Native Students Stepping Forward:
Dollar General Adult Education Program
2014 – Ongoing
About The Program
The American Indian College Fund’s Native Students Stepping Forward: Dollar General Adult Education Program, previously known as the Dollar General American Indian and Alaska Native Literacy and Adult Education Program, addresses a critical gap in the education pathway, empowering underserved Native people to gain the foundational literacy skills needed to prepare for and obtain high school equivalency (HSE) credentials and pursue post-secondary education and meaningful career pathways.
Like the Dollar General Literacy Foundation (DGLF), the program’s primary funder, supporting it at up to $300,000 annually, Native Students Stepping Forward is committed to helping individuals of all ages receive the educational foundation they need to succeed in post-secondary education opportunities or the workforce. Through tribal college and university (TCU)-implemented programming, this work seeks to strategically expand services and resources to achieve measurable outcomes in ABE progression and HSE program enrollment, retention, and completion. In a continuous effort to value the whole student, the program aims to assess and address students’ needs to succeed, encourages culturally relevant programming elements, promotes visibility of HSE students at TCUs, and supports college and career readiness programming components. TCU grantee partners also regularly engage across the cohort in a Community of Practice (CoP) to share best practices and challenges, strengthen programming, and examine holistic impact on students and communities.
High School Equivalency Visibility Project
The American Indian College Fund engaged three TCU high school equivalency (HSE) partners for the HSE Visibility Project, featuring the stories of HSE students and graduates in a social media campaign throughout winter and spring of 2024.
2022 High School Equivalency Program Convening
Grantees
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe University
Northwest Indian College
Oglala Lakota College
Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College
Salish Kootenai College
Sinte Gleska University
Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute
Tohono O'odham Community College
Related Blogs
Sinte Gleska University GED Tutor Identifies Keys to Student Success
Throughout her 17 years at Sinte Gleska University (SGU), GED Tutor Linda Boes has seen many changes in how students are prepared for the exam. Yet the fundamentals of working with adult learners have stayed the same. Boes works at SGU’s Adult Basic Education department’s eastern reservation offices in Gregory and Winner in South Dakota.
The Transition
Just about every educational institution worldwide made the transition to distance learning; some have been successful while others are still struggling. Tohono O’odham Community College’s GED program made the transition to online instruction this semester. Though it is still a trial and error process, our work is progressing.
GED/HSE Program: Electronic TABE Informational Training Webinar
The American Indian College Fund’s Dollar General American Indian and Alaska Native Literacy and Adult Education Program helps students in pursuit of a GED or high school equivalency by supporting the TCU staff and programming that gets them there. There are always...
The Face of a New Time?
With the continual increase of COVID-19 and the changes implemented by businesses and education, it is hard to fathom the future of GED programming, overall academia, and of course the world and life as we knew it. For Tohono O’odham Community College’s (TOCC) GED department, making the switch proved difficult because many GED students did not possess a laptop, have access to the internet, or both. We must not let this virus set us back, and we must continue to help our students complete their education so that they can lead their communities, in both hard times and good ones. Indian Country needs educated citizens more than ever.
