2006-2007 Orange Book: Internet Directory
Rincon Indian Education Center

Rincon Indian Education Center

The Rincon Indian Education Center, Inc. located on the Rincon Reservation, is committed to serving Native American students and the Indian community, at large. The Center is focused on providing its constituents with the skills they will need to thrive in a demanding future.

A 501 (c) (3) non-profit community based organization founded in 1974, the Center is funded through federal and state grants and tribal grants from all of the tribes in the area. Funding sources include California Indian Education/ American Indian Education Dept., The 21st Century Community Learning Center, The National Even Start, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Johnson O’Malley Program.

With a staff of approximately 20 members, the Rincon Indian Education Center provides a wide range of programs designed to meet the needs of the more than 600 students and community members it serves. The Center prides itself in developing and offering classes that are responsive to the specific, real time needs of its constituents. For example, if a specific group of students need instruction in Algebra I, or a group of adults need to be more knowledgeable in early childhood education, the Center will accommodate those needs by assisting in the recruitment of teachers, tutors and mentors who offer the skills that are needed.

Other activities the Center sponsors are intertribal sports, sovereignty conferences and language classes. The Center offers English as a second language classes as well as classes in the Luiseno language. Luiseno was the language spoken for thousands of years in Southern California and, as such, is a language of significant historical importance.

The Center is currently working to create a master apprentice program for the Luiseno language. Last year the center published a Luiseno calendar and three children’s books published in both English and Luiseno.

The Rincon Indian Education Center is lead by Director Hun-Wut Michael Turner, an enrolled member of the Rincon Band. Turner was a successful student of the Education Center and was in the process of completing his teaching credential and master’s in education when the Center’s Director position became vacant. The state was ready to pull its grants because of the vacancy so Turner decided to take the position to keep the Center from clos- ing. He has been there now for almost nine years.

Hun-Wut Michael Turner has seen a lot of progress at the Education Center in those nine years. “Our efforts are to hold everyone more accountable these days,’ he says. “I think our Education Center has made our students and our community more accountable. It is letting the youth know about higher education, teaching them about their culture and their language. Whereas before, when you asked who knew the language, ten out of ten times they would say nobody. Now half of the time they can name someone they know who knows the language.”

The Center is governed by a board of directors: Chairman Terri Cueva, Vice Chair Nancy Arnold, Germaine Omish, and Jay Mendoza. It meets monthly, although not on a regular schedule. The public is invited.

The Center also publishes a monthly newsletter that contains a calendar, news of the Center and highlights accomplishments of the past month. In addition, the Center holds several fundraisers during the year. It also has a parent advisory committee that meets every other month to discuss what educational activities the youth are interested in doing and what kind of money must be raised to meet those needs. For instance recently the Center sent 12 students to the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico and did fundraisers all year long to make that trip possible.

RINCON INDIAN EDUCATION CENTER, 1 West Tribal Road, Valley Center CA 92082

P.O. Box 1147, Valley Center, CA 92082

760-749-1386 or 760-751-9921

Fax 760-749-8838

E-mail: rinconeducation@yahoo.com