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TO THE CHILDREN: “As an eagle prepares its young to leave the nest with all the skills and knowledge it needs to participate in life, in the same manner so I will guide my children.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

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Morongo Band of Mission Indians

Morongo Band of Mission Indians Tutoring Program

Jillian Esquerra:

“I can’t emphasize education enough with students, especially Native students. I want them to be able to realize that that’s their way. They can make their own way and their own path and be able to do what they want to do through education.”

Karyl Martin:

“A tribal member back in the early ‘90s had a dream. And her dream was -- and the dream of many of the other tribal members were -- to increase the students’ reading scores, to have a chance to see test scores that were more in line with the test scores of the other students in the district and they wanted to see their students graduating from high school. Many families had not had that opportunity and this is what they wanted for their children.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“There’s a sense of empowerment when you know you can achieve and you know you can be successful. You feel empowered. You feel as if, ‘I can do anything.’ And you don’t shut yourself down and say, ‘Oh, I can’t do that, I’m not good at that.’ No, instead you feel an opposite zeal and a thrust of, ‘I can do this! It’s not as hard as I thought.’ And that comes from the patience and the dedication of the tutors.”

Mason Patterson:

“The feeling that you get when you walk inside those doors; those kids are excited to come. I stand out there on field trip days and I give high fives and we say, ‘Let’s go,’ and we have a great time. Here we’re able to let kids get excited about education.”

Audrey Garcia:

“Having a passion to teach and to work with children covers just about everything. If you love what you’re doing and you love teaching children, then you’re going to be good at what you do.”

Erika Garvin:

“People ask me why I don’t teach public school. And the reason is I like to work with the kids one-on-one because I know I can meet their needs that way. I know I can help them. I know I’m making a difference. I can see it.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“If they do have someone in there in a mentor or a role model, anything you want to call a tutor, it just…it has helped the students to become more confident in themselves.”

Karyl Martin:

“Our graduation rate here is 91 percent of all tribal members and descendants.”

Student:

“When we walk down the aisle, we can always look at our new friend and they’re the tutors and just look down and smile. We’ve done it, we succeeded, we completed high school and we’re going to our new journey. So the tutoring program really helps, it really helps you achieve your dreams and goals.”

Karyl Martin:

“Many more students are going to college, and once again our dream is growing bigger and we’re expanding our program to include online college classes.”

Sue West:

“We are extensively hoping to make that grow because we think that there is an option out there for not just our kids coming from high school, but we’re hoping that as these students have taken classes after they graduate they might talk to their mother and they might say, ‘I’ve always wanted to take a college class.’”

Jordan Livingston:

“With the program that we have they can do their independent study work with us. So they can come in here and they can do the work or they can stay at home and do the work. The flexibility is what makes it so interesting for adults in the real world.”

Karyl Martin:

“When we started this program we were carrying all of our materials around in the trunk of our car. Then eventually we were able to use the Tribal Hall when it was available. We moved into one single room that was left in the preschool that they were not using. But in 2005, we moved into a facility that gave us approximately 4,500 square feet and within the next two months that will double to over 9,000 square feet. As the programs continue to grow we’re going to even outgrow that facilities.”

TO THE COMMUNITY: “The Indian community provides many things for the family. The most important is the sense of belonging; that is, to belong to “the people”, and to have a place to go. Our Indian communities need to be restored to health so the future generation will be guaranteed a place to go for culture, language and Indian socializing.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

Dr. Kathryn McNamara:

“I think it works because of the commitment both of Morongo and the school district. And the reason I think it’s spectacular is because one, it keeps kids in school, it keeps kids coming back and learning and hoping to achieve that wonderful thing called a diploma. So I really feel that the program is successful because it keeps kids in tune with school.”

Curt Walch:

“What I’ve noticed again working in the districts for about nine years, they are starting to model the district’s own after school program actually after the tutoring program from Morongo.”

Mason Patterson:

“I feel this program works because of the emphasis that the tribe has put into making it work. There’s a tremendous amount of caring.”

Karyl Martin:

“In 1999 in January, four additional tutors were hired and I was made supervisor of the program and now we could offer students to help two or three times a week.”

Tutor: How many less?

Student: Oh, four. 19?

