10A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 27, 2015
School: ‘It’s more of an
opportunity gap than it
is an achievement gap’
Continued from Page 1A
Aguilera said she enjoys the
activities teachers do with their
kids in America, the materials
students are provided and the
spacious classrooms. Quarters
are cramped in her schools in
Mexico, Aguilera said, and En-
glish instruction is mostly avail-
able to only those who can afford
private schools and teachers.
Closing the gap
A gap in academic achieve-
ment between the general stu-
dent population on one side, and
economically disadvantaged
and ethnic minorities on the oth-
er, pervades Oregon’s schools.
The migrant summer school,
largely serving the Hispanic mi-
nority on the North Coast, is one
of many efforts to close the gap.
Each student coming into
the migrant education program
undergoes a pre-assessment
of their academic skills, and a
post-assessment gauging their
academic growth. Tucker said
95 percent of students who at-
tended the migrant summer
school in 2014 showed growth
in reading and math scores
based on their assessments.
“It’s more of an opportunity
gap than it is an achievement
gap,” Hoppes said in January,
updating the Astoria School
Board on the district’s efforts to
make education more equitable.
“We have some kids who don’t
have the opportunities of other
kids.”
During the January presen-
tation, Astoria’s Curriculum
Director Melissa Linder said
faculty at Astoria often lack the
Spanish to adequately help stu-
dents.
This year, the district is
starting to embed English as
Second Language teachers into
two or three targeted classrooms
per grade level, kindergarten
WKURXJK¿IWKJUDGH
“Through research and train-
ing, we feel the push-in model is
more effective over time,” Hop-
pes said, adding it won’t affect
non-ESL students.
Success story
Gema Garcia, one of the two
teaching assistants this summer,
could be considered a success
story of the migrant school.
A graduate of Astoria High
School this year, Garcia was
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
From left: Cassandra Valadez, Xochitl Perez, Sergio Cipriano, and Nadia Lopez, work on con-
structing a pinata during a migrant summer school class at Astoria Middle School Thursday.
recently named Oregon’s mi-
grant student of the year by the
Northwest Regional Education
Service District’s migrant edu-
cation program.
Like Borja, Garcia said she
attended the migrant school
around the time she was transi-
tioning from elementary to mid-
dle school. “I guess I was shy,
and the school helped me” make
friends, she said.
Garcia now heads to Port-
land State University, where she
will study chemistry in hopes of
becoming a nursing anesthetist.
Like her older sister Rosalita
and brother Salvador, Garcia
said she plans on returning in
the summer to help at the mi-
grant school.
Road plan: ‘The transportation Dunning: ‘The
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Continued from Page 1A
“Elements of the proposal
that emerged late in the legis-
lative session represent an en-
couraging starting point for fu-
ture discussions, especially the
proposed $80 million in funding
for transit systems,” said Chris
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for Transportation for America,
a national group that backs state
and federal funding.
The proposal attempted to
couple funding for road and
bridge work, and for public tran-
sit operations, with alternatives
for greenhouse-gas reductions
from transportation.
The funding for road and
bridge work would have come
from a 4-cent increase in Ore-
gon’s gasoline tax — now 30
cents per gallon — and increas-
es in vehicle registration fees.
Under the Oregon Constitution,
those sources are earmarked.
For transit operations, a tax
on employee wages was pro-
posed for districts that already
have authority to levy a payroll
tax on employers. It would have
raised $80 million annually for
two of Oregon’s largest sys-
tems, TriMet and Lane Transit
District, plus smaller systems in
Wilsonville, Sandy and Canby.
Last year, the League of Or-
egon Cities and Association of
Oregon Counties issued reports
saying they are a combined
$500 million short each year
of what they need to maintain
roads and bridges.
The Oregon Department of
Transportation maintains 8,000
miles of highways that carry
about 60 percent of Oregon’s
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ed in 2014 that 87 percent of its
pavement was in fair or better
condition. While that is above
its goal of 78 percent, the de-
partment also said it is unlikely
to remain there without an infu-
sion of cash in the next couple
of years.
A sticking point
But the legislative proposal
foundered on the alternatives
proposed to a low-carbon fuel
standard, which Democratic
majorities pushed through over
Republican opposition. While
senators from both parties were
willing to craft alternatives,
House Democrats and environ-
mental groups were unwilling
to jettison the standard after just
three months.
“I was assured there were
alternative ways of approaching
this issue that would be accept-
able, but that turned out not to
be true,” said Rep. Cliff Bentz,
R-Ontario, one of the bipartisan
negotiators.
One of the alternatives,
which mirrors a potential 2016
ballot measure sponsored by
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Several Clatsop County bridges, such as the West Broad-
way bridge in Seaside, are in need of repairs.
fuel distributors, would have
proposed graduated reductions
in the carbon content of fuel.
But the total reduction would
have amounted to 5 percent, less
than the 10 percent set by the
standard over a decade.
Another alternative over-
stated the reduction of green-
house-gas emissions projected
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to relieve congestion.
