Sixteen-year-old Kaylee Mize grew up Indigenous in the Folsom-Cordova region. She said she looked around her — at teachers, students, and other community members — and “felt like the outcast.”
And when asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the school day, she couldn’t fathom why Native land acknowledgements were not part of protocol.
“Let's honor who's land we're actually on,” she said. “It’s not acknowledged that we're even still here.”
Her father Joshua Mize, of the Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Osage, and Quapaw tribes, also attended schools in Folsom-Cordova Unified School District. Mize is part of the first Native American Parent Advisory Council, or NAPAC, to be formed in the district.
In a bid to reclaim their identities, Mize along with 20 other parents and students coalesced in January to change the narrative for Indigenous youth like Kaylee. They say that their identities have been erased from local history, prompting a call for greater visibility and recognition within the educational system.
In partnership with the Native Dads Network — known for their success in implementing culturally relevant programming in Sacramento's districts — the NAPAC is fighting for Indigenous curriculum in schools, spaces on campus for powwows, comprehensive data collection about native students, and more.
A number of challenges obscure the realities Indigenous students face. Despite an estimated 150 Indigenous students in the district, only 50 students are officially recognized due to complexities in racial and ethnic identification, according to Mize.
“The only numbers we do have are suspension rates,” he said, highlighting the type of data and the subsequent assumptions that accompany Native students.
Mize’s understanding of the accessible data is consistent with what can be found on California’s school dashboard, which tracks schools and districts in the state: In Folsom-Cordova Unified, graduation rates for Indigenous students are unreported, but suspension rates for the same group of students is available.
Cultural sensitivity plays a role in school suspensions of Native students, said NAPAC Chair Nikki Grant, of the Oglala Lakota Tribe.
“Kids in these districts are getting suspended because their hair is getting pulled,” she said. “The issue is people not respecting that Native children have their hair long for cultural reasons.”
Native Dads Network Executive Director Mike Duncan, representing Maidu, Wailaki, Wintun and Shoshone tribes, highlighted the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights, stressing the need for policy changes to safeguard Native youth against systemic injustices.
"The system wasn't built for us. It was actually built to destroy us and take us out from who we are," Duncan said, reflecting on the historical oppression faced by Indigenous communities.
As a long-standing Sacramentan, Mize shared this sentiment.
"We want to establish something and have a presence on campus because it's almost like they think we don't exist anymore," Mize said, underscoring the urgency of NAPAC’s mission.
In the classroom, Kaylee finds that she hasn’t been taught any of her own history: “History class has always been the class that was pretty hard for me because our people were never talked about.”
And what is known by her teachers is limited, she added, some even claiming that Native Americans no longer exist. She had to inform her classmates about the 1978 Native American Religious Freedom Act, which finally allowed Indigenous communities to safely practice their cultural teachings. She said she was met with disbelief.
“‘How do you know that?’ or, ‘Is that really true?’” she recalled her classmates asking. “There's just a lot of brainwashing throughout the education system.”
The advocacy efforts of NAPAC encompass multiple fronts, including the implementation of a Native American curriculum, a petition for the renaming of Sutter Middle School to Miwok Middle School, and the recognition of Indigenous People’s Day.
These initiatives align with broader movements across the greater Sacramento area where similar changes are being made: Sutter Middle School was renamed Miwok Middle School at Sacramento City Unified School District, and Woodland School District executed Title VI, also known as the the Indian Education Formula Grant. The Native Dads Network has been instrumental in spearheading both initiatives.
NAPAC’s collaboration with the organization has made their negotiations with Folsom Cordova school board progress rapidly, said Albert Titman, of Miwok, Maidu, Nisenan descent and a member of both NAPAC and the Native Dads Network.
“With little resistance, we are in Folsom Cordova Unified School District,” he said, and added it wouldn’t have been possible without the district’s only school board member of color, Chris Clark. “He has been at every one of our meetings and really advocates for us.”
Behind closed doors, there is some dispute over how readily NAPAC's demands are being addressed, Clark pointed out.
"The district appears to be dragging its feet," he observed. Clark and NAPAC members recounted stories of students who had attended school board meetings advocating for the recognition of Indigenous People’s Day, only to face a less than favorable response.
“It's up to us to provide the chair, so they can have a seat at the table,” said Clark.
NAPAC’s presence in Folsom-Cordova is the affirmation Native students have been seeking, and their goals are ambitious.
“It’s a bittersweet feeling because … these are the adults that are showing up for us,” said Kaylee Mize. “How come it takes this big step to finally get it in their heads [that] this should have happened a long time ago?”
Srishti Prabha is an education reporter and Report For America corps member in collaboration with CapRadio and The Sacramento Observer. Their focus is K-12 education in Sacramento’s Black communities.