Tutor: Yeah.

Karyl Martin:

“It became a situation where a tutor could work with a student for several years. Maybe they would start with second grade and move on to third grade and fourth grade with them. They would know that student so well that pretty soon the district relied on the tutors to tell them about the students.”

Audrey Garcia:

“We start working with the kindergarten student and we have them until they’re in the fourth grade and then they go on to the middle school. You watch that child just grow and thrive and just become successful and you have a huge impact on their lives.”

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“When they hit fifth grade, learning becomes more and more complex. And as they get into sixth grade, it’s even deeper and it’s more abstract and it’s more involved and it’s a lot more complex. And watching their minds develop and absorb all that information, it’s just incredible. And then by the end of sixth grade, they’ve gone into being pre-teens and they look more like young adults, not these little children that came in fifth grade and it’s just a great time to just watch them grow and develop and change and learn.”

Student:

“I’ve been in this program since I can remember. I was so little. I say I was in my end of elementary school.”

Sue West:

“They know us. That is the unique thing about this program is that because they work with one liaison when they’re at this grade level, then they’re passed off onto another liaison, but they don’t stop seeing that person. They still see them. So if they’ve had a connection that connection is still maintained. By the time they get to the high school level they know every one of us as a person, not just as a liaison but as a person that they can say, ‘Hi, how you doing?’ and we can feel well enough to say, ‘What are you doing, what have you done. What are you planning to do?’ and they feel we are family.”

Student:

“The tutors would tell me, ‘Well, if you want to do this then you can go ahead and do it. It’s not like anyone’s stopping you.’ And they encouraged me and they encourage everybody else at the school and they’re just really fantastic about it.”

Liaisons’ Backgrounds and Qualifications

Karyl Martin:

“There isn’t a criteria for the type of tutors to hire for a program. Obviously they’re going to need college, probably two or three years, and they’re going to need experience in an educational field. But depending on the grade level, whether it’s a nurturing situation at the elementary level or a more demanding situation at the high school level where graduation requirements have to be met, each level, each tutor is a little bit different and a little bit unique. Some of the tutors came out of social services, some of the tutors came from education backgrounds, some of the tutors are working on credentialing and two of the tutors have master’s degree.”

Erika Garvin:

“I think what’s really helped with the tutoring is my experience in teaching. I’ve tutored high school students, I’ve taught college classes of 50 freshmen, I’ve taught adult school where I was teaching English to immigrants ages 18 to 88 and I’ve taught all levels of elementary, junior high and high school in small groups. So I’ve taught a lot of things to a lot of different ages, a lot of different kinds of people.”

Audrey Garcia:

“I started working in an all-age classroom at the elementary school that I work at now and we had children from kindergarten through fifth grade in that class and I worked in that classroom for five years. Then I worked as a secretary in the office for the same elementary school for 19 years and then I came here as a tutor after that. After I came here, that’s when I decided that I really wanted to further my education and get into being a teacher. I saw the beauty of teaching and being with the kids and having an impact on their lives, I wanted to be a part of that.”

Student: My sister gave me a present for Christmas

Audrey Garcia: Good job.

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“When I saw the posting for this job, it was something that I had the qualifications for and it allowed me to work more with the students, more one on one. I started out wanting to be a counselor. I’ve wanted to be in psychology since I was a teenager. I’ve known that that was the route I wanted to go and I love kids. And working with them and being able to teach them and watch them grow and develop put me on the thought that I wanted to do more educationally. Now I am working on my master’s degree in psychology with an emphasis on educational therapy.”

Sue West:

“When I was right out of high school I went into the California junior college system and got my AA. But then I got married and had kids and I stayed home as a stay at home mom until they were in junior high. And then I decided to go out back to work and this job came available. And because of all my experience with my own children and I also was the leader for a Girl Scout troop in town for many years and I had served on many PTA and parent committees and I was well known in the school district, they thought that was enough experience to especially work at the high school level. I was the first tutor to ever work at the high school level. I opened up the doors there. I was able to actually go into the classrooms more in the freshman level and the freshmen would go ahead and they’d let me sit with them and we could work together on math. And I started to check on other kids’ grades and tell them they were missing homework and help provide some research paper and gradually we won them over. Now the kids come to us and say, ‘Are you coming to my classroom? Are you going to…how come you weren’t there?’ They expect us. They not only want us, they expect us to be there.”

