syəcəb
Please join us for Lushootseed Family Nights where you can gather with loved ones and learn to speak the words off our ancestors. Scheduled for every Tuesday in February and March 20113 at the Hibulb Cultural Center from 5pm-7pm.
Lessons, Materials, Food and Fun provided!!
WHEN:
Tuesdays
Feb. 5th, 12th, 19th, & 26th
March 5th 12th, 19TH & 26th
WHERE:
Hibulb Cultural Center
6410 23RD AVE.
Tulalip, WA
TIME:
5PM-7PM
Contact: Natosha Gobin
RSVP: 360-716-4499
Tulalip Tribes Lushootseed Department
By Gale Fiege, http://www.heraldnet.com
Q: What’s it like to attend Heritage High School?
A: It’s a small school in the Marysville School District with about 100 students. Our teachers are really engaged. They know you and what you are doing. They want you to succeed. Each student gets attention. Like any high school, we have six periods a day of the usual subjects. The only thing different is that we focus a lot on Native American culture. We don’t have it right now, but one of the classes offered is our native Coast Salish language, Lushootseed.
Q: What is your tribal heritage?
A: My dad is Tulalip, my mom and grandmother are Rosebud Sioux, and my grandpa is Alaska Native. I spent a lot of my childhood in Tacoma with my grandparents and went to Chief Leschi Schools, which are operated by the Puyallup Tribe.
Q: Why is cultural education important?
A: For me, what we learn at Heritage is another perspective, another way of looking at the world. We focus on the oral history of native people, not just what you get in classroom history books. I am thankful for the elders who have passed down the stories, and I’m glad we are a culturally active school.
Q: The staff at Heritage say you are very helpful and hard-working. Why is this important to you?
A: I like to take time to help people and it gives me something to do.
Q: What are your regular school-related activities?
A: I like to help in the school office. I’m the ASB treasurer, and I help with concessions at our school basketball games. The money we raise goes to our student body. Basketball is very popular in the community, especially when we play the Lummi Nation School, Muckleshoot Tribal School or Neah Bay High School. Then it’s about pride in our tribes.
Q: Do you have a job?
A: I’ve worked for Tulalip Tribes. This past summer, I got experience working with the Quil Ceda Village grounds maintenance crew. It gave me an understanding of how that department works. And I pulled a lot of weeds from 88th up to 116th Street.
Q: What do you want to do next year?
A: I hope to enlist in the Coast Guard. I would like to make a career of it and hope that I can work in Washington. I’ve already talked to a recruiter. My other idea is to become a member of the State Patrol or the Tulalip Police. Something like that. Just so I can help people. For me, it’s all about giving back to the community.
Q: Have other people in your family been in the service?
A: My dad was in the Marine Corps, my grandma in the Air Force, my grandpa in the Army and my cousin in the Coast Guard. My dad is encouraging me to go into the Coast Guard.
Q: It sounds like your family is important to you.
A: Yes, I help my sister by taking care of my 3-year-old nephew. I take him to the park and stuff like that. We have fun.
Q: What else do you do outside of school?
A: I like to ski, golf, play tennis and basketball and work out at the Marysville YMCA. I played football at Lake Stevens High School when I first moved up here. I miss football.
I also listen to music. All kinds. I like rap, country, classic rock and when I worked as a prep cook in the kitchen at the casino, I learned to like the Mexican music that the Hispanic guys played.
Q: What’s keeping you busy right now?
A: That would be my senior project. We have to answer the questions of, Who am I? Where am I going? How will I get there?
Q: What is your favorite class this year?
A: For me, that’s easy. It’s humanities with my teacher Maria Benally. She pushes me to excel in my work. We’ve been talking a lot about the issue of sovereignty. For example, we learned that Hawaii’s indigenous people were taken over by the United States.
Q: What is your favorite book?
A: It’s “Night” by Elie Wiesel about his experience in the Nazi concentration camps. That was a good book.
The Children’s Alliance
Seattle – January 28, 2013 – Washington afterschool providers came together today with anti-hunger advocates and child nutrition state and regional administrators to learn how to implement and expand the Afterschool Meal Program to receive federal funding to feed children afterschool, on weekends, and during school holidays. Working together, these stakeholders are helping to eliminate childhood hunger in Washington.
At the Luncheon: Eliminating Hunger After School: Expansion of the Afterschool Meal Program for Washington Kids, state and regional program administrators and advocacy organizations:
· Spoke about the connection between nutrition and educational enrichment,
· Presented an overview of the At-Risk Afterschool Meal Program,
· Provided information on how to apply to receive the federal funding available, and
· Discussed current opportunities for implementation and how to make the program work in a variety of settings.
