By Brother Paul Ackerman, FSC

Asking our first 9-year-olds what they liked about De La Salle Blackfeet School on the Blackfeet Reservation drew a jumble of wonderful responses.

“I like the classes, especially math,” said one little girl. “I like going to Mass,” said another. One of the boys said he liked the fact that students at DLBS got along, and that he wasn’t getting into arguments as he had at his previous school. Said another child, “I like everything about this school—even the teachers!”

It was September 2001 when our school doors in Browning opened, with one class. Those children were in the fifth grade. Each year, as that first class progressed in education, we added another grade. When the inaugural class graduated from DLBS in May 2005, the school had grown to grades five through eight.

Over the past few years, families on the Blackfeet Reservation expressed interest in adding a class for fourth graders, typically 9-year-olds. Last spring, we offered a fourth grade-fifth grade combination class and soon found the response great enough to warrant a class exclusively for fourth graders.

The generosity of our diocesan family made this expansion possible.

With funds from the Diocese of Helena Foundation, we converted our science classroom into a fourth-grade classroom. Knowing our building’s limitations, Father Ed Kohler of Little Flower Parish in Browning encouraged school use of a room in the St. Vincent de Paul building across the playground from DLBS. Our new science classroom, complete with a sink and a work counter for experiments, is in that space.

Both the science room and the fourth-grade room need further outfitting, however, and we are asking donors to help. The science room needs microscopes and other equipment. Textbooks are among the fourth-grade needs.

For 99 percent of our operating expenses, we rely on the generosity of foundations and donors. Students’ families pay tuition of $45 a month or volunteer a monthly four hours of service.

As a school, we exist to meet the need for quality, faith-based education on the reservation. Donors provide us with the means to fulfill our motto: Building faith in education. Serving the poor and the marginalized is among the school’s tenets. Sixty children attend the school, which is operated by the De La Salle Christian Brothers.

More information about DLBS and ways to support it is available on the school website at www.dlsbs.org or by calling us at 406-338-7701.

Brother Paul Ackerman is the DLBS president.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 25, No. 11, November 20, 2009.