Student:

“To have the tutors in the classroom it makes me feel a sense of relief. I feel a lot better having them there. It’ll make things clearer and they know how to explain. They’re like family, they’re really close to us and yet still professional. It’s nice to have them in the class.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The tutors get along really good with the kids. They communicate with the kids. They’re not…they’re stern when they need to be. They’re stern when they need to be, when they need to tell them to quiet down, when they…but yet they talk with the kids, they get along. I see them and they’re laughing with them and talking with them and joking around with them and I think that’s why the kids trust them. When you see that your kids trust them, that helps you too. As a parent you watch them, but I’m pretty sure a lot of these tutors know a lot of what goes on in the kids’ lives also.”

Sue West:

“They have a problem they come to us and say, ‘Can you fix it? I…you have a…I have a…I want to change my class. I want to talk to the counselor. Do I need this?’ They know that they can come to their tutors to get what they need and to talk to their teachers to tell them how they really feel.”

Student:

“If you need something, you just ask the tutor and they can help you.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The kids talk to them and they trust them. I know that my daughter was talking to one of the tutors one time and the tutor, I don’t remember…I wish I remember what the tutor had told her and my daughter told her, ‘What does that mean?’ and she goes, ‘Look it up in the dictionary.’ And I was laughing cause I was like, that was perfect. If you don’t know what I mean, look it up in the dictionary. But they just have that communication with the kids so it’s really good.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“Working here has made me realize that more and more I do want to go back to my reservation and not just my reservation, but I want to go to the different reservations and see the different aspects of their culture and their expectations of education. I just don’t want to stay here. I want to go to the northeastern, the just different types of…so this job has really helped me realize that what is missing and what isn’t missing and trying to put it all together and hopefully I’ll be able to be a positive role model anywhere and everywhere I go for other Native students. The most difficult part of my job is actually the social aspect. Every student I see though that they are trying to find their groove and trying to express themselves but they don’t know which way to go or how to do it. So they come to you and they ask you the different questions and you have to be ready all the time because they always have something different every single day. If it’s not one thing, it’s the next.”

Student:

“Being on the reservation with the program it’s just like, they feel a lot safer I guess you would say because most of them grew up on the reservation and they would feel a lot better being closer to home than to like an industrial area.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“That’s really something that I struggle with every day with them is that they’re coming from the reservation, they’re Natives, they’re survivors and they have to be able to do that, that can do anything they want, anything, just the fact…and the people when they come in they don’t really understand where they’re coming from and for them to be able to relay that now they’re becoming adults, I’m Native and this is…I need to stand tall and to be able to just show their environment how great they are now as junior high students.”

Passion and Teamwork

Karyl Martin:

“Each reservation that might develop a program like this has to decide what their needs are, what their children’s ages are, where they’re going to place the tutors and what they’re going to ask of the tutor as far as what kind of a background and what they want in order to hire. But what they really need is a passion; they have to have a fire. They have to have an inner feeling that they can make a difference and they can make education fun and exciting for the Native American students.”

Mason Patterson:

“We have these people that come in with these different talents, we allow them to use their talents to make this program special, and I think that’s why it’s special is because everyone around here is valued for the talents they have and we make it work together so that everything gets done and everything is done well.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“I have to be able to know that I can go into a situation and do this but if I can’t do it on my own, I can reach out and branch out and be, ‘Someone can you please help me with this type of situation. I don’t know what’s going on or what is a better way that I can go around the situation or head straight into it.’ Working with the team they always put their input. There’s always different angles that can come out because I’m sure they’ve been through a similar situation.”

Mason Patterson:

“We all have different kids that we work with, we all have different jobs that we do. However, when the time comes that we need to change, we change. When we need to help, we help each other. One of the other great aspects is having a good coach and we have a good coach. Our director is an excellent administrator and she helps us to develop our skills and to also develop the team feeling that we have. And if you were to even go larger than that, once again the tribe works well with us just like a team and so does the school district. And so in that case we’re a team that gets a little bigger and a little bit bigger and we work hard together and that’s what we want.”