“The Afterschool Meal Program can make a big difference for children in Washington,” said Linda Stone, executive director of the Children’s Alliance. “Many parents are struggling to hold onto jobs, working extra-long or nontraditional hours, commuting long-distances, or trying to get back into the workforce. They need care for their children in order to do that, so it absolutely makes sense to provide afterschool, weekend, and school holiday programs to help parents provide healthy food for their children.”
With its partners, the Children’s Alliance is working to increase the number of sponsors and providers participating in the federal Afterschool Meal Program so that more children in Washington can receive free meals and snacks, participate fully in their afterschool activities, and have access to the nutrition they need outside of school.
“The benefits of afterschool meal programs are boundless,” said Crystal FitzSimons of the Food Research and Action Center. “Access to afterschool meals improves students’ health, mental well-being, and their ability to fully participate and learn in afterschool activities. As a result, schools have higher overall achievement scores, and communities stay healthier.”
Washington’s childhood poverty rate is over 18 percent and the percentage of Washington families experiencing food insecurity has increased in recent years.
The Luncheon was organized by the Children’s Alliance and the Food Research and Action Center in partnership with the Afterschool Meals Workgroup, and with support from the ConAgra Foods Foundation.
The Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop, the annual gathering for those interested in Northwest weather and climate. will be held on March 1-2, 2013. As usual it will be held at the NOAA Sand Point facility in Seattle. For more information and to register please check the meeting web site: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/pnww/
Abstracts for talks are encouraged and are due by 15 February 2013–see the “Submit an Abstract” web page for more information. Some information on the meeting is also found below. The meeting banquet will be held at the Talaris Center, close to the UW.
DATES: March 1 and March 2, 2013 (Friday and Saturday)
LOCATION: NOAA Western Regional Center, Building 9 Auditorium
TIMES: 1pm Friday through 4pm Saturday (tentative times)
The Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop will be held Friday and Saturday, March 1-2, at the NOAA Western Regional Center, Building 9 Auditorium, at Sand Point in Seattle, Washington. This annual conference, sponsored by NOAA’s National Weather Service, the University of Washington, and the Puget Sound Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, covers recent developments in weather forecasting and observational technologies, major weather events of the past year, and topics dealing with western U.S. meteorology.
We welcome talks on all topics dealing with Northwest weather and climate. The meeting will start Friday, March 1, at 1pm and will continue through mid-afternoon on Saturday. Registration will be $30 for regular attendees ($15 for students) and will include Saturday lunch, afternoon and morning refreshments, and a pre-print volume. We will also have a Friday evening banquet (for an additional charge).
This year’s banquet talk title and speaker will be announced in early February.
Pre-registration is requested for all attendees. You can check for the latest information and register on-line via our website at: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/pnww/index.php?page=registration. Please submit abstracts for oral presentations and posters in text, Word or WordPerfect format – no PDF please. ABSTRACTS SHOULD BE RECEIVED BY February 15, 2013. Please include the title, author’s name and author contact information. Poster presentations are welcome and will be displayed throughout the meeting and during a special poster session. Please send abstracts to Cliff Mass, at the email address shown below.
For more information contact: Brad Colman/Kirby Cook, NWS Forecast Office, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA 98115 (206.526.6095 x222/224,brad.colman@noaa.gov , Kirby.Cook@noaa.gov), or Clifford Mass, Dept of Atmospheric Sciences, Box 351640, University of Washington, Seattle WA 98195 (206.685.0190, cliff@atmos.washington.edu).
Source: Children’s Alliance
What: Afterschool program providers and administrators of the federal child nutrition programs throughout Washington will attend the Luncheon – Eliminating Hunger After School: Expansion of the Afterschool Meal Program for Washington Kids – to learn how they can implement and expand federally funded programming to eliminate hunger experienced by children after school, on weekends, and during school holidays.
The summit, organized by the Children’s Alliance and the Food Research and Action Center, will provide a forum for current and potential afterschool meal providers to share their successes in bringing afterschool meals to the children they serve in Washington.
When: Monday, January 28, 2013 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Where: United Way of King County, 720 Second Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104
Why: Washington’s childhood poverty rate is over 18 percent and the percentage of Washington families experiencing food insecurity has increased in recent years.
Extending the reach of the Afterschool Meal Program to all eligible communities throughout the state will ensure that the children of Washington can participate fully in their afterschool activities, while also receiving the nutrition they need and may not have access to outside of school.
See registration page and agenda here.
The Luncheon was organized by the Children’s Alliance and the Food Research and Action Center in partnership with the Afterschool Meals Workgroup, and with support from the ConAgra Foods Foundation.
