Seattle School Board Mtg. Nov. 2nd 2016 Pt2

Oh, hey.

Betty's here.

Okay, good.

Always stop her.

Thank you.

Alright well that was a fantastic energetic performance from the John Stanford International Schools Choir.

I would like to welcome Director Leslie Harris who has joined us and we also have Director Betty Patu on the phone with us.

Are we ready for the next item?

Okay Betty.

You can say your name.

You can say hello.

Thank you Betty.

So now we are going to go on to a presentation from Gail Morris.

Is she here?

I think we're transitioning between the choir and our next presentation.

Avoid using all capitals.

I'm...

Good evening.

My English name is Matt Remley.

My Lakota name is from Standing Rock and the proud parent of two of these youngsters up here in Seattle Public Schools.

Thank you.

Hello.

My name is Gail Morris.

I am the Manager for Native American Education and what you see here are students in grades K through 12. Some are missing traffic I would imagine.

But they are students in all regions in Seattle Public Schools from all tribes.

And behind them are their parents and our PAC committee as well.

I'm going to let Janine Tillotson go ahead and facilitate this.

Janine has been with the district for over 25 years.

And I'll let her introduce herself.

But I am the First Nations, born in America, but grew up in Vancouver Island.

Good evening, my name is Janine Tillotson.

I'm a member of the Tlingit Tribe of Alaska.

I'm from the Eagle Moya Tea Killer Whale clan.

And I have worked with a lot of these kids from the time they were very young and I'm so proud to know of the amazing young people they are becoming and the leaders in their tribal communities and so we're really proud of everyone and our goal tonight was to show To the school board and to all of you that all through Seattle School District in every school there's Native American kids and the students here tonight are from all regions, all schools, all grade levels and they're all doing amazing things in their schools and they're going to tell you a little bit about it.

So we're going to start with Evelyn.

My name is Evelyn Brandon and I am from Licton Springs K-8 and I love art and I love math.

Spokane Tribe.

Hello, my name's Talon Medicine White Crow.

My tribes are Cherokee, Comanche, and McCaw.

I go to Licton Springs K through eight.

I am in second grade.

I'm good at lacrosse and I enjoy doing mathematics.

Thank you.

I am Rain Foster.

I go to Fairmont Park and my tribe is Hickory Apache.

At school I like to do math, science and writing.

For fun I like to do soccer.

Hi, I'm Charlton Ramley.

I go to Cascade on fourth grade, and I like to play games, make stories up, and pretty much writing, watching anime, main character designs, and I like regular robotics.

Ooh, clapping sounds, clapping sounds.

My name is Evan Lott.

I'm L.U.

in Kootenay.

I'm in Spectrum at Lotton Elementary.

I'm in fourth grade and my favorite things to do are basketball and parkour.

I'm J.L. Foxley.

I'm Jewish, black and seminal.

I go to Pathfinder K.A. I like science and math and play volleyball.

Hi, my name is Jaquari Barquette.

My tribe is Salish and Kootenay.

I'm a seventh grader.

I go to Denny International Middle School.

Things I'm good at, math, science, reading.

Stuff I like to do for fun is football.

Rebecca Remley of Chiapi.

Hello, my name is Cheyenne Remley and my tribe is Lakota, Paiute and Mayan and I am in seventh grade and I go to Cascade and I'm good at math and computer science and things I like to do are soccer, games, climbing and running.

Hi, I'm Jack Brown and I'm from the tribes of Yakima and Muckleshoot and I'm in eighth grade.

I go to school at Barbie Thompson K through eight.

In school I'm good at algebra and science and outside of school I like to do ultimate frisbee basketball.

Hello, my name is .

I'm in eighth grade.

I go to Whitman Middle School.

My school interests are PE, art, math.

My outside of school interests are American football, basketball, and that's it.

My name is , and I'm , and I go to Franklin High School, and I like science and language arts, and some things I like doing out of school is Volleyball, theater, cooking and Latino dancing.

Hey, my name is Morgan Blackton.

I am from the Blackfeet Nations and I am a junior at Chief South International High School.

My school strengths would be reading and writing and science.

And what I like to do outside of school is play football.

I wrestle and I play piano.

Hi, I'm Owen Oliver.

I'm a senior at Roosevelt High School.

I'm Quinault in a sled at Pueblo.

I like to do science and math.

And outside of school, I do mountain biking and traditional native paddling, canoeing.

Thank you.

Mikayla you can come down here too honey.

My name is Boo Balkan Foster.

I'm Hickory, Apache, and Adopted Macaw.

I've been working for Seattle Public Schools for over 20 years, first at American Indian Heritage School, then at Middle College, and most recently I'm now back at Title VII.

Starting second semester of last year, I was hired to be the Shikachi teacher that is located at Chiefs Health International that also serves any international students.

I'm going to teach you how to say it real quick, it's shah, S-H, shah, say it with me.

Ka-chibe, with a B, cheebe.

Put it all together, shah-chibe.

Shikachib is a southern Leshutseed word that means raising of hands.

This name was gifted to us through partnership working with the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

Muckleshoot and Native Education worked together to gift us this name and it means to raise hands.

We raise our hands as non-verbal expression to say good morning, hello or to offer respect.

And I loved the idea of raising hands for all those things and when I was gifted and blessed enough to get this position, I decided that that was going to kind of anchor my work and we use it as a metaphor in our class and I think of my challenge every day is to raise my students up.

And that takes a variety of forms, whatever they need.

And it's been wonderful.

