Page 10A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Walla Walla student leader goes from broken to brave
“I don’t want
the kids out, I
want them back.
But I want them
back clean.”
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA
WALLA,
Wash. — By 12:20 p.m. on
a recent Wednesday Azuccha
Ledesma, best known as
“Zuci,” is heading for lunch
at College Place High School.
As crowded as the cafeteria
becomes upon the chime of a
three-tone bell, Zuci is easy to
keep track of in her signature
pink shoes, backpack and
almost-pink hair.
Zuci is also this year’s
Associated Student Body
president, and the title brings
its own recognition among
her peers.
Once Zuci has settled
in with her chef’s salad —
picking out the parts she
thinks might be too calo-
rie-laden — she lists off the
numerous ASB events she is
in charge of over the school
year.
“We have 17 events
that we do,” Zuci noted,
explaining that as president
she oversees them all. “It’s a
lot of responsibility, making
sure nothing slips through the
cracks. I’m the glue.”
Before she could hold
things together, however, Zuci
was a broken girl who needed
mending herself. That’s when
her school, its principal and
one determined older sister
kept the teen from becoming
one more dropout statistic.
Zuci began school in the
College Place Public School
district not long after her
family arrived from Mexico
when she was 4 years old.
A freshman when the new
high school opened, Zuci was
part of the wave of enrollees
arriving at the building with
see-through walls and class-
rooms physically designed to
foster creativity.
School had long been a
sanctuary. After her parents
divorced, Zuci was often left
in charge of her little brother
while their mother worked
— Kirk Jameson, College
Place High School principal
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP
In this Jan. 31 photo, Azuccha “Zuci” Ledesma, center, ASB President at College
Place High School makes her way through the lunch line at the school, in Col-
lege Place, Wash.. Eating healthy is part of Zuci’s transformation from wayward
pot-smoking student to being on a path to medical school.
evenings. Her mom dated
some, but one relationship
really took hold about the
time Zuci was entering high
school. The man on the other
end of the internet connection
moved to College Place with
his two children to join her
family, Zuci said.
“I said ‘Danger’ right
away,” she recalled. “I didn’t
feel comfortable.”
Her mom, however,
seemed fully invested in the
new relationship. So Zuci
began staying away from
home, sometimes going to
her older sister’s house after
school.
“My
mom
wasn’t
supporting me emotionally,”
Zuci said. “Every single day
my house felt less and less
like home.”
Her mother’s boyfriend
made it known he didn’t
consider Zuci part of the
family; that life would be
easier if she didn’t live at
home.
“That was a really clear
moment. I was afraid of him
hurting me,” Zuci said.
Crisis point
Maybe drugs would heal
the pain rejection had left
in her heart, Zuci recalls
thinking. She began smoking
marijuana.
Once high school started, it
didn’t take long to get caught
— not when the teen decided
the restroom in the new school
building was a good place to
get high.
Principal Kirk Jameson
well remembers the day. He
and his staff had received a
heads up on Zuci, Jameson
said.
“We look at the incoming
class for as much information
as possible,” he said.
In the high school’s debut
year, staff had fewer than 100
students to watch, meaning
they could keep a closer eye
on all of them, he said.
“We were just watching
her, trying to figure out a way
to work with her,” Jameson
said of Zuci.
Then they received word
that someone had been
smoking pot in the restroom.
A small school census made
finding the culprit a quick
process. Once confronted,
Zuci quickly folded, he said.
The
freshman
was
presented with two options:
take a 45-day suspension,
which basically terminates
a student for the semester,
or choose treatment and five
days of suspension.
“We call it the ‘45 to 5,’”
Jameson explained. “I will
reduce it to five days if you
choose assessment and treat-
ment. I don’t want the kids
out, I want them back. But I
want them back clean.”
That “consequence stick”
is heavy on purpose, Jameson
added.
“We call it ‘creating the
crisis,’ because once they are
caught and they are faced
with a 45-day suspension. I’ve
only had one student take that
suspension,” he said.
The approach works best,
however, when the student is
in a supportive environment,
which made Zuci’s situation
tricky.
Yet that’s not how the
young teen herself saw things.
ELK: Helped kids understand the concept of public land
Continued from 1A
has to do some revision.
“Some techniques, you
really just have to be out in
the woods and find out how
animals react,” he said.
And, he said, the quality
of the call doesn’t guarantee
you’ll be attracting an elk.
“People are getting so
good at these, it’s really
hard to tell,” he said. But,
he said, being a good bugler
doesn’t necessarily mean
you can fool an elk.
“Some of the worst calls
I’ve heard have been from
elk,” he told the crowd.
Representatives
of
several groups, including
the U.S. Forest Service,
Oregon Back Country
Hunters and Anglers and
Umatilla County Search
and Rescue, were at the
event, talking to kids about
conservation and safety.
