Deer That Walks at Night: Principal Laura Sullivan lights the way at Anishinabe Academy

November was Native American Heritage Month and WeAreMPS is highlighting Anishinabe Academy’s Principal Laura Sullivan.

A kindergarten class at Anishinabe Academy is learning the word for “November” or “freezing moon” in Ojibwe. “Gash-ka-di-no-Gii-zis,” they sound out. The teacher laughs. “It is a long word.”

Anishinabe Academy educates students through an Indigenous lens, with a Native-centered curriculum, and through Dakota and Ojibwe language. “We smudge, we drum, we tell our stories,” Sullivan said. “It’s part of our students’ getting to be Native and live their traditions every day.”

About 95% of Anishinabe’s 250 students identify as Native American. Sullivan herself is a proud member of the Ho-Chunk tribe. Her native name is Haahe maanj caa, or “Deer That Walks at Night.”

“That’s the deer who stays up at night keeping watch, making sure the other deer are safe,” said Sullivan. In other words, a principal: a position she’s held at Anishinabe for 14 years.

But the Sullivan family’s Minneapolis Public Schools roots go back even further than that. Her father, Michael Huerth, helped start Anishinabe and was also an MPS principal at other schools. Meanwhile, Sullivan’s mother Juanita Huerth worked for the district office and as office support in several schools. 

Sullivan takes a red felt pouch down from a shelf in her office and unrolls it, revealing a pipe. It was with this very pipe, in a sweat lodge years ago, that the vision for Anishinabe Academy first revealed itself to tribal elders. 

According to Sullivan, the vision involved Native children in hurt and pain, and a sacred hoop that spun so fast it knocked over people in suits who were standing between the children and elders. “The hoop just bowled down the line of suits. It was at that point we knew we had space, we could build a place where our kids could thrive and heal,” Sullivan recalled.

Today, the vision for Anishinabe Academy and its students is a new, dedicated space. An advisory committee is currently working on this question. But one thing will never be in question: Haahe maanj caa will be there, keeping watch over the herd.