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Wednesday, May 20, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Boater deaths Clark and Smith step into board positions
has worked in the St. Charles
on decline
By Jim Cornelius
Medical Center’s emergency
room lab.
in oregon;
Amanda Clark and Jeff
She has done a lot of study
Smith were unopposed in in early childhood develop-
the May 19 election for the ment, and she has watched the
education
Sisters School Board. That community debate over the
News Editor
SALEM (AP) — Seven
people were killed during
recreational boating accidents
in Oregon last year, the low-
est number since 1990.
Six of the fatal accidents
took place on a river, one
was on a lake, while four
involved motorized boats and
three were related to non-
motorized craft, the Salem
Statesman-Journal reported.
The numbers come from
data released by the Oregon
State Marine Board and the
U.S. Coast Guard.
A number of factors
likely contributed to the
falling number of fatalities
in Oregon, marine board
spokeswoman Ashley Massey
said. The number of regis-
tered motorboats has dropped
to 166,664 from over 197,000
in 1997.
Massey also pointed to a
mandatory education require-
ment that since 2009 has
required everyone operating
a motorboat with an engine
over 10 horsepower to take a
safety course.
“We’ve seen a nice little
decrease in accidents in that
time period,” Massey said.
“What we’re seeing is that
education is working, and we
want that to continue.”
While the number of fatal
accidents in motorized boats
has been steadily dropping,
the number of people killed
in accidents involving non-
motorized craft has been
rising.
means that Smith will retain
the seat to which he was
appointed last year, and Clark
will take on Position No. 5.
Clark has wasted no time
ramping up for her new job,
familiarizing herself with the
policy issues that will con-
front the district in the years
to come. One of those is the
implementation of Common
Core standards.
“Common Core is here,
and that’s something I’m
spending a lot of my time
learning about,” she said.
The mother of a kinder-
gartner and a second-grader,
Clark got involved in discus-
sions at regular informal “cof-
fees” with Superintendent Jim
Golden.
“I started going to the
superintendent meetings and I
just really enjoyed the interac-
tion that I had there,” she said.
From that interaction,
she has been part of a group
working on developing a
consistent, holistic home-
work philosophy across all
three schools. And that led to
throwing her hat in the ring
for a school board seat. She’s
also working on the superin-
tendent selection committee
working on finding Golden’s
successor.
Clark grew up in Eddyville
as her father served as a dis-
trict attorney on the coast.
She worked for an ambulance
service, where she met her
firefighter husband. He took
a job in Central Oregon and
they moved here. Amanda
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recently failed school bond
with considerable interest.
“I’m passionate about
this stuff,” she said. “I love
this community. We’ve been
here three-and-a-half years
and one of the things that I
love about this community is
how invested they are in the
schools.”
She doesn’t believe that
the failure of the bond means
the community is losing that
willingness to invest in the
schools, and she thinks the
district should consider going
out for a bond again — but
with a different configuration.
“I think we need to pick
and choose a little,” she said.
“I think it needs to be on a
smaller level.”
She notes that, as a par-
ent of elementary school stu-
dents, she can attest that the
needs at that facility are real.
“There’s a lot of issues
there,” she said.
“I think we’re really going
to have to look at scaling
down (a bond ask) a little
more,” Clark said. “If we
listen, we can put together a
bond that will pass.”
That’s pretty much Smith’s
take, too.
“I think we go out for a
bond asking for fewer dol-
lars — and a bond that sup-
ports activities that are central
to the core (of education in
Sisters),” he told The Nugget.
Smith served for more
than a decade on the school
board previously and stepped
back into the arena in part to
photo provided
Jeff Smith.
bring institutional memory to
the school board.
“I think the district needs
better connection with the
past, to the history,” he said.
“Not that we follow the past,
but that we learn from it and
understand how we got where
we are.”
Smith is optimistic that the
toughest times associated with
the recession and a decline in
enrollment are behind the dis-
trict. He believes that enroll-
ment will pick up with the
economy.
However, he noted, there
are caveats. He notes that
online and other alternative
forms of education are com-
peting for enrollment. He
believes the schools need to
focus on student retention.
“Students are more
technologically mobile than
in the past,” he said. “I think
we need to improve our deliv-
ery of online options … inte-
grate classrooms with more
online opportunities.”
Smith observes that
Sisters Country has a wealth
of human capital, and he
would like to see the district
do more to leverage the kind
of involvement seen with the
Sisters Folk Festival and the
Sisters Science Club.
“We need to be welcoming
to the community,” he said.
“We need to create opportuni-
ties for the community to be
involved in school activities.
I think we need to encourage
people to be in our buildings.
That kind of welcoming atti-
tude will encourage people to
step forward.”
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