Karyl Martin:

“And we started an after-school program so the tutor could go to the school site during the day, work with the student, find out what work they might be missing or work that they might not have understood or work they needed additional help and they were able to bring it back to the after-school program and help them there in addition to help them complete their homework.”

Elsa Rice:

“They know that if they didn’t understand it the first time that even if they’ve asked me for a second time to go over it that they have someone else that’s going to be there to help them.”

Student:

“Sometimes you learn from them more than you learn from your teacher. The teacher always has a harder way to explain things to you and the tutor, all she’s got to do is say a sentence and you’ll get it. Like, ‘Oh, oh, yeah.’”

Jordan Livingston:

“We’ve created an atmosphere where they feel when they come here they enjoy being in the classroom, they enjoy being at the Learning Center. I literally have to ask them to leave sometimes because they want to keep working because they like it when they’re here, they really like it when they’re here.”

Relationship with the School District

Karyl Martin:

“When you work with a school district they usually require a memo of agreement. And in that memo of agreement you’ll need to work out whether your tutors are going to be background checked and fingerprinted by the school district or whether you’re going to do it on the reservation and assure them and give them proof and documentation that you have done this.”

Sue West:

“There isn’t a lot of extensive paperwork. We do have to have a release form signed every year after their initial enrollment papers. Then they sign a release form which is an agreement that the school district requires that allows us to get into their, access to their paperwork, to have access to the report cards and to actually have let the teachers et al talk to us because without that release form confidentiality maintains that the teachers cannot talk about that student. We also keep access of their grades and for us we need to make every day notes so that we know that we see all the children enough to help them in their program.”

Karyl Martin:

“Ultimately on any district campus, the principal is going to be the main person to decide what he’s going to allow a tutor to do. In many school sites, we only work in classrooms, but in other school sites they have noticed how much we can accomplish what we can do as far as make up work and giving tests so they’ve allowed us to do pull out programs if space is available. This is something that will happen as the program continues and as you develop that rapport with your teachers and your school site administrators.”

Sue West:

“Teachers -- when we first came in -- thought of us as aides. They were not real receptive to people coming in and out of their classroom. They did not understand our program. They did not know what we could offer.”

Mason Patterson:

“They weren’t always very excited because teachers naturally are a little bit defensive about their students and they’re not always willing to change cause there’s lots of standards and all these things that we put in this box that we call education. But now after working with them years and building these relationships of trust, the attitudes are completely different. I go in and the teachers respect what I have to say and they want to know more.”

Curt Walch:

“How does the teacher not feel threatened is knowing and understanding what exactly the purpose of these people coming into the classroom is. We are on the same team and it’s to help these students. And if there is any adult who wants to come in and help that would be wonderful, but here we have dedicated personnel who know the students because they work so closely with them, much better than I possibly could.”

Elsa Rice:

“The tutors have a wonderful working relationship with the teachers. They’re there to work with the students and they don’t really interfere with any of the workings of the classroom. They’re there just basically as a helper for that child.”

Laila Valdivia:

“On a daily basis I go in and out of classes and see all my students. I’ll make sure that they’re taking notes, that they’re paying attention, that they get copies of the worksheets that they need. If they’re absent, I’ll make sure and get work for them. I’ll give progress reports to make sure that they’re staying on track and getting caught up on their grades. If they’re missing tests, I’ll schedule a test for them. I help them study for tests and make notes.”

Sue West:

“Every day we make notes of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. So in six months if somebody says, ‘What was my child doing?’ we can dig back and go, ‘Oh, yeah, we were working with him on this subject. He had a little difficulty with that.’ So I can see now how come he’s having difficulty with this.”

Janet Mendoza:

“The teachers have the feeling that they’re responsible for those students and so they have a hard time giving those kids up to somebody else but as soon as they start to see the success that those kids get with the gains if they make they’re more apt to let you take them and work with them. So I think that working collaboratively and as a team is the big key.”

Elsa Rice:

“The tutors just make the child feel very special and it’s something that a regular teacher tries to do but when you have a full class sometimes it’s hard to get to each child.”

