Gerald Dillon, 18, Helps as Teaching Assistant in Puyallup, Wash.

📆 7/12/2026 6:09 AM

Education News

Gerald Dillon, Chief Leschi Schools, Puyallup

📆7/12/2026 6:09 AM

📰Source: wjxt4

⏱74 sec. here / 183 min. at publisher

📊News: 97% · Publisher: 63%

Gerald Dillon, a Chief Leschi Schools senior, serves as a teaching assistant in a culture class for second graders. He helps during a weaving exercise and listens to students describe the parts of their Play-Doh insect. Gerald Dillon finds renewed purpose to come to school everyday and is considering going to college for a teaching degree.

Chief Leschi Schools senior Gerald Dillon, 18, helps during a weaving exercise in a culture class for second grade rs as he serves as a teaching assistant through the school's career and technical education program, Wednesday, March 18, 2026, at Chief Leschi Schools in Puyallup, Wash.

Gerald Dillon, who serves as a teaching assistant through the school's career and technical education program, listens to a second grade student describe the parts of their Play-Doh insect in class. Gerald Dillon gets a hug from a second grade student as he serves as a teaching assistant through the school's career and technical education program. Names of tribes are seen on the walls of a culture classroom at Chief Leschi Schools.

A story pole is seen in the middle of a sacred circle at the center of campus at Chief Leschi Schools. During his senior year of high school on the Puyallup Reservation, Gerald Dillon traded much of his academic coursework for career training. Gerald Dillon found renewed purpose to come to school everyday. Gerald Dillon graduated in June from Chief Leschi Schools in Washington and is now considering going to college for a teaching degree.

The surge in graduation rates reflects, in part, more accurate reporting rather than a sudden leap in student academic improvement. The school launched its career and technical curriculum in 2020 with funding from the Puyallup Tribal Council. The way graduation rates are reported across BIE schools was changed to address flawed data collection that previously depressed the numbers.

The planned dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education and continued fallout from cuts instituted by DOGE could undermine progress and prevent struggling schools from improving

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