Salish School of Spokane hires development director to advance language revitalization

Thu., Nov. 6, 2025

By Matthew Kincanon FāVS News

Salish School of Spokane wins cultural freedom award

Earlier this month, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) recognized Salish School of Spokane with the William J. Demmert Cultural Freedom Award for their work in language revitalization.

According to their Facebook page, the organization gave the school the award for their “sustained leadership in Salish language revitalization.” Twenty-eight educators from the conference toured the school, saw their programming and met with leadership staff when they held their 56th Annual NIEA Convention & Trade Show in Spokane a couple weeks ago.

“We don’t really go to conferences. We just prioritize services to families and training new speakers, so we don’t get out and travel much so it was quite an opportunity when the national conference came to Spokane,” said Chris Parkin, principal and business manager of the school.

Parkin and LaRae Wiley (Sinixt), co-founder and former director of the school, got to spend a full day at the conference, and their students were able to perform for the general assembly.

Parkin was delighted to be recognized within circles of strong, intelligent and hardworking people and to be selected by them meant a lot to the school. While Wiley has been recognized individually before, this award was for the school as a whole, and Parkin said it honors the families who have made the commitment and the school’s staff who are learning the language and caring for the families.

“Our families, our parents, our students, our volunteer board members, they work really hard, and to receive that recognition, it means a lot,” said Wiley, co-founder and former director of the school.

Attorney and activist Margo Hill-Ferguson (Spokane Tribe) nominated the school for the award.

“The work completed by LaRae Wiley and Chris Parkin has benefited all of the local tribal language programs,” Hill-Ferguson said. “I grew up around Salish speakers and to hear these young people speak and have conversations is incredible. It has brought tears to my eyes and hope in my heart.”

The nomination letter detailed the number of families the school has served, as well as trained more than 50 adults who achieved intermediate fluency in Colville Salish, and another 20 who achieved advanced fluency. It also described how they managed to hold on to their identity, culture and their language through a century and a half of genocide, colonization, discrimination and struggle for survival and self-determination.

They expressed gratitude for Hill-Ferguson being a strong supporter of the school, as well as to the NIEA and Indigenous educators from around the country who are serving their communities. Being the recipient of the award inspires them to keep going and perform their challenging work.

Wiley hopes the award will also make them more recognizable and that more people will have heard of them and learn more about their mission and work.

“We still get asked a lot ‘What is Salish?’ – even in Spokane, and so it’s important to get the word out there nationally,” Wiley said.

Parkin hopes it will attract people who want to support and partner with them.

“When we connect with other Indigenous language communities that are doing the same beautiful, difficult work, we take heart from each other,” he said. “Hopefully our work and our little success that we’ve had so far might be inspiring to other folks out there or to those young language activists who are just starting out that we were asked to mentor.

Hopefully the little bit we’ve managed to do would be inspiring to them and encourage them to work on their language and not lose hope, and together we can have all these beautiful languages and cultures stand up together.”

The award was given to the school as part of the NIEA’s Community Awards.

Salish School of Spokane has hired Joy Peltier to be their new development director as part of ongoing efforts to revitalize the Salish language, get their story out and connect with people who want to be part of their mission.

Chris Parkin, principal and business manager of the school, said they met Peltier when she was a development director for Camp Fire several years ago, and she has been a regular supporter of the school since then.

When the school needed to fill the empty position, Parkin said it was a blessing that Peltier was looking for a position that involved more service leadership.

“I was inspired by LaRae’s (Wiley) bold vision to build a Salish village along the Spokane River where the Salish School of Spokane can expand our impact and grow the community of Salish language speakers, revitalizing the Salish language,” Peltier said.

She added she is inspired by the school’s mission of dynamic Salish language revitalization and loves the strong sense of community it creates with families, teachers, staff and community members.

Stepping into the role

For the moment, Parkin said, Peltier will be helping with other duties while the school’s capital campaign manager is on paternity leave.

When she fully steps into her new role as development director, she will build a robust fund development system that exceeds annual fundraising goals on a consistent basis. This will be done by sharing the school’s story with community members and funders.

She will also sustain meaningful connections within the community and foster new relationships with individuals, organizations, foundations, companies and community partners who want to share in their investment to revitalize the Salish language.

Parkin said Peltier will help them get onto a sustainable funding footing, and they can only do that if people hear about and join them in their efforts.

“I am excited to utilize my skills and experience to build upon the strong development strategies that are currently in place,” she said. “I’m also excited to start taking Salish language classes.”

Previously, she held development and community engagement positions with several local community organizations. These included Eastern Washington University Center for Entrepreneurial Activities, Goodwill Industries of the Inland Northwest Mentoring Programs, Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, Upstream USA, Camp Fire Inland Northwest and City of Spokane City Council.

Track record of innovation

“Over the years working in the nonprofit sector, I have found that I have a knack for launching new initiatives and for evaluating systems within organizations by identifying which mechanisms are working well and what could be altered to be more effective in reaching the desired outcomes,” Peltier said.

At EWU, she launched the Spokane Business Assistance Program for the Center for Entrepreneurial Activities while she was a graduate student in the Urban and Regional Planning program. At Goodwill she helped grow the youth mentoring programs to include families impacted by parental incarceration and students with disabilities.

During her time at Planned Parenthood she overhauled the development department to increase annual fundraising and ran the capital campaign to build a new $5 million Health and Community Education center in Spokane.

At Upstream USA she helped launch Upstream Washington, a statewide initiative to increase access to contraception and overhauled the development department to increase fundraising at Camp Fire.

At the Spokane City Council, under the direction of Lisa Gardner, director of communications and community engagement, she helped launch the American Recovery Plan Act Community Engagement plan to gather information and listen to stakeholders concerning how the City of Spokane should allocate the over $80 million in ARPA funds they received.

“I thrive when I am launching a new initiative and/or finding ways to make departments more effective in reaching the desired outcomes,” she said.

Wiley (Sinixt), co-founder and former director of the school, said she is excited about all the connections they are going to be able to make with funders and community members who are looking for ways to connect with organizations that are doing justice work.

“In these times, there’s a lot of social and political shifts happening in the United States and the world, and as old systems melt away we have to be actively building something that is a vision for the future for our kids, grandkids and generations to follow,” Parkin said.

Wiley and Parkin, who are also married, said Peltier is a highly skilled individual with a lot of contacts and a strong network who is great with people and a team player.

Peltier said she loves making connections and anyone interested in partnering with the school are encouraged to reach out to her at (509) 808-6438 or joy@salishschoolofspokane.org.

“I have heard LaRae Wiley say, ‘It took many hands to push our language and our culture down, and it will take many hands to lift it back up again. We invite you to partner with us to restore what was nearly lost,’ ” she said.