“Given more time, we could
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shown a carbon reduction that
would have beaten the low-car-
bon fuel standard,” said Sen. Jeff
Kruse, R-Roseburg, another ne-
gotiator. “But now we have not
been given that opportunity.”
Republicans argued that the
standard would result in high-
er fuel prices, which they said
would be too much on top of a
smaller tax increase. A tax in-
crease requires 60 percent su-
permajorities for approval, and
that means at least one Republi-
can in the current House.
“I think the most important
thing for us to know in advance
is how much give there is in the
standard,” Bentz said. “If they
are going to refuse to modify it
in any way, this conversation is
going to be pretty short.”
But Andrea Durbin, execu-
tive director of the Oregon En-
vironmental Council, said Ore-
gon needs both the standard and
a funding plan put forth by the
Oregon Transportation Forum,
which it is a member of.
“To put one against the oth-
er is a false choice and helps no
one,” Durbin said.
State Sen. Lee Beyer,
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may be resolved outside the
Legislature.
Fuel distributors have gone
to U.S. District Court with a
lawsuit that asserts the standard
violates the federal constitu-
tional guarantee of interstate
commerce, although a similar
argument failed to persuade the
U.S. Supreme Court to hear a
challenge to California’s stan-
dard in 2014.
Fuel distributors also have
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though neither has received
enough signatures to start the
petition-circulating process for
the 2016 general election ballot.
“I think you will not see
much of an effect on the cost
of fuels,” said Beyer, one of the
bipartisan negotiators, who also
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fuel-standard bill. “The envi-
ronmental groups have the skin
they want to hang on their wall.”
A turning point?
In the 2013 Oregon Values &
Beliefs Project survey conduct-
ed by DHM Research of Port-
land for a coalition of public and
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of those sampled say road and
highway maintenance is very or
somewhat important — fourth
of 20 government services.
New roads and highways, on
the other hand, ranked 19th.
One economist said Oregon,
like other states and the federal
government, must consider that
fuel taxes alone can no longer
shoulder the costs of road and
bridge upkeep.
“When you adjust it for in-
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it’s not generating as much rev-
enue,” said Joe Cortright, who
leads the Portland consulting
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legislative staffer. “People also
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vehicles and they are driving
less.”
Multnomah and Washing-
ton counties levy their own
gasoline taxes, and so do 22
cities. Among them are Canby,
Milwaukie, Sandy and Tigard;
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Astoria and Warrenton.
But there has been local re-
sistance to increasing fees for
street and road repairs, most re-
cently the shelving by the Port-
land City Council of a proposed
street fee and voter rejection in
Washington County last year of
a registration fee increase.
“What people are saying
when they oppose higher gas
taxes is that they hate being
VWXFNLQWUDI¿FEXWWKH\GRQRW
stick a value to it,” Cortright
said. “We do not want to spend
more money to get more roads.”
Public opinion may be
changing, however, at least in
the Portland area.
Asked in a fall 2014 survey
conducted by Oregon State
University for the Oregon De-
partment of Transportation how
VHULRXVWUDI¿FFRQJHVWLRQZDVWR
them, almost 60 percent of the
1,288 respondents said it was
minor or nonexistent. But 43
percent said it was somewhat or
very serious — up 7 percentage
points from two years ago.
In Portland, 63.4 percent
RI WKRVH VDPSOHG FDOOHG WUDI¿F
congestion somewhat or very
serious — far more than in any
other area of the state.
What’s next?
Gov. Kate Brown acknowl-
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statewide support” for trans-
portation spending, “and I am
willing to continue those discus-
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when or how they will happen.
While Beyer thinks there’s
little chance of anything hap-
pening before the 2016 election
— when Brown will be up for
the two years remaining in the
term she assumed when John
Kitzhaber resigned in February
— he said there may be some
hope in the blue-ribbon panel
Kitzhaber named to look at Or-
egon’s system over the next 30
years.
“I was originally skeptical
when he put it together, but ac-
tually, a couple of the meetings
of the group that I was at were
pretty productive,” Beyer said.
Also on that panel is Sen.
Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose,
who was one of the bipartisan
negotiators. She thinks there is
still value in having the group of
eight resume meetings.
“We were briefed so thor-
oughly on many of the elements
that would have to be included
in a comprehensive transpor-
tation package that I think it
would be a shame to start all
over again,” Johnson said.
“This group spent so much
time together and is now so
knowledgeable.”
AAA’s Campbell said the
recent closed-door talks in the
JRYHUQRU¶VRI¿FHGLGQRWDOORZ
participation by many of the
transportation users and local
government members of the fo-
rum.
“If you do not get the right
people in the room for the dis-
cussion, you can make mistakes
that cost you time,” he said.
“But I am sure this will be
just as important in 2017 as it is
now. The transportation system
LVQRWJRLQJWR¿[LWVHOI´
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO Me-
dia Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
the community
is phenomenal’
Continued from Page 1A
The world’s cultures
are connected by water.
