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Wednesday, May 3, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
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The future of our schools
By Tiffany Lee Brown
Guest Columnist
Letters to the Editor…
The Nugget welcomes contributions from its readers, which must include the writer’s name, address and phone number. Let-
ters to the Editor is an open forum for the community and contains unsolicited opinions not necessarily shared by the Editor.
The Nugget reserves the right to edit, omit, respond or ask for a response to letters submitted to the Editor. Letters should be
no longer than 300 words. Unpublished items are not acknowledged or returned. The deadline for all letters is noon Monday.
Editor’s note: City Councilor Richard
Esterman requested a retraction of a story that
ran on March 29. The Nugget stands by the
story with a correction (see page 5). The fol-
lowing is a statement provided by Councilor
Esterman:
To the Editor:
At a March City Council meeting, City
Councilor Richard Esterman approached the
Council as a business owner and private citi-
zen, rather than as a councilor, to address an
issue regarding public events.
Specifically, Councilor Esterman requested
a fee waiver for the Sisters Wild West Show
due to the nature of the event which histori-
cally has translated into a large value for the
City due to increased traffic and tourism.
The Wild West Show is hosted by Councilor
Esterman’s business, Central Oregon Shows,
and is the only one of its kind in Sisters.
The event features nine performances which
are free to the public and popular with tour-
ists. The Wild West Show generally does
not make a profit considering the high
cost of overhead and free admission to the
public.
Central Oregon Shows has always applied
for event permits as a for-profit enterprise,
although a profit is rarely made. This is the
first year Councilor Esterman applied using a
charity’s non-profit status because the funds
generated during the event benefit that partic-
ular charity. The application was rejected, but
Councilor Esterman simply reapplied and paid
all fees due for a profit event.
At the outset, Councilor Esterman, by his
own volition, recognized his conflict of inter-
est and voluntarily recused himself from dis-
cussion and voting on the matter. However,
Mr. Esterman’s role as a City Councilor does
not prohibit him from participating as a citizen
or asking the Council to waive fees or sponsor
events that are beneficial to the community.
Richard Esterman
See LETTERS on page 20
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Could we, the people
of Sisters, help the schools
bolster their enrollment to
increase their funding?
The Nugget’s detailed
articles about enrollment
and funding help us realize
what’s at stake. To really get
involved, it would be great
to know how school fund-
ing operates in the state of
Oregon, what we can expect
from the new federal admin-
istration, and what regula-
tions our school district is
bound by (versus decisions
that the local school board
has made).
I would welcome an arti-
cle that explained in simple
terms how these things work;
a state school board member
I spoke with recently could
not point me to a resource
like that. She was very help-
ful and sent me some of their
internal documents.
What can I say? I was
completely overwhelmed. I
left with the impression that
various overlapping bureau-
cracies handle the money,
and that officially, they leave
a lot up to the local school
districts. In real life, though,
we know that each dollar is
somehow attached to stu-
dents’ attendance, and pub-
lic schools are constrained
by legal and ethical require-
ments to focus resources on
helping kids with disabilities
and working on remedial
learning.
If we understood the sys-
tem better, community mem-
bers might be able to help
keep our schools desirable
and competitive.
As a society we often
resist helping those who
struggle with poverty, lack
of education, or addiction.
We vote “yes” on building
more prisons and vote no
on strengthening the social
safety net. Many parents face
punishing work schedules and
immense caregiving respon-
sibilities. So the schools are
only partly about educating
our children. They’re also
compensating for huge ineq-
uities that shouldn’t exist in
the first place. They provide
food, medical exams, coun-
seling, stability, and comfort
to many children. Is it pos-
sible to do all that and be a
competitive institution that
privileged families support?
Your recent article men-
tioned a lack of affordable
housing in Sisters, which
pushes young families out.
This is partly due to our
town’s high numbers of retir-
ees from other, richer cities.
Could they become more
involved in the schools?
And should the Sisters City
Council require new devel-
opments to make multi-fam-
ily units and modest middle-
class housing part of Phase
I, instead of tacking them
onto the end of the building
process?
The article mentioned
competition from innova-
tive out-of-district transfer
schools, flexible online pro-
grams, and homeschool-
ing. Sisters schools already
have some incredible pro-
grams: the average student
in America isn’t learning
to write well-crafted songs,
make beautiful guitars, and
build Habitat for Humanity
homes! But the small-group,
multi-age classrooms and
active, outdoor environmental
focus of Black Butte School
up in Camp Sherman have
attracted a deep waiting list
for transfers. Down in Bend,
families jostle for a chance at
the environmentally focused
charter school Realms. Could
our elementary school feature
an outdoor-oriented sustain-
ability program? Could we
offer more flexible options
for families, making it logis-
tically easier to combine tra-
ditional school attendance
with homeschooling, private
schooling, and travel?
I’ve heard teenagers com-
plain of the lack of diver-
sity here in town, wanting
to transfer someplace that
actively welcomes LGBTQ
students and people of color.
Could Sisters keep those
kids here? Could we as a city
make it clear to visitors and
citizens alike that these beau-
tiful high desert skies are not
just for straight, white people
to enjoy?
Safety and health are con-
cerns, too. One family left
Sisters Elementary School
after the kids repeatedly
brought home norovirus,
causing the parents to lose
many work days; the school
did not respond with a mod-
ern, updated cleaning proto-
col. I have a mold allergy, and
I can tell you there is defi-
nitely mold in the elementary
school. If issues like these go
unaddressed, then families
with the means to do it may
go elsewhere.
How can we as a com-
munity support even more
opportunities for our kids, at
these wonderful schools full
of devoted teachers and staff,
and keep our students here in
town?
Opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and
are not necessarily shared by the Editor or The Nugget Newspaper.