Seattle School Board Mtg. Nov. 2nd 2016 Pt2

That is you.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

All right 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.

All right thank you Betty.

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

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

Ching-a-kia-la, hey-a-kia-la.

Ching-a-kia-la

I'm going to talk Yippee.

Good evening my English name is Matt Remley my Lakota name is Wakiyama Anaton.

I'm home Kapapa Lakota 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-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 am going to let Janine Tillotson go ahead and facilitate this.

Janine has been with the district for over 25 years and I will let her introduce herself but I am Nachalna First Nations born in America but grew up in Vancouver Island.

Good evening my name is Janine Tillotson I am a member of the Tlingit tribe of Alaska I am from the Eagle Moya Tee Killer Whale clan.

And I have worked with a lot of these kids from the time they were very young and I am so proud to know of the amazing young people they are becoming and the leaders in their tribal communities and so we are 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 is Native American kids and the students here tonight are from all regions, all schools, all grade levels and they are all doing amazing things in their schools and they are going to tell you a little bit about it.

So we are going to start with Evelyn.

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

Spokane tribe.

Hello my name is Talon Madison White Crow.

My tribes are Cherokee, Comanche and Macaw.

I go to Licton Springs K-8.

I am in second grade.

I am good at lacrosse and I enjoy doing mathematics.

Thank you.

I am Rain Foster.

I go to Fairmont Park.

My tribe is Hickory Apache.

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

For fun I like to do soccer.

Lakota, Napa'i, Nama'ayan, Haimacha.

Hi I'm Chanty Ramley.

I go to Cascade, I'm 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.

My name is Evan Lott, I am LU in Kootenai, I am in Spectrum at Lawton Elementary, I am in fourth grade and my favorite things to do are basketball and parkour.

I am J.O.

Foxley, I am Jewish, black and Seminole.

I go to Pathfinder K8, I like science and math and play volleyball.

Hi my name is Jaquari Barquet.

My tribe is Salish and Kootenai.

I'm a 7th 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 Chiappe.

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 am 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 and I go to school at Bradford Counseling K-8.

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

Hello my name is Emad Alshamassalli.

I'm Tlingit and Haida.

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 Sparkles and I'm Tlingit 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 Sealth 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 am Owen Oliver, I am a senior at Roosevelt high school.

I am Quinault in Isleta Pueblo.

I like to do science and math and outside of school I do mountain biking and traditional native paddling, canoeing.

Thank you.

McKayla, you can come down here too, honey.

My name is Boo Balkan Foster.

I am Hickory Apache and adopted Macaw.

I have been working for Seattle Public Schools for over 20 years.

First at American Indian Heritage School, then at Middle College and most recently I am now back at Title VII.

Starting second semester of last year I was hired to be the Shikachi teacher that is located at Chief Sealth International that also serves Denny International.

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

Ka Chib with a B, Chib.

Put it all together, Shakachib.

Shikachib is a southern Lushootseed 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 nonverbal 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 chapbooks 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 Sealth 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 Hoyerup.

Hello my name is Ben Hoyerup I am from the Ute tribe.

I work at Chief Southern International High School in the Chukachi class.

We have 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 8th grade at Denny 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 8th 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 8th grade year.

And you know 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.

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 Mikayla 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 coworkers and I think that you will see why she was moved.

Hi my name is Mikayla Yellow Bear Eagleheart.

I come from the tribe of Northern Arapaho and Kiowa Apache.

And the topic that I said that lifts 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 everyone and 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 is 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 is a kind and warm hearted person that is always eager to help students with their needs.

Before bringing a guest she makes sure everyone is 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 make fun of me of and now that she came into my life I am 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 Lushootseed 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.

Shikachi students, can you raise your hand?

I'm very proud you know 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.

And I just you know 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 Jeanine close this out.

I just wanted to say the same thing.

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

We are so proud of you and you are 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 are 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.