S moke S ignals
MAY 15, 2017
13
Board of Education OKs new mascot agreement
By Dean Rhodes
Smoke Signals editor
SALEM — The Oregon Board
of Education approved the second
Native American mascot agree-
ment between the Confederated
Tribes of Grand Ronde and a school
district during its Thursday, April
27, meeting.
The board signed off on the Tribe’s
agreement with the Scappoose
School District, which is seeking
to retain its Indians mascot and a
logo that uses an obsidian arrow-
head-tipped spear and feather as
its logo.
The Education Board approved
the Tribe’s agreement with the
Banks School District on March 23
and also held a first reading for the
agreement with Scappoose at the
same meeting.
The approved eight-year agree-
ment will be reviewed after the
first and fourth year by the two
parties. It requires the Scappoose
School District to begin using the
Grand Ronde Tribe’s fourth- and
eighth-grade history curriculums
by the fall of this year and to cre-
ate a Native Club for all students
in sixth through 12th grades who
want to participate.
In 2012, the Oregon Board of
Education adopted a rule that pro-
hibited public schools from using
Native American mascots on or
after July 1, 2017. However, the Or-
egon Legislature became involved
in 2014 and created exceptions to
that outright ban that allow school
districts to enter into agreements
with one of the nine federally rec-
ognized Native American Tribes
in Oregon to use a more culturally
appropriate Native mascot that is
associated with or is significant to
the Tribe.
School districts that do not enter
into approved agreements by July
1 will have to cease using their Na-
tive mascots per the original intent
of the Education Board’s ban.
Cindy Hunt, Department of Ed-
ucation Government and Legal
Affairs manager, said that the
department was aware of 16 school
districts in Oregon using Native
American mascots. So far, she
said, eight have entered into or are
negotiating agreements with an Or-
egon Tribe, five have changed their
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mascots to something not related to
Native Americans, and three are
unknown as to their plans.
For instance, the Marcola School
District northeast of Eugene voted
to change its Native American mas-
cot to the Mustangs to comply with
the board rule.
Tribal Council Chairman Reyn
Leno and Tribal Council member
Tonya Gleason-Shepek attended
the meeting, as did Scappoose
School District Superintendent Ste-
phen Jupe, and testified before the
board. Tribal Attorney Rob Greene
also attended, but did not testify.
“This has really been a great op-
portunity for not only the Tribes to
work with the board on something
that potentially was not going to
happen,” Leno said. “I think the op-
portunity of seeing the state depart-
ment work with the Tribes and with
our local school districts and have
the success we are having with this
to be able to have everybody reach
the ultimate goal of taking away
the bad pictures and having some-
thing that everybody could agree
on … this is the outcome we were
all looking for. I would just like to
acknowledge the board for giving us
this opportunity to work with you
and the school districts.”
Jupe said negotiating the agree-
ment with the Grand Ronde Tribe
was a “journey of discovery” for
himself and district representa-
tives.
“The Native people living in the
Scappoose area have a very rich
history,” Jupe said. “It was an
interesting delve and I ended up
walking in the rain, in mud, and
finding sites that obviously are
still there, still honored by the local
community. Some very well-known
archaeological sites on Sauvie Is-
land. They were very much a river
culture.”
Jupe said Scappoose plans on
sending its teachers to Grand
Ronde to work with the Tribal Ed-
ucation Department on training,
as well as instituting the Tribe’s
curricula.
During the hearing. Board Chair-
man Dr. Charles Martinez Jr. said
he was still concerned that Native
mascot agreements allow school
districts to continue using inappro-
priate images for a period of time
beyond the July 1 deadline as the
district transitions to new, more
culturally appropriate images.
He also questioned why the
Grand Ronde Tribe was OK with
Indians as an acceptable mascot
name. Leno said a majority of
Tribal Council thought it was ap-
propriate.
During the same meeting, the
Board of Education held first read-
ings on the Grand Ronde Tribe’s
proposed agreement with the Mo-
lalla School District, as well as three
proposed Siletz Tribal agreements
with the Siletz Valley Schools, Amity
School District and Philomath School
District, and one proposed agreement
between the Douglas County School
District in Roseburg with the Cow
Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of
Indians. Those agreements will be
before the Education Board for final
approval during its May meeting.