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SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM | WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2022 | 3A Blind bison remembered for ‘love and acceptance’ Virginia Barreda Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Oregon’s beloved blind bison, Helen, passed away last week. The humped and bearded bison, who roamed the pastures of Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary near Scio, brought light and love to everyone she met, said sanctuary exec- utive director Gwen Jakubisin. “Anybody who was in the presence of her was automatically transfixed,” Jakubi- sin said. “She just had this incredible love that just sort of emanated from her. And she was so kind and so patient and so com- passionate.” Helen suffered from health issues, in- cluding reoccurring pneumonia, in the months before her passing but ultimately died of old age. She passed away peacefully in her recently-constructed barn on Jan. 24. She would have been 23 years old this year. Helen came to the sanctuary after spending her first 14 years in a pasture on Sunnyview Road, east of Salem. She was cared for since she was four days old by Li- sa Miller and her husband, Victor, who had saved her from certain death. Miller convinced Paul Drake, former owner of Grandkid Acres in Sublimity, not to euthanize Helen when she was born at his amateur zoo more than two decades ago. “They were going to destroy her because she was blind. But I cried long and hard enough over her that Paul gave in and let me keep her,” Miller previously told the Gwen Jakubisin, the executive director of Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, walks with Oliver, a calf born in February, in a field on the farm near Scio, Ore., on Friday, June 2, 2017. Oliver has befriended Helen, a blind bison, who had never warmed up to other animals on the farm until she met Oliver. ANNA REED / STATESMAN JOURNAL Statesman Journal. The Millers raised Helen on their prop- erty. But Miller became unable to care for Helen due to injuries Miller sustained in a 2011 traffic accident on Interstate 5. In 2014, Helen was loaded into a trailer, left the only pasture she had known since birth, and moved to the Lighthouse sanctuary. Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, a non-prof- it organization dedicated to animal rescue and rehabilitation, has been around for 21 years and cares for more than 350 animals, making it the oldest and largest sanctuary in the state. Pigs, goats, sheep, horses, cows, donkeys and birds live on the 54-acre farm. When Jakubisin took over as the exec- utive director in 2014, the sanctuary was on the verge of foreclosure. An examination of the books revealed the sanctuary was $6,000 behind on its mortgage. Jakubisin moved into the on-site house with her part- ner shortly after Helen’s arrival. For Jakubisin, losing Helen was losing her best friend. “She’s been a part of my life every day,” she said. “Every day starts with feeding her breakfast and giving her snacks, and every day ends with me tucking her in and saying good night to her.” “Queen Helen,” as she was affectionate- ly nicknamed, spent her days grazing pas- tures, munching on apples and grain sand- wiches. The fact that she was blind never hin- dered her. In fact, Helen could smell a watermelon from across the field, Jakubisin said. Helen befriended and nurtured a few animals during her time at the sanctuary, including Oliver, a calf born on the farm. Before Oliver, Helen wasn’t really connect- ing with any other animals, Jakubisin said. When they met, Helen immediately be- gan grooming him. “Everything changed for Helen at that moment,” Jakubisin said. “She was like su- per-momma. Her disposition completely changed. She was more joyful.” The companionship catapulted Helen to national and international fame. Hers and Oliver’s story was featured in outlets such as the Smithsonian Channel and The Dodo. Jakubisin largely credits the recovery and success of the sanctuary to Helen and her story. “People loved her so much and her story brought people to us,” she said. “They would find out about what we do and they would support us.” Helen’s other best pals on the farm in- cluded a pig named Uma and a 3-year-old calf named Italo, who was by Helen’s side until the end. “The loss of her presence is immense for us,” Jakubisin said. But she finds peace knowing Helen was loved her entire life, from the day she was rescued by Lisa until the end of her life at the sanctuary. “Helen was love and acceptance. She was absolute magic,” she said. The sanctuary is accepting memories and goodbyes to write in Helen’s barn in her honor. Anyone who would like to contrib- ute a message to Helen, may send it to in- fo@lighthousefarmsanctuary.org with the subject line “For Helen”. The sanctuary is accepting monetary donations in honor of the bison, which will go to care for the animals housed on the farm. To learn more about Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, visit https://www.lighthouse- farmsanctuary.org/. Former Statesman Journal opinions ed- itor Carol McAlice Currie contributed to this story. Virginia Barreda is the breaking news and public safety reporter for the States- man Journal. She can be reached at 503- 399-6657 or at vbarreda@statesmanjour- nal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @vbarreda2. Home school Continued from Page 1A of 5.6 percentage points and a doubling of U.S. households that were home schooling at the start of the 2020-2021 school year compared to the prior year,” the report states. Oregon is a relatively easy state to home-school in, Newhouse said. When a family wants to home-school their child, all they have to do is let their local Education Service District know by submitting a letter of intent to home- school and register. In Oregon, the Department of Educa- tion does not compile home schooling numbers for the state. Officials said numbers are only available at each indi- vidual Education Service District, where families register their students. Willamette ESD, which supports 21 districts in Marion, Polk and Yamhill counties and their 81,000 students, saw an increase of 45% since 2017. In 2017-2018 there were 4,185 home- schooled students. This rose to 6,097 in 2020-2021. Through December this school year’s numbers remain high, with 6,066 home-schooled students, or about 7.5% of students supported by Willamette ESD. Newhouse said while some service districts saw growth of about 4%, other ESDs reported a 70% increase of home- school enrollment through the pandem- ic. Myriad reasons to homeschool People have many reasons for want- ing to home-school: social pressure such as bullying, developmental delays or other challenges, students excelling above their grade level, realizing chil- dren do better in smaller environments or needing more one-on-one education- al help. It also can be useful for students who have a very specific focus such as music or performance arts to be able to tailor their education around