MARYSVILLE — A community event is planned for the one-year milestone of the shootings at Marysville Pilchuck High School.
The event, called A Walk of Strength, will start at 9 a.m. Oct. 24 and will include a walk around the campus. The plan includes inviting people to plant red and white tulip bulbs as they “come together and reflect,” according to a news release.
The details are being coordinated by the city, the school district and the Tulalip Tribes.
“An unimaginable event occurred in our community last year that changed lives forever,” schools Superintendent Becky Berg said in the release. “But it does not define us.”
The walk is meant to be a safe and supportive way to remember together, Mayor Jon Nehring said. Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon described each step as a symbol for healing and moving forward.
T-shirts with the logo and “#MPstronger” branding are expected to go on sale at www.mpmemorial.org.
Oct. 24 will mark one year since a freshman at Marysville Pilchuck High School invited a group of friends to sit together in the main cafeteria. He shot five of them, four of whom were fatally wounded. He then took his own life.
ACLU Calls for strong enforcement to ensure access for women
Source: American Civil Liberties Union
Washington, DC — The American Civil Liberties Union today commends Indian Health Services (IHS) for issuing an updated policy to ensure that Native American women can obtain Plan B emergency contraception at IHS facilities.
The update comes more than two years after a federal court ordered the FDA to approve Plan B One- Step as an over-the-counter drug for women of all ages (without a prescription), and more than five years after Native American women first reported that IHS facilities were failing to provide the women they serve adequate and appropriate access to emergency contraception.
“The updated policy IHS released today is a long overdue and important step toward ensuring that Native American women have equal access to emergency contraceptive care,” said ACLU Legislative Counsel Georgeanne Usova. “The policy must now be rigorously enforced so that every woman who relies on IHS for her health care can walk into an IHS pharmacy and obtain the services she needs and to which she is legally entitled.”
An investigation by Sen. Barbara Boxer’s staff earlier this year found repeated examples of IHS pharmacies’ failure to comply with the up-to-date FDA guidelines, and a separate survey conducted by the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center last year found similar results. Some pharmacies surveyed did not offer emergency contraception at all; others required a prescription; and others wouldn’t provide it to women based on their age.
For some Native American women, if emergency contraception is unavailable at their IHS facility, the next alternative may be hundreds of miles away. However, emergency contraception is most effective the sooner it is taken, with effectiveness decreasing every 12 hours. The distance and potentially insurmountable transportation costs make timely access to emergency contraception difficult, if not impossible, for many women.
In addition, statistics show that more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetime — more than double the rate reported by women of all other races. A woman who is sexually assaulted and relies on IHS may not be able to take necessary steps to prevent a pregnancy that occurs as the result of rape.
Once again denying tribal treaty-reserved fishing rights – and the many federal court rulings that have consistently upheld those rights – the state of Washington is appealing its latest defeat in a case brought by western Washington tribes in 2001 to force repair of hundreds of salmon-blocking culverts under state roads.
Oral arguments for the appeal will be heard tomorrow, October 16 in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle. The appeal stems from a 2013 ruling by Judge Ricardo Martinez, who issued a permanent injunction requiring the state to repair more than 800 state-owned fish-blocking culverts over the next 15 years. Also at issue is a 2007 decision in favor of the tribes in which Martinez ruled the state’s obligation to fix culverts stems from the treaty right to take fish. The tribes, state, and federal government tried for several years to settle the case, but were unable to reach agreement.
“Our treaty-reserved right to harvest salmon includes the right to have those salmon protected so that they are available for harvest, not only by the tribes, but by everyone,” said Lorraine Loomis, chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “Our treaty rights are at risk because we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. Without habitat, we have no fish. If we have no fish, we have lost our treaty right, and our culture and economies will be destroyed.”
Tribes reserved the right to harvest salmon in treaties with the United States government more than 150 years ago, in exchange for which the tribes ceded the vast majority of their homeland to allow non-Indian settlement. The treaty fishing right was upheld in U.S. v. Washington, the 1974 ruling that recognized the tribal right to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and established the tribes as co-managers of the resource with the state.