“It goes beyond borders,”
Smith said.
Pilot logs
The museum contains
books, photos, newspaper
clippings, charts, maps
manuscripts and more, in-
cluding pilot logs from the
Columbia River Bar Pilots
dating back to the 1940s.
The oldest of those records
had been turned into scrap-
books, the logs serving as
the templates with addi-
tions glued over them.
That history-rich envi-
ron is where Dunning has
found herself.
“I’m learning a lot
about submarine captains
in World War II,” she said.
“Who was doing what,
where and when.”
Dunning also some-
times recognizes street and
local names from the histo-
ries of the area.
She’s found memoirs
of sailors and older na-
val histories. She’s even
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among the collection.
“There’s always anoth-
HUVWRU\WR¿QG´VKHVDLG
Walks dogs
When she’s not knee-
deep in history, there’s a
good chance that she’s pur-
suing her other passion by
volunteering to help man’s
best friend.
She walks dogs three
afternoons a week for the
Clatsop County Animal
Shelter Volunteer Group,
where she’s volunteered
for six and a half years.
The group received the
accolade of Outstanding
Volunteer Group this year
from the Clatsop County
Board of Commissioners
after being nominated by
Animal Control Supervi-
sor Stephen Hildreth. Dun-
ning was one of the many
volunteers included in the
honor.
Dunning said that she
can be having a horrible
day, but when she takes
a dog for a walk, they’re
both happy.
The second half of her
devotion to animals is her
work with Clatsop Animal
Assistance, which helps
support the shelter. The
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care for shelter animals,
helps get animals adopted
and helps pay for pets to be
spayed and neutered. Dun-
ning has worked with the
JURXSIRU¿YH\HDUVDQGLV
the group’s president.
“I’ve found that a lot
of the skills I developed in
running a small business
are helpful in being the
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she said. She helps main-
WDLQ WKH QRQSUR¿W¶V ZHE-
site, assists with fundrais-
ing and event planning and
writes grants.
“It’s a lot of fun — I
love it,” she said.
Community support
The group is current-
ly running a GoFundMe
campaign to raise $4,000
for L’il One, a dog who
needs surgery to repair his
shattered kneecaps.
Community involve-
ment and support has
helped buoy the group.
Dogs Allowed Cannon
Beach and The Wine
Shack are among local
business that have contrib-
XWHGWRWKHQRQSUR¿W7KH\
donated all proceeds from
their collaborative “Dogs
Allowed Wine” line to the
group. The Inn at Cannon
Beach also has sponsored
a fundraiser, “Mutts and
Moms,” to help support
the group. Warrenton Kia
and Lum’s Auto Center
both sponsored adoption
events.
“The support from the
community is phenome-
nal,” she said.
Clatsop Animal Assis-
tance also brings adoptable
animals to their booth at
the Astoria Sunday Mar-
ket every other week from
May through part of Sep-
tember. Their next appear-
ance is Aug. 9.
“All our pets have been
either strays or rescues,”
Dunning said.
Dunning and her hus-
band, Bob Potter, have
one dog of their own, an
18-year-old terrier mix
rescue. He’s named Yogi
after baseball hall-of-fam-
er Yogi Berra. They’ve had
him nearly 17 years.
“He’s a pistol,” Dun-
ning said.
— McKinley Smith
Hayne: ‘He seems to be at war with law enforcement’
Continued from Page 1A
Hayne was arrested in
2014 at his mother’s home in
Svensen, where he moved in un-
invited. His mother, who was 87
at the time, had been subjected
to threats and physical contact,
including being put in a head-
lock by her son, who screamed
in her face. She told police she
feared for her life.
“Our intention was to protect
his mother, and the bigger issue is
protecting the community,” pros-
ecutor Scott McCracken said.
“He seems to be at war with law
enforcement. He doesn’t seem to
think they are human beings just
EHFDXVHWKH\DUHRI¿FHUV´
When deputies arrived to
arrest Hayne in May 2014, he
attacked them by punching a
deputy in the face and kicking a
police dog.
Hayne has a history of such
crimes. He was sentenced to
prison in 2000 for third-degree
DVVDXOWRQDSXEOLFVDIHW\RI¿FHU
In 2011, he was arrested when
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holding a knife. Similar assaults
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how he was arrested in 2013.
In addition, investiga-
tors found several rantings on
Hayne’s Facebook and YouTube
accounts where he threatens to
kill police, and offers anti-Se-
mitic and neo-Nazi statements.
Clatsop County District At-
torney Josh Marquis applauded
his deputy, McCracken, for pros-
ecuting the case that resulted in
a 29-year sentence. He said the
prison sentence could likely save
people’s lives, including Hayne’s.
“This guy is really danger-
ous,” he said.
At a hearing last month,
Hayne requested a delay for
sentencing so he could obtain a
lawyer.
He was appointed defense
lawyer Thomas Freedman Jr.,
who represented Hayne at sen-
tencing.
Hayne declined to speak Fri-
day, and only asked the court to
“get on with it.”