Students who have been on the waiting list for the Pawhuska 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 Early Learning Academy (WELA) will soon be able to go to school in the new building, which celebrated its ribbon cutting on Nov. 25.
The Nation broke ground on the 18,752-square-foot center in 2023 and the facility was completed for $7.9 million, through federal grants and five pieces of legislation from the Osage Nation Congress, including ARPA funding.
On the morning of the celebration, a crowd gathered under grey skies to see the new building amidst cold winds.
People from throughout the Osage Nation listened to remarks and then walked the building which incorporates elements of Osage design through orthography in signage and painted ribbon work gracing the hallways.
As one attendee, Clark Benefield, said “from the outside, when I first got here, it didn’t look that big–but when you went inside, it’s really big.”
Inside the building are eight classrooms, an industrial kitchen, an employee training room, office spaces, and indoor play areas for gross motor skill development. Outside the early learning rooms, labels in Osage orthography depict class names, such as a buffalo with the friendship ribbon work pattern inset and the title “𐓋𐒷 𐓋𐒻𐓂𐒽𐒰 𐓅𐒰𐒹𐒰͘𐒿𐒷,” first buffalo room.
ON Secretary of Social Services Teresa Blesdoe remarked how fitting that the ribbon cutting and open house was happening during a week of gratitude. “We are very thankful for your presence here today … on my drive here today on Highway 60 I saw a bald eagle soaring above a pond and I thought what a blessing it is.”
Designed by Matt Williams and Matt Eccleston of Narrate Architects with signs displaying Osage orthography by Dr. Jessica Moore Harjo of Weomepe Designs, the building comes amidst a trend of tribes currently working on early education.
The Office of Child Care (OCC) Region VI, which helped fund the project, the office alone has over 30 major renovation and construction programs going for tribal early childcare facilities.
WELA director, Tara McKinney, thanked her teachers and staff for all their hard work readying the building. “Thank you for all of your help, I couldn’t have done this without you,” she said, then recalled in a tone of humor that she and a co-worker had to go to the chiropractor three times in one week during all the unboxing and setting up.
“Thirty years from now, all of us will be able to tell our loved ones, ‘You’re a part of this and it is something to be proud of,’” McKinney continued.
“Today as we cut this ribbon, we open the door to opportunity not just for our children but for the entire Osage Nation. The center will inspire learning, honor our culture and provide families with the support they need to thrive.”
Jennifer Holding, the Nation’s director of Child Care and Development said she was excited for the teachers, “that they’ll be able to grow into this building,” she said.
In addition to learning for young children, a large training room accommodates learning for administration and staff as they keep certifications up and build credentials. The staff has already been trained in facilitating learning in outdoor spaces, which surround the building, extending from each learning room into a gated and covered outdoor area.
Around the corner from the entrance where speakers made their remarks is a series of outdoor playgrounds featuring a raised mound, swing sets and area to play and run. The second playground contains play structures, including tires to crawl through and a walking area, with the entire round enclosed by fencing. Connecting the playgrounds is a covered area with picnic tables and yellow tricycles.
Visitors surveyed the outdoor play areas from the warmth indoors, looking through large picture windows, then turning back to admire the furniture, toys and abundantly stocked equipment set up carefully to fit child care licensing.
The Osage Nation’s 25-year strategic plan names education as one of the ways the Nation is embodying a “strong, proud, resilient and enduring sovereign nation” through “highly educated Osage members supported and promoted by the Nation at the preschool level continuing through the post-secondary level and beyond.”
Within the education section of the strategic plan, the ninth priority listed is preschool and head start education. “The bar was raised for Osage Nation’s early childhood education when 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 (Wah-Zha-Zhe) Early Learning Academy was established,” reads the plan. The new WELA facility includes both new and old touches of the WELAs.
Laminated phrases in Osage are affixed to surfaces, as they have been for years at the early learning academies. Above the toddler hand washing area, a sign reads “𐓏𐒰𐓄𐓎𐒼𐓐𐒰𐓁𐒻 𐒻𐓍𐓎𐓒𐒷.” In another room, a carpet is labeled “𐒰𐓁𐒰͘𐒼𐓂𐒷 𐓂𐓀𐒻𐓓𐒷.”
A stocked teacher preparation room also includes a laminator and sticker machine for ongoing production of labels teaching the Osage language, as well as diverse materials for decorating rooms.
A stamp library stands beside a chest of organized and labeled drawers holding everything from paint shirts to colored tape and beads.
Back in the classrooms, dozens of books in English accompany copies of The Coyote and the Bear by the Language Department, illustrated by Joe Don Brave.
In addition to support from the Osage language and culture departments, “there has been a collaboration of many, many entities that went into this,” as Holding said.
Contributors include construction by Builders Unlimited and setup by Information Technology, moving by Tribal Works, and help from the Roads Department, Tribal Development, Procurement, Grants Management, Childcare Department and Communications, Historic Preservation and other departments “who were too numerous to count,” Bledsoe said.