In great part due to loss of habitat, salmon populations have rapidly and continually declined for the past several decades. As a result, both Indian and non-Indian fishermen have suffered from greatly reduced harvests. “We all stand to lose if we cannot protect the salmon’s habitat,” said Loomis. “We were disappointed by the state’s choice to appeal the district court’s decision, especially when restoring salmon benefits Indians and non-Indians alike.”
Blocking culverts deny salmon access to over a thousand miles of good habitat in western Washington streams, affecting the fish in all stages of their life cycle and reducing the number of adult salmon returning to the state by hundreds of thousands of fish. State agencies have consistently told the Legislature that fixing problem culverts is a scientifically sound, cost effective method for increasing natural salmon production. Even so, the state’s sluggish rate of culvert repair meant it would have taken more than 100 years to fix known blocking culverts even as salmon populations continued to decline throughout western Washington.
The injunction forces the state to accelerate the pace of repairs to blocking culverts. Over the past two years, the state agencies have been cooperative in working with the tribes, Loomis said. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Parks and Department of Natural Resources have made good progress toward correcting the existing fish blocking culverts, which the injunction requires be fixed by next year. The Washington Department of Transportation is responsible for the majority of failing culverts, which the injunction requires be corrected by 2030. WSDOT’s correction rate is still far too slow, but the Tribes are encouraged by the agency’s recent efforts to re-prioritize funding to bolster culvert corrections and the state Legislature’s increased funding to the agency. Repairs will be funded through the state’s separate transportation budget and will not come at the expense of education or other social services.
The 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington always prefer to collaborate rather than litigate to restore and protect salmon and their habitat, Loomis said. “But the state’s unwillingness to work together and solve the problems of these salmon-blocking culverts in a timely manner left us with no alternative except the courts. We hope the Ninth Circuit will fully uphold the district court ruling and that we can move beyond litigation to work cooperatively with the State to protect the salmon resource,” she said.
Sweetwater Nannauck from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes of southeast Alaska and Director of Idle No More Washington speaks at the Indigenous People’s Day celebration at Westlake Center. Photo/Kim Kalliber
By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
Congress made the second Monday of October a federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus in 1937. To all Indigenous, Native, and Fist Nations people, the commemoration of the man responsible for initiating the European colonization of the Americas, which led to hundreds of years of disease, colonial rule and genocidal extermination following the Italian explorer’s accidental trip to the Americas, is just another reminder of the ‘social silence’ we have had to endure as a culture.
‘Social silence’ is the anthropological term for a phenomenon that occurs in a human society when the subjects that are core to how the society function are exactly the ones that are never mentioned. Because European colonialism of the Americas and the mass genocide of millions of indigenous peoples led to the development of the United States (the beacon of hope, prosperity and freedom of the civilized world), there continues to be ‘social silence’ around the cruel and violent history of the United States, of colonialism, and of one Christopher Columbus.
If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of struggle and conflict can suddenly make sense. We become silent no more. We become Idle No More.
Last year, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to change the federal Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, making it the second major U.S. city after Minneapolis to adopt the change. The holiday’s new designation follows a decades-long push by Native American activists in the Coast Salish area to abolish Columbus Day.
Seattle’s decision garnered national media attention and, since then, major cities along the west coast, including Anchorage, Alaska, Portland, Oregon, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and San Fernando, California, have passed legislation changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Days. Only days ago, Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed a momentous proclamation declaring the second Monday of October to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day. While the state of Alaska is the first to rename the federal holiday, credit must be given to South Dakota, the first state to rename the federal holiday as Native American Day in 1990.
So it was with great pleasure and pride that the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle, held an all-day celebration in Seattle on the 1st anniversary of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday, October 12.
Photo/Kim Kalliber
Photo/Kim KalliberIndigenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle Photo/Kim Kalliber
The celebration was comprised of three main events, to which any and all Native community members and supporters were freely invited to. The first event was a celebratory march from Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. Hundreds of people gathered at Westlake Park, most decked out in their Native regalia, and they beat their drums and sang as loud as they could while marching to their Seattle City Hall destination.
The second event took place in the Bertha Knight Landes room of Seattle City Hall, where Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrators were greeted by the Seattle Mayor and Seattle City Councilmembers.
