MARYSVILLE — Call it a pep rally for teachers.

About a week before they head back into classrooms and offices across the district, hundreds of Marysville School District staffers packed into the stadium at Marysville-Pilchuck High School on Aug. 25.

At one point, partly he said to help keep them warm on a crisp, overcast morning, school Board of Directors member Donald Hatch had the crowd stand up and do the wave.

More seriously, playing off the recent summer Olympic games, Assistant Superintendent Gail Miller kicked off the event by highlighting the accomplishments of Marysville-Pilchuck grad Haley Nemra.

Nemra took part in the Olympic women’s 800 meter race in Beijing, China, representing her father’s country, the Marshall Islands.

Miller stated someone, somewhere had to have seen and encouraged the potential inside Nemra.

Unlocking student potential was, for the most part, the theme of the morning, a theme that carried into the keynote speech by another Marysville-Pilchuck grad, University of Arizona professor of psychology Stephanie Fryberg.

A member of the Tulalip Tribes, Fryberg is also an affiliate faculty member for American Indian Studies at the Arizona college.

Planning to return to Arizona and her own teaching duties later that same day, Fryberg said mixed emotions fill her at the beginning of each new school year, which she said can be a nine month marathon of teaching and mentoring.

“It also feels exciting to me,” she said. “It makes me reflect on the gift of being a teacher.”

A member of the Marysville-Pilchuck Class of 1989, Fryberg said she faced some hardships growing up on the Tulalip Reservation.

“For me school was a safe haven, a place where I was rewarded for my strengths,” she said, rattling off a list of teachers and coaches who inspired her.

“I never once felt like I didn’t have a balcony cheering for me,” Fryberg added.

As she worked towards her doctorate degree, Fryberg said she had plenty of opportunities to change the focus of her studies. She stayed in education, she said, in order to be able to give back to others what she felt she received from teachers here and elsewhere.

“I love what I do,” Fryberg said, “because I know it pays off.”

Fryberg has devoted a good deal of her academic career to studying cultural and minority issues in education. She said there is some bad news in that minorities continue to underachieve. Fryberg seems to think education trends reflect society as a whole, where minorities still suffer from poverty, high levels of incarceration and other similar societal problems.

In terms of helping minority students, Fryberg mentioned several key factors. Firstly, she claimed there is no silver bullet to solve the problems. Educators must take into account the unique environment around them. They also must be willing to confront and deal with stereotypes, which she said are not necessarily negative things.

As a practical example of how teachers should take cultural differences into account, Fryberg said her research – some of it apparently done in Marysville – shows that for the typical Caucasian student, there is a direct relationship between good grades and a feeling of independence. For Native Americans, the situation is very different.

According to Fryberg, among the Native population, students want to feel connected to their schools and their teachers. Those students do not generally realize what they need, Fryberg added, but teachers simply must.

Speaking prior to Fryberg, Marysville School Superintendent Larry Nyland said the district has worked hard in a couple of different areas, the most visible being new construction.

With the completion of both the new Grove Elementary School and the multi-school facility on the Tulalip Reservation, Nyland said some 1,100 Marysville students will begin the coming school year in brand new buildings. He added those buildings come complete with science labs, cafeterias and other amenities some students simply didn’t have last year.

Nyland also touched briefly on a tentative new contract with the Marysville teacher’s union and improved scores on state mandated testing.

“We are learning how to do great things,” he said.