Sue West:

“They can come to us and say, ‘We’re having some problems. We need this student to do a little bit more,’ or ‘He’s falling behind, can you see what’s going on?’ and we catch those and not so many students fall between the cracks anymore. We have stopped a lot of the children [from] being lost.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I know that I have the tutors as my back up. If I don’t check, they’re calling me. ‘Okay, they need, they’re behind on this or they’re behind on that.’ So it’s kind of like a team thing that everybody is helping the kids.”

Curt Walch:

“There has to be a certain bond I think between the students. Students will respond a lot better when they know that the adult cares about them. Obviously the education liaisons here do. So if I’m having a struggle with a student that I’m just not reaching, then I can turn to her and say, ‘Would you…what do you suggest, help me out with this.’”

Mason Patterson:

“The best result of this is being able to make people realize or to help people to realize that each of our students have different educational exceptionalities and that in order to educate a child we have to look at that child individually.”

Janelle Poulcer:

“I would rather have the tutors. It’s another person to help; it’s another helping hand. It’s getting a group of students, be it any group of students, to get an extra support so that you know that between the two of us we’re going to really tag-team the student.”

Curt Walch:

“The schools are of course always worried about test scores. We always need to raise test scores and this is one of the easiest ways to get those up when we have students that are achieving at a higher level because of this program.”

Janell Poulcer:

“At the beginning of the school year or when students come in, if there’s a problem, a lot of times we try to help them plan out where all their kids are together in certain classes so that it’ll help them keep track. For example, if we have a teacher who teaches English 11, they might have five sections of English 11 and we try to make sure that all their students are within that one teacher, not with another English 11 teacher. Because they tend to have the same type of assignments and so for the tutors it helps to follow what each one of their students should be doing. So we try to get them in the same class so they can follow them a little bit better but our main goal is at least to get the same type of teacher so that they’ll know the assignments that each one is responsible for, for their classes.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“There are huge benefits to the program. It’s that diploma, it’s that higher grade in reading, in math.”

Audrey Garcia:

“We’re getting more and more kids all the time, more and more parents are trusting us to help their children. The program is growing by leaps and bounds and when we first started out we started out small and we have just grown immensely.”

Karen Corbin:

“Both my children are two different children, opposite ends of the spectrum and it helped with both of them. One had a hard time in school and one had an easy time and it helped me with both situations.”

Curt Walch:

“We have high students and low students. The low students are being helped at their level and the high students have that time to be challenged and work with enrichment materials so that they’re not sitting back and not saying either, ‘I don’t get this’ or ‘This is way too easy for me.’ But with that individual help it is at their level. They are never bored it seems and every day they are learning.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“Kids are coming to school, they’re achieving at greater rates and they’re graduating. Those are three very important components for academic success and it’s been proven time and time again as a result I believe of this program.”

Parents Point of View

Karyl Martin:

“You become an advocate in many ways for the school district because you are able to explain their needs and what they need from a parent and give it to the parent in a way that makes it more understandable. But most of all these are parents who felt they had absolutely no rapport with the school district and no way to talk with the district, that no one was there for them. And when there’s a tutor in place, you become that liaison to the district for them. This makes it so much easier and gives the parents a better understanding of the educational process.”

Sue West:

“We keep daily attendance notes to know where we’ve been and who we’ve seen and if there’s any especially at that the high school level, is there a child who’s been missing a lot, a certain period.”

Tina Velasquez:

“It’s just like part of a family. You know that everybody is chipping in to watch over the kids, to watch, make sure that they stay on task.”

Mason Patterson:

“The most essential part of an after-school program is parent commitment and involvement. We can make it fun and we can do a lot of things here in the after school program to make it easier for the kids to learn but in the end this is, especially for younger children this is another couple of hours of school and yet we manage to fill this room with kids in our after-school program and that’s because of our parents. Our parents make sure their kids are going. They make sure that…they come and talk to us when there’s a problem. We talk to them when there’s a concern or good things or whatever. Our parent involvement is excellent.”