Crowd gathered at Seattle City Hall where Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrators were greeted by the Seattle Mayor and Seattle City Councilmembers. Photo/Micheal Rios
“Last year we took a historic step in the city of Seattle, and today it is an honor to be here and be with all of you to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” said Seattle Mayor Edward Murray. “It marks a new history in the city of Seattle and continues our dialogue with the tens of thousands of Native Americans who call Seattle home. It goes without saying that the history of this city is intertwined with the history of our Native peoples. We know we face challenges with the institutional discrimination that remains today, in housing, addiction and education. We will continue to work on these issues in Native communities. If anywhere in the nation we can make progress on these very challenging issues, it’s us. We have an incredible heritage of tribal communities who have been groundbreaking and leading this state long before my ancestors were here. Going forward, we have a lot of healing to do, but today we are here to celebrate. Today we are here to honor. Today we are here to say Indigenous Peoples’ Day is more than just a day, it’s every day.”
Lunch, consisting of salmon chowder, frybread, and a healthy fruit salad, was served to all those in attendance.
Following lunch, a very passionate, keynote speech was given by Winona LaDuke. She is a member of the Anishinaabe nation from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and is renowned for her activism on behalf of indigenous people and the environment. She is also a two-time Green Party vice presidential candidate.
Winona LaDuke, keynote speaker at City Hall. Photo/Micheal Rios
“What a great day it is. It is so happy, so liberating,” marveled LaDuke. “On our march here I noticed ‘Columbus Day Sale’ signs in the windows of some stores, and I was thinking does that mean I can walk around those stores and take whatever I want?”
“It is so liberating for me to be here and celebrate with you all in just how awesome it is be Indigenous people. You know, it’s always perplexed me how someone can name something as large as a mountain or sea or an entire day after someone as small as a human. It changes how people view things when everything is named after all these white guys. We are just beginning. There is a lot of work ahead in the renaming and recovering and restoration of our homelands. In doing so we remember our ancestors. In doing this we honor all those before us, all those here, and all those yet to come. And we reaffirm our place here as a people who remember, as a people who do not suffer from historic amnesia. We are a people who live today in a civil society who knows where it is exactly and is willing to be healthy, healthy and beautiful.”
“We are living proof that it is possible to live in a worldview that does not include empire, the destruction of our Mother Earth, and being ran by the morally corrupt oil and pharmaceutical companies,” continued LaDuke to a crown of cheering Native community members and supporters. “As we open our minds here I’m really honored to be with you in Seattle, a place that is in process of deconstructing the colonial renaming of our mountains, rivers, and oceans. I have great admiration and respect to y’all out here for standing up in what you know is true and being here to celebrate this great day.”
There was an evening celebration held at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center that consisted in Native and Indigenous people from all over the nation performing their cultural songs and dances, not entertainment, but to celebrate each other. Celebration in recognition of a day that not only provides us with a platform to raise awareness, but it also commemorates a history of survival and perseverance.
Native American drummers demonstrate at the steps of City Hall during a rally to take strong action on the climate change on February 17, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. David McNewGetty Images
NEW YORK — Not far from the negotiations for a new global development agenda that took place between heads of state at the United Nations General Assembly last month, a small group of female leaders gathered out of the limelight to sign another historic agreement.
The delegation chose not to meet at UN headquarters in east Midtown but on a traditional Native American tribal territory in Central Park’s East Meadow.
Seven women representing eight different tribes signed a treaty to unite the indigenous women of the Americas in friendship to protect the land and people from the harms of climate change and environmental degradation.
In what organizers said was the first-ever indigenous women’s treaty, the women pledged to support the rights of indigenous peoples, commit nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to protect the planet, and demand immediate changes to laws that have led to environmental destruction.
“We’re saying this is the line. We’re done. The destruction stops now,” said Pennie Opal Plant, one of the treaty’s lead signers.
The United Nations recognizes that women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they constitute a majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on natural resources for their livelihood.
“Women’s role as central stakeholders is one of the most important, yet untold stories of climate change. If we are to have a fighting chance at restoring the health of the Earth and our communities, women’s experiences and knowledge must be brought to the forefront,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, the executive director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), at an event where the treaty was later presented.
