At tribal gatherings, meetings and community events, it is not unusual to find Suquamish Tribal Elder Barbara Lawrence with her hands occupied.

She might be listening to a speaker or visiting with someone while strips of cedar move through her fingers, gradually taking shape as one of the traditional Suquamish cedar hats she is known for weaving — intricate, beautiful and, importantly, made to be used.

Washington state educator Dr. Laura Lynn sees something of that same process in another of Lawrence’s creations, one that has taken years to bring together.

The Suquamish Tribe’s new Since Time Immemorial curriculum, Lynn says, is “a weave of so many of Barbara’s gifts: visionary, researcher, learner, sharer of historic knowledge, storyteller, passion, commitment, and generosity to support students and educators across our region.”

On Aug. 19, that long work reached a milestone as educators from school districts across Suquamish Tribe’s ancestral territory gathered at the Chief Kitsap Academy campus for the first professional development training on the tribe’s newly launched curriculum.

For Lawrence, the day was about much more than unveiling lesson plans. It was about relationship.

“Traditionally, when a big important thing happens,” Lawrence told the assembled educators. “We would send messengers out to go invite our neighbors and friends to come and witness the event.”

Those guests would be fed, given a place to rest and listen, entertained with songs and dances, and sent home with gifts.

“You’re witnessing that,” Lawrence said. “Cultural teachings on top of your academic teachings — and the cultural teachings are more important.”

Telling the Suquamish story

The curriculum gives middle and high school educators classroom-ready lessons developed specifically from a Suquamish perspective, including units on the Treaty of Point Elliott, treaty fishing rights, salmon habitat and the culvert case, housing, environmental issues, and contemporary tribal sovereignty.

The Treaty of Point Elliott unit provides the foundation for the others, beginning with Suquamish ancestral territory and place names and asks students to examine how maps themselves can convey different perspectives about land and ownership.

Later lessons move through the treaty and into contemporary questions — including how treaty fishing rights affirmed in the 1974 Boldt Decision eventually led to another landmark court fight over the state’s obligation to remove culverts that blocked salmon habitat.

The curriculum is designed to be interdisciplinary, connecting history and civics with science, ecology, geography and other subjects.

Chairman Leonard Forsman said its roots reach back decades.

After joining other tribal leaders concerned about low Native graduation rates, Forsman said a state study identified several underlying problems, including the absence of tribal history and culture in public-school curriculum.

That work helped lead to the state’s Since Time Immemorial Tribal Sovereignty Curriculum in 2005. But the state framework was always intended to lead educators toward the tribes whose lands their schools occupy.

The new curriculum allows Suquamish to tell that story directly.

“The more we learn about our first people the more it is good for everybody,” Forsman said. “It teaches us the real, true, factual history of the area.”

It also carries values that extend beyond a history classroom, he said.

“We want to take care of our elders. We want to look after our youth. We want to take care of the land, the water, and the air.”

Built by Suquamish

Creating the curriculum required years of research, writing and review involving Tribal Council and staff across tribal government, including Natural Resources, GIS, Housing, Education, and the Suquamish Museum.

The process was intentionally rigorous.

“Everything was cultivated with a keen eye,” Lawrence said. “If it wasn’t up to standard, for the elders of the tribe, for Tribal Council, for the teachers in the tribe, for administrators in the tribe, then it was reworked.”

In March, Tribal Council formally authorized the materials as the Suquamish Tribe’s Since Time Immemorial curriculum. The public rollout this summer also includes a new curriculum website embedded within the Education section of the Suquamish Tribe’s government website.

The site serves as the curriculum’s central hub, providing educators with lesson plans, teacher guides, presentations, maps, videos, historical documents and other resources. Middle and high school lessons are organized into units teachers can access directly from the site, along with supporting materials and a way to contact the tribe for assistance with the curriculum.

The site also opens with a new video welcome from Chairman Leonard Forsman, who introduces students and educators to the Suquamish people and their ancestral territory and explains the significance of the phrase “since time immemorial.”

“Our history did not begin with settlers,” Forsman tells students in the video. “It did not begin with a date in a textbook.”

Forsman traces the tribe’s connection to the lands and waters of the region back thousands of years, explains the continuing importance of the Treaty of Point Elliott and tribal sovereignty, and describes the cultural resurgence underway today — from Lushootseed language revitalization to carving, weaving, song, ceremony and the modern Tribal Canoe Journey.

He closes the video by asking students to consider themselves part of that continuing story, learning from the generations that came before while thinking about those still to come.

The rollout also introduces a new visual identity for the curriculum. Its logo, created by Lushootseed language teacher and tribal artist Joey Holmes, was selected from eight submissions by the tribe’s Cultural Co-op Committee. The central image draws from a photograph of Lawrence storytelling with children.

The website also incorporates the Unfolding Fern, a traditional basket design representing youth and learning that Suquamish Tribal Elder and artist Peg Dean originally created years ago as an emblem for the tribe’s emerging Education Department. The fern now appears throughout the curriculum site to identify materials developed and approved by the Suquamish Tribe.

“Everything has meaning,” Lawrence said. “They’re not just a design. They’re meaningful.”

