Seattle Schools Evicts Native Youth Program from Robert Eagle Staff MS
Update 2: Director Pinkham was at the rally at RESMS last night in support of UNEA.
end of update
Update: story from Crosscut.
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Update: story from Crosscut.
end of update
SUCCESSFUL NATIVE YOUTH PROGRAM EVICTED
FROM ROBERT EAGLE STAFF BUILDING
(FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)
(FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)
A Native youth program with a record of boosting graduation rates and cultural enrichment for Seattle students has been evicted from Robert Eagle Staff building, echoing the heartbreak of broken agreements with local Native Americans over centuries.
On Friday, June 4th, Urban Native Education Alliance (UNEA) was sent notice by Seattle Public School Area Director Jon Halfacker announcing the Partnership Agreement will be “terminated”. This termination has been decided without due process, dialogue, or foundation in fact.
“The abrupt termination of the ‘Partnership Agreement’ with our successful Clear Sky tutoring, mentorship, and cultural Education program ‑ along with the Native Warrior Athletics basketball program ‑ will have reverberating impact on hundreds of Seattle Public Schools’ Native learners, families, volunteers, Robert Eagle Staff and Licton Springs learning community and our intertribal urban community”, stated Sarah Sense‑Wilson (Oglala), Urban Native Education Alliance Board of Directors Chair.Clear Sky’s youth programming holds 11‑year record of 100% graduation for involved Native youth K‑12, and stands as a recognized model for improving Native student academic and personal youth outcomes. Clear Sky served 97 Native students, 62 volunteers, 61 Native Warrior Athletics student athletes, and over 811 combined community members, volunteers,students and allied programs in the past school year.
“Dispossessing our Native learners is an intentional decision to erase our presence and visibility at a school that we successfully campaigned for naming after Robert EagleStaff”, Elder Tom Speer.Robert Eagle Staff building is located on culturally‑significant sacred land (Licton Springs). Thissacred site is where both Seattle Clear Sky and UNEA birthed as a grass‑roots community‑driven organization. Our connection to this land transcends time and is a sacred relationship. The spirit of this partnership was made visible through verbal and written agreement as well as symbolically through meaningful gifts that were received with gratitude in ceremony by SPD such as; traditional Star quilts, Robert Eagle Staff memorial bronze sculpture and other items of cultural importance, as an exchange of good faith and mutual support to honor and make tribute to the memory of Robert Eagle Staff and the Urban Native community's connections and roots to the sacred site of Licton Springs.
UNEA requested the immediate reversal of the decision and establish a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Superintendent. SPS needs to comply with their own policies on Educational and Racial Equity Policy #0030 , and SPS Strategic Plan for eliminating the achievement gap, and its Racial Equity Analysis Tool to ensure equitable access.
Instead of using policies to terminate and further marginalize communities of color, they should be applying their own policies for parity, equity and building bridges for common and shared interests of our entire Seattle community. While the district’s data and outcome for Native students continues to reflect cultural incompetence, and disproportionate statistics, our comparative outcomes are in stark contrast. As a community we need to protect our children and uphold our collective responsibility to improve and create pathways for their holistic wellness.
Please contact Seattle Superintendent at superintendent@seattleschools.org and Seattle School Board schoolboard@seattleschools.org to express support for our efforts to re‑establish our original partnership with SPS.
District Public Testimony is on June 26th, 2019, call‑in (206)252‑0040 (must call on Monday, June 24th, @ 8:00am).
Editor's Note:
The district promised Licton Springs K-8, which has a Native focus, space at the Robert Eagle Staff building and yet somehow, LS K-8 got less space than promised. Then, because the district drew boundaries incorrectly RESMS is overcrowded and now the district wants LS K-8 to go somewhere else.
And now, again in the Robert Eagle Staff building, the district summarily kicks out Clear Sky youth programming that successfully serves Native youth. Folks, this group has so many events weekly (!) like basketball, crafts, Native history, etc. I find it hard to accept that there was no discussion about this decision with Clear Sky or the UNEA.
It feels very much like decisions are being made without Board knowledge or input OR community knowledge or input.
And this with not one, not two, but three Native Americans in senior leadership.
Comments
I doubt it is in retaliation for the Amplify situation; this is not the first sign of trouble with the UNEA relationship to Eagle Staff.
- Neighborhood Mom
At the meeting, the district offered three “options” to address overcrowding at Robert Eagle Staff and gave the community a month to “choose”. The problem was that the “three options” were not really “three options” because to solve the overcrowding problem, as defined by the district, required picking at least two of the three. And of the three options, two required changes to the Licton Springs Native American Program at Eagle Staff; (1) the district gave the Native Community the choice of either completely moving out of the building; or (2) shrinking the Native Program from a K8 to a K5.
It was a heart-wrenching one-month ultimatum to the Licton Springs Native Community, wrapped in the district’s standard obfuscation and excuses.
During the meeting, at which several Native students stood up to testify about having to attend class in the hall, there was a loud vacuum cleaner running. When a parent asked if the janitor could move elsewhere, Robert Eagle Staff Principal Dr. Marni Campbell said no.
Over the years, I attended several board meetings that discussed the Native American Licton Springs K8 program being co-housed in the Robert Eagle Staff building. There were concerns about building overcrowding years ago, and the school board voted to place the program in the Eagle Staff Building anyway. From my viewpoint, District Staff never wanted the program there, but our elected leaders placed it there. The board made promises. The idea that the district wants to break those promises, given the history of broken promises to the Native Community in this country, is heart-wrenching.
