News
Pregnancy
Youth Picnic
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Clubs of Portland Metro, Latino Network and Native Amer-
ican Youth and Family Center.
Tony Hopson, CEO of Self Enhancement Inc. said in a
press release about the grant; “SEI applauds the County on
its forethought to include culturally-specific organizations
in this effort. We look forward to increasing our collective
impact to help young people.”
The first year of the grant is a dedicated to planning. The
county will convene these groups to create a dialogue about
the best way to reach their youth and will provide the evi-
dence-based sexual health curriculum.
Ramachandran said the county is taking a support and
capacity building role within the ACT program.
“We’re not going to be making those decisions for com-
munity partners,” she says. “We’ll basically convene folks
and ensure that everyone has the information they need to
accurately make choices for the community that they serve
and represent.”
One of the goals of the ACT project is to build capacity
for organizations to do their own sexual health education
and outreach.
Money from the grant will be used to train sex ed edu-
cators from these partner organizations. Over the five year
grant cycle the county plans to take the lead in teaching in
the first years, and then become co-teachers with their part-
ners in later years.
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
The grant will focus on areas in
the region with large populations
of Black, Latino and Native
American students, which also
have high poverty rates as well
Makaylah Chambers, Jenny Vo, Zion Thomas, and Killian Woods attended the Community for Youth
Summer Picnic July 11 at Seward Park in Seattle. All four high school students applied to be in Com-
munity for Youth mentoring program next school. Community for Youth helps students achieve their
goals through mentorship and a supportive community.
The grant will focus on areas in the region with large
populations of Black, Latino and Native American students
which also have high poverty rates as well. Teens in these
neighborhoods have higher teen pregnancy rates or higher
sexually transmitted infection rates. The areas of focus are:
• St. Johns/Portsmouth
• Inner Northeast Portland
• Cully
• Parkrose School District
• David Douglas: Hazelwood/Mill Park/Powellhurst
• Centennial
• Rockwood
• East County school district areas
Meeting with partners and parents will attempt to reach
within youth their own communities with culturally relevant
messages and values.
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Governor
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grams, including STEM funding, as other
schools. There was also a big issue in Port-
land Public Schools with disproportionate
discipline. There has been some legislative
action on the second issue in the last couple
of years. What can we do at a state level to
make sure that students get a safe education
and also that they get equal access to educa-
tion where they live?
Governor Kate Brown: I think that’s
obviously very important. In my work as
Secretary of State, we completed an audit
on what was technically called the achieve-
ment gap. I call it the opportunity gap audit.
It was really clear from the numbers that we
saw across the state, specifically we saw at
the eighth-grade level, in math and reading,
we saw clear gaps between white students
and students of color. We also saw huge
gaps between economically disadvantaged
students and economically advantaged stu-
dents.
Not only do we have the gap in terms of
‘I think the key thing is to do everything we can to
introduce the opportunity gap’
students of color, we have the gap in terms
of economically advantaged versus disad-
vantaged students. When you put those two
factors together, it’s extremely distressing.
For African-American students, it looks
like two years behind in math, which is
very distressing, given the importance that
math will play and is continuing to play not
only in our Oregon economy but our econ-
omy across the United States and across the
world.
I think the key thing is to do everything
we can to introduce the opportunity gap.
That’s why I felt so strongly about working
to invest in early childhood, making sure
that children are ready to learn when they
reach kindergarten.
The next piece is obviously making sure
that all of our students are ready to read at
third grade. If we can make significant in-
vestments in these arenas, I think that will
help close the opportunity gap. But that’s
not enough, and the audit made this really
clear. There are key components that we
need to see in all of our schools across the
state, around leadership, about setting really
high standards, about using what I call da-
ta-informed instruction.
All of these pieces need to be happening
at every single school in the state. That’s
something we can drive at the state level.
Our new deputy superintendent of instruc-
tion, Salam Noor, has a pattern and a record
of closing that achievement gap in the Sa-
lem-Keizer School District, and so he’s go-
ing to bring that leadership and that knowl-
The encounter, caught on an onlooker’s
video, triggered protests. Coupled with
police killings of unarmed black men else-
where in recent months, Garner’s death be-
came a flashpoint in a national debate about
“The victory will come when we get jus-
tice,” Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, said
Tuesday.
“Justice,” added one of Garner’s children,
Emerald Snipes, “is when somebody is held
edge to the department.
In terms of the funding piece, that’s ab-
solutely unacceptable. I’d want to see the
numbers on that. I haven’t seen the specific
numbers but it’s absolutely unacceptable in
this state, but we need to figure out a way to
tackle that as well.
TSN: You mentioned a $62 million
pledge for affordable housing. What are we
doing about affordable housing, more spe-
cifically?
KB: First of all, I have to tell you, I know
$62 million sounds like a drop in the bucket.
The full package that I introduced was 100
million, so we had to step back a little bit.
But $62 million is a significant investment.
We are looking at at least a couple thousand
units and I think that’s huge.
Read the rest of the interview online
at www.theskanner.com
Garner
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two officers were killed by a gunman in De-
cember, some officers turned their backs on
the mayor at the funerals.
De Blasio made sure to be inclusive in his
remarks on Tuesday.
“All lives matter,” he said, before explic-
itly saying that while it should be self-evi-
dent, it must be still said that “Black lives
matter” and, after he praised the police,
“Blue lives matter.”
The settlement came nearly a year after the
43-year-old Garner died, having repeatedly
pleaded “I can’t breathe!” as Officer Daniel
Pantaleo took him to the ground with an arm
around his neck. Garner lost consciousness
and was pronounced dead later at a hospital.
He had refused to be handcuffed after be-
ing stopped on suspicion of selling loose,
untaxed cigarettes on a Staten Island street.
Garner’s death became a flashpoint in a national
debate about relations between police and
minority communities
relations between police and minority com-
munities.
“’I can’t breathe’ spurred the nation-
al movement,” and it won’t end “until we
change how policing goes,” the Rev. Al
Sharpton said at a news conference Tuesday
with Garner’s relatives.
accountable for what they do.”
The city medical examiner found the
police chokehold contributed to Garner’s
death. But Pantaleo’s lawyer said the officer
had used a permissible takedown maneuver
known as a seatbelt — not a chokehold,
banned under New York Police Department
policy.
A grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.
The U.S. Justice Department and the U.S.
attorney’s office in Brooklyn are investi-
gating whether there’s evidence to warrant
charges that the officer deliberately violat-
ed Garner’s civil rights. Such cases are rare
after grand jury inaction or acquittal at the
state level.
Police Commissioner William Bratton de-
clined to comment Tuesday on the Garner
case. The settlement came before any law-
suit was filed, though the family had filed
notice of its intention to sue. The city did not
admit any liability.
Associated Press writers Tom Hays and
Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to
this report.
July 15, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3