Volume 14 Number 1
October 1974

Thomas Davis and Fred Sanderson

The Menominee Reservation in Northern Wisconsin is faced with an overwhelming number of problems similar to those of poverty communities throughout the United States. The Wolf River Council on Alcoholism estimates that 40% of the entire population of the reservation are having problems normally associated with alcoholism. Juvenile arrest rates per 100,000 for 1972 were 3,251.1 as compared with 1,759 (see Note 2) for Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Drop-out rates in the public schools equal 12.0% yearly in comparison to a 3.2% rate for Wisconsin as a whole (see Note 1).

One hundred four families have members needing mental health aid according to the 51-42 Menominee County Mental and Departmental Health Program Board. And at present 20 juveniles are in group homes, the state hospital, or residential treatment centers in spite of the fact that no mental health facilities are located near the reservation, and no one in the community is professionally qualified to refer cases to an institution. "The situation," as one counselor put it during his first days on the job at the Menominee County Community School, "is almost impossible for a school counselor to cope with."

However, an exciting new counseling concept has been developed at this school which is a potential weapon for dealing with "impossible" counseling situations in minority communities. Developed through an Indian Education Act, Title IV-B grant, the community counselor concept has made counseling a much more effective tool in a situation where Indian students normally drop out of school as soon as it is legally possible at 16.

The community counselor concept, primarily developed by coauthor Thomas Davis, at the Community School and then for Wisconsin Joint School District #8 through a Title IV-A grant, has its roots in the educational philosophy of the Menominee County Education Committee, a group of concerned Indian parents who formed a non-profit corporation to create one of the first Indian-controlled school districts in the nation.

Atlee Dodge, the principal founder of the committee, has been a long-time advocate of local control for educational institutions, and the philosophy statement for the committee insists that: (1) "schools should be controlled by the communities they serve," (2) "education is most effective if it uses cultural and regional differences to further academic ends," (3) "education is most effective when it involves the community served in the educational process," and (4) "schools in a community should be designed to help the community develop itself economically and culturally" (see Note 2).

Community counselors are: (1) a visible symbol of local involvement if not of local control of the educational process, (2) an expression of both cultural and regional differences since they are hired in the community they serve, (3) symbols of community involvement in education, and (4) people working in a poverty community that has few jobs and large frustrations.

The role the community counselors play is also based largely on the committee’s philosophy. Ideally, the community counselor is an advocate, with professional status, of community values within the school. And in the community, the role reverses somewhat in that the community counselor should become advocates of the school. Both roles have valuable functions.

According to Dodge and other minority educational leaders, one of the biggest problems with the present educational system is that professional teachers and counselors have a professional attitude. This attitude in essence puts the educated Anglo above the uneducated minority individuals, and forces the minority individual into behavior patterns that are unnatural, and unconducive to proper growth and development. The community counselor comes into the educational system as a near equal to the professional teacher and counselor. (At the Community School, the community counselors are paid a professional wage.) The system recognizes that the very fact that the community counselor is an Indian, or other minority group member, who possesses a basic understanding of Indian values which allows them to communicate effectively with Indian students and community members makes them a professional in the most basic sense of the word.

Conflicts with the professional staff are perhaps a necessary part of the process as the counselors bring minority values and traits into the insulated atmosphere of professionalism; but the product is increased awareness of minority values and needs. As a result of structural rather than personal confrontation, the professional, if he can become a desirable unit within the minority community, is forced to adapt his attitude to the changing situation, and thus accept average members of the minority community as equals, or at the very least, near equals.

By making the community counselor an agent of the school as well as of the community, another valuable product is achieved. One of the most persistent problems with the educational systems serving Indians has been a lack of parental concerns about education. Education is seen as the white man’s tool which destroys the essence of the Indian way of life. Parents do not come to Parent-Teacher Association meetings; they avoid conferences desired by counselors and teachers at the school; and they do not encourage their children to develop a sound attendance pattern. The community counselor, as a well-known community member, has as part of his general tasks to develop a positive feeling toward education within the members of the community. Although successes are limited within this particular aspect of the community counselor’s role, according to the Menominee experience (attitudes are too deeply ingrained to be changed overnight), a slow and painful progress seems possible. At the Community School parents are at long last participating on school committees and even working on school projects for minimal amounts of money.

Other specific duties assigned to community counselors are to improve minority student attendance patterns, and to intervene in student disputes and problems that threaten disruption of the students school career or normal school routines. Too often racism and disciplinary measures are difficult to differentiate, and the end result is feelings of impotence and unfairness on the part of minority students. When community counselors intervene into potentially explosive disputes, much of the racially inspired feelings of fear and hate are circumvented, and the student and teacher, according to the Community School experience, quiet down.

The success of the community counselor concept to this point has been remarkable. At the Community School, sketchy records kept during the 1972-73 school year indicate an average attendance of just over 54-56% of the student body per day. Comprehensive records kept for the 1973-74 school year show that an average of 72% of the student body, so far this year, have been in attendance.

Teachers at the school have also remarked that there is a distinct improvement in student attitude and achievement in the classroom, and despite an undercurrent of frustration with the whole program, the majority of teachers and counselors have expressed a reserved support for the program.

The program within District #8 schools has run into several serious structural problems up to this time, and no statistical report on the program’s effectiveness is yet available. However, preliminary indications seem to bear out the results of the Community School project. Professionals within the district have expressed similar frustrations with regard to the program and the community counselors, but at the same time have noted a general improvement in Indian student attitudes and performance.

At this point the major problem with the program lies within the community counselors’ personal feelings. In a survey conducted by Davis and Sanderson, nearly all of them felt that their responsibilities for improving student attendance made them feel more like policemen than counselors. They also felt that teachers, while not fully respecting them from a professional standpoint, still depend on them too much when discipline problems arise in the classroom. However, all of them plan to return to their jobs next fall, many citing "the challenge" as their major reason.

One step that is being taken to solve this problem is that a committee for the Oneida, Menominee and Stockbridge communities is working with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh in an effort to develop a community counselor certification program for Wisconsin. It is hoped that certification will ease some of the tensions felt by both professionals and community counselors.

More research needs to be completed before the community counselor concept can be hailed as the "most exciting counseling innovation of the century," but preliminary indications seem to point toward the program as an exciting program with a great potential for development.

1. Menominee K-12 Impact Study, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction William C. Kahl, State Superintendent. Madison: July, 1972.

2. "Statement of Philosophy," Menominee County Education Committee, Andre LeMay, President. Keshena, Wisconsin: August, 1973.