Native Youth Community Project and Yerington High School

YHS Student Shundean Emm, NYCP College and Career Coach Gerald Hunter and YHS Student Lorcie Ferguson.

Native Youth Community Project and Yerington High School

Yerington, NV, May 14, 2019 – Yerington High School (YHS) is in its second year of a Native Youth Communities Project (NYCP) grant.  NYCP exisits to benefit Native students in the school by focusing on unity, climate, culture and bringing together the two worlds that students live in – their Yerington or Walker River Paiute Tribes, their life on the Reservation and their life in the Yerington schools where 16% of the population is Native.  NYCP works with student in 7^th through 12^th grades. 

Gerald Hunter, NYCP leader and College and Career coach explains, “These students are walking in two worlds and they are/need to be receiving positive reinforcement.  There is who you are on the Reservation and who you are here at school.  We’re merging the two and making our students comfortable in both so that they can be as successful as possible.”

Hunter also has his students participate in summits and Native Unity conferences.  In March 2019, YHS senior Taylor McMasters and freshman Lorcie Ferguson both spoke at the American Indian/Alaskan Native Education & Annual Youth Summit, where the focus was “Equity, a Voice for All Students.”  The summit was held at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, NV.  The summit invitied school districts, school staff, tribal staff, tribal leadership, parents and students to discuss how social factors and wellness of a child may affect low graduation and high dropout rates. 

Taylor McMasters spoke on Equity and Diversity.  She shared her experience with NYCP and Unity.  Lorcie Ferguson spoke on the mid-year Unity conference she attended, which is a national conference that includes all Native students from Canada and the 49 continental states (excluding Hawaii).  Ferguson was also able to take away a plethora of ideas from her peers gathered at the summit and the conferences she has attended.  Ferguson has been a part of NYCP for the past two years and believes it is a great resource because, as she explains, “it helps bridge the gap between reservation and school life and it has exposed me to a lot of opportunities out there. I think that NYCP is helping keep us on track, but also creating a social atmosphere.”  Ferguson wants to become an ultrasound technician by attending college in Oregon.

Hunter has also used NYCP to take the students to visit colleges and the tribes surrounding the colleges they visit.  In the first weeks of April, they went to three colleges in the Southwestern U.S. and also had a chance to visit two tribes in that area so that they could get what the full immersion experience would be if they went to one of those schools. He states, “Last year, we took only a handful of students and visited some colleges including Haskell Indian Nations University.  The students bought some sweatshirts and other swag, when they came back to YHS many of the students who chose not to go where very disappointed that they did not take advantage of the opportunity.  Our visits are creating excitement around college and an incentive to do well in school now.”

In addition, to help with the students’ grades and performance in class, Hunter offers voluntary tutoring six times a week and has had over 35 students show up after school out of their own volition to better their grades.  Ferguson, an already star student expresses that tutoring helps her maintain and push her success to its full potential.  In the past two years of its existence, NYCP and Hunter have helped many students raise their GPA to their passing threshold and have since raised the threshold because many students are exceeding expectations. 

YHS student and NYCP member Shundean Emm, wants to go to Oregon State University when she graduates.  She also attended the summit at TMCC and expressed how it and other Native initiatives have helped her step out of her comfort zone.  Emm speaks on the merging of her two worlds, “I am very involved with our tribe – we do a lot of neat projects like basket making, dancing, etc. but I am also really enjoying the opportunities available to us here (at YHS).  Gerald is there for a lot of our students.  He helps us see our opportunities and potential, even what we can’t see or haven’t thought of.”  Emm was part of the group to visit colleges last year and again this April.  The group is now planning their trip to the Orlando, FL Unity conference this summer where they have already qualified 15 students and hope to qualify more.

Our vision… Graduate all students to be successful in college and career.

Our Mission… Provide relevant learning opportunities that develop adaptable, persistent and self-directed learners capable of creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking necessary to overcome complex challenges.

Every Student… Every Classroom… Every Day…

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If you would like more information about this topic, please contact Erika Garcia at erikagarcia@lyoncsd.org.