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About Illinois Valley news. (Cave City, Oregon) 1937-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 2003)
I.V. schools soaring in academics Burglary suspects captured By STEVE FAIRCHILD Staff Writer Two boys were ar- rested on Friday, Aug. 22 for alleged involvement in several recent burglaries in Downtown Cave Junction. In investigating tips about the suspects from burglary victims, Jose- phine County Sheriff’s Deputy John Auborn, who serves as the contract dep- uty for the city, arrested one of the boys, from the Cave Junction area. Another boy was ar- rested on a JoCo warrant in Humboldt County, Calif. Both boys are cur- rently lodged in the Juve- nile Justice Center in Grants Pass. The identity of the two youngsters in being withheld due to further investigation and addi- tional suspect contact. Further information given to Auborn identifies other boys as suspects as well. “We are still doing some follow-up investiga- tions because there are still some boys out there that they need to capture,” said Sheriff Dave Daniel. “We’re doing a continuing investigation and I don’t want to jeopardize it (by releasing the names.) We are anticipating new ar- rests.” Daniel said the names of those arrested will be released. He added that the arrests will put a dent in the crime ring but some burglars continue to cause problems in the valley. “Capturing these two clears up some burglaries,” he said. “But there have been some burglaries that they are not involved in.” He also said most of the stolen property from the two individuals has already been “disposed of” by them. Businesses burglarized in the recent rash of crimes include CJ Video and Ra- dio Shack, Bear Images, La Caverna, Dave’s Per- fect Pizza, Puff-N-Stuff and others. Several of these busi- ness owners attended a workshop held at Cave Junction City Hall and sponsored by the city council on Thursday, Aug. 21 to discuss how to pro- tect the community against such crimes. Some business owners, as well as several in the audience, asked Daniel, who attended the forum, why Josephine County couldn’t have more depu- ties patrol Cave Junction during the most critical times. Bottom line, Daniel responded, was that there is not enough money for more patrols, period. He told the group that the best and most immedi- ate way to alleviate the problem is with citizen (Continued on page 8) GRIDIRON WARRIORS -- Members of the Illinois Valley High School Cougars varsity football team began practicing twice a day on Mon- day, Aug. 18, in preparation of their opening game set for Friday, Aug. 29 at Reedsport against the Reedsport High School Braves. Kickoff time for the big game is 7 p.m. Members of the offensive and defensive line practice line drills (photo above) and Natty Krauss, a running back and linebacker, catches a pass from his quarterback (photo right). The Cougars will return for their home field opener at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 6, against Blanchet High School at IVHS. The Cougars finished with a win-loss record of 4-5 overall and 2-4 in the Skyline Conference last season and are coached for the second consecutive year by Bob Thornhill. Accord- ing to Thornhill, the Cougars are welcoming back five returning starters who play on both offense and defense. The starting quar- terback for the Cougars is Josh Coronado. More related photos on page 8. (Photos by Steve Fairchild) Both Evergreen Elementary and Illinois Valley High schools have new principals this year JoAnn Bethany (formerly Soerheide) Bethany grew up in Grants Pass and lived in Alaska for 23 years before returning to GP in 1992. Teaching background: Taught at Lorna Byrne Mid- dle School from 1992-1994. Spent 1995, her third year at LBMS, as a student coun- selor. Bethany noted her students at LBMS were some of the best she’s ever worked with. “I fell in love with those kids,” she said. After leaving LBMS, Bethany earned her administra- tion degree and license and began working at the Three Rivers School District administration office. She was there for several years, during which time one of her roles was as coordinator of the district’s Talented and Gifted program. Many already at IVHS will recognize her from last year as the assistant principal. “I was thrilled to come back out here,” Bethany said of returning to a valley school. Goals for IVHS: Having had a handful of principals in the last several years, Bethany said one of her goals for the high school is to bring some stability to its leadership. “I am committed to staying at this school until I re- tire,” she said, noting that will be at least the next seven years. Bethany said she also hopes to improve attendance, by “helping make high school a place they (students) want to be.” Several programs, which are either new this year, or have been implemented within the last year, will help achieve that goal. (Editor’s note: more about these programs will follow in coming issues.) Interview by Britt Fairchild Lise Van Brunt Teaching background: In her 24th year of her educa- tion career, Van Brunt has held a variety of positions both as a teacher and admin- istrator. She most recently helped lead Evergreen for two years as its assistant principal. Prior to coming to Ever- green, she spent three years at Manzanita Elementary School in Merlin. While there, she taught kindergarten and first grade and was also a Title I teacher. She also spent one year as a principal of a school in Southern California. Earlier in her career, Van Brunt worked as an educa- tional consultant and was a language arts mentor for four years for a school district in California. In 24 years, Van Brunt has taught kindergarten through fifth grade. Goals: “What I love about this school is we’re (the families) diverse in our living approaches,” and yet “manage to have a family atmosphere,” she said. With so much support from parents, volunteers, staff and others in the community, Van Brunt hopes that will collectively help raise school attendance. Attendance, she said, like school academic growth, is a “team effort.” Van Brunt said she will also strive to maintain the academic growth the students made this year. She noted that will be challenging, as she lost 10 staff members this year, classes will be larger and there will be no one filling the assistant principal position, all due to funding issues, but she feels confident in staff and stu- dents. (Editor’s note: Evergreen’s open house will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 16 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Classrooms will be open from 6:30 to 7 p.m. The last half hour will be an “ice cream, cookie and lemonade social.” Attendance is en- couraged.) Interview by Britt Fairchild By BRITT FAIRCHILD Staff Writer Illinois Valley schools are doing well to meet state and federal academic standards, but when it comes to attendance, only I.V. High School is mak- ing the grade. A report recently re- leased by the Oregon Dept. of Education showed that while IVHS has reached benchmarks on annual reading and math tests, as well as the required atten- dance level, Evergreen Elementary School and Lorna Byrne Middle School, although achieving the testing benchmarks, are only less than two percent- age points away from meeting the federal atten- dance guideline. Of all the high schools in Three Rivers School District (TRSD), only IVHS and Glendale High School, in Douglas County, met all of the stan- dards, according to the report. “We were really happy with this,” said JoAnn Bethany, the new principal at IVHS. “We were the only high school in Jose- phine County who made adequate yearly progress.” Then IVHS assistant principal, Bethany noted that prior to testing ses- sions last year, all of the sophomores were pulled aside and told they were bright and could do well. “We really challenged them to care about this and they rose to the challenge,” she said. The report, mandated by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, analyzes public school stu- dents’ performances on the math and reading tests and compares the results to state and federal standards. The students’ results are then separated into multiple subgroups related to race, disabilities and income level. Schools are required to achieve target levels in all of the subgroups. If one group of students doesn’t reach the standard, then the entire school receives a “needs improvement” dis- tinction. This year, schools were required to have 40 percent of students meet state reading standards and 39 percent meet math stan- dards in all subgroups in order to receive a “met” label. By 2014, 100 percent of students in all sub- groups will have to meet benchmarks. Schools were also required to have 92 percent of students meet the attendance standard. Even though Lorna Byrne performed better than most other TRSD middle schools in math and as good as or better than other middle schools (Continued on page 3)
