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About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 29, 2019)
OUR 112th Year November 29, 2019 SEASIDESIGNAL.COM Pickleball big in Seaside, too PICKLEBALL CRAZE SWEEPS GEARHART By R.J. MARX Seaside Signal C amp Rilea was closed for the day and pickleball players sought an alternate place to play. They found it in Gearhart last Wednesday, Nov. 20, a decidedly chilly but bright and sunny day, fi ll- ing the new pickleball courts as tennis players volleyed on the tennis court to the west. “We usually go to Camp Rilea on Wednesday mornings, but Camp Rilea By R.J. MARX Seaside Signal P ickleball is big in Gear- hart but don’t underes- timate its popularity in Seaside. Along with pickleball, sports popular at the rec district for adults include a coed softball league, open gym basketball and drop-in soccer. Numbers are staying the same or staying even, she said, with the exception of one sport: pickle- ball. That’s on the rise, according to Sunset Empire Park and Recreation District’s Grace Lee, manager of recreation and community programs. R.J. Marx Pickleball advocate Wally Hamer, right, on the court in Gearhart. is closed,” enthusiast Wally Hamer, wearing shorts and carrying a rac- quet, said between matches. “Since the weather is good, we’re out here tak- ing advantage of our courts. We’ve had over 80 people in the last few months on these courts.” Pickleball, similar to tennis, is an 11-point game and described as a cross between ping-pong and tennis. The sport fi rst came before the coun- cil when Hamer and others approached the City Council in May, proposing alterations to Gearhart’s two existing tennis courts to facilitate pickleball play. In August, the council unanimously voted to modify the tennis courts, keep- ing both tennis while adding lines for two pickleball courts to the east court. Two rollaway pickleball nets create a multiuse court. Hamer had high praise for the new Gearhart courts. “They’re fantastic. The surface is really nice. It’s true.” Hamer will continue to pursue options for pickleball courts at Gear- hart Elementary School. “Pickleball is a great recreational game. We’re just looking to get people out and playing.” SEASIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT New targets for performance Goal to put students on graduation path By KATHERINE LACAZE For Seaside Signal After a “do-over” for sixth- and ninth-grade students, the Seaside School District set new targets for performance in math- ematics and literacy. The district previously adopted goals based on the stra- tegic plan for the 2019-20 school year in August with the exception of the math and reading targets for the sixth and ninth grades, which they reviewed at the Tues- day, Nov. 26 board meeting. “The results we got on our baseline assessment at the end of the year just didn’t make sense,” Superintendent Sheila Roley said during the board meeting Nov. 19. Roley added when they gave the fi rst test to students, staff were still learning to use the new system and not confi dent they had administered the assessment “in the way we needed to.” To reach the fi rst goal of the strategic plan, which is that by 2024 all students will be on track to graduate and be prepared with a plan beyond high school, the district is setting more specifi c performance indicators for each school year. They readministered the assessment and “the results made way more sense,” Roley said. “We also had a much better sense of working with the program.” Based on the results of the new assessment, the administra- tion recommended a goal for the $1.00 2019-20 school year of seeing the percent of students meeting academic targets increase from: • 61% to 72% in sixth-grade math; • 40% to 60% in ninth-grade math; • 57% to 65% in sixth-grade literacy; • 44% to 64% in ninth-grade literacy. The third-grade targets — which include increases from 53% to 63% in math and 36% to 51% in literacy — stayed the same for the 2019-20 school year, and students were not reassessed. According to Roley, the dis- trict is exploring its curricu- lum and instructional practices for mathematics and working to make improvements. See Targets, Page A6 Two new courts were installed in the spring of 2018, located just behind the Seaside Youth Center off of Broadway. Nets, paddles and balls are available for check- out at the front desk of Sunset Pool. Drop-in games take place every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to noon. “This pickleball tournament in April 2020 will be our second year,” Lee said at the Tuesday, Nov. 19 district board meeting. “We wrote a grant to the city of Seaside that gave us $5,000 to run it the fi rst year, this year it’s being funded again because it went really well. I’m hoping in three years it will sustain itself. We had 65 people the fi rst year. I’m expecting 100 the next.” Beacon on Broadway is city’s newest event space By R.J. MARX Seaside Signal The building at 735 Broad- way fi rst went on the tax rolls in Seaside 100 years ago, in January 1920, Neighbors at clothing store Selnes and Wheatley were offer- ing a special sale on underwear and shoes. Down the street at the Strand Theatre, fi lmgoers were watching “Woman in the Suitcase” and “Can- nibals of the South Seas.” The 3000-square-foot event space sits on the second fl oor of Beacon on Broadway, which fi rst opened as the Beacon Hotel a cen- tury ago. The Moose Lodge occu- pied the space for many years before purchase by owner Ron Hoxie. “It was a bigger project than we R.J. Marx expected it to be, but it turned out really beautiful,” Beacon on Broad- way manager Angi Wildt said at the See Beacon, Page A6 New names for the schools on the hill Broadway becomes ‘Seaside Middle School’ By KATHERINE LACAZE Seaside Signal CONFIDENTIAL BALLOT ‘I had a second-grader say to me, “I can’t tell you what I voted on because it’s my personal choice and I keep it to myself.”’ — Susan Penrod The deafening cheers of more than 700 elementary-aged students perme- ated the gymnasium at The Heights Elementary School on Wednesday, Nov. 20, during a joint assembly with Gearhart Elementary School at which the school’s new name, mascot and colors were revealed. Effective July 1, the Seaside School District’s elementary school at the new campus will be called Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School, while Broad- way Middle School is being renamed Seaside Middle School to refl ect the relocation. The new elementary school’s col- ors, as approved by the Seaside School District’s board of directors during their Nov. 19 meeting, will be turquoise, black and silver, while the middle school will transition to white, black, and Columbia blue. During the joint assembly, led by Seaside School Board member Brian Taylor and fi fth-grade teacher Brett Deur, it was also revealed that the new See Mascot, Page A6 Katherine Lacaze The new mascot for Seaside’s elementary school, which will be renamed Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School eff ective July 1, is the puffi n. The new Seaside Middle School will retain the sharks as their mascot.