Karen Corbin:

“Before the tutoring program when my son was in grade school, I was at the school almost all the time 'cause he was a difficult child and not that he was bad, he just couldn’t sit still and learn. And so after the tutoring program though they came in and did a lot for me, so I didn’t have to be at the school all the time 'cause I work a full-time job. And after that I didn’t have so much contact with the teachers.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I have a 10-year-old grandson that, he comes here and he fought me tooth and nail. He didn’t want to, he didn’t want to and I told him, ‘Your aunts went there and they go there and they come out and they’re doing their work.’ And so he started coming and he’s fine. His situation is a little bit different. He…we found out he had leukemia two years ago and so he was out of school for a whole year because he was in and out of the hospital. So then when we finally did put him in school we had to play catch up and that’s when we decided to bring him into the tutoring. And they were really good on helping him focusing on what he needed, which I was pretty lucky because he was a pretty smart kid to begin with. But just them going over the books, they went to the school to find out what he needed and what he had fallen behind on and brought it and helped him focus on that.”

Karen Corbin:

“Whether it’s good feedback or bad feedback, they tell me what is absolutely going on in the school that I need to know.”

Tina Velasquez:

“Works out really well for me 'cause I’m not the only one on the kids to, ‘You need to get your work done, you need to stay on top of things.’”

Academic Achievements

Karyl Martin:

“In 1999, when the program started we began to track test scores for California state testing and in 2002 when we compared 2000/2001 test scores we found that our children -- which is something almost unheard of -- the Native American students had scored higher or above the district average at almost every grade level. In fact in 2006, the district accredited our program with a 22 point raise in API scores.”

Student:

“I’m going to go to college of course, Hawaii Pacific University, major in mechanical engineering, which I always wanted to do since my mom was always telling me about how she was a mechanic.”

Student:

“I’m more and more leaning towards Stanford 'cause I hear they have a great medical program and I’m interested in medical and stuff cause I like kinetic physiology and I’d like to grow up and become a doctor. I could achieve my family’s dream and my own.”

Karen Corbin:

“Whether it happens right away or later, but yeah, college. And they encourage that and they help them with that and they keep them…in high school they tell them what classes they need to take and help them with that so they know what they need to get into college. And they even helped Elena apply, send out letters with colleges also.”

Tina Velasquez:

“The next step would be after high school, which would be college. And my daughter signed up for that also, to take online classes here at the Tutoring Center for college. She wants to be a registered nurse.”

Sue West:

“We are hoping to get the adults who’ve been out of school for awhile and they would say, ‘I can go do that.’ So we’re hoping to get people here that maybe need something for their job, to expand their job a little bit and maybe to get a little bit…and they’re going to utilize our program also.”

Tina Velasquez:

“I have another daughter that graduated in 2003 and she had asked me, she found out that my daughter’s registering for online classes and she asked me to talk to the Tutoring Center and see if she could do it also and they told her yes so she’ll be coming in in the next week or two and sign up for classes. So they are coming back, they know that this is where they can get help.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“We have a higher graduation rate among our Native students and that’s very important and our test scores have improved among our Native students and that’s very important. Our attendance rates for students attending school has also improved. Those are three very clear pieces of evidence that this program is working.”

TO THE CHILDREN: “I will encourage education. I will encourage sports. I will encourage them to talk with the Elders for guidance; but mostly, I will seek to be a role model myself. I make this commitment to my children so they will have courage and find guidance through traditional ways.” Don Coyhis, President/Founder – White Bison

Karyl Martin:

“From your initial program will grow additional programs. We have an entire department that grew out of the tutoring program which is our alternative education.”

Jordan Livingston:

“We cover GED. We cover any adult schools. We cover independent study. We cover reading and math programs. Anything that’s not with the school district and regular school is alternative education.”

Karyl Martin:

“We also have a program K through 8 summer school, which has been highly successful.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“It’s about people trusting. It’s not about the district saying, ‘No, we’re going to run summer school. You can’t run summer school. We’re going to do it and we’re going to do it our way.’ No. Instead it’s about saying, ‘You know what, do you think you can run a summer school program? We’ll help you. We’ll tell you what materials, we’ll give you a teacher to help, whatever you can do to make this successful.’’

Elsa Rice:

“The summer school program has accountability. We do use the state standards and apply that to their work that they’re doing here. The student is given credit for attending summer school. If the students were attending summer school in the public school they’d probably have about 30 kids in a class to one teacher. But here on the reservation with this tutoring program, our summer school has approximately one tutor to every two or three students. In that situation the students are given individual attention, whatever that child really needs is provided to that student by the tutors.”