Within this context, when the district has clearly and publicly stated its desire to have the Licton Springs program out of the building, no matter the excuses given, it’s no surprise that the Urban Native Education Alliance (UNEA) has been kicked out.
"Directly and consistently working in partnership with families and communities who represent students of color who are furthest from educational justice; and
Making clear commitments and delivering on them"
How can this can be justified?
nn
This program being kicked out is not a school, but provides support services for the school. They need to make some decisions as it is not fair to all the kids to be in an over-enrolled school. They really messed up with the boundaries.
I am thinking what would be logical would be to redraw boundaries, so that some kids go to Whitman as that school if I remember was left under-enrolled. They could also move the HCC program to Whitman, I don't know why that is not an option. Licton Springs program and support services that are affiliated logical place is all together at the Robert Eaglestaff location which should have a native focus.
A Parent
Be Done
You see why I'm often so satirical when it comes to "equity" and "centering" "those furthest from educational justice."
It's almost as if SPS does things like this so they can maintain the gaps that they complain about in order to get and maintain their power--if there were no sick people, there'd be no doctors, etc.
That site has been focused of Native American education, community, and support for as long as my 40 year old self can remember, and the data on Clear Sky speaks for itself.
This looks like more hypocrisy from the district. I wonder what they have to say for themselves.
Halfacre? Tolley? Juneau? Please speak to the readership of this blog and justify this decision.
SP
HP
KT
"Special ed is parked in this school.."
Very disrespectful to Sped families.
Problem solved
Rubberstamp board
HP
I'm just teasing her, besides there is so much corruption and incompetence going on in SPS to walk away from.
Come on
You can call me disrespectful for pointing it out. It’s actually way more disrespectful not to point out the truth. Wink and nod, when education isn’t delivered. Evidently you haven’t spent much time there, or you would know. Juneau has, and she’s not impressed either. The “we’re Native, so don’t look closely what we’re doing” line isn’t cutting it, especially when it’s so obvious that practically nobody willingly enrolls. What is the “Native focus” in the school? The school itself is unable to answer.
Be Done
I'm assuming that SPS knew what would happen if they kicked this beehive and they have some defensible facts they can supply.
Waiting
WackaTee
I wonder what on earth could make the UNEA people antagonistic.
I wonder if it's the time the Seattle tribe, the Duwamish, were denied a reservation promised them in the Treaty of Point White (ALL the settlers, the incoming whites, wrote a letter to Washington asking that the Duwamish not be given a reservation.)
I wonder if it's the time in 1867 when Seattle's first charter included a law excluding Native peoples from within the city limtis?
Maybe it was when their longhouses on Alki were burned?
Perhaps the Dawes Act, in 1887, when their land was sold to settlers?
Maybe the long wait until 1922 (just six years before my father was born) when Native peoples were finally given citizenship?
I wonder if the District's decision to destroy Indian Heritage High School ten years ago had anything to do with it?
Maybe the lack of Native presence in district curriculum and instruction is a problem for Native peoples, here on their land (for it IS still their land - broken treaties are abrogated treaties...)
Or is it, now, the promise of space for a school on their original site (Wilson Pacific - near the sacred springs at Le?qtid) now withdrawn - the rubbing out, yet again, of Indigenous peoples by a callous and uncaring conquering power?
I wonder why the Native community might be angry.
Hmmmm.....
I remind readers to keep a civil tongue and stay on topic.
Seems like a weak excuse to dump a program that was using the site in off hours. They were contributing to the education of children in the form of homework help and arts and language opportunities and athletics.
All of those contribute to the core mission of any school.
SP
Don't conflate
Miss Apatos
Be Done
Be Done
Scott is that true? Please issue a formal statement on what's going on.
Licton Leaks
Sorry
Please don't disparage my school after all the years I have fought for it.
It is a one of a kind place,that has helped many students.
We have many students that are not registered as native because Duwamish is not recognized by the federal government.
It has the highest FRL ratio of any option school in the northend.
We have been lied to and stolen from by the district.
There are things happening here that are driven by various tribe's animosity towards each other.
Dead Horse
To the 6/15 commentor, There are FAR more than 2 Native American students who attend REMS. SPS has a known problem with data collection and demographics. Race and ethnicity reporting has a discrete set of federal categories. Many Native Americans are multi-racial. They could be coded by SPS as multi-racial, native american, or any other race/ethnicity they might also identify with. My own child is listed in SPS as "multi-racial." Their student information systems allow a box to be checked by the school registrar if students also identify as American Indian/Alaskan Native. However, this data is not consistently collected, and SPS's reporting tools and queries seem to ignore it. So, the data itself is not entirely reliable, and the data that does exist is not used in the district or state reports.
Michelle
The SPS termination letter (linked in Crosscut article) states that UNEA didn't provide evidence of supporting "positive student outcomes" per Board Policy 4265. A closer look at Policy 4265 indicates that outcomes need to be "measureable" and follow an "annual reporting process'.
Yet, SPS didn't supply the disaggregated student outcome data following a 1 and 3 year reporting process as required by Board Policy 2020SP for 20 middle schools.
Situational ethics or just none at all.
nn
https://crosscut.com/sites/default/files/files/sps_termination_letter_to_unea.pdf
https://www.scribd.com/document/406851279/Seattle-Public-Schools-Curriculum-Waiver-Forms-for-use-of-Amplify-Science-April-2017
Mom of 4
Spedvocate
That's true in general, but the district does NOT provide transportation outside the geozone to OPTION schools, even for sped.
OS