At the Aug. 19 training, educators became the first outside group to work through the completed website and lessons.

Dr. Elise Washines, a Yakama educator who helped develop the curriculum, guided participants through the materials while emphasizing three concepts running through the work: relationship, respect, and reciprocity.

Washines contrasted those values with educational systems that can become focused primarily on evaluation — what students or teachers are doing wrong and what must improve next.

“There are ways to grow,” she said. “But before we even think about that, we have to think about all the moments that we appreciate, all the relationships that we’re building with each other.”

For Lynn, who previously helped oversee the statewide implementation of Since Time Immemorial through the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, that approach reflects Lawrence herself.

“Her tireless efforts to collaborate with districts and organizations establishes the foundation of positive relationships necessary to implement existing lesson resources and grow future learning,” Lynn said.

The curriculum, she added, stems from Lawrence’s “profound love of the Suquamish People, our lands, waters, and relatives of nature.”

From curriculum to classroom

Now comes the test Lawrence has been working toward for years: getting it used.

Seattle Public Schools is already preparing the Suquamish materials for its learning management system and incorporating them into the district’s required scope and sequence, said Shana Brown, a curriculum specialist with the district’s Native Education Program.

The district plans to use Suquamish curriculum during the second semester in seventh- and eighth-grade social studies and in high school U.S. history and civics courses.

“We got the support of principals so that principals can take that to their schools,” Brown said.

But making curriculum available and getting it into classrooms are two different things.

“Just getting the word out is a lot harder than you think it might be,” Brown said.

Educators at the training discussed ways to integrate the lessons across disciplines. One Chief Kitsap Academy teacher described connecting the curriculum with the school’s Ocean to Table program, where students fish for and process salmon.

Students could simultaneously learn the history behind what they are doing — from the Boldt Decision to treaty rights and salmon habitat restoration.

Other educators identified a need for help introducing tribal perspectives that may challenge what students — or teachers — previously understood.

That is where Lawrence says relationships remain essential.

Teachers should also be able to bring Suquamish cultural educators directly into their classrooms, she said — and schools need to recognize that expertise as professional work.

“School districts need to pay for cultural educators to come in, whether it’s storytellers or fishermen, or a clam digger — somebody cultural from the tribe to come and teach something,” Lawrence said. “It’s real work. It’s real, valuable work, and school districts need to plan for that.”

A living curriculum

The website currently includes two middle school units and three high school units, with the Treaty of Point Elliott serving as the prerequisite foundation. Elementary and early learning sections are planned as funding becomes available.

The work will continue to evolve.

 

“This is a living curriculum,” Lynn told educators. “So keep checking back in because we’re going to continue to refine and add resources.”

That includes videos, maps and other teaching tools as well as lessons connecting treaty history to issues unfolding today.

Acting Education Division Director and Chief Kitsap Academy Principal Lucy Dafoe said the launch is the beginning of an ongoing relationship with educators, not just a single training.

For now, Lawrence asked those attending the first training to make their own commitment.

“We’re saying, here we are,” Lawrence told them. “We’re helping you. We’re creating this and we have all these resources and we’ll help you. So please take informed action with us.”

The lesson of Young Crow

For all the years of research, legal review and curriculum development that brought the project to this point, Lawrence traces her own understanding of education much farther back.

Her first teachers, she says, were Suquamish Elders.

They gathered children to teach them everything from stories and songs to respect and responsibility — sometimes while taking them berry picking, clam digging, or cleaning at the cemetery.

As a child, Lawrence thought the stories told during those chores were entertainment.

Then one day, while the children were berry picking, her younger brother found a creative way to avoid working. Lawrence couldn’t help but notice that an Elder then soon told a story about Young Crow — who worked very hard at not working.

Something clicked.

“I suddenly realized this isn’t entertainment,” Lawrence recalled. “This is education.”

She began listening differently.

Decades later, that understanding is woven throughout a curriculum intended to reach thousands of students across Suquamish territory.

Like one of Lawrence’s cedar hats, the finished work is intricate because the knowledge behind it is interwoven from a history that stretches back thousands of years – literally, since time immemorial.

And it is also made to be used.

“Now the real work begins,” she said with a determined smile. “It’s time to get these lessons into the classrooms.”

 

A misty November chill hovered over Miller Bay as students split into two crews — one aboard the Suquamish Tribe’s support vessel Challacum, the other riding in a smaller aluminum skiff where Suquamish fisherwoman Shellene George mentored 11th-graders Luther Mills and Billy Jones on how to set and retrieve the long salmon net. From the deck of the Challacum, bundled students leaned over the railing, watching the sweep of the gear, listening for instructions carried over the water and then moving to the muddy shore to haul in the net.

After a few pulls, excitement rose when salmon finally appeared in the net — not many, but enough to learn from and celebrate. The small catch wasn’t enough to carry the class through every stage of processing and smoking, but rather than view it as a setback, it became a teaching moment: salmon work is governed by tides, seasons, luck, and patience, not controlled conditions or schedules.

That’s when tribal fishermen stepped in, supplementing the student catch with additional salmon — not simply to fill the freezers, but to reinforce a message that harvesting, sharing, and preparing food is a communal responsibility, one carried together so knowledge can continue.

