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.