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the school—which is just over 20-
years-old—has been engaged in
over the last 8 years.
“You see something like this
happen and even though it might
have been one student doing it as
a joke, it really does send a loud
reminder to us that we have a lot
of work to do -- whether that is
addressing the racial achievement
gap or people making insensitive
comments,” he says.
“There’s still a problem with
racism in our society, we still need
to actively address it -- we can’t
just think that the work is done
because we’ve done a few work-
shops with teachers.”
The website Gawker reported a
similar case in January as a hack
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
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This Snapchat screenshot of an apparent hack into the Tualatin
High School website shows tabs of the homepage replaced
with racist rhetoric including “Niggers,” “lynching Highlights,”
and “White Power.” The picture was shared more 100 times and
favorited more than 80 on Twitter alone.
Tigard-Tualatin’s minority student
population doubled in the last
decade to include more than a
third of the district.
In the city of Tualatin alone, the
Black population saw a nearly 50
percent increase, from .79 percent
to about 1.2 percent of the city’s
26,000 residents.
At Tualatin High current statis-
tics show enrollment at 1,752,
with Black students accounting
for 1.8 percent of the student
body.
The district’s racial equity plan,
published in 2010, notes that any
significant focus on systematic-
inclusion only began happening as
the suburban community saw a
rapid uptick in diversity.
“The major changes in our stu-
dent demographics had occurred
only recently. Our staff turnover
had not occurred at the same rate,
and certainly did not reflect our
student population,” the plan
reads. “It was obvious that we did
not have the in-house skill to
begin working effectively to close
our racial achievement gap.”
Despite these changes, Dinse
says administrators are “contem-
plating” how and if they will
address the greater student body
about the briefly viral sensation.
“Teaching Tolerance is a pro-
gram created by the Southern
Poverty Law Center meant to fos-
ter equity in schools across the
nation. Maureen Costello heads
the Teaching Tolerance program
nationally, and says she would
advise Tualatin High administra-
tors against letting this issue go
unaddressed—especially in the
face of its relatively new plan for
cultural competency.
“It’s never a good idea to hope
that it goes away,” Costello says.
“Some people in that community
probably feel really, really violat-
ed by this. It happened. The best
thing to do is address it.”
the term “veteran.”
The report recommended modi-
fying the question to eliminate the
use of the term veteran and
including all components of serv-
ice will increase data accuracy
and identification efforts. The
report noted that a combined
involvement.
Other work stemming from the
Motion and subsequent report
already underway in the Depart-
ment of Adult and Juvenile Deten-
tion include:
• Ensuring incarcerated veterans
have access to all services pro-
al Veterans Initiative;
• Providing criminal justice part-
ners with training on the impact
of incarceration on veterans;
• Providing priority access and
streamlined jail clearance for
veterans justice partners through
DAJD/DCHS partnership; and,
• Initiation of discussions with the
Washington State Criminal Jus-
tice Training Commission on
feasibility of inclusion of veter-
an-specific information in Cor-
rections Officer Academy
Training.
In all, the report made critical
recommendations in the following
areas: data gathering; incarcerated
veterans access to programs;
establishing a dedicated veteran’s
housing pilot project; and, spe-
cialized training on veteran’s
issues for jail staff.
The attack comes not only during
Black History Month, but at a time
when the Tualatin area’s communities
of color are growing
after a picture circulated of what
appeared to be a Virginia school
district website including the
word “niggas.”
Portland web developer Jim Dee
explains how someone could
make it appear that they had
hacked a website without in fact
doing so.
The Skanner Newspaper, established
“It's impossible to say, based on
a Twitter photo, whether a website
has actually been hacked,” Dee
says. “There are many very con-
vincing ways to go about produc-
ing convincing fakes. Photoshop
would be one. But, even easier
and better would be for someone
to make changes to the site's text
and code on their local computer.
That does not change the actual
web site, and then they do a
screen-grab of the supposed
hack.”
The attack comes not only dur-
ing Black History Month, but at a
time when the Tualatin area’s
communities of color are grow-
ing.
According to The Oregonian,
Veterans
continued from page 1
report, the department has already
implemented a series of changes
that will allow for dedicated Vet-
eran’s access to programs and bet-
ter coordination of all the agencies
that serve veterans who might be
in jail.
“By identifying military veter-
ans who are in the criminal justice
system and connecting them with
the services they have earned, we
can better help them to get back
on track and succeed,” said Exec-
utive Dow Constantine.
The report also studied ways of
improving Veterans data as the
motion called for and according to
the report, the review of best or
promising practices for collecting
veteran status data in jails sug-
gests that DAJD’s current practice
of asking the question, “Are you a
veteran?” may be ineffective
because individuals who served in
the military may misunderstand
‘By identifying military veterans who
are in the criminal justice system and
connecting them with the services
they have earned, we can better
help them to get back on track and
succeed’
approach is optimal as incarcerat-
ed veterans may be reluctant to
self-identify because they feel
ashamed of their criminal justice
vided by veterans justice part-
ners and linkage to veterans
services outlined in the Region-
25 at 3 p.m. at City Hall.
Mayor Charlie Hales called his
vote to re-join one of the hardest
decisions he’s had to make in
office.
“It’s a choice of evils,” Hales
told The Skanner News. “The FBI
has done things I can’t condone,
and the federal government has
done and is doing things that I
think are unacceptable. And yet
we have to deal with this threat of
our citizens being killed or injured
by people who seem to have no
regard for life and human free-
dom.”
Hales, who voted in the early
2000’s against joining the JTTF as
a Commissioner, says that his cur-
rent decision was “51-49” but that
the City and police bureau will
step up outreach with communi-
ties that could feel especially
threatened by the decision to
become full partners.
Commissioners Dan Saltzman
and Nick Fish voted with the
mayor to rejoin, while Commis-
sioners Steve Novick and Amanda
Fritz took a stand against.
Hales says the two Portland
Police officers who will be joining
Task Force
continued from page 1
zens Crime Commission of the
Portland Business Alliance, that
Council voted to re-join the
JTTF,” wrote Portland Cop-
watch’s Dan Handelman.
In 2005, Portland became the
first and only city to pull out of its
partnership with the JTTF, only to
re-join on a “case-by-case” basis
in 2011 following the controver-
sial plot to let of a bomb in Pio-
neer Square a year earlier.
City Council is sitting down to
hammer out a Memoranda of
Understanding, detailing the
structure of the partnership Feb.
Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner February 25, 2015
the task force have yet to be cho-
sen by Portland Police Chief
Larry O’Dea.
Mayor Hales—who is also the
police commissioner--still will not
have security clearance which
would allow him better insight
into the specific activities of the
partnership. However, now he will
have a non-disclosure agreement
which he did not have before.
The mayor says if he’s not satis-
fied that he’s properly informed
on the happenings of the JTTF
he’ll “pull the plug” on the City’s
involvement.