A2
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2019
IN BRIEF
Fire in East Mooring Basin bathroom
Police said three men and one woman with her baby
were involved in allegedly setting cardboard on fi re after
writing on the inside of the bathroom at the East Mooring
Basin early Wednesday morning.
James Robert Keiweg, 28, of Woodruff, Wisconsin,
was arrested on a warrant out of Seaside and also charged
with resisting arrest.
Police said the woman had a 1-month-old baby under
her clothes and fl ed to the woods. After she was found,
she was taken to Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria
and the baby was taken into protective custody.
County sheriff’s deputy
promoted to sergeant
The Clatsop County Sheriff’s Offi ce
promoted senior deputy Bruce Scott to
sergeant in the criminal division.
Scott was hired as a deputy in 2010.
Since then, he has served as an instruc-
tor, fi eld training offi cer, High Angle
Rescue Team leader and one of two drug
recognition experts. He has also served
Bruce
as the association president.
Scott
Scott holds an advanced certifi cate
from the Department of Safety Stan-
dards and Training and earned a bachelor of science
degree in criminal justice through Globe University.
He will begin his new position on Oct. 1.
— The Astorian
First fall razor clam digs
are good to go
LONG BEACH, Wash. — Razor clam diggers can
return to Long Beach and Ocean Park for a three-day
opening beginning Friday morning.
State shellfi sh managers with the Washington Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife approved the dig on morning
low tides after marine toxin tests showed the clams are
safe to eat.
No digging is allowed after noon for these digs.
“We know people have been looking forward to dig-
ging razor clams, and based on our surveys, we expect
some great digging on Long Beach,” said Dan Ayres, the
state coastal shellfi sh manager.
— Chinook Observer
US approves releasing nonnative
insect to control thistle
BOISE — Federal offi cials have approved turning
loose a nonnative insect to feed on an invasive thistle that
sprouts in everything from rangelands to vineyards to
wilderness areas, mainly in the West.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it will permit
use of the weevil native to Europe and western Asia to
control yellow starthistle, which is from the same areas.
“Its fl owers have inch-long spines that deter feeding
by and cause injury to grazing animals and lower the util-
ity of recreational lands,” the agency said.
There is little to no risk of the insect attacking native
plants, the agency said.
The weevils will initially be let loose in California,
with additional releases in Idaho, Oregon, Washington
state and possibly Nevada. The agency said Wednesday
it is accepting permit applications to process this fall so
weevils could be released in the spring.
“We’re really excited about the release of this wee-
vil,” said Jeremey Varley, of the Idaho State Department
of Agriculture. Yellow starthistle “is not good to eat, and
it’s toxic to horses.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said yellow
starthistle entered California before 1860 and is now one
of the state’s worst pests. Idaho, Oregon and Washington
state also have heavy infestations of the thistle that’s been
found in 41 states.
Drones used to fi nd hidden pot grows
in Washington state
PASCO, Wash. — Washington state authorities have
seized 70,000 illegal marijuana plants from farmers’
fi elds this year after they were detected growing with
other crops.
The Tri-City Herald reported Thursday that Franklin
County deputies have discovered illegal operations using
airplanes and drones to fi nd darker marijuana plants
among lighter foliage, mostly cornfi elds.
— Associated Press
PUBLIC MEETINGS
MONDAY
Seaside City Council,
7 p.m., City Hall, 989 Broad-
way.
TUESDAY
Astoria Library Board,
5:30 p.m., Astoria Library
Flag Room, 450 10th St.
Warrenton City Commis-
sion, 6 p.m., City Hall, 225 S.
Main Ave.
Seaside Airport Advisory
Committee, 6 p.m., Seaside
Municipal Airport, 2797 U.S.
Highway 101.
Astoria Planning Commis-
sion, 6:30 p.m., City Hall,
1095 Duane St.
R.J. Marx/The Astorian
Students joined a rally in Seaside on Friday to address climate change.
Climate strike draws a crowd in Seaside
Part of rallies
across the globe
By R.J. MARX
The Astorian
SEASIDE — Hundreds
turned out in front of the big
orange chair in Seaside on
Friday as part of a Global
Climate Strike observed in
cities throughout the world.
The event, three days
before the United Nations
c limate a ction s ummit,
attracted students, activists,
drummers and sign-carriers,
drawing honks of approval
and waves from drivers sup-
portive of the cause. Local
organizers from Indivisible
North Coast Oregon led the
chants and calls for action
in Oregon and Washington,
D.C.
Seaside’s Mary Blake
described the crowd as “a
combination of our commu-
nity of all the different ages
and enthusiasm and knowl-
edge and will to speak to the
No. 1 issue on our planet.”
Carolyn
Zimmerman,
from Longview, Washing-
ton, and Chris Williams,
from Rockaway Beach,
raised signs to passing cars.
“We knew this was hap-
pening and had to be here,”
Williams said.
Father Symeon Hadley ,
an Eastern Orthodox priest
and Cannon Beach resident,
said he attended because
of his “concern for Mother
Earth and to raise awareness
and support for dealing with
climate change.”
