The Indigenous Student Identification Project
The ISI Project is an initiative of the Indigenous Education State Leaders Network (IESLN) and the American Institutes for Research (AIR).
Will you help grow our collective understanding by taking a survey?
The survey is part of a study to advance Tribal education and data sovereignty by identifying novel and effective practices for both consultation and data sharing between Tribes and preK‒12 public school districts.
Who Should Take the Survey?
Tribal Education Representatives
- Tribal education agency directors or staff
- Tribal leaders engaged in education
District Indigenous Education Leaders
- Title VI coordinators
- Tribal consultation leads
How to Take the Survey
- Click the button below
- Start and stop as needed
- Should take about 10‒20 minutes
Interested in Contributing to the ISI Project in Other Ways?
There are more ways you can participate in expanding knowledge about consultation and data sharing. Email the project at IndigenousStudentID@air.org to learn more about how you can help!
Share your Tribe’s or district’s educational memoranda of understanding (MOUs) or data-sharing agreements (DSAs).
IESLN is working with the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) and the Tribal Education Departments National Assembly (TEDNA) to collect education-related agreements between Tribes and states or districts. The agreements will be analyzed to determine common themes and promising practices and a report will be jointly produced and publicly distributed.
Participate in in-depth interviews or focus groups about your Tribe’s or district’s experience with educational consultation and/or data sharing.
Project staff will work with you and your colleagues to develop topics for a 60- to 90-minute discussion of your Tribe’s or district’s experiences and practices. You will be able to choose your interviewer or facilitator from our diverse team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff.
- We will maintain participant confidentiality and work with you to secure any needed permissions from your Tribal IRB or Council.
- We will provide all participants with opportunities to review and provide feedback on informational summaries resulting from these discussions.
Project Values
The ISI project is committed to working with Tribes, K-12 public school districts, Tribal education agencies, state education agencies, national organizations, and Tribal institutional review boards in a way that is
- respectful
- relationship-centered,
- responsible
- relevant, and
- reciprocal.
The Project's activities are guided by an IESLN Working Group and a Research Steering Committee composed primarily of Indigenous educators and scholars from many Tribal nations. These groups, as well as any research participants, review all project publications prior to release.
The aim of the Indigenous Student Identification Project is to support accurate and appropriate identification of Indigenous students in ways that are accountable to Tribal nations and respectful of Tribal data sovereignty. This includes:
- Tracking and mapping student counts and estimates in public school districts
- Advocating for better data disaggregation and reporting at the state and national levels
- Identifying promising practices in data sharing and transparency between public school districts and Tribal nations
- Understanding the ways in which Tribal consultation gives Tribes access to data about Indigenous students in public schools
- Creating tools and resources for improving district identification of Indigenous students
All project resources, materials, and tools are publicly shared with Tribes, state education agencies, and other interest holders at the time of publication.