Indian Community School of Milwaukee
“Indian Community School (ICS) is a private, faith-based school serving approximately 361 intertribal American Indian students from 4-year-old kindergarten through 8th grade. The school is led by its mission which is to “cultivate an enduring cultural identity and critical thinking by weaving indigenous teachings with a distinguished learning environment.”
Having served the Indian community of metro Milwaukee for over 50 years, ICS offers students an education based on traditional Indian spiritual and cultural principles. ICS students are either members of American Indian tribes or of American Indian descent and collectively represent over 33 tribal Nations. The school teaches three Indigenous languages as a second language in either Menominee, Ojibwe or Oneida…”
Learn More: https://ics-edu.org/
Explore the School!
History
“The ICS started in the homes of three Oneida women in Milwaukee in 1969 who felt that Milwaukee Public Schools were not doing right by their kids. The school moved twice into more official homes before closing in 1983 because it was “struggling financially,” according to an official timeline. In 1986, with the school closed but its board still active, it purchased land at 16th and Canal streets in the Menomonee Valley. The next year the school reopened on the former campus of Concordia College on Milwaukee’s West Side, and three years later, after approaching several tribes, it inked a deal with the Forest County Potawatomi transferring the Valley land – now the site of Potawatomi Hotel & Casino – and the old Concordia campus to the tribe. The ICS operated on a lease from the Potawatomi until it moved onto its Franklin campus in 2007.
All of this came amid the growth of Indian gaming around the country as the result of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988. The lease provided the school with millions of dollars of casino money each year, and allowed it to build not only the Franklin school, but also create an endowment now in the neighborhood of $500 million. “We invested the money very well, and that is what has allowed the school to be set into perpetuity,” says Marks.”
Image Credit: Lacy Landre, Milwaukee Mag
Languages
Students “…take Native languages each day – committing as kindergartners to either Oneida, Menominee or Ojibwe instruction. The school is also in discussion with the Ho-Chunk to add daily instruction in that language, too.”
Image Credit: Lacy Landre, Milwaukee Mag