DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2022
149TH YEAR, NO. 89
$1.50
Grad
rates
take
a dip
Disruptions from the
coronavirus pandemic
By ETHAN MYERS
The Astorian
Graduation rates at high schools in
Clatsop County took a dip after the first
full academic year of the coronavirus
pandemic.
The data from the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education showed the Astoria
School District with an 82.8% graduation
rate for the 2020-2021 school year, com-
pared to 90.9% after the previous school
year.
“While we strive to support each stu-
dent to reach a high school diploma and
disappointment can be felt when those
goals are not met, as a district, we cel-
ebrate the successes of those who over-
came unprecedented obstacles and chal-
lenges to reach this achievement,”
Astoria Superintendent Craig Hoppes
said in an email. “What made the 2020-
2021 (school year) difficult was that most
of the students tried to complete school
remotely and any time there is a barrier
with engagement, student education will
suffer.”
Graduation rates had been steadily
climbing in the school district until last
school year’s decline.
“The effects of the (coronavirus) pan-
demic upon the educational programs
of the district were significant,” Hoppes
said. “ ... The high school is working to
meet the needs of all students and in par-
ticular students who have fallen behind
over the last couple of years.”
The state’s report showed the War-
renton-Hammond School District with
a 70.8% graduation rate, compared to
73.9% the previous year.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
A common area in the women’s side of a sober living house will eventually host an office.
‘We’re really trying to give a few
people this chance to make this work’
A sober living house
to open in Warrenton
By ERICK BENGEL
The Astorian
W
ARRENTON — At a tucked-
away residence in the south-
west part of the city, people
who have struggled with drug and alco-
hol abuse will have a chance to rebuild
their lives.
Last year, Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare purchased a two-story
duplex to serve as a sober living
house.
The men’s side has four bedrooms to
rent, the women’s side three. The extra
room in the women’s unit will become
an upstairs office, where peer recovery
allies will work during the week.
People in varying states of recovery
and employment plan to move in over
the next few weeks. They can live in the
house for up to a year.
To qualify, an applicant must be
involved in a Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare drug-and-alcohol recov-
ery service, been sober for at least 30
days, and have enough money — from
$250 to $350 a month, depending on the
room size — for the program fee.
Tenants can come from anywhere
on the substance abuse spectrum, from
alcoholism to opioid addiction. “I
don’t care if you’re coming right out of
prison,” said Trista Boudon, who leads
the agency’s recovery ally and peer sup-
port team.
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, the
county’s mental health and substance
abuse treatment contractor, co-runs
another sober living house — a four-
plex on Agate Street in Astoria — with
other social services agencies. That
house is designed as a safe space for sin-
gle mothers in addiction recovery, and
doesn’t have many of the same tenant
requirements.
As a sober living site owned and
operated solely by Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare, the Warrenton facility is a
first for the agency, which bought the
property for $650,000. Half a million
came from an Oregon Health Author-
ity grant, while the rest came out of the
agency’s reserves.
The interior has been refurbished,
including new floors. The com-
mon areas will have new and donated
couches and other furniture; the kitch-
ens, new supplies and ceramic cook-
ware. Both upstairs and downstairs will
boast a flat-screen TV.
The facility follows a modified
Oxford House model, in which peo-
ple who live together create fellowship
around sharing responsibilities and sup-
porting each others’ sobriety.
See Sober living, Page A8
See Grad rates, Page A8
Knappa man finds success on YouTube
Caron tries to decipher
macroeconomics
By NICOLE BALES
The Astorian
itting behind the wheel of his
car, a pair of blue fuzzy dice
hanging from the rearview mir-
ror, Simon Caron delivers his daily
talks on macroeconomics.
Caron works in retail sales at
an Astoria lumberyard and has no
formal education in economics.
What started as trying to under-
stand the financial collapse that
led to the Great Recession in 2007
became a hobby and grew into an
obsession.
Since launching his YouTube
channel — Uneducated Economist
— in 2017, he has gained more
than 84,000 subscribers.
Caron said he started the chan-
nel after someone suggested he
share his knowledge online. He
never expected to have a large fol-
lowing. He certainly did not expect
the videos to change his life.
“I was really just looking for a
place to kind of pour my thoughts
out and maybe keep track of them
like a journal or something like
that,” Caron said.
As he talked more about lum-
ber and building supply, he caught
the attention of real estate agents,
S
Simon Caron
contractors and others with indus-
try ties.
His audience continued to
grow slowly until he came across
another economics YouTuber,
George Gammon. Caron said he
formed a relationship with Gam-
mon after recommending his chan-
nel to his subscribers.
While Gammon’s channel was
new at the time, it grew to an audi-
ence of 342,000 subscribers. And
after Gammon had Caron on his
show, Caron’s subscribers soared.
Caron was stunned to find him-
self onstage at an economics con-
ference hosted by Gammon in
Houston, Texas, earlier this month.
He was invited to speak along with
others including Ron Paul, a for-
mer Republican congressman and
presidential candidate from Texas
who has libertarian views, and
Robert Kiyosaki, an author of pop-
ular personal finance books.
Caron said he had been follow-
ing some of the speakers years
before starting his channel.
“I’m like, how the world did I
end up here?” he said.
Caron’s quest to understand
macroeconomics and explain it
to others in layman’s terms grew
out of years of his own financial
struggle.
He graduated from Knappa
High School in 1995 and has spent
much of his career working in con-
struction and retail in the lumber
and building supply industry.
Caron bought a house in 2007
after his wife became pregnant
with their first child. While he had
heard about the possibility of a
financial collapse, he did not think
it would affect him.
By the end of the Great Reces-
sion, Caron had trouble find-
ing work and bills started pil-
ing up. His home later fell into
foreclosure.
See Caron, Page A8
Lindsay Cobb
Pyrosomes are starting to wash up on beaches in Clatsop County. Each
tube is actually a collection of small animals that works as one to move
through the water and feed on small particles like phytoplankton.
Pyrosomes spotted
again on local beaches
Roughly the size and
shape of a pickle
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
KMUN
The pyrosomes are back.
Sort of.
Typically found in tropi-
cal or subtropical waters, pyro-
somes made a dramatic appear-
ance on the North Coast in 2017
when unusually warm waters
off the Oregon and Washington
state coastlines encouraged a sur-
prising expansion north. They
clogged fishing gear and washed
up in small piles on beaches.
Before 2014, it was rare to see
them off Oregon, and never in
such quantities.
In the past week, people have
reported seeing some pyro-
somes again on beaches in Clat-
sop County. Researchers have
also started to notice them more
in ocean waters off Newport. It is
possible recent storms and strong
currents have swept them in.
See Pyrosomes, Page A8