Clatsop County Com-
missioner Lianne Thomp-
son called for bringing
an approach of “love and
respect” to the climate
debate. “We have to save the
planet and save the people,”
she said. “Saving the planet
is a team sport. We have to
save the team.”
Seaside high school-
ers
Amelia
Gastelum,
Kierra Gastelum and Tatum
LaP lante were among the
students who carpooled to
Broadway and Roosevelt for
the event.
“It’s defi nitely a crisis,”
LaP lante said. “Especially
since we are younger, we’re
going to be growing up. I t’s
very important we make
the world last as long as we
can. We want to have fam-
ilies and we want to have a
world our families can grow
up in.”
In Seaside, attendance is at top of mind
Signs visible
in community
By KATHERINE
LACAZE
For The Astorian
SEASIDE — Anyone
who has been out and about
in Seaside during the past
few weeks likely has noticed
the white signs bearing pos-
itive declarations about self-
worth and self-love, such as
“Don’t Give Up,” “It’s Not
Too Late” and “You Matter.”
The Seaside School Dis-
trict purchased the signs
through a grant from the
Northwest Education Ser-
vice District and started put-
ting them up in late August
as part of a campaign to both
increase attendance and cre-
ate a positive environment.
“As a community, if we
just have constant reminders
that every person matters, I
just can’t see where that’s a
negative thing,” Seaside V ice
P rincipal Jason Boyd said.
One of the goals in the
school district’s fi ve-year
strategic plan is that by June
2024, all students K-12 will
develop social and emotional
skills to be positive com-
munity members. There are
three performance indicators
for that goal, including “all
students will attend 95% of
school days,” the indicator
which Boyd is monitoring.
Boyd borrowed the idea
for the yard signs from a sim-
ilar community effort imple-
mented in Newberg a cou-
Signs in Seaside with positive
messages are meant to help
improve school attendance
and create a better social
environment.
ple of years ago in response
to the increasing teen sui-
cide rate. Although the signs
were intended as an anti-sui-
cide campaign, the Newberg
School District also saw a
rise in their attendance rates,
Boyd discovered.
He is working to distrib-
ute the signs to individuals
and businesses throughout
the s chool d istrict’s boundar-
ies. Although he hopes it will
have an effect on attendance
similar to what Newberg
experienced, the campaign
is also about reinforcing the
idea of treating people with
respect.
“In an environment that
seems to be a little more ‘you
vs. me’ than it’s been in the
past decade, we’re a com-
munity that’s going to sup-
port everyone, even those we
don’t agree with politically,
socially, or even their life-
style,” Boyd said.
Getting students
to school
Last year, the school dis-
trict team worked on several
initiatives to gather data about
Ladies of the Lake Quilt Guild of Longview Presents
attendance and start pro-
moting awareness. The high
school sent an “attendance
nudge letter” to all house-
holds, 464 in all, delineating
between excused absences,
unexcused absences and reg-
ular attendance — or stu-
dents attending school 90%
of the time.
Although some students
can handle missing school
without it negatively impact-
ing their grades, teachers
can’t give children the best
education possible when they
are not in class, Boyd said.
“Everything is a building
block, so it’s just that much
harder to get the next piece,”
he said. “And you don’t
know what day is going to
be the day that the light bulb
comes on for that student to
say, ‘Wow, now I know what
I want to do for my career.’”
The letters included com-
ment cards for parents and
guardians to fi ll out. They
were asked if the letter pro-
vided new information, if it
infl uenced them to encour-
age their students to attend
school, and if they would
work to help change the
community’s culture regard-
ing attendance and promote
school as a priority.
Boyd also experimented
with a few programs that
included tangible rewards.
For one of them, the admin-
istration picked random days
to stop by all the classes and
give a prize — such as a
sheet cake or popsicles — to
those with 100% attendance.
Typically, about one-fourth
of classes would be eligible.
For another program, the
school received a $50 gift
card from Del’s Chevron and
purchased hundreds of other
$5 gift cards using another
grant from the Northwest
Regional ESD. Any stu-
dent who met the attendance
goal of 90% for a month was
entered into a drawing for
the $50 gift card, and those
who weren’t picked still got
a $5 gift card. The program
was done for both the months
of April and May, and the
school saw the attendance
rate improve signifi cantly.
Although Boyd doesn’t
anticipate bringing back
either of those program this
year, he feels they accom-
plished their goal of “pro-
moting attendance, rais-
ing awareness, getting kids
talking about it.”
The high school’s reg-
ular attendance rate rose
from approximately 65% in
2017-18 to about 70.2% in
2018-19.
Continuing the effort
Looking ahead, Boyd is
interested to see the impact
of the sign campaign. He is
hesitant to try multiple initia-
tives at once or in quick suc-
cession, as it deters their abil-
ity to gauge the effectiveness
of each one.
The high school will con-
tinue a few of the efforts
implemented last year,
however.
In place of study lab, the
school introduced 25-min-
ute classes with about 30 to
34 students and two instruc-
tors per class. The students
will stay with their class and
instructors throughout their
whole high school career,
regardless of grade level.
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