White Salmon School Board talks health and wellness, land acknowledgment

Administrators of the program are currently looking for additional grant and funding opportunities.

McGeeney said he met with K-LINK Director Paul Lindberg last week to discuss the sustainability of the program in the future. According to McGeeney, program administrators are eying a  key grant through Southwest Washington Accountable Community of Health, which they’ll know the results of by June. There is another grant the team is seeking to receive through the Department of Health, McGeeney said.

Board Member Peter Harkema asked how enrollment will play into the future of the Health and Wellness center, to which McGeeney responded that the school district is encouraging enrollment, but acknowledged that external effects, like pressure on the housing market and rising cost of living is having an impact on enrollment numbers.

The board is preparing wording on a land acknowledgment that the White Salmon Valley School District is on Yakama Nation land. They discussed last week the proper method to choosing wording but was met with words of positivity and appreciation.

“I think it’s long overdue,” Board Member Laurie Stanton said. “I just feel like we need to be a little bit more humble, and acknowledge this amazing place and the cultures that were here before us.”

The board mulled over questions of the proper wording of such an acknowledgment. McGeeney said he had previously worked with the Yakama Nation in the Yakima School District, and that the land acknowledgment verbiage was co-authored with a liaison to the tribes.

He said it is an “ongoing process, and through that process, not only is it in collaboration with the (Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation) but when you go before tribal council to get their final form of affirmation and acknowledgment... it is a moment of reflection, of remembrance and honoring of the land.”

McGeeney called the acknowledgment “a high honor and really, truly, a humbling one.”

“It is important to remember not just the land that we are that belongs to Klickitat tribe that we stand upon, but that literally one of the most sacred meeting places in fishing lands, was just 20 miles due west of this place,” McGeeney said.

The board is also preparing a self-assessment process, which was discussed at last week’s meeting. Board Chair Alan Reitz said it’s something “I’ve been wanting to do. I’ve been in contact with (Washington State School Director’s Association) from the inception of this new school board.”

The board considered preparing an online questionnaire following the April meeting. According to Stanton, a self-assessment is part of district policy on annual governance goals.

Lastly, the board approved an engineering contract for the A-Court resurfacing project, the final piece of the 2019 bond project. The project will consist of resurfacing, striping, constructing about 400 square feet of sidewalk and any other necessities.