Indian education official named

BOISE – Idaho’s new state coordinator of Indian education knows what it’s like to be the first in her family to go off to college.

But in her case, Mary Jane Oatman-Wak Wak’s mother and grandmother both went to school right along with her.

“We all had a Native American literature class together,” Oatman-Wak Wak recalled. “My family had realized the value in education. … We did it, we broke the cycle.”

Oatman-Wak Wak was appointed by state Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna on Monday as Idaho’s new Indian education coordinator. Her job, he said, will be to “work to improve Native American student achievement across the state, and she will serve as a liaison between the department and Native American tribal leaders.”

The appointment fulfills one of Luna’s campaign promises. “We have recognized the need for an Indian education coordinator in this state for years, and I am glad we found the funding this year to do it,” Luna said.

Oatman-Wak Wak is a member of the Nez Perce Tribe and a graduate of Lewis-Clark State College, where she was elected student body vice president. She earned a bachelor’s degree in justice studies with a minor in Nez Perce language in 2006, and has nearly completed a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Idaho.

She starts her new job June 18. In her previous position, she worked as an education specialist for the UI’s Northwest Nations Education Opportunity Center, a job that took her to nine reservations in Idaho, Washington and Oregon to work with students and communities to achieve education goals. That included helping first-generation and low-income students with career assessments, education planning and college admission.

When she graduated from LCSC, her mother, Judy Oatman, graduated too. Her grandmother, Alice Warden, earned an associate degree in hotel management a year earlier. Oatman-Wak Wak said the value of her family’s commitment to education hit her at her graduation ceremony, with all her relatives around her, congratulating her. “We were living the dream, by shaking all the historical burden that we have and saying that we don’t want that, we don’t want that for future generations,” she said.

“We’ve made the choice to make a positive impact in our Indian communities.”

Of her new job, she said, “I feel like this position is going to create great things. I knew no matter who filled it, it was going to be a very important role, so first and foremost I feel very honored to represent Indian people in collaborating for education efforts for all of our students.”

Most of all, she said, “I really hope to be a vocal advocate for the needs of Indian children.”