When Bias Walks Into Our Schools: Indigenous Students Deserve Safety, Respect, and the Chance to Learn Without Harm

There is something many of our Native students, families, teachers, and community members already know because we have lived it, witnessed it, and in too many cases been hurt by it. Some non-Native teachers and paraprofessionals do not come into our schools with open hearts or open minds. Many come from the border towns around our reservations and tribal communities carrying the same racism, stereotypes, and judgment those towns have long held about our people. They bring those thoughts with them into our classrooms, hallways, staff culture, and discipline practices, and from the start many of our children are never given a fair chance.

This is hard to name, but it is necessary if we truly want change. Not to create more division, but because truth matters. Our students matter. Our families matter. And when harm keeps being minimized, excused, or treated like a misunderstanding, our children are the ones left carrying it.

Too often, our Native students are looked at as problems before they are ever seen as children. They are judged before they are known. Some teachers and paras expect them to do poorly, act out, fall behind, or fail. They speak to them harsher, watch them closer, discipline them faster, and create ridiculous rules that are not enforced the same way for everyone else. Many of these same adults would never treat white students in this manner. They would never speak to them with the same disrespect, suspicion, or hostility. But in our communities, too many feel comfortable doing exactly that to our Native children.

For many of our students, school stops being just a place of learning and becomes another place where they are watched, judged, underestimated, and made to feel like they do not belong. Instead of being met with care, they are met with suspicion. Instead of being encouraged, they are talked down to. Instead of being understood, they are boxed into stereotypes that should have been left behind long ago. Some educators assume Native children are lazy, disrespectful, behind, unmotivated, or a problem waiting to happen, and those assumptions shape everything from discipline to grades to how much patience they are willing to give.

That is one of the most damaging parts of this issue: low expectations become a form of harm. When adults expect Native students to struggle, many of them begin treating those students as if success is already out of reach. They stop investing. They become quicker to punish than to teach. They shame instead of guide. They label instead of listen. Then when students become frustrated, shut down, act out, or stop trusting the environment around them, the same adults point to that reaction as proof that they were right all along. But our children are not failing because they are Native. They are being failed by adults who entered the room already expecting less from them.

This harm also does not stop with students. Many of these same staff members treat Native teachers, Native paraprofessionals, and other Native staff in similar ways too. They undermine them, question them differently, exclude them, create tension, and contribute to a toxic school culture that affects everyone in the building. That matters because our students see it. They see who is respected and who is not. They see Native adults being talked over, dismissed, challenged unfairly, or pushed aside, and they learn very quickly what the environment around them thinks of their people. A school cannot claim to care about Native children while allowing Native educators and Native staff to be treated poorly in the same space.

This kind of environment also harms the very people who are often trying hardest to support students. Native staff often carry not only their professional roles, but the emotional weight of understanding the children, the families, and the community in ways outsiders may never fully grasp. So when they are undermined or treated with disrespect, it is not just a workplace issue. It weakens support systems students need, support systems our Native educators need. It creates stress, division, and burnout in the very people trying to hold things together.

This harm does not stay in the classroom. Many of these toxic staff members bring drama into our communities too. Instead of being safe adults, they become part of the problem. They gossip, pick sides, stir conflict, talk openly about students and families, and create division in places that are already carrying enough hurt. Many of these toxic people cause drama within our communities themselves, and that drama harms our children. It harms trust. It harms relationships. It harms the emotional safety children need in order to learn. Children feel when adults dislike them. They know when they are being talked about. They know when the people meant to help them are actually tearing them down.

There are also staff who quickly learn who the “big” families are, who is well known, who holds influence, who is politically connected, and who they think they need to be careful around. Those students and families may get more patience, more understanding, and more protection, while others are judged harder, disciplined faster, and discarded more easily. Some bad behavior and poor grades are excused simply because of who a child is connected to, while other students are punished for far less. That is not fairness. That is not care. That is manipulation.

And for Indigenous people, that kind of favoritism hits a much deeper wound. Our people know what it means to be divided, ranked, singled out, and pitted against one another. We have seen that throughout history in the ways colonization and assimilation worked to break apart our unity, reward some, punish others, and make our people easier to control. Boarding schools did this. Assimilation policies did this. Colonial systems often functioned by separating our people from one another, encouraging comparison, rewarding compliance, and weakening community bonds. So when school staff pick favorites, protecting certain students or families, or treat some Native people and families as more worthy than others, they are feeding into that same harmful pattern. They create division where there should be community. They create resentment where there should be care. They pit our own people against each other in ways that echo what was done to us historically.

