| Kickapoo Nation School | |
| Address: | 400 1st Street |
| Zipcode: | 66527 |
| Country: | United States |
| Us Nces School Id: | 590010300102[1] |
Kickapoo Nation School is a K-12 tribal school in Powhattan, Kansas, United States. It is affiliated with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIE).[2] It is the sole tribal school in the state.[3] The school is 6miles north of the Kickapoo Indian Reservation.[4] The school serves, in addition to Kickapoo people, the Potawotami tribe and the Sac and Fox tribe.[5]
In 1981 it moved into its current facility, which was formerly used by another school.[4]
In 2004 Brent Wasko of the St. Joseph News-Press reported that area residents did not positively perceive the school, and that the school community was working to fight that perception.[5]
The Kansas Department of Education considers Kickapoo School a "nonpublic" school.[3] The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) counts it as a public school.[6]
it admits students not registered in Native American tribes but charges them tuition for them as the BIE only gives money for enrolled members of tribes; a non-tribal family price as of that year was $200 per semester or $100 for one student.[3]
It has a bilingual English-Kickapoo language program, the only such program in Kansas for an indigenous American language.[3] The school made efforts to preserve the language.[4]
According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, by 2006 there was positive attention on the school's BIE-funded Family and Child Education (FACE) program which has home-based education for both parents and children.[3]
the school did not have funds to have laptops for their students compared to public schools that received more funding. However beginning in fall 2006 it planned to establish a virtual learning program to make up for subject matters in which it lacks on-site teachers.[3]
In 2004 it had 91 students, all of them being Native American.[5] In 2016 it had 58 students. Many students come from the Kickapoo reservation and a number reside in Topeka.[4]
In 2016 it had eight teachers.[4]
because of relatively low enrollment numbers, athletic programs often struggled to find enough students.[3] In 2004 the track team had seven members.[5] By 2016 it was making an attempt to form a track team but it had no athletic teams at all at the moment.[4]