Note- Robert Cook is the 2009 President of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) While serving as President he formed a group of past presidents and educators of the year to discuss issues and needs regarding Indian Education. In this regard he routinely sent messages to past presidents and educators of the year. Since he ended his term at the 2009 Milwaukee conference of NIEA he has become the principal of Pine Ridge High School and he continues to send messages to the group. I was on the board 2003-2006 and President in 2005. This message speaks about the tragedy of suicide and the current level of risk young Indian people face in many reservation communities. Certainly our work in Indian education can't be addressed until we can develop new stratagies that begin to assist families, communities and tribes address these issues in a comprehensive way. DB

Tuesday December 7 2009

Friends

I hope this finds you in great health and spirits; unfortunately we had a rough couple of weeks in Pine Ridge. Red Cloud School had a young girl (freshman) commit suicide two weeks ago (her older brother attends our school) and at my high school in Pine Ridge we had a suicide last Thursday, another ninth grade boy, who hung himself at his grandma's (OST public safety first informed us that is was a suicide, On Monday we found out the cause of death was actually alcohol poisoning resulting in a brain aneurism). Also on Thurs a 14 yr old stabbed to death a young man (age 23) in Wounded Knee, this young boys older brother attends our school and both are related to the boy who drank himself to death himself, and later that same day our reservation has another suicide of a young 19 yr old girl who was pregnant in Wamblee.

Each day since I started work as the high school principal in Pine Ridge I pray that we will not receive word of the death of one of our students. That morning who would anticipate so many young people dying on the same day? We organized and implemented our school crisis plan and contacted our reservation suicide prevention organization-Sweetgrass and IHS behavior health. We organized several "safety rooms" anticipating the many students who may need to talk to someone. I announced the tragic event over the intercom and we held a traditional prayer service and assembly to encourage the students to be strong and not to get caught up in thinking there is no future. We instructed them on where to go and who to talk to. We implemented a suicide assessment survey that same day and quickly distributed to my student body. We found out of 370 students at our school over 70 were identified at risk. All 70 of those students were interview and assessed on the same day using the QPR method. Our counseling teams quickly identified 13 students who we put on suicide prevention contracts and we had 9 students we had taken to IHS behavior health who are high risk for impending suicide. In additional, our elementary counselor had a young 7th grade girl take a razor blade and slice her wrist right in front of her and another 6th grade boy sent to Rapid City regional health for threatening to kill his family, he discussed in detail how and when he going to do it, (he related how this dark man is telling him how he must do this. This week is going to be rough burying these young people. Our wood shop teachers say the students’ most popular project is making wooden crosses for deceased relatives so they will have headstones.

These things make me more committed to make a difference in the lives of our young people in our communities. We will stand strong for our communities. Thank you for your work and prayers for our kids during this difficult time. Tomorrow I am picking up the flowers and cake for Joshua's wake and funeral.

Robert B. Cook