I've only been there for a semester, but to see my students buy into that and together we're raising each other up and supporting each other.

Sometimes it's a simple thing, making somebody a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to me going to IEP meetings, discipline meetings, or making sure students are safe or perhaps helping with college entrance essays.

So it takes a lot of forms and I'm humbled to do this work.

I'm also really lucky that I have a huge support network in Native Education and also I made a support network through the Bureau of Fearless Ideas which is a wonderful organization.

Last year we published little chat books And the topic that I challenge my students to write about is what lifts you up and it takes a variety of forms.

Students rose to the occasion and last June we hosted a reading in the library to a packed house.

We packed that Chief Sealth Library and it was pretty amazing.

I just want to say publicly that I cannot Thank the leadership of my supervisor, Gail Morris and Dr. Nyland for their wisdom in putting this classroom together.

I've worked in Seattle schools for 20 years and this is transformational and it's amazing to be part of.

So I just wanted to say that publicly and also publicly say that I am moved each day by the warmth of the administration at Chief Seattle and the staff.

It's truly been a wonderful partnership and I'm excited to see what transforms over the years.

We have a couple of students tonight that are going to share their readings from those books that I just mentioned.

But before we do that, I would like to introduce you to my instructional assistant, Ben Hoyrup.

Hello.

My name is Ben Hoyrup.

I am from the Ute Tribe.

I work at Chief South International High School in the Chicago class.

We've chosen two of our students to read the stories that they wrote that they had published.

Again, the theme is what lifts you up.

Okay, my name is Morgan Blackton.

I already introduced myself, and I want to tell you guys a little story about myself.

So when I was in eighth grade at Danny International Middle School, I didn't really care about my grades, and, you know, the average good grade for me was about a C.

And I was just a bad kid.

I was falling off the wagon, and I was also really out of shape, too.

I was about 240 pounds, and I didn't get the necessary amount of exercise, nor did I have a good diet.

I also got suspended at the end of eighth grade year for something that I had done, and it was really stupid, and I regret it.

And it was a long-term suspension, so technically I was not supposed to return to school.

But luckily I did, and I appreciate that very much.

And despite how terrible my grades were, I passed eighth grade year.

And after I learned my little lesson, I started doing a variety of programs throughout the summer that surrounded me with positive people.

And I had a great experience throughout the summer.

I went through a diet, lost about 30 pounds.

And I felt like I increased.

My social life increased as well.

And when high school started in my freshman year, my main priority was keeping my grades up.

And that I did.

I stayed above a 3.0 pretty much the whole year.

And I was still out of shape.

So I had to do something about that.

So I decided to join the wrestling team.

And throughout the wrestling team, in the beginning, I was about 220 pounds.

And in the middle of the season, I went down to 195. And at the end of the season, I was 182. I was in the best shape of my life.

And also, I also ended the year with a 3.7 GPA.

And yeah.

And so this story was basically answering a question, who lifts me up?

And my answer is I lift myself up.

Thank you.

This next story, I want to preface with Michaela and I worked in secret on this story.

We kept it hidden from Ms. Boo the whole time.

We wouldn't let her read it until the very day when we unveiled it in front of all the families and all her co-workers.

And I think that you will see why she was moved.

Hi, my name is Michaela Yellow Bear Eagleheart.

I come from the tribe of Northern Arapaho and Kiowa Apache and the topic that I said that will lift me up, I said the person that lifts me up is my teacher Boo.

She fascinates me, inspires me in so many ways to improve myself and to help others.

Boo loves to make sure everything and everyone is okay.

She gets everyone what we need whether it takes money out of her pocket or her time.

Boo is not like any other teacher in my eyes.

She's a good teacher.

She taught me so many things to help me in my life.

She has this big heart for everyone who comes across her path.

She's a kind and warm-hearted person that is always eager to help students with their needs.

Before bringing a guest, she makes sure everyone's okay with it.

She checks on students to succeed and overcome their adversities.

She has so much pride in herself and her ethnicity.

I always hate being Native American because of the stereotypes that people and other students that Make fun of me of and now that she came into my life I'm very proud of being me and myself as a person every day.

The same way she wants her students to succeed is the same way I want my siblings to succeed.

The same way I look at her is the same way I want my siblings to look up at me.

Every beautiful thing I see in her is what motivates me to be a good, humble, determined, motivated person just like her.

So thank you.

I would like to also say that the name Shikachi is Southern Leshootseed and it comes from the Duwamish band here in Seattle.

I just am so proud and looking at all these kids and how amazing they are And how well they do in school and with each other and for their communities.

And I know that everyone here is proud.

We also have, if you can raise your hand, the PAC, the Parent Advisory Committee Board.

We have the Parent Advisory Committee Board here and then first staff, can you raise your hand?

We have staff here.

Shikachib students, can you raise your hand?

I'm very proud.

I hope to see this program move into other schools as well because we know that it's working very well for our students and I'm very honored to have Matt come in and bring his family to sing for us tonight.

I'm a little speechless right now because I'm always in awe of how well our students are doing and how great our families are and how much they contribute to their success.

So I'm going to let Janine close this out.

I just wanted to say the same thing.

I am so proud of everyone from the youngest to the seniors.

We're so proud of you and you're doing such a great job in your schools and to represent our communities every day.

You are the leaders in our tribal communities today and in the future.

And I lift my hands up to the parents who are all standing here because they They're the rock that their students stand on and they brought them here through Seattle traffic.

So thank you very much and way to go you guys.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Avoid using all capitals.