The Marysville School District will hold two meetings for district parents, Marysville and Tulalip community members and district partners learn about, and provide input, for the new superintendent search process. After serving Marysville schools for nine years, Dr. Larry Nyland has announced his retirement. The search process for a new superintendent begins now and follows a timeline through the search, recruitment, and the hiring process.
The Board of Directors and consultants, Dr. John Fotheringham and Dr. Wayne Robertson, of Northwest Leadership Associates, are committed to providing an open and transparent process in the search for a new superintendent. Your participation and input is important and will assist the board in selecting a new educational leader that will continue to take Marysville to the next levels of success.
Meetings will be held at the Marysville School District Service Center Board Room, located at 4220 80th Street NE, Marysville, 98270, on Tuesday, 1/29/13 at 7:00 PM and Thursday, 1/31/13 at 6:00 PM. Both meetings are open to the public.
An electronic survey is available on the district website at www.msvl.k12.wa.us.
For more information on the search process, contact Jodi Runyon at jodi_runyon@msvl.k12.wa.us or (360) 653-0800.
January 18, 2013
Dear Parents and Guardians,
After serving the Marysville School District for 9 years, Dr. Nyland has announced his decision to retire effective June 30, 2013. Although we are saddened by his departure, we personally want to thank him for his many great accomplishments.
To assist in our upcoming superintendent search, the Board of Directors has hired the consulting firm, Northwest Leadership Associates based in Washington. They provide years of knowledge and a network of individuals that will enable us to recruit the most qualified candidates for this important position.
The Board realizes the importance of this outcome and will make every effort to allow for our parents, staff and members the Marysville and Tulalip communities to participate in the selection of our next superintendent and to provide a search that is “open” and as “transparent” as possible. As part of the process, we will be collecting stakeholder input from a variety of means by conducting or attending over 25 community and staff forums over the course of the next several weeks and providing opportunities to fill out written and electronic surveys to assist us in choosing a new educational leader.
Please join us at the upcoming forum for all parents: Tuesday, 1/29/13, 7:00 pm, Marysville School District Service Center Board Room, 4220 80th Street NE. Your participation is a very important part of this process and we look forward to seeing you. We also invite you to complete an electronic survey: Superintendent Profile Survey. This survey will provide you with an opportunity to have your voice heard during our search process. For more information visit the district website at http://www.msvl.k12.wa.us/.
On behalf of the Board of Directors I would like to thank you for your time in this important process.
Respectfully,
Chris Nation, President
January 22, 2013
Retired NBA coach Phil Jackson will give one lucky fan and a friend the opportunity to spend a day with him in Los Angeles learning his basketball coaching secrets.
Jackson has teamed up with online fundraising company Omaze for a fundraising campaign to support the American Indian College Fund (the Fund) to raise money for Native student scholarships.
Donors can complete entries here for a chance to meet Mr. Jackson. The campaign is currently slated to end on Feb. 8. Airfare and hotel are included in the trip. Donations are not required to enter for a chance to meet Mr. Jackson.
As part of the experience, Mr. Jackson, a longtime supporter of the Fund who has also conducted basketball clinics in Indian Country, will show game tape of past championship series and explain how he prepared champion players like Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. Mr. Jackson will also detail how he developed his well-known Triangle Offense and other strategies that helped him coach his teams to win 11 NBA championships, the most in basketball history. Mr. Jackson retired from coaching in 2011.
“The American Indian College is delighted that Mr. Jackson has donated his time and energies to illustrate the need for financial support for American Indian college students,” said Dr. Cheryl Crazy Bull, President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund. “Not only is Mr. Jackson helping to raise money for scholarships, but he is also providing Native students with the valuable knowledge that he believes that with an education, they are all winners.”
By Jeannie Briones and Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News staff
MARYSVILLE, Wash – Braulio Ramos, Tulalip Tribal member, and senior at the Bio-Med Academy located on the Marysville Getchell High School campus, never realized that he could excel in public speaking, especially poetry recital, until he joined Poetry Out Loud, a nation-wide high school program that encourages youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation, while mastering public speaking skills and building self-confidence.
Ramos, along with six other students, participated in the second finals for the national Poetry Out Loud contest in December, held at Marysville Getchell. With his confidence and natural flare, Ramos won first place, making him eligible for the regional Poetry Out Loud competition in March.
Ramos chose to read ‘Bilingual/Bilingue’ by Rhina P. Espaillat and ‘Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carroll, stating that Alice in Wonderland is one of his favorite books.
Each year over 300,000 students take part in the national poetry recital contest. 2012 marked Marysville Getchell’s first year entering the contest, which is funded by the Poetry Foundation and the National Endowments for the Arts. Participating students must choose two pre-approved poems from the Poetry Out Loud online poem anthology; one that has fewer than 25 lines and one that was written before the 20th century.