Mason Patterson:

“I love the summer program because it’s education how it ought to be done. It’s experience. It’s individualized lesson plans. It’s care. Like I said, we have a team with lots of different talents and things that they can do and we let them run wild during the summer. We let them make the best, most individualized program that they can. We also, we’re able to do things that we’re not able to do in a school summer school. We take the kids on trips. It’s one thing to tell someone about the beach and the animals that life there. It’s a whole other thing to take them there.”

Sue West:

“Field trips take a lot of planning. We’re talking 70, 80 children and as many, not as many as adults, but we always have a very small amount of child to adult ratios on our field trips so that the kids can be experienced not just looking at stuff but can ask the questions that they need to ask when they see things.”

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“We learn as much from the children as they do from us during the summer. We learn about them, we learn more cause we’re with them longer, we learn more about how they learn and it helps us develop a deeper rapport with them. When they’re with us longer then they develop more of a trust in us. We spend time learning about their culture and we learn a lot about them and how they view culture.”

Elsa Rice:

“We have Native American stories, legends, art and music is woven into their daily lessons.”

Tina Velasquez:

“My grandkids are a set of twins. After they got out of kindergarten they came to tutoring and they come back learning, singing songs and it was cute because they’d be getting ready in the morning, showering and singing their songs. I had no idea what they were saying but it was nice to hear them.”

Elsa Rice:

“The students do enjoy learning about their culture. They sometimes say, ‘Oh, I remember grandpa talking about that,’ and that really makes them feel good to know that we’re including things from their family’s past and sometimes we have words from Native languages that they can learn and they feel very special to be able to speak them and to know them and apply them to their own talking at home with their family. They’re able to have this here on the reservation, something that we couldn’t do in the public school and so this time in the summer is special for that.”

Mason Patterson:

“We want them to go out there and create a path in life that is filled with the things that they want, that is filled with the things that they think are important and that’s part of what…part of our go-and-see attitude for our summer program. ‘Let’s go and see, you can see something different and see if you like it and see if you don’t and see what you want to do in the future. And whatever we can do we’ll help you with.’”

Tina Velasquez:

“My grandkids are attending the summer program and my youngest daughter, well, my last three kids actually did. And it was nice because they took them on trips and they’re not like to Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm, they’re very educational, the aquarium or they take them to the museum and the kids come back so excited and coming back and telling you what they learned.”

Mason Patterson:

“We have our little critters that we have around here during the summertime. We used to have a millipede and one of the best essay questions and lessons that I ever taught was taking that millipede out, giving him to the kids and seeing -- see, feel the segments, feel the legs, see how it moves, see the little bugs that live on it. See this, see that and those kids were mesmerized. And all of a sudden we went from, ‘Can you please describe this millipede,’ from ‘It’s long and it’s brown, it’s got tentacles or whatever,’ to ‘Well, it’s got his many segments, it’s got so many pairs of legs, it feels like a brush when I walks up and down you arm.’ And the kids were really able to describe and learn and appreciate what we were teaching. And so one of the biggest things that I tell people when we’re looking for new tutors is, the teachers that I talked to, I said, ‘Now in your school setting you’ve got so many resources, you’ve got so many things that you can do but you come over and work for us and you have a good idea it’s going to work and we’re going to run with it and you’re going to go and you’re going to find…usually you go to the school place where they keep all the supplies and there’s a little bit of this and a little of that. Come see what we’ve got. You want to make something colorful; we’ve got papers for colorful. We’ve got scissors and glue. We’ve got everything that we need. We’ve got the best computer programs, research tools. We have a wonderful library just across the street.’ Honestly, just from the teaching aspect, the summer program is ideal for any teacher and any student.

“There are more Indians going to school, more Indians becoming professional people, more Indians assuming full responsibility in our society. We have a long way to go, but we’re making great strides.” N. Scott Momaday

Mason Patterson:

“Education for a lot of groups has been like a hammer without a handle. They’re just pounding, pounding away and work gets done, but it’s not efficient. You put a handle on that hammer and all of a sudden you can do a lot more a lot faster and it gets done the way you want it to get done. And that’s what a program like this does. It puts a handle on a hammer.”

