As project director for South Dakota
GEAR UP, it is a real pleasure to say
Hi and welcome you to this exciting
endeavor. With your hard work and ours,
we expect to make a real difference
for our students who enter the South
Dakota GEAR UP Program.
Currently, we do not have a high school
graduation rate that we as American
Indian people should find acceptable.
Therefore, we should all embrace a program
that will encourage more of our youth
to graduate from high school and pursue
higher education. Education is our new
buffalo! If we grasp the opportunity
that education provides us, we will
give ourselves the tools needed for
this world; just as the buffalo did
for our ancestors.
GEAR UP will model itself after the
successful Native American Honors Program.
We find this to be important from the
standpoint that it has proven itself
to be triumphant with American Indian
students. It is not a program we hope
will work for our kids; rather, we know
it will work for our kids.
This program will provide intense academic
preparation as well as cultural and
social support. We want our kids to
understand and learn that attaining
education is hard work, but more than
worth it when we realize the value of
it. This is where we need the work of
parents and guardians who will encourage
and help engage their children in this
process.
Governor M. Michael Rounds and the Secretary
of Education, Dr. Rick Melmer find our
American Indian students so valuable
that they have made it a key goal within
their 2010 Education Initiative. Goal
five of this six goal initiative states:
By 2010 South Dakota will increase educational
opportunities for Native American students.
One of the ways they felt we could accomplish
this goal was to go after the GEAR UP
Grant. Out of this process came the
$6.9 million dollar matching grant.
We, as American Indian people within
South Dakota, are entering a new era.
We have state leaders who recognize
the importance of our heritage and culture,
and they want to assist us in preparing
our children to preserve this legacy.
Please join the South Dakota GEAR UP
Program with a fresh perspective and
a willingness to assist our American
Indian students on their path to educational
success.
--Keith Moore, Indian Education Coordinator
for the South Dakota Department of Education
