PINE RIDGE, S.D. (AP) — Federal education officials have given Pine Ridge School in western South Dakota $218,000 to help students and teachers in their recovery from a string of student suicides and attempts.

The school serves the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It requested the money after seeing a significant increase in counseling referrals, people saying they were thinking of suicide, and suicide attempts.

The reservation had at least nine suicides between December and April. Four of the people were Pine Ridge School students; two were in high school and the other two were middle-schoolers.

William Mendoza, director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education, says the Obama administration is "committed to working with the Pine Ridge community as it heals."

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