At a nearly four-hour Nov. 3 Cherokee Language Program work session at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) Tribal Council House, participants and leadership agreed to address structural issues in adult learning, including understaffing that has led to rampant burnout and long instructional hours that have limited time for language improvement. But the core problems exposed during public comment — trust, accountability, leadership, and method — remained largely unaddressed.
EBCI Human Resources Division Secretary Sarah Teesateskie unveiled a draft adult program reorganization chart that would eliminate three of seven advanced linguist apprentice positions in both the Cherokee Apprenticeship Language Master Learning Program (CLMAP) and Dadiwonisi in Snowbird in exchange for a fourth “floater” adult language educator.
Director of Youth and Adult Education Renissa McLaughlin was then called up to speak to council. She underscored the need for a permanent speaker services position in Snowbird — also included on the reorganization chart — and a fourth language educator to assist with lesson planning. The two institutions would also be housed under a separate Culture and Language Program, rather than their current Youth and Adult Education designation.
“Being a language instructor, especially being a second-language learner, [for] eight hours for a 40-hour week was a lot, and we had to listen to our teachers because they were getting burned out,” McLaughlin said, adding that the original teaching role was only 24 hours each week. As a result, she said, first- and second-year teachers call it quits, and the third-year position is vacant.
However, she pushed back against complaints she’d received about a lack of curriculum. “We really would like for you to see that there was not an absence of materials,” McLaughlin said.
Scarlett Guy, a CLMAP 2024 alum and current teacher, was also called up to share her opinions. Guy agreed that two teachers should be in the classroom, arguing that a co-educator was essential for classroom planning and curriculum skill-building. She described the intensity of teaching for eight hours in a second language and said it limited opportunities to improve her Cherokee fluency. Guy even described the complications of grading, a seemingly simple process.
“If the student turns in a quiz that says something different than what I would say, I can’t just instantly mark it wrong. I have to then go and investigate and talk to speakers and give them a genuine answer back on, ‘Yes, they said you could say this, even that’s not if that’s not how I would say it,’” she told council members.
Recently, Guy had been allowed one hour each day to meet with a speaker, but she said she often spent it gathering lesson materials. She urged that time should be solely for practice — and advocated for even more of it. Former speakers now unaffiliated with the program, however, highlighted the true depth of the issues.
Third-year adult language learning graduate Madison Hye Long described what she saw as the “turmoil” within the overarching Kitwuah Preservation and Education Program that discouraged her from returning to CLMAP or Dadiwonisi as an instructor, despite her love for Cherokee.
“I am frustrated. We’re having to meet again on how to save our language,” she said, adding that she was the very first third-year graduate; her teacher quit and so did all four of her peers. “However, I was still able to go from a level six to a level eight, and that was done with passion and intention.”
She argued leadership was to blame — its curriculum neither shared those qualities nor was grounded in Indigenous principles of land- and community-based learning.
In a conversation with The Smoky Mountain News, Council Member Shennelle Feather (Yellowhill) described her vision for a program grounded in these principles.
“It has to be based in relationship, and not just human being relationship to other human being, but relationship to land, relationship to place, relationship to community — being able to connect to each other in a deeper way,” Feather said. She framed the philosophy as akin to healing work, rejecting the “language is dying” narrative, which she described as fear-based and not grounded in oneself and one’s identity as Cherokee.
“It’s not our job to save the language. I think it’s our job just to be Cherokee … And giving each other permission to be Cherokee,” she said, adding that could look like saying one Cherokee word a day, doing traditional dances or telling traditional stories.
Feather said that while it was common 40 or 50 years ago for a child to grow up in a fluent Cherokee home, that’s not the case today, which means it’s highly unrealistic to teach language in early childhood.
“I believe 20 years ago, we missed the mark,” she said, explaining that instead of initiating this iteration of language program, “we should have started a community college — adult learning first — and created teachers, created the curriculum. I think we did it backwards.”
Feather noted that many of the children who went through the school as it was launching two decades ago are in their 20s now.
“At that time, as a young child, it’s almost like we put all of our faith in these young children that we overstressed them, and they were carrying a huge burden to save the language,” she said.
Citing Haskell University and Navajo Technical Institute, Feather said EBCI would still greatly benefit from a Native American community college and framed it as something to think seriously about. One could play on the basketball team or procure an associate’s degree in herbal remedies or storytelling.
“To me, culture is ever-changing, and I think it’s embedded in our DNA, and it’s just dormant, and it’s our job to wake it up,” she said.
Accountability and trust on the line
Former adult learner Elvia Walkingstick raised leadership issues on Nov. 3 that had little to do with curriculum.
“The work session was called for what — to roll out their plan for the new org chart? Or was it to address things we have been coming to you (about) for the past three or four years?” she said, addressing EBCI Principal Chief Michell Hicks directly.
Hicks countered that these issues had only been pertinent for “the last year-and-a-half” and said the point was to “gather additional (structural) input” and determine programmatic strengths and weaknesses.
Walkingstick described an experience that entered the territory of “duress.” Yet her meeting request to Hicks went unanswered. After asking McLaughlin to transfer classes — not having a teacher had brought her ongoing mental health challenges — the manager never followed up. Eventually, in her third year, she went “on mental health leave,” and didn’t come back.
Walkingstick framed her choice to air her grievances not as an attempt to “rock the boat,” but as a chance to share her experience with an audience.
“My HR complaints are still sitting in HR. They were timed out. It was over a year. They never got addressed towards my management,” she said, naming several individuals in the room with whom she’d experienced problems. “We came to you for help prior to this, and nothing was ever done.”
Walkingstick argued restructuring wouldn’t solve the lack of accountability among leadership that had led to her departure from the program.
“You’re allowing these things to continue to happen by never addressing them. It’s not a safe space … We have spaces that learners don’t want to go into,” she said, still addressing Hicks. She named certain managers in the room who need additional training for the program to succeed.
In response, the chief questioned the legality of discussing human resource issues in public.
Attorney General Mike McConnell explained that personnel matters are confidential and alleged they had nothing to do with improving the program. But that didn’t sway Walkingstick’s evaluation of the central problem: the people in charge “violated that trust for some of the learners.”
Her last line delivered a final blow to Hicks: “You failed my cohort. I just want to point that out.”
“That’s your opinion,” he said, urging the session along with another commenter.
Other attendees offered ideas such as continued support for graduates, accessible opportunities for fluent speakers, and comprehensive language documentation. But Council Member Lavita Hill (Big Cove) said most of the complaints she’s gotten about EBCI language programs mirror those of Walkingstick.
“I’ve received at least 15 messages today, and they all have the same message — which is, ‘The leadership in this program does not work’ — and they can’t get up here and say that because of retaliation, because of job security, and things like that,” she said.