October 7, 2016
CapitalPress.com
11
Oregon
Backers say Measure 98 will expand ag and vocational classes
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
CLACKAMAS,
Ore.
— Clackamas High School
southeast of Portland has an ag
program other schools envy,
with a 10-acre farm, livestock,
apple trees, greenhouses, a
wonderful old barn and other
outbuildings.
Teacher Kathy Mayield
has had to ight for it, and sa-
vors the prospect of voters
approving Measure 98, which
would provide at least $800
annually per student for high
school career and technical ed-
ucation (CTE) programs, col-
lege-level courses and dropout
prevention programs.
The measure, on the state-
wide November ballot, would
establish the High School
Graduation and College and
Career Readiness Fund as part
of the state’s general fund bud-
get. Money for the program
would come from anticipated
increases in state revenue.
Agriculture teachers and
many others involved in voca-
tional training strongly support
the measure, citing workforce
needs in the technical trades
and a segment of students
who reach a dead end in high
school.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Clackamas High School ag teacher Kathy Mayield, center, gives
directions to students Lauren Dale, left, and Remi Lam. The school
district operates a 10-acre farm that has cows, sheep, chickens,
apple trees, garden and a large old barn.
Mayield said she has con-
versations with parents who
tell her the Clackamas ag pro-
gram “saved my child.”
“I think that goes across the
board with CTE,” Mayield
said. “It provides a relevan-
cy to education that they just
aren’t getting. All of sudden,
math makes sense and science
makes sense.”
At Sutherlin High School in
Southern Oregon, agriculture
teacher Wes Crawford said
the real-world application of
technical ed “lips the tables”
for students who struggle with
traditional academic courses
or tune out at school.
“Everyone is a lot more
equal,” Crawford said. “Some-
times this is what gets them
through their day.”
His program in Sutherlin
has four paths: animal science,
which includes veterinary
science; plant science, which
includes forestry; agri-busi-
ness; and a sector dealing with
power structures and technol-
ogy, which includes welding
classes. In a school of 410 stu-
dents, about 135 are enrolled
in Crawford’s classes.
At Clackamas, Mayield
and her husband, Wynn, the
school’s other ag teacher, of-
fer three years of animal sci-
ence classes and advanced
ag in the inal year. Mayield
said animals draw students in,
but they’re also exposed to a
well-rounded program that in-
cludes soil science, marketing,
tractor driving and other as-
pects of ag. Students raise and
market beef, while beginners
press the farm’s apples into ci-
der, which is sold as well.
But Mayield said she and
her husband handle classes
of 35 students. Passage of the
measure might provide money
to repair rotting greenhouse
walls and add more staff; an
instructor-to-student ratio of
1-to-20 or so would be desir-
able, she said.
The measure has broad
support, including endorse-
ments from construction trade
unions, newspaper editorial
boards, the Latino Network,
Coalition of Communities of
Color and Ecumenical Minis-
tries of Oregon, among others.
An analysis from the
League of Women Voters said
Oregon’s 72 percent gradua-
tion rate in 2014 was the fourth
worse in the U.S., and Ore-
gon’s per-student spending has
dropped 5 percent since 2010.
The League said auto shop,
wood and metal shop, culinary
arts and robotics classes have
been “signiicantly reduced”
over the past 20 years.
Data from the Oregon De-
partment of Education showed
that students who earned at
least one CTE credit in high
school have a graduation rate
more than 15 percent higher
than the state average, accord-
ing to the League’s analysis.
The difference “tends to be
more dramatic for low income
and minority students who
have taken CTE,” the League
said.
Opposition has been low
key. A committee studying
Measure 98 for the inluen-
tial Portland City Club split
5-5 on an endorsement vote,
with some members saying
the measure was too narrow-
ly focused but all agreeing the
current state of education in
Oregon “threatens the state’s
future and economy.”
1/18
The City Club’s full mem-
bership, however, overrode
the committee’s concern and
voted to endorse the measure.
Elsewhere, the Crook Coun-
ty School Board in Central
Oregon declined to endorse
the measure. Both candidates
for governor, incumbent Kate
Brown and Bud Pierce, sup-
port it.
Vocational education can be
a “real life-changer” for young
people, said Bridget Quinn,
workforce development coor-
dinator for a Portland training
center jointly operated by the
National Electrical Contrac-
tors Association and the Inter-
national Brotherhood of Elec-
trical Workers.
Quinn became a licensed
journeyman electrician in
2008 after completing an ap-
prenticeship program. “I had
never heard anything in high
school about this as a possible
career,” she said. “I’m trying
to deliver the information that,
quite frankly, I missed out on.”
The contractor-union co-
alition operating the training
center supports Measure 98,
she said.
Many high school gradu-
ates haven’t held a tool in their
hands and aren’t prepared to
enter the trades, which in some
cases have been stigmatized as
“only for losers couldn’t make
into college,” Quinn said. The
stereotype of the “cat-calling
construction worker” hasn’t
helped, she said.
But the construction trades
need workers, because up to a
third of the workforce will be
retiring in he coming years as
baby boomers reach the end of
their careers, she said.
She welcomes the swing
back to career and technical
education in high school.
“For a very long time it re-
ceived cuts,” Quinn said. “The
irst thing cut from the budget
was auto shop, wood shop and
metal shop.”
Owyhee
Irrigation
District
accused of
shorting
water
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
41-1/#4N
The Owyhee Irrigation
District in Oregon’s Malheur
County is accused in a lawsuit
of delivering insuficient wa-
ter to a farming couple, caus-
ing $200,000 in crop losses.
Delos and Barbara Lee
have iled a complaint al-
leging the irrigation district
delivered fewer than 80 acre-
feet of water to their 95-acre
farm in 2014 even though
they were allocated to receive
142.5 acre-feet that year.
The complaint, iled in
Malheur County Circuit
Court, claims that the Lees
received their allocated 152
acre-feet in 2015, but miscal-
culations by the district re-
sulted in “no water delivery of
water during certain months
in which Lee otherwise would
have received water.”
The lawsuit accuses the
district of negligence and
breach of contract and seeks
$200,000 in damages.
Jay Chamberlin, manag-
er of the Owyhee Irrigation
District, said he’s away from
the ofice at a conference and
hasn’t yet read the complaint.
Delivering water has
been a challenge during re-
cent droughts, he said. “The
drought has caused a tremen-
dous hardship on our ag pro-
ducers.”
In the 2014 and 2015
growing seasons, about 27
percent of the acres served by
the district were idled because
of a lack of irrigation water,
Chamberlin said.
The situation improved in
2016 but farmers have faced
lower prices for hay, cat-
tle, grains and corn, he said.
“It’s almost like a two-edged
sword.”