Indigenous Parent Advisory Committee members vote to amend local bylaws

Article IV Section 2 in the Johnson O’Malley bylaws states, “Members may run for a second two-year term if re-elected by the community.” Before being re-elected, Billi Jo Beheler held the position of chairperson for two terms. During a May 21 meeting, Beheler was re-elected by the committee for a third term. Questions ensued about bylaw violations and term limits.

Officers from the IPAC are planning another meeting at BPS headquarters at 5 p.m. on June 6 at Bismarck Public Schools, 128 Soo Line Drive, to hold another election for the position of chairperson. To resume the position, Beheler must be nominated again and receive a majority vote.

Wind Spirit Spotted Bear, the interim president and vice chairperson of the Indigenous Parent Advisory Committee, said the committee voted to amend the bylaw in a special meeting on May 28 due to confusion about wording in the bylaws.

“Until the bylaws are approved, we didn't move forward with voting anybody in, and we didn't have enough people at our meeting to even vote anybody else in,” Spotted Bear said.

“We made a motion to change the term position to be open for a member to serve more than a second term because it wasn't stated that there was a term limit, it just stated members may run for a second two-year term if re-elected by the community,” Spotted Bear said. The new amended language now reads: “If selected by the community, members may run for consecutive terms without having a limitation on those terms.”

“Then we also put that same language into Title VI, just so there's no confusion in the future as to why Title VI doesn't have any term limits,” said Spotted Bear. “It also saves us having to create two committees and trying to put everything under two committees, which in this case, can be a little tough for our community because right now, it's just really hard to try to get the involvement that we need to get those numbers in.”

The IPAC officers, BPS’s cultural coordinators, incoming Indigenous Education Director Tomi Cimarosti, and some community members attended the most recent meeting.

Cimarosti attended in place of the district’s former Indigenous Education Director, Sashay Schettler, who now works at the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. Though Cimarosti wasn’t originally due to begin her new role as the Indigenous Education Director until July, her start date was moved to June 10 since she has a lot of ground to cover.

Cimarosti said that as the incoming local education agency liaison, she came to the meeting primarily to listen, learn, and gain insight into the JOM bylaws.

After the approval of amending the bylaws and election of the chairperson, Spotted Bear said the IPAC’s next steps are to go over the Memorandum of Understanding with BPS and fill the positions of student, teacher and elder representative.