There were also several
activities, such as skull and
track identification, a BB
gun shoot, an archery range,
and presentations for how
to use trail cameras and film
hunting trips.
“My
favorite
part
of today is going to be
archery,”
said
James
Montee, 12, as he and his
friends waited in a long line
to go to the archery range.
Montee and his friends,
meetings that the proposed
schedule would disrupt
testing for elementary school
students and teachers, as
well as make it difficult for
teachers who have children
in different districts.
“Especially
at
the
elementary school, we feel
we were devalued,” he said.
“The Ed Council never came
back and got feedback from
teachers. It’s my impression
that they didn’t intend for
things to change.”
Linn said that while the
district said it wanted to
make a decision that was
best for all students, he
didn’t feel that was the case
with this choice.
“We feel this prioritizes
high school sports kids over
academics at the elementary
school level,” he said.
Rocky Heights teacher
Shanna Evans also read a
BOUNDS: Second nomination
to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
Brooke Boothman, 7, of Athena, tries archery Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation Outdoor Skills Day at the Pendleton Convention Center.
Elijah McLaughlin and
Jesse Acosta, are in the
process of taking hunting
safety
classes
now.
Some of the organizations
tried to help children
understand some of the
broader concepts of outdoor
recreation.
“The places where we
go hiking, camping, fishing
— do you guys do any of
that stuff?” Jesse Salsberry
of Back Country Hunters
and Anglers asked a pair
of three-year-olds, who
nodded.
“A lot of time when you
do that, that’s on public
land,” he said. “That means
everyone in the U.S. shares
that land, from people in
New York to right here in
Pendleton.”
Bill Welch, also of Back
Country Hunters, said it can
be challenging to get kids to
understand the concept of
public land.
“We try to tie it in to what
kids like to do,” he said.
———
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan
at
jramakrishnan@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4534
SCHOOL: Online survey was made available to all district staff members
Continued from 1A
Her mom had never come to
school conferences or noticed
when Zuci was failing classes;
she couldn’t be counted on
this time, either.
This moment would hinge
on Zuci’s decision alone,
and she saw no choice other
than treatment. The teen first
got help at Serenity Point
Counseling, then at Trilogy
Recovery Community.
The path forward
Zuci began living with
her sister’s family at age 16.
Although just four years
Zuci’s senior, Alicia Abarca
possessed
the
parental
nurturing her sibling needed.
Abarca began attending Zuci’s
parent-teacher conferences
and had no problem spelling
things out.
“She told me, ‘If you’re
going to live here, you’re
going to be a good kid,’” Zuci
said.
College
Place
High
School echoed the directive,
she noted, crediting the high
school’s college and career
adviser Anabrenda Blethen
with helping the student find
her academic path.
Blethen, Zuci said, “asked
me what I wanted to be, and I
said a surgeon. She asked me
how I was going to get there.
That was the part I didn’t
know.”
Zuci knows now. It takes
communication,
work,
engagement
with
your
community and believing in
yourself, she said.
Take her art project last
summer, for example. Zuci
wanted to paint two of
“We feel this prioritizes high school
sports kids over academics at the
elementary school level.”
— Josh Linn, Rocky Heights Elementary School teacher
prepared statement opposing
the schedule change.
Loretta Fitterer, president
of the Hermiston Associ-
ation of Teachers, which
designates the Educational
Council in its collective
bargaining agreement, spoke
in favor of the calendar
change in her statement to
the board.
School board members
said while they knew the
decision would make some
upset, they felt they could
not ignore the Educational
Council’s decision.
Board member Ginny
Holthus referred to a letter
Linn had sent to the board,
outlining his concerns.
“Regarding
the
comments on sports — we’re
making the recommendation
based on the fact that they’re
students first,” she said.
“It’s difficult to set aside
the time that the Ed Council
spent,” added board member
Josh Goller.
Board
chair
Karen
Sherman acknowledged that
some would be negatively
affected.
“But we need to make
sure we’re doing best not
just for high school kids,”
she said. “It’s not just based
on sports. It’s based on how
it impacts all kids.”
Sherman and Mooney
said that an online survey
was made available to all
district staff members.
Gomolski said he had
heard comments from
many people in the past few
weeks.
“You’re right,” he said to
the teachers present at the
meeting. “It always seems
like we’re doing what’s best
for high school sports kids.
At this point, I don’t feel
comfortable voting for it.”
Linn said he was disap-
pointed with the decision.
“A lot of community
members will be negatively
impacted,” he said. “This is
going to be an every-year
issue. We’ll have to try to
influence the Ed Council
next year.”
The 2018-2019 school
year is now scheduled to
start Aug. 27 and end June
10. Winter break is sched-
uled for Dec. 24 through
Jan. 4, and spring break for
April 1 through 5.
the school’s bathrooms in
intergalactic themes, but she
figured there was no way the
administration would go for it.
