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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2017)
October 4, 2017 The Skanner Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 portion compared to the national average of 527. In Math, too, Oregon stu- dents fared well, scoring on average 543, several notches over the nation- al average of 517. In the Portland Public Schools district, 872 stu- dents took the SAT, with an average total score of 1159, breaking down as “ 30 more students than last year. Their scores improved too, which are graded on a scale of one to five. In 2015-16, 72 Black students scored above three, compared to 89 who scored above three this school year. “While it is always good to see Oregon stu- dents performing well, I am most encouraged by the increased participation among student groups that have been historically un- derrepresented 589 on Reading and Writ- ing and 570 on Math. Participation in the test was up this year across all groups, compared with the number of reg- istered test-takers from the 2015-16 school year. Last year 151 African American public school students took the SAT. This year the number al- most doubled, with 279 African American stu- dents having completed the SAT. Even so, with 1,316 Af- rican-American 12th graders in Oregon, that means only 21 percent of them took the test; while Black students only rep- resent two percent of all test takers. Moreover, of the entire student population of Oregon, only 2.4 percent are Black/African Amer- ican, according to 2016-17 data from the Oregon De- partment of Education. Also in the 2016-17 school year, 247 African American students in Oregon took an AP exam, Outlaw I am most encouraged by the increased partic- ipation among student groups that have been historically underrepre- sented,” Deputy Superin- tendent Salam Noor said in a statement. The improved per- formance, cited Noor, can likely be attributed to a number of state- wide plans and pro- grams aimed at closing the opportunity and achievement gaps for underserved student populations, as well as addressing culturally re- sponsive practices. They include imple- menting new ethnic stud- ies programs, the English Learner Outcome Im- provement Plan, and the African American Student Success State Plan. Passed in 2015 as HB 2016, the plan works to improve academic disparities experienced by Black students in Or- egon, from early child- hood through post-sec- ondary education. PHOTO COURTESY OF PORTLAND PARKS & RECREATION SAT Som Subedi Named 2017 Park Champion Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) was recently awarded the National Recreation and Park Association’s (NRPA) 2017 Park Champion of the Year Award. The award, which recognizes an employee of a park and recreation agency’s efforts to educate their members of Congress or their staff on the importance of investing in local parks and recreation, was presented this past Wednesday night to PP&R’s Som Subedi at the 2017 NRPA Annual Conference in New Orleans. Subedi, a former refugee and the coordinator of PP&R’s Parks for New Portlanders program, hosted Grace Stratton of Senator Ron Wyden’s office at the Bureau’s WALK with Refugees and Immigrants event on Aug. 20, which featured around 1,000 participants. A congratulatory letter from Senator Wyden was read at the award ceremony. In spring 2018, Subedi will travel to Washington, D.C., to advocate for parks and recreation on Capitol Hill. Vanport cont’d from pg 1 in Vanport — down from 40,000 during the war years — although there is no way of knowing how many were present when the dam broke, she said. She added that due to a combination of heavy snow pack that winter and an unusually warm spring, areas throughout the Columbia River Basin — including Washington and Idaho — flooded that week- end. On Saturday, May 29, 1948, the Red Cross and the Housing Au- thority of Portland met to decide whether to evacuate Vanport. Other sections of the Portland metropolitan area had already been evacuated, but the Red Cross said they could only find tempo- rary lodging for 6,000 people and never came to a decision. The two entities decided to ta- ble the decision until Monday. On Sunday, the dike broke. “Whenever there’s a disaster like that, it tends to pull out peo- ple to be very helpful,” Podany said. Vanport survivor June Reinan took the stage after Podany. Rein- an, whose name was June Walker during the years she lived in Van- port, lived in the Vanport project “ next door. The neighbor went on to introduce Reinan to her broth- er, whom Reinan subsequently married. “Then we really were family,” she said. James Arcenaux, who just moved back to Portland after a long stint in Las Vegas, told the Other sections of the Portland metropol- itan area had already been evacuated when