Early in his tenure at Wellpinit School District—one facility with 450 students in grades K through 12—Riedlinger, 63, often shared that opinion. "I'm laughing on the outside now because I was crying on the inside then," he says. Kids cursed him to his face. Behind his back teachers, who routinely let students sleep on the floor and deal drugs in hallways, did the same. He recalls one asking, "Don't you know Indian kids can't learn?" Riedlinger says he got threatening calls from parents who compared his tough standards to the arrogance of white settlers who once forced Native American children into boarding schools.
Riedlinger stood fast, and a dozen years later he has delivered. Since he arrived in 1990, attendance at Wellpinit has risen from 65 to about 94 percent, and the drop-out rate—above 50 percent for Indian students nationally—has plunged to near zero. Once only a few students went to college. Today all are required to apply, and 80 percent go on to higher education. Wellpinit now ranks among the Top 5 of 740 schools serving Native Americans, thanks to Riedlinger's insistence that students exceed his expectations—and his faith that they can.
"The kids gave up skipping and fighting," says Dean Chavers, director of Catching the Dream Foundation, which awards college scholarships to Native American graduates. "Reid smothered them with love." But first he got rid of half their teachers. "His attitude was fire them up or fire them," says Scott, now director of Wellpinit's online programs. Riedlinger recruited new ones by raising salaries from $11,000 to $20,000 (now about $44,000) and limiting class size to 15. He insisted that they live on the reservation, providing subsidized housing in Teacherville, an enclave of 22 homes that he persuaded the school board to buy—and where he lives. "I even bought the teachers a latte machine," he says, laughing.
At parents' urging, Riedlinger brought in more Native American teachers and aides and offered a course in Salish, the Spokane tribe's indigenous language. He hired Native American Bev Zagorski, 55, as cultural liaison with tribal members. "Some people in my community don't see that these children are the only thing he thinks about," she says.
But the kids know. They read Shakespeare, build electric cars and functional robots and soon will communicate with their counterparts in China, Jordan and Uganda through a global classroom. There's a computer for every student. All juniors with passing grades take a trip to Washington, D.C., and seniors attend a leadership conference in Hawaii—places otherwise hard to reach from the 155,000-acre reservation, where the average per capita income is $4,000 a year.
Half the school's $6 million annual budget comes from grants, which Riedlinger applied for himself until recently, when he hired a grant writer. "He's done so much for us," says senior Elizabeth Samuels, 17. "At first I hated Wellpinit. Now on Sundays I go to bed early to get ready for school."
So does Riedlinger. "Even at home he's thinking about how to do things better at the school," says Song Sun Chon, 50, his wife of seven years. A native of Mott, N.Dak., Riedlinger holds a bachelor's in education from the University of Montana and a master's from the University of Nevada, Reno. He spent 14 years teaching high school in Las Vegas, but after a 1981 divorce from his first wife, he went to Alaska. Eventually he became principal of a high school in Kongiganak, an Eskimo village of 250 residents. "I was happy living in a snowbank," he says.
But when a friend told him about the Wellpinit job, he found the challenge irresistible. Even teachers who escaped his ax were nonplussed by a boss who loathes chitchat, makes daunting to-do lists and collects exotic cars, including a 1927 Willys Whippet. "We were scared of him," says Scott. Fear turned to wonder as Riedlinger spent his own cash to adorn the school with paintings by Native American artists and plaques reading, "You have in you all that is necessary to be great." "He has taught us to rely on what's up here," says recent grad Robert Wynecoop, 18, tapping his head.
The students also can rely on Riedlinger. "I'm staying," he says, "until I'm no longer needed."
Christina Cheakalos
Joanne Fowler on the Spokane Indian Reservation
- Contributors:
- Joanne Fowler.
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