From Havermale to the Capitol

Decked out in a red blazer and assigned to one of the most powerful politicians in Washington state, young Amber Grentz spent a week soaking up the grandeur of the state Capitol and the lessons it has to offer those fortunate enough to be chosen as legislative pages.

Not bad for a 16-year-old who just last summer was living on the streets of Spokane.

Now, she and two of her classmates at Spokane’s Havermale High School, Mary Pierre, 15, and Jeremiah Allen, 16, are hoping their service as legislative aides to Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, will help reshape public perceptions of alternative schools and their students.

“Most are from families with privilege,” Havermale principal Fred Schrumpf said of the typical legislative page.

Schrumpf led efforts to get Havermale students included in the program. The idea came to him after his own children served as legislative pages.

The school wrote a grant request to the Avista Foundation, and the students received $1,000 all together to pay for travel, clothes, housing and food. Schrumpf even drove them to Olympia.

The students were selected for the week of Feb. 11 and took page classes there, learning how a bill becomes law and how those laws affect them in everyday life. They also wrote mock bills.

Pierre and Allen worked on a mock bill to change American Indian Heritage Month from November to September.

The two are involved in the Medicine Wheel Academy, an alternative learning program structured for Native American students.

Grentz’s mock bill dealt with a health care program for everyone – adults and children.

“If the parents aren’t getting taken care of, who’s going to take care of the kids?” Grentz said.

Grentz, Pierre and Allen appreciated watching Brown on the Senate floor.

“She’s really nice,” Grentz said.

“Yeah, but she’s different on the floor,” Allen said.

After a heated debate on the floor one day, the three were impressed with Brown’s debating skills.

“I was like, ‘That’s our senator,’ ” Pierre said.

“They did really well,” Brown said of her pages. “Usually I don’t have a lot of interaction with the pages.” But for the week that the three served, she asked them to stop by her office every day.

The three had to wear uniforms of black trousers, white shirts and red polyester blazers. When the blazers were on, that was a signal they were working.

“I liked dressing up and looking official,” Pierre said.

Allen’s uniform included a necktie, something he had never tied before.

Last summer, Grentz was living on the streets of Spokane.

Things at home weren’t going very well, she said, so she left.

“I was having fun being a dirty street kid,” she said.

She said that her own sense of reality brought her home to work things out with her family and restart her education. Her mother suggested Havermale, and she’s been there since September.

“Everyone at Havermale is really close,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about fights, and the staff is great. They always listen.”

Pierre, a member of the Salish and Kootenai Flathead Nation, is on the basketball team at Havermale. She decided to attend the school because it’s small, and she immediately became involved with Medicine Wheel.

Allen flew home with Brown and had never been on an airplane before. He wore a Superman T-shirt for the ride.

“I thought it was cool,” he said.

Allen decided to attend Havermale because of his interest in the Medicine Wheel program.

They were all paid $35 a day for their work. Grentz wants to buy a doghouse. Pierre is planning to take her boyfriend to dinner, and Allen wants to buy some posters and visit comic book stores.

Schrumpf is very proud of the trio.

“They’re incredibly bright,” he said. “They’re going to college. It’s a great story of hope and opportunity.”