t have all the systems in place, like, how do we assess and how do we grade and all those questions that come along, because the families are going to want to know that. “How are you assessing my child? How do I know my child is ready for high school if you’re not doing A, B, C, and D?” We really have to build the community around this movement and reassure everyone that we are going to come out of it all the better.

Knowing it’s messy and that you’re in a process, can you paint a picture of a moment when you felt it? A moment when you felt or you saw a glimpse of it and said “this is what it will feel like every day.”

I kind of laugh because I have been talking about this for a while, but I’ve just never really known how to gain traction or how to move the needle. This summer, a teacher approached me and said, “Hey, I’m really interested in project-based learning.” And he’s like, “What do you think of us doing project-based learning?” instead of this period during the day that we called quiet time, because we didn’t have a better title. 

He called it “springboard” and as he was talking through it, I was going, “This is what we need. Yes. Yes.” But you know, I had to play the cool principal and be like, “Okay, tell me how that would work” to make sure that he had a plan in place for how we could create these environments.

When the staff came the second week of August, we rolled this out and said “You need to have a project for the springboard time,” and all of them got behind it. Everybody had a project. Now, that was our first taste, and kids loved it.

We have a partnership with Black Hills Special Services, the South Dakota Family Engagement Center. They came in and did some student focus groups for us. What came out of it is that kids were saying, “Springboard is awesome this year. We wish we would have done this every year. I wish school was like this all day. I want this, this makes school fun. I like what I’m doing.” 

We have kids doing cosmetology and we have kids doing a land project and treaty rights. We have kids doing agricultural planning. We have all these different things. And that’s when my heart began to be lighter like, “Oh my God, we’re doing this.” 

We really didn’t plan it that well, but still, we’re doing this, and now we’re moving into the second semester. This was our first taste of project-based. So now we’re telling the teachers, “For your project, you’ve got to link to some standards. It doesn’t have to be just within your discipline. It could be an interdisciplinary project. You can work together. Just make sure that you’re addressing standards in your projects.” We just did the rollout for kids, to pick what springboard they wanted to do. And they were really good. They were really amazing. 

I’m starting to get that excitement. My problem is that I get way too excited way too easily and I just want to jump all in. I also know that this is a process and that going slow and doing this step by step is kind of how we’re going to get everybody on the same train. Or the same bus going all the same direction and not trying to put the brakes on anywhere. Some of the naysayers I thought I would have are okay, because they could choose something that they were passionate about that could be their project as long as they tie it to standards. And I think in a lot of cases, just because a teacher is certified in this content area doesn’t mean they’re passionate about it.

So when you can tie passion into that and share that with children – oh, it has been an experience, so I know we’re on the right path. I’m not quite sure what the rest of the ride’s going to look like, but I know we’re on the right path. I’ve seen a glimpse of what we could become.

The vision really is, how can we help teachers feel better about what they do, and be successful, and also help our students be successful? I’ve had a lot of influences like when we were part of the Native American Achievement School grant from the state of South Dakota, which was pretty innovative for the state to appropriate funds for that to help us investigate the kind of school we wanted to be.

We visited a lot of schools that were within the NACA (Native American Community Academy)-Inspired Network of schools. I would say that NACA had a huge impact on me just for the simple fact that when you walk through those doors, there’s just a different feeling from the kids, from the staff, and it’s one of achievement, and it’s one of pride, of security. A feeling that “We are secure in who we are, and nobody’s going to tell us differently, and we’re not going to allow that here.” 

It’s hard being a public school in South Dakota. I’ll be honest. My school is the lowest performing middle school in the state of South Dakota. And do you think I like that title? No, I do not. But I know my kids are more than that. And I want them to have that when they walk into an arena or a classroom or whatever. I want them to have that same level of security and confidence that “I am who I am and I can be successful at anything you throw at me, because I know who I am. I have the skills that I need,” and there’s not this apathy that sometimes we see in classrooms where kids have really learned the game of school. School shouldn’t be a game. It should be hard work, but it should be hard, fun work that students look forward to going and doing every day. 

If you could wave a magic wand and change something, what would it be and how would that change the trajectory of your work?

I think right now the magic piece that I would love to have available to us is to have the standards connections done already – that these are the essential standards for sixth grade and how that builds into seventh grade and how that scaffolds into eighth grade. And somebody would just come in and say, Hey, look at this. I’m going to teach your teachers all about this, and it’s going to be amazing. And it’s going to work, and it’s going to be exactly what you need to roll out this process of competency-based. And really, that would be the resource that I would wish for. And then that my teachers got it, were able to envision it, see it, and start to build their classes. 

Next school year I really want to start that collaborative work with each other on supporting kids all the way through the process. I wish those systems were already in place because that’s probably the most daunting task we face right now – getting everybody to that level and getting the resources prepared.

I would love to hear from others – even some challenges. Just going through this with someone else could be beneficial, and maybe tackling obstacles together.  We may be in different spaces, but that’s really at the heart of traditional thinking. Lakota culture is about being together and taking care of one another. So if someone has something to share with your relatives in South Dakota, please do so. 

What else do you want folks to know about your story, the work that y’all are doing, and what is to come?

I just want people to know that we are so much more than the numbers. We have so much more to offer to the world. These kids are amazing, and I’m grateful for any time that you’ve spent with us. Know that just because we may be the lowest performing in the state of South Dakota, when you walk through those doors, you would never know it. Our kids are amazing. Our school is amazing. That’s what I want people to know: We’re more than the numbers. I think people need to know that we’re more than the rumors or the stereotypes. We are still here, and we are going to flourish.

This interview is part of a series exploring the intersection of Indigenous ways of learning and competency-based education (CBE). Through these conversations with Indigenous educators, the Aurora Institute and the Liber Institute aim to create a space for meaningful storytelling, celebrate resilience and innovation in Indigenous education, and inspire more inclusive, culturally responsive educational approaches.

Learn More

• Voices of Indigenous Educators Series: “We’re all in this canoe together.” – Sui-Lan Hoʻokano
• Voices of Indigenous Educators Series: “How do we prepare them? Sure, academics play a part, but holistic wellness does too.” – Sage Fast Dog
• Acknowledging the Indigenous Connections in CBE and Student-Centered Learning