THE SPOKESMAN • TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2022 A5
Judge denies eco-saboteur’s information request
BY MAXINE BERNSTEIN
The Oregonian
As eco-saboteur Joseph Dibee
awaits sentencing, his lawyer
Wednesday urged a judge to or-
der the government to produce
any videos of his arrest in Ha-
vana, Cuba, any communica-
tions between the U.S. and Cu-
ban governments about Dibee
or any money paid to Cuba that
helped with the handover of the
fugitive.
Dibee, 54, was set to be sen-
tenced next week based on a ne-
gotiated plea agreement reached
in April, but the sentencing has
been postponed until Nov. 1
due to the latest dispute over
sharing of evidence.
Dibee, a fugitive for 12
years who was finally tracked
down in Cuba in August 2018,
pleaded guilty to two counts
of conspiracy to commit ar-
son and one count of arson in a
string of attacks that destroyed
or damaged environmental tar-
gets in Oregon and California
more than two decades ago.
They include a fire he helped
set at the Cavel West Inc. meat-
packing plant in Redmond on
July 1, 1997.
After an hourlong hearing
by phone, U.S. District Judge
FBI/file
Joseph Dibee, in an FBI photo released after he was arrested in 2018.
Bulletin file
An official with the Oregon State Police Fire Marshal’s Office investigates the remains of the Cavel West horse
meatpacking plant in Redmond in July 1997. The plant never reopened.
Ann Aiken denied most of the
requests by Dibee and his law-
yers, relying on the prosecu-
tion’s responses that either the
sought-after evidence didn’t ex-
ist, was already turned over to
the lawyer or wasn’t relevant to
sentencing.
“I generally sentence people
similarly situated. If I were you,
I’d’ spend more time on those
arguments than some of these
issues that are far afield,” Aiken
told Dibee’s lawyer, Matthew
Schindler.
The judge said she recog-
nized from the start that the
primitive compilation of the im-
mense amount of evidence and
how prosecutors shared it with
defense lawyers without index-
ing or a way to electronically
search the material would mean
the case “was going to take an
enormous amount of time and
cost a fortune.” The U.S. Attor-
ney’s Office didn’t have a tally of
the full cost Wednesday.
Federal investigators said
Dibee was part of the largest
group of eco-saboteurs ever
taken down by the FBI. They
called themselves “The Family”
— more than a dozen people
who committed crimes in the
name of the Earth Liberation
Front and Animal Liberation
Front — and caused an esti-
mated $40 million in damage
from 1996 to 2005.
Assistant U.S. Attorney
Quinn Harrington has said
the government will recom-
mend a sentence of seven years
and three months in prison for
Dibee. Schindler is expected to
argue for time served.
Dibee pleaded guilty to en-
gaging in a conspiracy to set fire
to government buildings and
destroy other property, driven
by “ideology, and as part of ‘di-
rect actions,’” from October
1996 through December 2005,
according to Harrington.
Along with the fire at the
Redmond meatpacking plant,
Dibee pleaded guilty to conspir-
acy to commit arson in a fire at
the U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement’s wild horse corrals
near Litchfield, California, on
Oct. 15, 2001.
The buildings at Cavel West
were destroyed, with the loss
estimated to exceed the insured
value of $1.2 million, according
to court records. The fire was
designed to end the process-
ing of meat from wild horses
slaughtered by the plant.
Data shows drop in student skills during COVID
Declines recorded in Redmond
and statewide
BY BRYCE DOLE
CO Media Group
Reading, writing, math and sci-
ence skills among students de-
clined in virtually every Central
Oregon school district during the
pandemic.
That’s according to new state test
data released by the Oregon De-
partment of Education on Thurs-
day, providing the first compre-
hensive glimpse at the pandemic’s
impact on schooling since the
spring of 2019.
In all, 81% of students in the
six regional districts took the
state standardized test, called the
Smarter Balanced Assessments.
About 46% of students passed the
state’s English language arts test,
31% passed math and 26% passed
science, according to state data.
That’s a nearly 7% drop in En-
glish language arts and math
scores and an 8% drop in science
on average since before COVID
struck.
“The pandemic had a negative
impact on academic learning,” Colt
Gill, the state’s education boss, said
in an interview with The Bulletin.
He added: “What those results re-
ally tell us is that we need to dou-
ble down on what we know that
works to address unfinished learn-
ing at this time.”
The new data highlights a widely
held concern among educators that
shuttered schools and prolonged
online learning during the pan-
demic stunted student academic
performance. And it has height-
ened concerns among some edu-
cators that the loss of education
could impact students for years.
Some districts reported im-
provements at individual grade
levels in individual subjects. Sev-
eral regional school district super-
intendents said in interviews this
week that they were happy to see
this progress despite the hardships
their students have faced. Others
noted they don’t consider the state
tests to reflect the full breadth of
student abilities.
In addition, district officials ar-
gue that some of the data is skewed
due to the increasing number of
Ryan Brennecke/Bulletin file photo
Chris Boegelsack walks around the classroom and supervises as students take a chemistry quiz at Redmond High School in January 2022.
high schoolers who are choosing
not to take the state tests, which
education officials use to measure
the performance of districts and
schools and take action to improve
the education system.
State officials said earlier this
week that, because less than 60%
of high school students took the
reading and math tests, that data
was essentially useless. A state ad-
visory committee recommends
that at least 80% of students should
be taking the test for the data to be
useful in making decisions around
budgeting, policy, professional de-
velopment and more.
But what data is available sug-
gests broad drops in student skills
facing practically every district.
In the Redmond School District,
students scored 45% in reading
and writing, 33% in math and 30%
“The pandemic had a negative impact on academic learning. ...What
those results really tell us is that we need to double down on what we
know that works to address unfinished learning at this time.”
— Colt Gill, director of the Oregon Department of Education
in science. That’s 7% lower in En-
glish language arts, 9% lower in
math and 4% lower in science.
However, just over 62% of stu-
dents took these tests on aver-
age, with the largest opt out rates
among high school students. Su-
perintendent Charan Cline said
this makes it difficult to tell how
well students are performing.
Redmond School District uses
the results to evaluate student
progress and determine whether
current curriculum and instruc-
tion is effective. The district also
looks at the data of different stu-
dent groups to see if there is a gap
in performance, said Linda See-
berg, RSD assistant superinten-
dent of teaching and learning, in a
release.
Chris Morton, RSD director of
elementary programs said that dis-
ruptions to learning during the
pandemic, such as the shift to on-
line learning and the discontinuity
of attendance due to quarantining
and illness, are a likely contributor
to the lower scores.
Despite reporting the sec-
ond highest state test participa-
tion rate among Central Oregon’s
school districts — 89% — Jefferson
County School District reported
the region’s lowest reading and
writing and math scores. The dis-
trict was in this same position back
in 2019, and it posted the region’s
lowest science scores, too.
In Sisters, 55% of students
passed reading and writing, and
34% passed both math and science.
In Crook County, 48% of students
passed reading and writing, 32%
passed math and 29% passed sci-
ence. In Culver, 44% of students
passed reading and writing, 23%
passed math and 13% passed sci-
ence.
█
Reporter: 541-617-7854, bdole@bendbulletin.
com
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