“There’s no shame in a light catch,” George said. “That’s fishing. Some days you fill the net, some days you don’t. What mattered was that the kids were out there learning, trying, and working together — and then our community did what it always does and supported them.”

A multi-week cultural learning experience

A multi-week cultural learning experience Ocean to Table is not a field trip or a cooking demonstration — it is a multi-week fall learning experience at Chief Kitsap Academy designed to pass on intergenerational Coast Salish teachings about harvesting, honoring, and preserving salmon. Now in its ninth year, the program is guided by Suquamish culture bearers, fishermen, and food knowledge holders, alongside teachers who connect lessons to science, health, and land-based learning.

Students learn every step of traditional salmon preservation, from harvesting to canning. These are not demonstrations for students to watch — they are responsibilities for students to perform, with mentorship and guidance throughout.

This year, eighth-grade life science students and 10th-grade biology students participated. The project is intentionally tied to curriculum so that academic learning connects to real-world meaning. While most biology students learn about anatomy from a printed diagram, these students discuss how form and function relate while holding a salmon gill in their hand. “My biology students were already in a three-week salmon unit,” said CKA science teacher Scottie Von Rees. “So we talked about surface area and how gills bring in oxygen, then we were able to see it in real life. It’s so cool to make those connections.”

From bay to processing table

After returning from Miller Bay, students moved to the Suquamish Seafoods processing facility, where George works as acquisition manager, buying clams, crabs, salmon, and other seafood directly from Suquamish fishers before distributing it to markets and buyers.

She taught students how to bleed, chill, and fillet salmon safely and respectfully, focusing on steady hands, sharp tools, clean cuts, and minimizing waste.

“They cut it, stripped it, handled icy fish, made mistakes, fixed them, and learned,” George said. “Those aren’t just skills — that’s character. That’s confidence.”

George, who fished commercially from Alaska to California before returning home to raise her family and exercise treaty-protected fishing rights locally, said the program passes down something much deeper than technique.

“What we’re teaching is survival knowledge,” she said. “If something catastrophic happened, these kids would know how to get food, prepare it, and preserve it. That’s real education.”

Teaching inside the smokehouse

Students then moved to the new CKA smokehouse, where they rinsed brine from fillets, sorted cuts by thickness, and learned how to pierce each piece with precise “eye holes” so cedar sticks could be threaded through without tearing the meat. Timing and technique were essential — and different cuts required different smoke durations.

“You can’t mix the backs and the bellies,” said Jay Mills, Tribal Elder, Tribal Council member, and one of the community’s most trusted experts on salmon smoking and preservation. “Bellies can stay in for five to six days, the backs maybe only two or three. Once they’re hung, you don’t take them down and rearrange them.”

Mills said the entire program echoes teachings passed down directly through his family line.

“I learned these teachings from my great-greatgrandmother and my great uncle,” he said. “She lived to be 103, and she passed it down in our family. That’s what we’re doing here — making sure our young people get the same teachings our grandparents gave us.”

Growing student leaders

Both George and Mills emphasized that the most important product is not smoked salmon, but future leadership. Older students serve as crew leads on the water and in the smokehouse, arriving early, staying late, and modeling the work ethic required to complete the project from beginning to end.

“I could have taken over and done it myself,” George said. “But that’s not the point. You give them responsibility so they can rise. And they did.”

George believes the experience opened a door that cannot be closed.

“I guarantee some of them are going to go try clam digging now,” she said. “Some will join fishing crews. Some will teach their own kids one day.”

Mills agreed. “We talk about seven generations,” he said. “We’re almost there. These teachings don’t live if we don’t use them. The kids showed they’re ready.”

Soon, the smoked salmon will be canned and shared, just as families have done for generations Because at Ocean to Table, the goal isn’t just to make food — it’s to make knowledge live.

New CKA smokehouse designed for teaching and tradition

A new smokehouse now stands near the herb and vegetable garden at Chief Kitsap Academy, built to support hands-on learning for Ocean to Table students, among other traditional culinary classwork.

The design was developed by Suquamish Tribal Elder Jay Mills, who has spent decades building and tending smokehouses for his family, using earth-floor structures where the fire burns directly inside. His experience with traditional methods guided the layout and size, but this version includes new features adapted for school use.

The biggest innovation is the external wood-burning stove, which pushes smoke into the chamber rather than generating heat and smoke directly on the floor. Mills researched a variety of designs and cold-smoke systems, combining multiple ideas to find a model that was safer, cleaner, and easier for students to work around.

A second cold-smoke line, with a fire placed farther away to maintain lower temperatures, will also be connected to the smokehouse, giving students the option to explore different preservation methods.

After sketching his concept in a notebook, Mills worked with a friend who turned the drawings into buildable plans. The smokehouse was then constructed with a concrete foundation, cedar siding, and a vented roof system intended to draw smoke evenly. Mills expects adjustments as students learn how it behaves across seasons, weather, airflow, and fish loads.

“Our teachings are alive,” he said. “You build it, you learn from it, then you make it better.”