“By trying news things, you find that you are good at something that you never thought you would actually do,” said Braulio. “Two days it took me to memorize one of the poems. I would read it and listen to it and see if I could recite it without any help. A method my teacher showed us was to write down and compare what you know, and compare it with the actual poem itself.”
The judging panel for the December competition consisted of the Mayor of Marysville, John Nehring, Marysville School District Assistant Superintendent, Gail Miller and MSD Board of Directors Vice President Wendy Fryberg and Board member Pete Lundberg. Student’s scores are based on six main criteria: physical presence, voice and articulation, dramatic appropriateness, level of difficulty, evidence of understanding and overall performance.
The Regional Poetry Out Loud competition will take place January 30th at the Burlington Library, located at 820 East Washington Ave. Winners of that competition move on to the state contest, which takes place in March, and then on the nationals, held in April.
These events are free to the public. For more information on the regional and state competitions, contact Nancy Menard at nmenard@newesd.org.
Jeannie Briones: 360-716-4188;jbriones@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov
Story and photos by US Forest Service Kelly Sprute
Everett, Wash., Jan. 16, 2013—It isn’t an easy job: standing six long hours in rain, sleet, hail, sun and snow every weekend starting in December through January. Armed with binoculars, spotting scopes and a love for bald eagles they greet and teach thousands of people who pilgrimage to Skagit River for a glimpse of eagles roosting in trees and eating fish along the banks. And these Eagle Watcher volunteers do it for free.
Eagle Watchers are stationed at three locations along the Skagit River on the North Cascades Highway: Howard Miller Steelhead Park near Rockport, Wash., nature viewing area at milepost 100 and the Marblemount Fish Hatchery.
The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and North Cascades Institute created the program in 1992 to control crowding that disrupted the birds and caused traffic problems on the highway according to Tanya Kitterman. The Forest Service Eagle Watcher coordinator said the Skagit River watershed boasts one of the largest wintering populations of bald eagles in the continental United States.
“The birds flock to the Skagit River for three reasons: the abundance of food, the river has good flows for spawning and it doesn’t ice over,” Kitterman said. Each year it takes 45 volunteers run the program, but most are eager to return, so she usually only needs to recruit about five people. All it takes to be an Eagle Watcher is enthusiasm about eagles and be an adult. “I bring the canopies, scopes, tri-pods and binoculars and they run with it. Their passion for the eagles is contagious,” Kitterman said.
The Forest Service trains volunteers about eagle biology and how they fit into the Skagit River ecosystem, readying volunteers for a multitude of questions: “How long do they live? How big is their wingspan? How much do they weigh? Why is the female bigger than the male? Where are they from?”
Harry Ota, a retired US army colonel who lives in Mt. Vernon, Wash., is a 20-year veteran Eagle Watcher. “It beats getting cabin fever,” he said. He still gets ready for the season every year by digging out his reference books and reviewing old videos.
“The eagles that arrive here are frozen out of their territory and food source up north and follow the salmon traveling south. It is amazing how nature works together. As one spawning route ends, another begins and the eagles move to follow,” Ota said. They are hungry when they arrive on the Skagit. “You’ve heard the saying about eating like a bird. Well, eagles are very voracious eaters and eat about a pound of meat a day. That is like us eating 40 quarter-pounders,” Ota said.
The years of observing these birds have given Ota insight into the eagle’s behavior.
He has noticed that some have become attuned to the presence of human activity. Although most will fly away from their meal when a boat drifts down river, some eagles just stop, guard their salmon, watch the boat pass and continue eating.
“Eagles are incredible animals with personalities. They have a favorite perch they return to, just like we do. Some watch the world go by, others fight over food, and a rare few perform flybys worthy of jet fighters over the bridge near the Howard Miller Steelhead Park,” Ota said.
In 2000 he got to help trap, tag and release eagles along the Skagit River for a Washington State wildlife research study. “Holding an eagle in my hands was an experience of a lifetime,” Ota said. They tagged 23 eagles and tracked them for five years. “The study discovered the eagles came from up north in the Yukon and were flying down the coast to northern California or east across the Cascades following the Yakima River,” he said.
One of Ota’s favorite stories is of the eagles’ resiliency and recovery. “In the 1950s there was an estimated 412 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states. The bird was later listed as an endangered species. By the 1990s the eagle’s population had rebounded to an estimated 115,000 and was later removed from the endangered and threatened list in 2007,” he said. But Ota said what keeps him coming back every year is seeing peoples’ face light up when they view an eagle through the scope for the first time. “It is wonderful,” he said.
You can view the bald eagles each weekend until the end of January. Learn more about the Eagle Watcher program or contact Tanya Kitterman at 360-856-5700.