Our children notice all of it. They notice who gets grace and who gets punishment. They notice who gets patience and who gets shame. They notice who gets believed and who gets blamed. They notice which families are handled carefully and which children are treated like they do not matter. They notice when some students can get away with bad behavior or poor grades while others are labeled, written up, embarrassed, or pushed out for much less. Our children are not blind. They see the double standards. They feel them. They live them.

This toxicity does not stay with the adults either. It spreads into student relationships and creates conflict and division between our children, furthering harm and trauma in our communities. When students see favoritism, racism, bullying, and double standards modeled by adults, it affects how they see one another and how they treat one another. It can create resentment, isolation, bullying, competition, and hurt between students. Instead of schools helping build unity, trust, and support, it can deepen the very wounds our communities are already trying to heal from.

This matters because schools are supposed to help children grow. They are supposed to be places where students gain confidence, feel supported, and learn how to move through the world with dignity. But when a school becomes a place where children are taught — openly or quietly — that some people matter more than others, that some students will always be protected while others will always be suspect, that lesson does not stay inside the building. It follows them. It shapes peer relationships. It shapes self-worth. It shapes what children come to believe about fairness, belonging, and who is allowed to take up space.

There is also the ugly truth many do not want to say out loud. Some teachers and staff talk openly about our communities, our students, and how much they dislike working here, sometimes right in front of the students themselves. Think about how harmful that is. Imagine being a Native child sitting in a classroom and hearing the people responsible for your education speak as if your community is a burden, as if your people are beneath them, as if teaching Native children is something they have to tolerate instead of a responsibility they should carry with respect. That kind of behavior creates a toxic work environment, yes, but even more importantly it creates a toxic learning environment for children.

Words matter. Tone matters. How adults talk around children matters. When educators speak with disdain about the very people they are meant to serve, children absorb that. Even when the exact words are not said directly to them, students can feel contempt. They can feel superiority. They can feel when an adult believes they are better than the community around them. That kind of atmosphere teaches Native children that they are not fully safe even in the very institutions meant to support their growth.

In some cases, the bullying becomes so severe that Native students are pushed out altogether. There are children who have had to transfer schools not because they did anything wrong, but because the bullying, humiliation, targeting, and hostility from teachers or paraprofessionals became too much to carry. A child should never have to leave their school because the adults were the bullies. Yet it happens. And when families do what they are supposed to do, when they go to the school or administration for help, who is believed? Too often it is not the Native child. It is not the Native family. It is the teacher. It is the para. It is the adult with the title, the paycheck, and the protection of the system.

That is where the trauma continues.

It continues when Native families speak up and are dismissed.
It continues when Native children tell the truth and are doubted.
It continues when Native teachers and staff are treated with the same disrespect.
It continues when school staff protect each other instead of protecting students.
It continues when children are forced to leave school just to escape adult bullying.
It continues when our communities are told once again that the word of an outsider matters more than the lived reality of our own people.

Many of us have seen this with our own eyes. We have witnessed it. Many families have lived through it. Many students have been victim to it. This is not a one-time misunderstanding or an isolated issue. It is a pattern. That is why it cuts so deeply. In so many ways, our children and families are still being forced to face the same traumas our ancestors faced through assimilation and the boarding school era, just in different forms. The names may change. The policies may look different. The language may sound more polished. But the harm is familiar. Being silenced. Being shamed. Being underestimated. Being pushed to conform. Being treated as less than. Being punished for who we are. For our people, this is not just a school problem. It carries the weight of history.

That history matters because Indigenous people did not come to distrust school systems for no reason. Schools were used as tools of assimilation. They were used to erase language, punish culture, sever family bonds, and force Native children to fit colonial expectations. So when Native students today are still being shamed, silenced, judged, disbelieved, or forced into unhealthy school environments where their dignity is not protected, our communities do not experience that as something brand new. We recognize it. We feel the old wound in the new harm.

