Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current, January 20, 1993, Image 1

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    •
* * 4 V> ♦ ♦ » * • ▼* • > ♦ ♦ ¥ ♦
V • * • ’
V o lu m n X X III. N u m b e r 3
" T h e E y e s a n d E a rs o f t h e C o m m u n ity "
1
-N ew sp âP er
F v tv o f O re g o n L i
Un t v e r s 11 y o t
f u q e n e , O re g o n
JlfcÜÎÂI
9,
«
9740:
(E b e
3 3 a r t i
i\ n
h
( D h & e r i u w 254
scu u u ib mew
Steps to Oregon’s Largest Martin
Luther King, Jr. Holiday
Celebration Conducted
Program
Wins
National
Honors
The Steps to Success Program in the
Portland metro area rpcently received a na­
tional award from the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services and the National
Institute for Literacy for excellence in increas­
ing the literacy skills of at-risk families.
Portland and Mt. Hood Community col­
leges administer the three-branch, metro-area
Steps program. PCC coordinates Steps to Suc­
cess North and West; Mt. Hood directs Steps
to Success East.
The award was presented to Nan Poppe,
regional director of Steps to Success, at the
“Celebrating and Promoting Literacy Part­
nerships” conference on Dec. 2.
According to PCC Executive Dean Dr.
Pamela Transue, administrator for the PCC
Steps to Success programs, “Much of the
success is due to the Adult Basic Education
and GED faculty who have served over 1,000
students in the in-house labs.”
Transue noted that this is the second
national award won by Steps to Success. In
1989, the American Association of Women in
Community Colleges chose Steps as their
program of the year.
Begun in the fall of 1990, the Steps
program is part of a state-wide JOBS (Jobs
Opportunities and Basic Skills) employment
and training program. The goal is to provide
employment and training services to Aid to
Dependent Children recipients to assist them
in securing long-term, family-wage jobs.
Services include a four-week career-and
life-planning class, basic skills and GED train­
ing, vocational and on-the-job training, sup­
port services, work experience, job-search
training, and job-placement assistance.
For more information, please call; Susan
Hereford in Public Affairs, 244-6111, ext.
►
X 1.
4421.
-7*
?. . < 4
Site For Services
•'K'.'.ì
demonstration sites to show the difference that
more such services can make are being
using public schools to deliver launched in Benton, Clackamas, Lincoln,
social services to children and Linn, Multnomah, Polk and Washington coun­
families. What Is learned from
ties.
Here is a summary of what is planned:
test sites In Benton,
♦ Social services in elementary schools,
Clackamas, Lincoln, Linn,
focusing on health and mental health services,
Multnomah, Polk and
will be established in Benton, Lincoln and
Washington counties could be
Linn counties.
♦ A one-stop concept for human services
used In schools across the
will
be
tested at Harold Oliver grade school in
state.
a venture supported by the C entennial,
BY KEVIN W. CONCANNON
If you were having trouble feeding, cloth­ Rey nolds and Gresham school districts.
♦ County and state agencies are planning
ing and housi ng your family, where w ould you
se
n
ices
with a single entry point where people
rather go for help -- to the school that your
can
find
out what services are available and
children attend or to a state office building?
where
to
find
them, at Roosevelt High School
Now turn the question around: If your
in
north
Portland,
the school already houses
were a county or state worker helping poor,
the
state’s
oldest
teen
clinic.
dysfunctional or other troubled families, what
♦
An
interagency
team will work with
might be the best place to reach them?
students and families in the south part of
If you answered “school” to both these
Tigard-Tualatihn School District, starting at
questions, then you’ve arrived at the same
answer as key people who are responsible for Hazelbrook Middle School in Tualatin.
♦ Clackamas County will computerize its
Oregon schools and human-services agen­
information-and-referral network to help edu­
cies.
Across Oregon, we’re beginning or ex­ cators and human-services workers do a better
panding experiments that put human-services job of sharing information to help children
workers in the schools to help families with and families. A range o f human services will
services such as assistance to the poor, coun­ also be made available at Lot Whitcomb El­
seling, and health and mental-health services. ementary School in Milwaukie.
♦ In Polk County, state and county work­
For example, families will be able to go to
ers
will
establish serv ice centers in schools in
some schools to talk with Adult and Family
the
Central,
Dallas, Falls City and Perrydale
Serv ices about incomeassistance, to Children’s
districts.
Services to help the family function better, or
Other communities that are still in the
to county mental-health workers for psy cho­
planning stages may also elect to make social
logical help.
Not only are agencies recognizing that services available in the schools.
In each case, the goals are to increase self-
school are a good place to reach children and
sufficiency of families, to keep kids in school,
families. Educators also realize they have
children only about six hours a day -- and and to help people live independently in their
children’s success in school is greatly influ­ communities.
We can expect even more communities to
enced by what happens the other 18 hours.
embrace
the concept enthusiastically after we
This approach has the active support of
show
that
“school” really is the answer to
Governor Barbara roberts, who is changing
reaching
and
helping children and families.
how state government does business, and who
(Kevin W. Concannon is director of the
says teachers can no longer be surrogate par­
Oregon Department of Human Resources, the
ents, priests and police officers.
sale’s health, employment and social services
Already, a few such services are being
made available in some public schools. New agency.)
I 1 1I I I ■ • I I ■ ■ I I ..... ........ ....... ■"""""I
-I
c
' * S?
U Oregon Is experimenting with
Mayor Vera
Katz, one of
many partici­
pants In the
M artin Luther
King, Jr. Cel­
ebration a t
Jefferson High
School, helps
to “Keep the
Dream Alive"
for all people
to come to­
gether
O regon's largest King holiday celebra­
tion, Keep Living the Dream. A Tribute to
M artin Luther King, Jr.,” was held Monday,
January 18 at the Jefferson High School
Center for the Performing Arts, 5210 N.