Karyl Martin:

“We saw the dreams that we had dreamed along with the tribal members and the council and we saw these dreams realized and realized that these dreams could go further, they could go…actually there’s just no end to where they can go because education is something that is a lifetime and not just something that happens up through the graduation.”

Elsa Rice:

“It’s a gift of knowledge, of learning and a gift of knowing that they’re special.”

Karen Corbin:

“How many parents in town say how blessed we are to have that advantage? And sometimes they have to pay for tutoring, extra help like that and that doesn’t even have them work with the teachers as well as our Tutoring Center does.”

Janelle Poulcer:

“Anyone who has a chance to get this program running in your school because it can do nothing but help students succeed and that’s the end result we’re all looking for.”

Student:

“The tutoring program has been a great experience. They help out a whole lot. They make a really big difference. You’re not just getting your homework done, you’re making yourself a new friend and they care so much that you’re getting your work done, they’re kind of like a parent and also like a best friend.”

Karyl Martin:

“The students that I had in the very beginning years now have children of their own and these parents are very active and very involved in their children’s education and they’re the ones requesting tutoring and requesting help for their children. And this is a direct result of the way we have been able to help them understand the educational process.”

Student:

“They want to make sure you succeed in life.”

Dr. Kathy McNamara:

“I think it’s a very valuable program for them, a good sense of self-esteem, a good sense of, ‘Yes, I am successful, I’m someone who can participate. My voice can be heard.’”

Karen Corbin:

“The tribal kids need to be out in the community and get the full mingling with all nationalities and I think if they are segregated until they’re high school and then go out it’s too hard, it’s too difficult.”

Karyl Martin:

“Ultimately the sovereignty of the Native American reservation is going to be protected as these children grow and become the leaders of tomorrow. They become the tribal council members, the tribal chairman, they become the voting members and besides this we have a reservation such as this one that is growing with tribal enterprises and becoming larger every year. These will be the students that will be in management.”

Jillian Esquerra:

“That’s something I feel is very important and I try and tell them, ‘You want to be running your own tribe.’”

Mason Patterson:

“Our director looks at this program like one of her kids and she loves it and she’s built and worked and cared for it.”

Karyl Martin:

“It’s very hard to explain a program like this to you without having you come and visit us so we invite all of you that see this video to come and see our program, visit with us, spend a day with us in the classroom, come to our summer program, watch us teaching Native American culture, watch the children’s enthusiasm and the joy of coming. We started with 20 children in our first summer school program and we have 85 this year and they want to come, they beg to come and start asking in February when the program is going to begin. So we know that not only are we achieving educational goals but we’re achieving the love of education. So we hope that you’ll come and visit us and let us tell you more about what’s been accomplished here and what Morongo has been able to do for their children and we hope we can help you if you would like to start similar programs on your reservation.”

The Morongo Tutoring Program
is supported and funded by
The Morongo Band of Mission Indians.
11581 Potrero Rd, Banning, CA 92220

Linda Dwight-Buel:

“Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ So if you want to make a difference in a child’s life, then a program like this is definitely the way to do it.”

[Music]

For more information please contact:
The Morongo Learning Center
Karyl Martin, Director Education Services
11952 Potrero Road, Banning, CA 92220
Phone (951) 755-5250 Fax (951) 755-5256
Email Karyl_Martin@Morongo.org

This video was made possible by
an award of High Honors from the Honoring Nations Program
presented by
The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
October 3, 2006

Produced and Directed by
Tonje Cicilie Nordgaard

Editing
Monica Fischetti-Palmieri Williams

Camera
Time Otholt
Tonje Cicilie Nordgaard

Grip
Calvin Borden

“Ancient Memories”
Written and performed by Scott August
“Heart of the Sky”
Written and performed by Scott August
“Mockingbird Canyon”
Written and performed by Scott August

From the recording New Fire.
© Cedar Mesa Music. Used by permission

“Ancient Trails”
Written and performed by Scott August

From the recording Distant Spirits.
© Cedar Mesa Music. Used by permission

Very Special Thanks to

White Bison Inc.
for the use of the quotes
from their website

© www.whitebison.org - used by permission

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