The shift comes as Indigenous leaders in the state have called for an end to the 'criminalization of Native children.'
One school district 90 miles to the south of Tsé Bit A’í, Gallup-McKinley County Schools, is responsible for most of that disparity. Gallup-McKinley has a quarter of New Mexico’s Native students but accounted for at least three-quarters of Native student expulsions in the state during the four school years ending in 2020.
The stakes are high. Expelling and suspending students frequently doesn’t address the underlying problems and can even backfire, making misbehavior more likely, said Daniel Losen. Losen is the director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and senior director of education at the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Youth Law. He studies racial disparities in school discipline.
A decade ago, the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty spotlighted two school districts next to the Navajo Nation for harsh disciplinary practices in a scathing report: Gallup-McKinley County Schools and Cuba Independent Schools district, on the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation. If students are at odds, Dominguez and their principal will bring them in to talk things out. Problems often stem from misunderstandings, and social media cell phone apps like Snapchat have made things worse, fueling the rumor mill, she said. If a problem persists, they’ll sign non-contact agreements to avoid one another as a cool-down mechanism, or bring in the students’ family members for a talking circle.
“If a teacher’s explaining a really cool math concept but a kid hasn’t eaten in three days or is wearing the same clothes for four or five days, [they are] not going to be able to pick it up,” she said. “In high poverty communities, a lot of times, students are told their truths – they are not given an opportunity to speak their truth, to tell their story from their point of view, uninterrupted. To be heard.
Monte del Sol, a public charter school in Santa Fe, sent two 10th-grade students, a counselor and administrators to the state’s training. The 10th-graders facilitated the school’s first disciplinary remediation circle, with two groups of 8th grade girls. Making a student who has been victimized sit down with the student who bullied or victimized them can retraumatize that child, Montoya said.
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