Kerby Avenue
“Keep Living the Dream...” began with
an hour-long discussion forum featuring
civic and community leaders followed by
dance performances, dramatic vignettes, au­
thentic African drumming, jazz bands, a
ÍÁrfJ
P J Z.i
youth band from Australia, and gospel
choirs from Eugene, and Tacoma, Wash­
ington.
The program was simulcast on KBOO
Radio (90.7 FM) and n - 'agon Cable (Chan­
nels 30 and 38).
Program sponsors included the Port­
land Trail Blazers, Portland Association of
Teachers, and Portland Public Schools.
World Arts Foundation, Inc. will produce
the “family-centered” program.
------------ -------------------------------
‘
I ¿'/-¿.ir
cuy*
-
»s
B
f â
i
PCC African American Students Awarded Scholarships
■
w B
___________________ __ ____________________ — ---------------------—
Four Portland Community College stu­
dents each recently received $350 scholarship
awards as winners o f the 1992 Academic
Achievement Awards. The PCC Council of
African-American Staff sponsored the awards
Last spring, the Council and local busi­
nesses teamed up to raise funds for the schol­
arships through a raffle for prizes. Students
submitted a 500-word essay on “My Personal
Commitment to Improving Race Relations.”
Bill Newbome, counselor at the Cascade
Campus, and Belva Seaberry, Cascade Cam­
pus developm ental education instructor,
chaired the first African American Academic
Achievement Award committee.
Said Newbome, “W ith the Rodney King
affair, and all the accompanying racial tension
during the planning for the scholarship last
spring, the committee wanted to turn attention
to the good will and positive vision that exists
among PCC students in the Portland area.”
The students are China Brotherson, 20, a
Northeast Portland resident who is studying at
the Cascade Campus and intends to become a
veterinarian; M andisa Shareiff, a 17-year-old
Aloha resident who is completing high school
at the Sylvania Campus and is interested in
becoming a journalist; Joel Broussard, 19, a
Cascade Campus student living in Northeast
Portland who is studying sociology and psy­
chology; and Graciella Ford, a married mother
o f three children who lives in Northeast Port-
tum ed to school and earned a GED, then
land and attends Sylvania Campus with plans
started college at the Cascade Campus
to get a degree in elementary education.
“Though I am on an integrated campus, I still
C ascad e C am p u s stu d e n t C h in a
run into racism," she said. Brotherson said her
Brotherson is biracial and said she learned at
education will help her influence a change to
an early age that race was a factor in her
mandatory multicultural diversity training in
interactions w ith people. As a teenager,
the schools. Brotherson is a volunteer at the
Brotherson said her reaction changed from a
Child Abuse Hotline and works with other
feeling of hurt and helplessness to anger and
human rights activist groups.
action.
Seventeen-year-old Mandisa Shareiff is
A high school dropout, Brotherson re-
America’s Great Debt
To Haiti: The Shame”
“The Black Middle Class
Of *93” '
We may Rightly say that the
Movin' on up and leavln the
neighborhood behind.
people of Haiti are responsible for
the development o f the U.S.
Page 3
Page 2
prove
prove racial
racial relations,”
relations,” she
she said,
said, by
“by writin
writing
articles (for the student newspaper. The Bridge)
that would help African Americans and Euro­
pean Americans become more aware.”
Shareiff s goal is to “follow in the foot­
steps of Ida B. Wells, the African American
journalist who owned a newspaper and wrote
against the ly nching of her people ”
Joel Broussard, a 4.0-GPA student has
been a volunteer for Outdoor School for the
past four years. He said he has tried to teach the
“mixture of races of kids in my cabin that
racism doesn’t have to be and all races can
work together.”
Broussard plans to get a bachelor’s de­
gree and work as a community activist or
social worker He said he “grew up in an area
Pictured:
w here gangs seem ed lik e th e only
China Brotherson,
option...seeing old school mates and some
Mandisa Shareiff,
family members in gangs, and some of them
Joel Broussard, and
dying.” He wants to work to keep adolescents
Graciella Ford.
out of gangs and help parents deal with racism
at PCC because of racial harassment from a and gangs.
Graceilla Ford has three children ages 10
gang of skinheads at her high school..
to
16
and has returned to school while working
Her high school was persuaded to send
almost
full time for the city of Portland. The
her to the Sylvania Campus, Sharfeiff said, to
4.0-GPA student has coached track the past 10
assure safe completion of her education.
“The experience taught me first hand years She has coached a “rainbow of races and
about bigotry and the need to work for equal­ cultures” and found that “by working together
ity,” said Shareiff. She works as a tutor in the to reach common goals, these young people no
longer see one another asan outsider or stranger
English as a Non-Native Language Center.
but
as a track-family member ”
“I made a personal commitment to im ­
“W/th the Rodney King
affair, and all the
accompanying racial
tension during the
planning for the
scholarship last
spring, the commit­
tee wanted to turn
attention to the good
will and positive
vision that exists
among PCC students
In the Portland area."
’M
•4..V
S;
' v-
kas
•• e
Religion
Sports
Perspectives
Editorial
“Dr. Jack Honored”
Jack was clearly emotional
over the honor and couldn't
say enough about his former
players
Reflections Column
“How Well Does Your
Faith Stand Up”
1I
I
Is your faith deposited In the
right bank?
Page 5
Pages
SPORTS
ENTERTAINMENT
RELIGION
LEGAL CLASSIFIED
CLASSIFIEDS
WEEK IN REVIEW
2
5
6
8
10
11
I
>
V .» » • * . *-«>.« I < ¥ t V
* ■»* t
✓ ‘ - , A
< • *
;
-V a 4