The mandatory, across-the-board budget cuts from the federal sequestration are causing little noticeable effect on most school campuses, but schools for Native Americans are already feeling the pinch.
Jacquelyn Power and her students have been living with less since last November. Power is both superintendent and principal of the tiny Blackwater Community School on Arizona's Gila River Indian Reservation, one of about 1,300 school districts nationwide that receives federal Impact Aid for schools that can't collect local property taxes. So they're preparing for a hard school year, perhaps one of the hardest since the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs built Blackwater in 1939.
"We have this amazing little school that is beating the odds," she said, "but you can't continue to keep it up with no funding."
Schools located both on federal Indian land and military bases receive Impact Aid, but children on Indian lands account for nearly half of Impact Aid dollars, even though they're outnumbered by military kids by more than three to one. While federal funding generally accounts for about 10% of most school districts' budgets, in schools like Blackwater, it can account for one-third or more of the budget.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Greg Toppo

GREG TOPPO

Greg Toppo is USA Today's national K-12 education writer. He's interested in tech & how video games are changing school.