performance and practice schedules. “One of the beauties of home school- ing is how very flexible it is and how adaptable it is to different kids and dif- ferent personalities,” Newhouse said. The increased interest in home schooling is reflected in Oregon Home Education Network Facebook group. Before the pandemic, the OHEN group had about 2,000 members, Newhouse said. But now, it’s grown to 7,500 mem- bers. “For those first two, three months at the end of the 2019-2020 school year, nobody really knew what to do with school kids and everybody was home,” Newhouse said. “Parents were doing their best trying to figure out what school was and how to teach kids. For some, it came naturally. For some, they just said ‘OK, you’re done for the year,’ and then a lot of people turned to the home schooling community.” OHEN is a nonprofit volunteer-run organization and resource network for Oregon home-schoolers to connect with each other, get information and follow legislation. They also organize social events for home-schooled students such as proms, costume skate parties and field trips. Newhouse has been with OHEN for about 15 years and home-schooled her own children – her son, for a few years, and her daughter (who is now in college) all through high school. “I ran into home schooling almost ac- cidentally, because of various difficul- Will Vanlue, right, and his 6-year-old son Charlie high-five after completing a school exercise at their home in Springfield. Vanlue has found having a dedicated spot for Charlie to work, including an old school desk, helps the experience. CHRIS PIETSCH/THE EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD ties with the logistics of school, and dis- covered that there was a whole move- ment, a community for home-school- ers, and the option for me to develop my own or my kids’ own learning path and work toward their individual strengths and abilities and interests was very ex- citing for me,” she said. Home schooling does require the time and resources to be able to stay home with children, so it doesn’t work for everyone. Newhouse said public school is still a great option for those who want to go, but with the myriad concerns around COVID-19, more families have been con- sidering a switch if they can. How it works in Oregon Because Oregon statute allows fam- ilies to choose their children’s educa- tional path, once they register to home- school they get to decide what and how to teach. The state does not have graduation requirements for home-schooled stu- dents and ESDs do not issue them high school diplomas. Parents can issue their own home- school diploma, where they determine what the graduation requirements are. Parents also can contact their local high school to see if district policy would al- low them to be given a diploma. Home-schooled students can take the GED tests under certain circum- stances, according to the Oregon De- partment of Education. Another thing parents who are home schooling need to consider is setting educational goals and tracking what material their child has covered to meet those goals. This is helpful in creating a transcript or records of their student’s coursework. Home-school records and documen- tation are not a part of the student’s per- manent public school records, and the Oregon Department of Education does not keep home-school records. Newhouse said many home-school- ers choose at the end of high school to sign up with a dual-enrollment program with a community college. Dual-enroll- ment classes enable high school stu- dents to take classes at a local college and potentially earn college credit. “There are a lot of home-schoolers who by the time they hit 17 or 18 years old, they’ve already got a year or two’s worth of credits from the community college and can transfer into a four-year college or university with those credits,” she said. The state does require home-school- ers be tested at the end of grades three, five, eight and 10. It’s a standardized test, but not the same as the state tests that are done every year, Newhouse said. If a child scores under the 50th per- centile, meaning they can hardly an- swer any questions, Newhouse said, then the ESD may ask that they do an- other test the following year to see if there’s any improvement. If there’s no improvement, they have another year to test again. If they still test poorly, the state may require that the parents meet with a team to determine if home schooling really is the best way for the child to learn. Pandemic reinforces the choice Springfield parent Will Vanlue and his wife already were considering home schooling their children before the pan- demic hit. But once it became clear that COVID-19 was not waning, they realized their instinct to home-school was right for them. “My wife works for a medical group here in town, and since I had the time, I wanted to do that, especially when my kids are younger,” he said. “When (CO- VID-19) hit, we were really happy that this was our plan all along because in some ways, our routine just stayed the same even during the lockdown.” Vanlue has two children: Charlie, who is 6, and Ada, who is 3. It made sense for him to become a stay-at-home dad, he said, so he could teach Charlie and not have to worry about finding child care for Ada. The pandemic made some things more inconvenient and time-consum- ing as schools tried their best to respond to COVID-19 protocols, Vanlue said, and some of their friends’ kindergartners were having difficulty distance learning. “Then up until recently, until my old- er child was vaccinated (for COVID-19). I was really nervous about them being in large groups of other kids,” he said. Home schooling also has allowed Vanlue new insight into his children’s personalities and how his son learns. Charlie doesn’t like to sit down for long periods of time and has trouble learning things he isn’t interested in. “So, if he wants to learn about sharks one week, and the lesson was dinosaurs in the classroom, I think he would just zone out and maybe even be a bit of a problem to the teacher,” Vanlue said. “But I can talk to him and I can say, ‘What do we want to learn about this week?’ Or there are some ways I can sneak in lessons that don’t feel like homework, so instead of practicing handwriting on worksheets so to speak, we were able to address packages and write to family.” They also supplement the regular home schooling with activities such as outdoor school through Whole Earth Nature School’s Coyote Kids program. “It’s amazing because my 6-year-old now when we go on hikes is like, ‘Hey Dad, that plant’s edible. We can eat the leaves and they taste like cucumber!’” Vanlue said. “He’s identifying plants and animals and things that I don’t know, and that’s really, really cool.” For more information about home schooling, visit OHEN’s website at ohen.org or the state’s at oregon.gov/ ode/learning-options/HomeSchool. Contact reporter Jordyn Brown at jbrown@registerguard.com or 541-246- 4264, and follow her on Twitter @thejor- dynbrown and Instagram @register- guard.
