Twin Buttes eager to get school built

TWIN BUTTES — Raven Peltier will never get to go to the new TwinButtes elementary school.

She’s an eighth-grader and will move on to high school in eitherNew Town or Belcourt next year when she graduates.

The excitement and new-school smell will be experienced byyounger children like her brother Haylon, 6, who’s in kindergarten,even though money for the project has long been committed and it’sbeen in the design phase for more than two years.

She was looking forward to it, she said.

“They said there would be a new school a couple of years ago,and I thought I would be able to go. I was looking forward to morespace, new classrooms,” she said.

Like Raven, Superintendent Chad Dahlen had high hopes that thenew $8.5 million school would be at least in construction bynow.

Instead, it’s still on paper, still not bid and no start datehas been announced.

Good thing he’s got patience and perseverance, which is whatit’s taking to get a very detailed review and approval phasethrough the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“Under normal circumstances, it would be built by now. Beingit’s government …,” Dahlen said.

He’s hopeful that the BIA, which is footing the bill along withthe Three Affiliated Tribes, will give final approval before theend of September so bids can be awarded this fall for springconstruction. Even then, the school won’t be ready until 2012.

After all the delays, the frequent changes, the reams of paperthat have piled up, the school won’t be the school of his dreamsfor the children of Twin Buttes.

“We wanted to think outside the box, and we researched what wethought was the perfect classroom. it was going to be awesome,”Dahlen said.

He and the design consultant team from Dickinson and Minneapoliswere hoping they could sell optimal learning environment features,like “L” shaped classrooms that could be private or conjoined, tothe BIA reviewer, but no dice.

“He had to stick to his books,” Dahlen said.

He said the policy may have come from years when the BIA gotinvolved in cultural design projects and the result was buildingsin the shape of turtles and snakes.

Dahlen said, in the end, “Once we got there (with the BIA), ourgoal was to make the most with what we had. We have a wholedifferent design,” he said.

The current plan is for 35,000 square feet, which is 9,000 morethan the 1954 building that will be demolished.

The new school will have a full-scale gymnasium, separatelunchroom and an atrium to bring light inside.

It also will have the distinction of being the first silver LEED(Leader in Energy and Environmental Design) school certified inNorth Dakota, for conservation of energy and water and indoor airquality.

And unlike any other school in the state, it will have anoutdoor circular amphitheater in front of the school with seatingfor 100 for cultural performances and ceremonies. Land behind theschool, not far from the traditional sweat lodge, will becultivated for a community garden.

In the end, it will be worth the wait.

More children are waiting than in past years.

Enrollment is up this year at Twin Buttes.

There are 45 students enrolled — up from 29 two years ago — andhe expects that to grow when oil drilling starts in the area, likeit already has further west in Mandaree.

“The word is that drilling will start in the Twin Buttes segmentnext year. almost all the minerals are leased out. The clock isticking,” he said.

Twin Buttes eager to get school built