The signed treaty contends that the laws of Mother Earth “have been violated to such an extreme degree that the sacred system of life is now threatened and does not have the capacity for life to continue safely in the way in which it has existed.”
Opal Plant, who is of the Yaqui, Choctaw and Cherokee tribes, was instrumental in shaping the treaty. She grew up in the shadow of Chevron and Shell refineries in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she saw environmental degradation first-hand. She has organized nonviolent prayer walks in her home city led by Native American elders, but after connecting with other women during a gathering of nature rights advocates in Ecuador 2014, Opal Plant saw opportunity to launch a worldwide movement. She joined several other indigenous leaders from the US and Ecuador — Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca tribe, Patricia Gualinga Montalvo and Blanca Chancoso of the Kichwa, and Gloria Hilda Ushigua Santi of the Sápara.
“When women unite and commit to something, shifts happen,” said Montalvo, speaking through an interpreter. “I feel strongly that it’s a time to be heard and for actions to take place.”
Montalvo played a large role in successfully fighting the Ecuadorian government in 2012 in a landmark Inter-American Court of Human Rights case, Sarayaku v. Ecuador, in which the Ecuadorian government was found guilty of rights violations after authorizing oil exploration on Sarayaku lands without prior consultation with the indigenous community.
Opal Plant and her treaty co-signers presented their document at an event hosted by WECAN on Sept. 29, a Global Women’s Climate Justice Day of Action.
Women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, and they are central to solutions, said Orielle Lake at the event.
In the coming months, Opal Plant and her co-signers will create a website to expand the treaty beyond the Americas and allow other groups to sign online. In December, they plan to bring the treaty to COP21, the Paris Climate Conference, and hold another ceremony where more indigenous women leaders will join.
Montalvo’s indigenous community in Sarayaku is constructing a canoe that will travel from Ecuador to France. “The canoe is a symbol of Sarayaku, a symbol of our living forest,” said Montalvo. “We will bring it all the way to Paris so it can navigate the River Seine and so we will be heard.”
In New York, WECAN also presented a Women’s Climate Declaration, which includes a demand to bring back atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to below 350 parts per million — which many scientists agree is a level that avoids catastrophic global warming — and an aim to ensure that women’s groups have access to funding to adapt to climate change that is already happening. The declaration already has garnered over 2 million signatures and will be delivered at COP21 later this year.
Women comprise 20 million of the 26 million people estimated to have been displaced by climate change, according to a 2010 report by the Women’s Environmental Network.
“I ask that as temperature rises, that we rise,” said Orielle Lake.
A new study shows that stormwater runoff from urban roadways is so toxic to coho salmon that it can kill adult fish in as little as 2½ hours.
But the research by Seattle scientists also points to a relatively easy fix: Filtration through a simple, soil-based system.
“It’s basically … letting the Earth do what it does so well, what it has done for eons: cleaning things up,” said Julann Spromberg, a toxicologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and co-author of the report published Thursday in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Scientists have long suspected that the mixture of oil, heavy metals and grime that washes off highways and roads can be poisonous to coho, but the study is the first to prove it.
The research got its start more than a decade ago, when habitat-restoration projects began coaxing a trickle of coho back to several urban streams in the Puget Sound area. But many of those fish died before they could spawn. And the deaths seemed to coincide with rainstorms that sent runoff surging through drainage pipes and into the waterways.
In some place, like Longfellow Creek in West Seattle’s Delridge area, up to 90 percent of females were killed.
“It was apparent that something coming out of those pipes was causing it,” Spromberg said.
She and her colleagues tried to reproduce the effect in the lab. But the artificial mixture of oil and other chemicals they concocted had no effect on the fish.
So their next step was to try the real thing: Actual runoff, collected at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Centerfrom a downspout that drains a Highway 520 onramp near Montlake.
“When we brought out the real urban runoff: Bang! They were down, they were sick, they were dead,” said co-author Jenifer McIntyre, a researcher at Washington State University’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center.