Still, she persevered.
“I came up with my pitch.
I had my budget and my
previous art experience. I
presented the budget to ASB
to pay for materials,” Zuci
said.
She got the official nod and
spent about 50 hours turning
two large restroom walls into
celestial spaces — meanwhile
working her regular job at
Fast Eddy’s drive-in restau-
rant in Walla Walla.
Art continues to drive
Zuci. As she waits for college
acceptance letters to arrive —
one has already landed from
Seattle Pacific University
— Zuci is combining plans
for a career in medicine with
that love of drawing, paint and
color.
The senior student has
dreamed up a way to help sick
kids get the healing power of
art when they most need it.
She wants to create art kits
and accompanying videos to
send to hospitals for pediatric
patients and their parents.
Zuci also developed a
survey for parents to find out
what would be most useful,
then petitioned four Northwest
hospital administrators to lend
support to the idea.
It will cost about $600 to
create 50 kits, but her high
school experiences all point to
succeeding — with her own
efforts and the help of others,
Zuci said with a smile.
No matter where Zuci starts
college in the fall, she will be
the first in her family to do so,
she said. And when she tries to
explain her life turnaround to
people, it always comes back
to her sister and her school
experiences.
“This school helps you pick
a route,” she said. “Sometimes
people like me start going off
the route. This school helps
you get back on the route.”
he is chair — in an email
stating that “the objection-
able words and views recited
from three or four of my
college op-eds do not reflect
the views I have hewn to as
a
lawyer and, frankly,
as a grown-up.”
In the email Bounds,
now 44, called the words
he wrote years ago as a
Stanford University student
“tone-deaf” and “mortify-
ingly insensitive.” He did
not return a message from
the East Oregonian by press
time.
The op-eds came to light
through a report by the
liberal advocacy group Alli-
ance for Justice opposing
the nomination of Bounds,
who is considered politically
conservative.
Many of the quotes
highlighted in the report
came from a piece in the
student-run Stanford Review
titled “Race-Think: A Stan-
ford Phenomenon?” The
op-ed describes the char-
acteristics of group-think
— including rationalizing a
group’s actions, stereotyping
the group’s opponents
and pressuring dissenting
members to conform — and
criticizes the “Multicul-
turalistas” on campus for
similar “race-think” and
for seeing themselves as
“universally and unbearably
persecuted.”
“Race-focused
groups
foster
race-think,
and
the only way to rid our
multicultural
community
of race-think is to rid it of
these invidious factions,” he
wrote in 1995. “We should
be cheered, however, to
know that our task is not
impossible. The existence
of ethnic organizations is
no inevitable prerequisite
to maintaining a diverse
community
—
white
students, after all, seem to
be doing all right without an
Aryan Student Union.”
Alliance for Justice also
criticized Bounds’ views on
campus sexual assault from
an opinion piece Bounds
wrote for the Stanford
Review during his time
as an opinion editor titled
“Reasonable Doubts?” The
piece argues that universities
should not expel or otherwise
punish students accused of
sexual assault unless their
guilt can be proven “beyond
a reasonable doubt.”
“Expelling
students
is probably not going to
contribute a great deal
toward a rape victim’s
recovery; there is no moral
imperative to risk egregious
error in doing so,” he wrote
in 1994.
Alliance for Justice
also cited pieces in which
Bounds criticized students
protesting a union-busting
hotel and mocked the idea of
“sensitivity” after a group of
intoxicated athletes vandal-
ized a statue celebrating gay
pride.
Before the Alliance for
Justice report came out, a
bipartisan review committee
from
Oregon
ranked
Bounds as one of four top
judicial candidates for Ninth
Circuit of the U.S. Court of
Appeals. The other three
were Medford trial attorney
Kelly Andersen, Portland
appellate attorney Thomas
Christ and Assistant U.S.
Attorney Renata Gowie.
Bounds was born in
Umatilla and grew up in
Hermiston before gradu-
ating from Stanford and
then Yale. He spent time in
commercial law in Portland,
was a federal prosecutor for
the District of Columbia,
served as an assistant to the
President on domestic policy
and is currently an assistant
U.S. attorney.
His sister Lorissa Bounds
is Walden’s chief of staff.
When he was tapped
for nomination, 15 Oregon
senators including Bill
Hansell sent Merkley and
Wyden letters of support
on behalf of Bounds, along
with the Oregon Criminal
Defense Bar, the Oregon
Wheat Growers League,
Hermiston Mayor David
Droztmann and Pendleton
Mayor John Turner.
This is Bounds’ second
nomination to the Ninth U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals.
The first time Wyden and
Merkley refused to turn in
the “blue slip” that Senators
customarily turn into the
Senate giving their OK for
the nomination process to
begin.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.