she was a single mother struggling to support two little boys. She was able to relocate her children to a family member’s house in Portland, but decided to go back. A man on a boat helped her get back into her house to re- trieve a watch. Later, Reinan said, she moved into another govern- ment-subsidized housing project and became close friends — “like family” — with a woman living crowd that when he was nine years old, he had to give up his bedroom to make room for some- one who had evacuated for the flood. He was reluctant, and also said he thought he was the only person who had to do it, but later met others who had hosted Van- port evacuees. “When you do something for somebody else, it all comes back to you,” Arcenaux said. cont’d from pg 1 seen high turnover in recent years: the national search that led to her hire was a campaign promise from then-candi- date, now-Mayor Ted Wheeler follow- ing the resignation of Larry O’Dea, who replaced Mike Reese after his 2015 re- tirement. O’Dea had been arrested on criminal charges involving a shooting in eastern Oregon; he was later cleared. O’Dea was briefly replaced by Donna Henderson, who served just over a month before retiring. Mike Marsh- man was promoted to interim chief and applied for the permanent position, but announced his retirement shortly after the city announced Outlaw had been selected. Police Bureau veteran Chris Uehara was sworn in as acting chief at the end of August. Outlaw comes to Portland from Oak- land, where she served as deputy chief. She holds a bachelor of arts in sociolo- gy from the University of San Francis- co and a master’s degree in business administration from Pepperdine Uni- versity. Outlaw granted interviews with sev- eral local media outlets, including The Skanner, Tuesday. This interview had been edited for space and clarity. The Skanner News: Have you had a chance to meet yet with representa- tives from Portland’s communities of color? Danielle Outlaw: So outside of the initial meetings with them, I have not yet — but I have an action-packed next two weeks to get out there and meet with everyone. I’m actually looking forward to it because we’ll have a little “ One of my priori- ties is to make sure that I review past incidents from here, how we dealt with them more time now. I’m looking forward to getting down to the meat and potatoes and really picking their brains and finding out what we all need to do to move forward. TSN: Portland and other police bu- reaus around the country have drawn some criticism for how they’ve handled protest — including excessive force against protesters and how potential conflicts have been handled between protesters and counter-protesters. What do you think are best practices when it comes to large crowds and pro- tests? DO: If you want to say “best practic- es,” there are some things that work well. But there’s no cookie-cutter ap- proach to how we deal with civil un- rest, and they really need to be taken on a case-by-case basis: who the crowd is, numbers, what we’re dealing with, what resources we have available to us. I’m very cognizant about saying what works well in a previous agency and forcing this agency to do the same, be- cause it’s not always the same. But with that said, I will also offer that one of my priorities is to make sure that I review past incidents from here, how we dealt with them, to look at policy — because sometimes it’s policy that dic- tates how members react and respond — to take a look at how we train and just some critical review of what’s worked well, what we can do to maybe improve, and then compare that to some other case studies with some other agencies around the country to find out what’s worked well. It’s not about one partic- ular thing that you should or shouldn’t do. TSN: Portland has also been under DOJ supervision for several years. But Jeff Sessions is saying that he’s not in- terested in continuing that. However, Mayor Wheeler wants to continue the reforms that were outlined in the set- tlement. Do you have a position on that, and do you see yourself having a role in making sure those reforms go forward as they were already laid out in the set- tlement? DO: I am all for introspection. I am all for accountability. I think it’s import- ant, whether we are doing really well or really terribly, for us to self-assess – to stop, take a break and say, Okay, how can we improve? That’s with the DOJ or without the DOJ. It just so happens that the DOJ is here, there’s a settlement agreement. I think good leadership re- quires that and it’s my responsibility to drive that, whether the DOJ was here or not. We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do. We’re not doing it because a federal judge or a court or any oversee- ing body is making us do that. Read more at TheSkanner.com