In experiments at the Suquamish tribal hatchery near Poulsbo, every coho exposed to the runoff died — some within a few hours, all within a day. Before death, the fish became lethargic, rolled around and swam to the surface as if gulping for air, McIntrye said.
The fact that actual runoff proved fatal while the scientists’ concoction did not underscores an unsolved mystery about which chemical or combination of chemicals are so toxic to the fish. It could be any number of compounds that weren’t part of the artificial brew, including byproducts of oil and gasoline combustion, chemicals released by tires or tiny particles from brake linings, Spromberg said.
“We still need to keep looking at what exact compounds are involved.”
But whatever the chemical culprit, the scientists found it could be removed by passing the runoff through 55-gallon drums packed with layers of gravel, soil and compost. None of the fish exposed to the filtered stormwater died or fell ill.
“It was remarkable,” McIntyre said.
The finding is a strong endorsement of rain gardens, grassy swales and other “green” alternatives to traditional drains and pipes designed to collect stormwater. The idea is instead to let the runoff percolate through the ground, as it did before so much of the area was paved and developed.
State regulations strongly encourage developments to use such approaches, according to the Washington Department of Ecology. A project called 12,000 Rain Gardens in Puget Sound is also promoting their use.
“We should be seeing more and more of these systems in the future,” McIntyre said.
Coho, which were once abundant throughout the Northwest, may be particularly vulnerable to toxic runoff because they spawn in the fall, prompted by seasonal rains. Habitat destruction, fishing and other factors almost certainly contributed to the species’ precipitous decline, Spromberg said.
Chum salmon, whose habitat and spawning seasons overlap those of coho in many places, don’t appear to be as affected by runoff — something the scientists plan to investigate this fall.
Perhaps the major limitation of the study is the small sample size. Only 60 coho were used in the experiments, 20 in each of two experimental and one control groups. The scientists were lucky to get that many, thanks to the cooperation of the Suquamish Tribe, McIntryre said.
Also, the urban runoff collected near Montlake was undiluted in the experiments and represents about the worst possible case: runoff from a busy highway in a big city, a DOE official who was not involved in the study pointed out.
“It’s great that the treatment gets rid of toxicity from this nasty stuff,” Karen Dinicola of DOE’s stormwater program wrote in an email. But it’s particularly challenging to retrofit urban-collection systems with greener alternatives, she said.
But the results of the research could help guide future development in rural watersheds where coho runs remain, the researchers said. And it can also be used to help inform urban-restoration projects as well, so fish aren’t lured back to appealing habitats, only to be clobbered by toxic runoff.
The researchers are preparing for their next round of studies, which will include tests to zero in on what is actually killing the coho.
The rain that soaked the region Wednesday also filled their runoff-collection barrels, Spromberg said.
“We only have one shot a year, when the fish come back and we can do the experiments and take the samples,” she said. “Hopefully, with this rain we’ll have more fish coming in soon.”
STANWOOD — Snohomish County and Camano Island residents who want to learn how they can protect and maintain and their shoreline property in Port Susan are invited to attend a free workshop at the Lake Goodwin Community Club in Stanwood on Saturday, Oct. 17.
The event, hosted by the Northwest Straits Foundation and the Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee, will feature a presentation by Jim Johannessen, a coastal processes expert.
Workshop topics include how to manage beach and bluff erosion, enhancing beach access, and using native vegetation for slope stability and habitat. Participants will also receive information on free site visits by a private, shoreline management professional to learn how to protect their property.
The workshop is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 17 at the Lake Goodwin Community Club at 17323 42nd Ave NW, Stanwood 98292. Please reserve your spot today. Register online at http://svy.mk/1OW6YjI, by phone with Heidi Lehman, 360-733-1725, or via email at lehman@nwstraitsfoundation.org.
About Snohomish County Marine Resources Committee
The Snohomish County Marine Resources Advisory Committee (MRC) is a citizen-based volunteer committee appointed by the Snohomish County Council. It is one of seven county-based MRC’s, which conduct restoration, conservation, and education projects with diverse partners and community members to meet performance benchmarks. For more information, visit www.snocomrc.org.
