California Tribal Families Coalition is implementing a strategic plan designed to promote tribal sovereignty over education and to ensure that child welfare systems, education systems, and tribal systems are able to work together to promote and protect the health, safety and welfare of tribal youth. As a part of this plan, CTFC hosted a two year Equal Justice Works Fellowship Project, led by CTFC Attorney, Breanna Bollig, that specifically focused on education issues for tribal youth. CTFC’s Legal Counsel for Tribes (LC4T) Program is also implementing a screening process to identify and address education and disability right issues for tribal foster youth in Indian child welfare cases. 

To better understand the needs of tribal youth in education systems, CTFC started information gathering in 2023. In December of 2023, CTFC released the report, California’s Failure to Support Native Students, which highlights persisting education disparities impacting Native students, especially Native students with disabilities and Native foster youth. These disparities demonstrate how early assimilation tactics like the Indian boarding school policies continue to impact the education outcomes of Native youth today and how California has failed to adequately support Native students in school. CTFC presented its report to the California Department of Education, Advisory Commission on Special Education (Publicly Available at ACSE Meeting Webcasts, February 21, 2024 Meeting at 1:48:04). CTFC also released a tribal survey, Identifying Barriers to Education for Tribal Youth and Tribal Foster Youth, and hosted listening sessions on education issues to further inform its trainings and resource development.   

CTFC has provided a number of trainings to tribes and other various stakeholders in Indian education, including tribal and county social service departments, public school districts, regional center staff, and mental health providers.