Rapid City schools see record number of Native graduates

Never before have this many Indigenous students graduated from Rapid City Area Schools, Title IV director Ira Taken Alive said. Last year, 96 Native students graduated from RCAS.

“This was our largest class to date,” Taken Alive said. “We’re looking forward to continuing to connect with our students. We’re on the path of each year having the potential of being the largest class ever of Native American students in Rapid City Area Schools.”

Of those graduating, 77 Native students are from Central High School, two are from Sturgis Brown High School, 32 are from Stevens High School and 40 from Rapid City Alternative Academy.

The actual number of Native students graduating may fluctuate before the actual ceremonies over the weekend.

Last year, the district’s Indian Education Office began offering graduation success coaches at Stevens High School, Central High School and Rapid City Alternative Academy.

“Making that connection has proven invaluable,” Taken Alive said. “For students to have an advocate to have a safe space, so to speak, and a person they can relate to, has been wonderful. I believe that’s adding to the success of our students especially with navigating being a teenager.”

Many Native students come to Rapid City from small rural communities, making their transition into high school more difficult as they adjust to large class sizes. Central High School had almost 2,000 students for the 2022-2023 school year and Stevens 1,600, compared to 740 at Pine Ridge High School.

Additionally, Native students are roughly 4 percent of Stevens High School’s population and 35 percent of Central High School’s population, whereas they make up over 90 percent of the student body at reservation schools.

“It’s a culture shock to have the size of enrollment of our schools and for families to navigate that,” Taken Alive said. “And most reservation schools are K-12 in a centralized building, so those challenges are inherent.”

Next year, two more graduation success coaches will join the team at Central High School where a majority of Native students attend. One coach will be devoted to the Freshman House, and the other will join the existing graduation success coaches.

On May 22, Rapid City Area Schools held senior honoring and feather-tying ceremonies for Native graduates. During the event, 109 graduates received a plume or eagle feather and gathered for a community meal, prayers and celebration of their accomplishments.

Taken Alive, who was born and raised on the Standing Rock Reservation, said an event like this wasn’t possible when he grew up.

“I kind of gave away my age, but when I was born on paper Native American religions were still banned legally,” Taken Alive said. “When I went to high school we didn’t have a feather-tying ceremony. We didn’t have any Lakota language classes. Now across the country, you see Native students able to express themselves freely by wearing eagle feathers, by wearing regalia, by wearing beadwork.”

Last week in Farmington, New Mexico, outside of the Navajo Nation, a Standing Rock Sioux Tribe citizen and high school senior had her eagle plume cut and her beaded mortarboard removed during her graduation ceremony. The story went viral across the country, emphasizing the importance of including cultural items in graduation ceremonies.

South Dakota is one of 11 states with laws that protect the right to wear tribal regalia at graduation ceremonies.

“Rapid City Schools fully respects and is aware of the religious and spiritual significance of those types of expressions,” Taken Alive said.

Since the early 1990s, the school district has held the feather-tying ceremony.

“That (feather-tying ceremony) is such a cool thing to experience,” said graduating senior Tracelyn Strand. “I got to watch my older siblings experience it and I’ve always looked forward to it my senior year.”

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe citizen’s father accompanied her to the ceremony Wednesday night and presented her with an eagle plume.

“It was really heartwarming. It’s a very big part of my life that I feel like I’ll always remember and I’ll always have that memory to look back on.”

Strand, along with the other seniors from Central High School and Stevens High School will graduate on the afternoon of May 26. Rapid City Alternative Academy students graduate on the evening of May 24 and Sturgis High School students graduated on May 19.