About the Northwest Straits Foundation
The Northwest Straits Foundation is a non-profit organization established to support the scientific, restoration, and education projects and programs of the Northwest Straits Marine Conservation Initiative. The Foundation’s mission is to protect and restore the marine resources of the Northwest Straits by supporting research, monitoring, restoration, stewardship, conservation and education programs and projects both at the local and regional level.
For more information contact Lisa Kaufman of Northwest Straits Foundation at 360-733-1725 or Kathleen Herrmann of the Snohomish Marine Resources Committee at 425-388-6414.
The Marysville School District (MSD) began a new one-to-one initiative that will span the entire month of October and put a Chromebook computer in the hands of more than 5,500 students in grades 6 through 12. As part of the roll-out, Tulalip Heritage High School was the first school chosen to receive the latest and greatest generation of HP Chromebooks. With the lightning fast Chrome OS, 8-second boot-up time, and over eight hours of battery life, the Chromebooks provide the versatility teachers need and the technology students want.
“We are thrilled about the limitless learning possibilities using Chromebook,” said MSD Superintendent Becky Berg. “With support of our Marysville and Tulalip communities, we are investing in the technological tools of today that will help our students become tomorrow’s leaders. Technology continues to change rapidly. We are equipping our student to be active, contributing citizens in a digital world.”
According to an MSD press release, the devices are fully funded by a technology levy approved by district voters in 2014. Preparations for the Chromebook initiative began with last year’s upgrade of the district’s wireless Internet infrastructure. Since then, MSD partnered with a local Marysville company, Advanced Classroom Technologies, to install more than 60 miles of network cabling. The system went live in March 2015, and now all district facilities have Wi-Fi available to the students and community during non-school hours.
So whether you are at school campus to watch a sporting event, attending an afterhours activity, or just sticking around to do homework or research, you can now connect to a free, public Wi-Fi that becomes available at the end of the school day. This is a huge benefit for students and their fellow community members who don’t have an available internet connection at home.
Students will be allowed to take and use the Chromebook devices at home following the school day and use them on home or public Internet connections. Even if they’re used outside of the district, the devices have built-in content filtering as required by law.
The Chromebooks initiative will change the instructional learning environment for the students at Heritage, while keeping information and their resources constantly up-to-date. Think of how people generally learn new methods and strategies in today’s digital era. We will search Google, Wikipedia or YouTube to learn something in the moment. Moving away from the traditional model of teachers as ‘the fountains of knowledge’, MSD wants the students to be more independent and active in their knowledge development. Students will no longer have to rely necessary on their teacher or an outdated textbook to deliver content anymore. Instead, teachers will be facilitating use of the ever-expanding wealth of knowledge available via Chromebooks.
Scott Beebe, MSD Technology Directory, says 140 teachers received professional development training (e.g. productive internet searching, learning Google Apps, basic troubleshooting) in August on how to use the Chromebooks in the classroom, and about 150 more will be trained throughout the month of October.
The professional development will focus on learning to design lessons that not only empower and engage students in compelling work, but also leverage the power of technology to connect people and ideas.
Heritage students and teachers alike agree the one-to-one Chromebooks initiative benefits everyone. Students are able to do their work more efficiently and have no difficulty submitting assignments with the Google Docs app, while teachers no longer have to try to decipher student handwriting and can edit assignments and provide immediate feedback to students individually.
“The Chromebooks make it easier for us [students] to stay organized and turn our work in on-time,” says Heritage senior Samantha Marteney. “We each have our own computer so it’s easier for us to gather information. For me, it’s way easier to turn in assignment even on days I’m not at school, I can just email them to my teachers.”
“I think the Chomebooks make it a lot easier to take notes in class and complete assignments,” added fellow Heritage senior Mikaylee Pablo. “With the Google Drive app, it saves all our work for us as we type, so we don’t have to worry about losing papers or journals. Plus, I can now do research and type at the same time, instead of doing research on a desktop then writing in a notebook.”
Heritage High School has never had a library or computer lab that is accessible to students furthering their learning like other high schools in the district. The Chromebooks bring a world wide web of books and other resources to their hands now.
