Title: Phoenix Indian School. Oversight Hearings on Phoenix Indian School before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. House of Representatives, One Hundredth Congress, First Session (Phoenix, AZ, February 13, 1987; Washington, DC, July 30, 1987). Access ERIC: FullText

URL: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED330500.pdf

Description: Since 1891, Phoenix Indian High School has served as a boarding school for Indian students. In February 1987, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) recommended that the school be closed, and that students be transferred to Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California. Congressional hearings in February and July 1987 received testimony on this proposal and on several plans for disposition of the federal land involved, about 100 acres of valuable real estate within the city of Phoenix. A BIA spokesman cited declining enrollment and further declines expected after the opening of two new reservation secondary schools as justification for the closure, and provided data on student, program, and school characteristics at Phoenix and Sherman schools. Representatives of Arizona tribes and the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona (ITCA) testified that there are only five reservation high schools in Arizona, and that Phoenix Indian High School provides needed educational resources for Arizona's Indian students, particularly special needs students. In the event of closure, ITCA submitted a plan whereby property disposal would provide educational funds for Indian students. Collier Enterprises explained its proposal to trade 145,000 acres of its land in the Florida Everglades ecosystem for the Phoenix land. Phelps Dodge Development Corporation described its offer to trade 311,000 acres of Southwest wilderness and archeological sites for the Phoenix land. Conservation groups and environmental, wildlife, and archeological experts discussed the two proposed land exchanges. The city of Phoenix and the Veterans Administration presented their plans for development of the land. (SV)

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Subject:   Education -- Native American,  Native American Land -- Exchanges ,  Federal Land -- Exchanges