This is why trust breaks down. It is not because Native students do not care about education. It is not because Native families do not care. It is because too often our children are expected to learn in spaces where they are carrying the weight of racism, low expectations, favoritism, gossip, open disrespect, bullying, and disbelief. When that happens, school stops feeling like a place of growth and starts feeling like another place they have to survive.

And the harm does not end when our students leave these schools. It follows many of them into higher education and beyond. When Native students spend years being judged, underestimated, singled out, stereotyped, or made to feel like they do not belong, that damage can stay with them. It can follow them into college classrooms, workplaces, and other institutions where they are once again expected to prove their worth. It can affect confidence, belonging, trust, and how safe they feel speaking up for themselves. That is why naming these harms matters. Our students and our people need to understand that this is not normal. This is not acceptable. And this is not what they deserve.

Sometimes our students grow up thinking this treatment is just how school is. They begin believing being disrespected, doubted, or targeted is something they are supposed to endure. That is one reason naming the harm is so important. It helps our students understand that what was done to them was not okay. It helps families understand they were right to feel concerned. It helps our communities put language to what has too often been brushed aside. And it reminds our children that they were never the problem to begin with.

Our students deserve the same respect, the same support, and the same quality learning experience students in non-Native or white schools are given without question. They deserve to walk into school without being judged for who they are, where they are from, who their family is, or what community they belong to. They deserve to be taught, not stereotyped. They deserve to be encouraged, not doubted. They deserve to be safe, not bullied. They deserve to be believed, not dismissed.

At the same time, I want to be clear about something important. This is not about saying every non-Native or white teacher is harmful, because that would not be true. I have seen good, caring teachers. I have had the privilege of working with some of them in our schools. I have seen non-Native teachers who truly respected our children, respected our communities, showed up with humility, listened, learned, and treated students fairly. I have seen educators who understood that being in a tribal school or Native community is not about control, ego, or saviorism. It is about service, relationship, respect, and accountability. Those teachers matter deeply, and our students know the difference.

It is important to say that clearly because naming harm should never erase the people who are doing right by our children. There are educators who show up with kindness, patience, and honesty. There are people who know how to listen before assuming. There are staff who understand that working with Indigenous students requires respect for community, history, and lived experience. Those people help create safety. They help rebuild trust. They show that this harm is not inevitable. It is a choice, and so is doing better.

That is exactly why this issue must be named so clearly. Because when there are people doing it right, there is no excuse for the ones who are doing harm.

There is no excuse for bringing border town racism into our schools.
There is no excuse for stereotyping Native children before they even speak.
There is no excuse for treating Native teachers and staff with the same disrespect.
There is no excuse for favoritism, manipulation, gossip, or open hostility.
There is no excuse for pitting our people against one another.
There is no excuse for adult bullying.
There is no excuse for creating so much toxicity that children are forced to transfer schools.
There is no excuse for dismissing Native families when they come forward.
 

And there is no excuse for continuing the trauma our communities have already carried for generations.

We cannot keep asking Native children to be resilient in environments that are actively harming them. We cannot keep normalizing the damage done by adults who smile in meetings but stereotype our students when they think no one important is listening. We cannot keep pretending that the racism in border towns stays in those towns. It follows people into our schools, into our classrooms, into staff culture, into discipline, into favoritism, into disbelief, and directly onto the backs of our children.

If you are going to work in our schools, respect our children. Respect our families. Respect our teachers. Respect our staff. Respect our communities. Leave your stereotypes at the door. Stop bringing your drama into our spaces. Stop picking favorites. Stop pitting our people against each other. Stop bullying the very children you are supposed to support. Stop expecting Native students to carry the consequences of prejudices they did not create. And stop expecting our people to stay silent while our children are harmed.

Our children are not less capable. They are not less worthy. They are not problems to manage. They are sacred, intelligent, capable young people who deserve to learn in places where they are valued, protected, and believed in. Not just when their last name carries weight. Not just when their family is known. Not just when it is convenient. All of them. Every single one.

And for any Native student or family who reads this and sees their own experience in these words, I hope you know this: what was done to you was not normal. It was not right. You did not deserve it. The problem was never your Indigeneity, your family, your community, or who you are. You deserve the same dignity, safety, and chance to learn that others are given so freely. Naming this harm matters because our children need truth, and sometimes truth is what helps people realize they were never the problem to begin with.