“The Chromebooks are a wonderful resource for our students. It’s amazing to see every one of our students with their own computer and now provides them with the opportunity to open doors to learning and enrichment that we’ve never had access to in the past,” explains Heritage humanities teacher Marina Benally. “The Chromebooks bring more of the world into our classes. The access to information makes this a thriving learning community and as such we further and grow each other’s thinking through technology. I’m more and more facilitating rather than being the sage on the stage. It makes education really exciting for our students.”
With such rapid investment in communication devices, wide-scale wireless network, and professional development, student learning is clearly on center stage. The Chromebooks initiative will help students achieve more academically, perform better on tests and be in a better position when it comes to computing in the collaborative online environments of today’s digital era.
Submitted by Sandy Evans, RN, MPH, Tulalip Medical Reserve Corps Coordinator
Following a major disaster, first responders who provide fire and medical services will not be able to meet the demand for these services. Factors such as number of victims, communication failures and road blockages will prevent people from accessing emergency services they have come to expect at a moment’s notice through 911. People will have to rely on each other for help in order to meet their immediate life saving and life sustaining needs.
The Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program educates individuals about disaster preparedness and trains community members to take care of themselves until first responders are available. The CERT Program offers training in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, and disaster medical operations. With proper CERT training, you can help protect your family, neighbors, and co-workers if a disaster occurs.
The last time a CERT program was offered to Tulalip was in the spring of 2010 and the Tulalip Office of Emergency Management and the Tulalip Medical Reserve Corps have since then received requests for this preparedness training.
In preparation to deliver this program, last April Medical Reserve Corps members Floyd Bannister, Jr., Cindy Pruden and Eric Cortez attended training that provided them the knowledge, skills and abilities to instruct CERT training in our community. They have also been prepared to be CERT program managers.
The course will be held at the Tulalip Bay Fire Department facility, 7812 Waterworks Road, over 9 sessions starting Monday October 26th. The classes will run from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays, ending on November 23rd. The Fire District and other knowledgeable presenters will be assisting Eric and Floyd with this training.
Because this program is new to the presenters, only 20 participants will be accepted for this session, but training is planned to be offered twice a year. Participants must be 14 years of age or older. Attendance at all classes is required for CERT certification.
People who go through CERT training have a better understanding of the potential threats to their home, workplace and community and can take the right steps to lessen the effects of these hazards on themselves, their families, and their community.
South Dakota high school students will not be learning about Native Americans next year, thanks to some quietly approved changes in content standardsthat no longer require students to study early American history.
Beginning in the 2016-2017 academic year, high school students in South Dakota may chose one of three courses to satisfy their single U.S. history requirement: Early U.S. History, Modern U.S. History or Comprehensive U.S. History.
A group of 35 educators made up the South Dakota Social Studies Content Standards Revision Committee, which recommended the adjustments that were approved on August 24, after a year long approval process – the first changes to be made since 2006.
The changes effectively remove a large part of American historical context from the required curriculum, including colonialism, the American War for Independence, slavery, Manifest Destiny, the Civil War and women’s suffrage.
Students may still opt to take Early U.S. History, they also now have the option of avoiding it altogether, which makes it a “non-standard standard,” said Ben Jones, dean of arts and sciences for Dakota State University in Madison, as told to the Argus Leader.
The entire content standards report emphasizes critical thinking, inquiry, communication and problem solving skills.
“Rather than just having then memorize a list of historical events on a time line,” Michael Amolins, Harrisburg School District Secondary Curriculum Director, told KSFY, “We’re trying to get them to use that information in context so that when they’re looking at current events they can make good and informed decisions as citizens and as voters.”
But this leads to another concern – what happens when students get to college?
“What we’re going to get is students who don’t differentiate,” Michael Mullins, a history professor at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, told KSFY. “Say, Abraham Lincoln’s time period from George Washington’s time period from the Puritans. And it will get lumped together and we’ll wonder why.”
Jones told the Argus Leader, “It’s disabling their citizenship.”
According to the Argus Leader, instructors from colleges and universities around the state submitted a letter to the board opposing the lack of required history. This list included representatives from Dakota State University, University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University, Northern State University, Augustana University, Presentation College, the University of Sioux Falls and Black Hills State University.
