If your student is missing multiple days to attend a religious ceremony, please complete this special leave form and turn into your school’s office. 

Our Black River Falls School District is proud to educate and serve Ho-Chunk and other Native American students and their families.  We continue to strive for inclusivity and to promote diversity and Native American Heritage Month is a perfect opportunity to showcase all the wonderful activities we offer to celebrate the rich histories, diverse cultures and important contributions of our nation's first people.  Here are just a few examples of the wonderful collaboration efforts to teach all students about Ho-Chunk culture.

• Ho-Chunk language courses:   At the high school level, we have two Ho-Chunk teachers, Shena Munden and Andrea Mccasky, who offer Ho-Chunk language courses.  These classes are recognized by all universities as world language courses and have provided our students with yet another way to keep the Ho-Chunk language alive.

• Lunch menu options: Connie Sieber, our District Food Service director, has been adding Native American food recipes to the lunch menu. Some foods that have been a hit are pork and hominy soup and blueberry rice. Sieber has also shared these recipes with other districts to help them be inclusive.

• Diverse Concessions at sporting events: Besides the usual popcorn and candy options, members of the Title 6 program have offered corn soup, fry bread and blueberry rice samples at football games and plan to offer them at basketball games in the future. 

• The Wąąkšik Wacek HS club is continuing to grow in popularity and Eli Youngthunder, our current faculty advisor, is proud that numerous non native students are also helping and attending meetings this year.  This is a great step in the right direction for creating more inclusivity and understanding in the community.

• Display cases: Each building has a way of uniquely showcasing our Native student population. Displays range from photos on the walls, dual language signage in buildings, display cases to promote the culture,  or using language in morning announcements. 

• BRF Drum: The Wąąkšik Wacek club has been gifted a drum. The high school students are learning songs and are able to sing these songs at sporting events, parades and other special events throughout the year. The first two songs they have learned are the Flag song and Thank you song. 

• Video series: The SDBRF has been working with Shane Yellowthunder to create a virtual library of short videos for staff and students to use to enhance some of the teachings the Ho Chunk people have provided throughout the years. Currently, the library has videos on maple syrup collection, the language, and the drum.

Mini Pow Wow Video Series #1 - "The Drum"

Mini Pow Wow Video Series #2 - "Making Maple Syrup"

Mini Pow Wow Video Series #3 - "The Importance of Language"

Title VI works toward the goal of ensuring that programs that serve Native American and Alaskan Native children are of the highest quality and provide for not only the basic elementary and secondary educational needs, but also the unique educational and culturally related academic needs of these children.