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Chairman Dorgan I want to thank you for holding this hearing. This is a very important hearing
both for the country and Native students and it's also important to New Mexico because
we've recently had some incidents that have highlighted the problem in our schools.
I would like to welcome all of our witnesses, especially my good friend, Assistant Secretary
Larry Echo Hawk, and Laguna School superintendent, Dr. Fairbanks.
I'm pleased today to welcome Dr. Fairbanks to witness before the committee on the important
issue of BIA safety, and specifically on his experience
in the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico. As Superintendent with the Pueblo of Laguna Department
of Education since 2007, Dr. Fairbanks has direct experience struggling to make it through
the long line of maintenance and construction backlogs, while the Pueblo’s elementary
school continued to sink deeper into disrepair.
Dr. Fairbanks has been an advocate of education for over 28 years across the country. He previously
served as an Assistant Professor for New Mexico State University, as the Native American Development
Specialist for the University of Wisconsin, and as an elementary school principal, and
Pre K-12 Dean of Students, and as a middle and high school football coach.
Dr. Fairbanks has a Master's Degree in Education, a Doctorate in Educational Policy and Administration
and is Ojibwe, from the Red Lake and White Earth Indian reservations in Minnesota, and
we welcome him as a representative of the Pueblo of Laguna and the many other tribes
in New Mexico that want to educate their students in good safe schools.
So I'm going to put the rest of my statement Chairman Dorgan in the record, but as you
all know I have been calling for a “Marshall Plan” to eliminate the backlog in construction
and maintenance of BIA facilities. And at the same time, the taxpayers and Native communities
deserve assurance that these monies will be spent accountably and that they will be spent
in a cost-effective way.
So, with that, thank you very much. I'm very much looking forward to the witnesses today.