After teaching special education for 20 years, Sandy Johnson has decided she wants to go to the principal's office.

With assistance from a federal grant aimed at helping more American Indians become school administrators, Johnson and three other Indian educators will get that chance.

They will graduate in August with master's degrees from the University of North Dakota, under a partnership between UND and United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck.

When Johnson set out to get her master's degree, she hadn't completely decided what she would do once she had it.

"I wasn't really sure what area I wanted to be in," she said. "So I spent time with an elementary school principal, a secondary principal and a special education coordinator."

Johnson said she now plans to use her new degree to become a special education coordinator or an assistant principal.

"Because special education is constantly changing, there are new things to be done and new challenges to be met," she said. "I kind of want to be in the forefront of that, helping to make things happen.

"I want to be a leader in education," she said.

Dr. Angie Koppang, the program's director at UND, said only 18 of North Dakota's 519 school administrators - less than 4 percent - are Indians. At the same time, 11 percent of students in the state are Indians, she said.

"Obviously, we haven't kept up," she said. "We felt that this was a critical need in North Dakota."

UND and UTTC teamed up to get more than $1 million from the Education Department's Office of Indian Education to help 15 Indian educators complete UND's graduate program through 2009.

UTTC oversees the financial parts of the program, while UND provides the education, said Sheri BearKing-Baker, the program's director at UTTC.

Indian students need more role models who are more like themselves, Koppang said.

"Our hope in doing this is that we're really going to impact the students," she said.

The first four students began learning last fall, and six have been chosen to start next year, BearKing-Baker said. Five more will participate the following year, she said.

The grant provides tuition, books, fees and a monthly stipend, BearKing-Baker said. By taking care of all costs, the grant enables participants to go to school full time and finish in just three semesters, she said.

"It's made it a lot easier financially," Johnson said. "I get it done in a year and a summer, whereas it might take me a few years or more to finish, otherwise."

Besides financial support, the program provides professional development opportunities, Koppang said. The students do several internships and job shadowing experiences in which they complete projects in schools to increase their skills, she said.

After the students graduate, they are paired with administrators who serve as mentors and help guide them through their first year as principals, Koppang said.