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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 1978)
Hrs Frances Schoan-Newapaper Room U n iv e r s ity o f Oregon L ib r a r y c.ugene, Oregon 97403 PORTLAND OBSERVER Volume 8 No. 25 Thursday, June 15,1978 10c per copy Beaumont middle school approved The Area 111 Citizens' Advisory Committee has approved the Beau mont middle school proposal submit ted to it in spite o f a seventy percent opposition vote by the Beaumont community. The proposal, i f adopted by the School Board, w ill make Beaumont Elementary School, located on 42nd and Fremont, a middle school for six th, seventh, and eighth graders from the Beaumont, Sabin and Alameda at tendance areas. Two years ago the Sabin and Alameda citizen advisory committees voted to make their schools lower grade schools (K-5) but the Beaumont community rejected the idea. The project was brought up again this year and approved by the school’ s Citizen Advisory Committee. A t the insistence o f the Committee to Retain Beaumont as a K-8 School, a community vote was held, with one adult from each household allowed to vote. This vote was approximately seventy percent opposed to the change. Parents living in the Beaumont at tendance area, with children attending Beaumont school, voted 179-171 for the middle school plan. Testimony at the Tuesday night Area 1111 CAC meeting was sharply divided, with the deep animosities the issue has brought to the com m unity often displayed. Those speaking in favor o f the mid dle school proposal emphasized the declining enrollment at the school which w ill necessitate double-grade classrooms, loss o f special subjects, and deterioratin g academic achievement, etc. Beaumont now has an enrollment o f 520 students, 497 in grades one through eight. Children in middle schools are provided a higher ratio o f teachers by the school district than are upper grade students in K-8 schools, so middle schools can provide more comprehensive programs. Opponents o f the change cite Beaumont’ s past excellence - it is in the upper fourth o f the district’s schools academically -- and believe dedicated teachers and d is tric t cooperation can retain that excellence They consider threats o f deterioration and loss o f program as a threat by the district to persuade parents to go along with the middle school reorganization, which the School Board favors. The Area III CAC vote was 5-2, with the two opposition votes based on the fact that there is no evidence o f com munity acceptance. School Board policy is that middle schools w ill be adopted only with community accep tance. Those voting for reorganization expressed their opinion that the middle school offers the best academic oppor tunities. The Goodyear blimp “ Columbia,” flies over the city during Ito annual Rose Festival visit to Portland. The proposal w ill now go to the School Board. Jefferson gets music magnet Jefferson High School w ill o ffe r do not have bands or orchestras that music education for serious students o f are o f such quality that they would instrumental music next year, with the draw students. Therefore there is little beginning o f a new magnet program in participation in high school music music. (about ten percent as compared to the A lth o u g h Jefferson has had a Fifteen percent expectation). magnet program in Performing Arts, this has been limited to drama and The Jefferson program w ill be dance, with music only as support for taught on the conservatory concept the other two programs. com bining c e rtifie d teachers and This program w ill provide an oppor professional musicians. Students w ill tunity for students who have a serious already have some background but w ill interest in instrumental music. Current have advanced courses and w ill per ly most Portland high schools offer form in small groups and concert only limited courses in music and many groups. Urban League questions School Board procedure The following are exerpts from the Urban League o f Portland’s presen tation to the Portland School Board at its public hearing on priorities last Monday. The presentation was made by Ms. Jeanna Wooley. "L a s t November, the Board o f Education indicated in public that it would not seek budget increases by way o f election for approximately a two-year period. Recently, and without adequate explanation, that decision was altered. Thus, rather than an extensive period o f discussion and explanation, we are now faced with a limited time in which to make im por tant decisions. Your letter requesting public involvement reflects the ex pedient stance which the Board o f Education is now required to take. The questions are, as a consequence, closed and narrowly worded. They at- tempt to seek only those responses which w ill support the need for an elec tion which is already scheduled. The Urban League Board o f Directors not only finds the nature o f the question naire to be somewhat condescending, but we also think this Is attributed to a time frame that is too tight to allow for full and open discussion. “ The Urban League has been proud to have helped in the creation o f the Community Coalition for School In tegration. This organization has in volved many groups and numerous in dividuals in a long and arduous process. It has given a measure o f p ro o f to that belief that citizen initiation, together with the Board o f Education’ s support, can be positive and productive. The outcome w ill lead to a better informed community; one more fully aware o f the challenges it must face in the years to come. The experience o f the Coalition demon strates that citizens are deeply concern ed, and that they are willing to invest personally and financially in their schools. I f the Board- o f Education truly wants the counsel o f the com m unity, a process o f patient in volvement o f citizens is a good place to begin. The Coalition proves it can be done.’ ’ Regretting that the School Districts request for their participation did not allow the Urban League to make an adequate response, Miss Wooley con tinued. “ In the future, please be assured that the Urban League is ready to participate in any long-ranged process which w ill help the Portland Public Schools determine priorities for the coming years.” blimp after a ride over Vancouver. (Photos: Dan Long) Want to ride on the Goodyear blimp? Want to ride in the Goodyear blimp? Four lucky Boise eighth graders will win a ride, sponsored by the Portland Observer. So when the Wimp hovers over Boise School on Thursday evening, in it w ill be four students and their principal, Dave McCrea. The students w ill earn their ride by writing an essay. The contest design as well as the judging points -- with heavy emphasis on originality and imagination -- were determ ined by the eighth grade teachers, Nellie Larson and Norvella Long, and upper grade supervisor Jerry Simnitt. Contest judges are: Herb Cawthome, director o f PSU’s Educational Op portunities Program and columnist for possible by 3,780 incadescent lamps. the Observer; Chuck Hagens, president Messages to be run on the 105 foot o f the Boise Neighborhood Associa signs are put on magnetic tape in a tion; Edna Robertson, director o f the special lab in Akron. A typical six- Northeast Neighborhood Office; and minute tape consists o f forty million Ron Sykes, Observer Sports Editor. pieces or bits o f “ on-off” information which, when run through special elec The 192 foot Goodyear blimp has a tronic readers on board, control lamps cruising speed o f 35 miles per hour, and color selection. propelled by two 210 horse power 6 The Goodyear blimp is in Portland cylinder engine. It carries six for the Rose Festival. Passengers are passengers plus the pilot. restricted to the media and special The blimp is called a "non-rigid” Goodyear guests, with others having to airship because its envelope has no in journey to the winter base in Miami for terior framework but maintains its their rides. shape entirely by internal pressure o f As we go to press, suspension hangs the helium gas. over Boise School. Who w ill the lucky The mighty display o f lights is made students b e . . . ? Soweto massacre one of many and her mother Rosalie, discuss Melanie’s future in the Melanie Batiste joins Air National Guard PO R TLAN D . OREGON - Fleet footed Melanie Batiste, University o f Oregon women’s track record setter, has joined forces with the Oregon A ir National Guard. The tall, slender woman, daughter o f Alvin and Rosalie Batiste o f Port-* land, w ill attend basic training this* summer and undergo training at the Portland A ir Guard Base as an in telligence specialist with the 153rd Tac tical A ir Control Center Squadron. A 1977 L in c o ln H igh School graduate, she set records there in the 220-yard dash. Now ih her first year at the state university in Eugene, she is the Northwest Collegiate Champion at 200 meters and is a record holder in that event. She is a member o f the University o f Oregon 440 and mile relay teams, both holding the school records. “ She’s been running ever since she learned how to walk,** said her mother, Rosalie Batiste. Melanie is one o f the first women ever to be offered an athletic scholar ship to the University o f Oregon. “ The sky’s the lim it for Melanie,” said Tom Heinonen, her track coach. “ She has made incredible im provement this year by training in a sophisticated program . She is a national class sprinter. This year, after only eight months training, she came within one place o f making it into the national finals at the national cham pionship in Knoxville, Tennessee. “ I think she w ill benefit greatly from the A ir Guard,” Mrs. Batiste said. "T he training she w ill receive there fits in very well with her future plans. She wants to be an air traffic controller.” During high school, Melanie worked part-time at the Portland joint Armed Forces enlistment center, and probably got her inspiration to join the Guard there, her mother said. For decades, Black South Africans have organized and attempted through boycotts, strikes and demonstrations to change the system o f apartheid which denies them political, economic and social rights that are guaranteed to the white minority population. In each instance these attempts have been met with violence by the South African police. Thousands o f Blacks and some whites have been banned, detained, imprisoned or killed for their efforts. On June 16, 1976 the South African police fired into a peaceful demon stration o f protesting students in the township o f Soweto - the totally segregated Black area fourteen miles from Johannesburg. The Soweto in cident attracted worldwide attention. The official death toll was 170 -- two white and 168 Blacks. However, Africans on the scene reported that up to a thousand were killed and many more arrested, wounded and beaten. Soweto was not just one day o f protest or an isolated incident. It represented months o f organizing all over the country and was merely the largest and most tragic o f many protests. Today, two years later, the struggle for the most basic o f political, social and economic rights continues in Soweto, South Africa and in all o f southern Africa. Today, however, the deaths and detentions in South Africa that result from day to day struggles aren’t told because o f the October “ crackdow n” which outlawed the Black press and silenced many leaders and opposition organizations. (Please turn to Page 6 Column 4) remember soweto? yes.
