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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2015)
WEEKEND EDITION CBC SENDS Pouring his FOUR TEAMS heart into painting TO STATE BASKETBALL/1B LIFESTYLES 1C REGION: Pendleton plans fi rst motorcycle rally 3A ENTERTAINMENT: J.D. Kindle gives his odds for the Oscars 3C FEBRUARY 21-22, 2015 139th Year, No. 92 WINNER OF THE 2013 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD $1.50 Brown will fund water project By HILLARY BORRUD Capital Bureau Staff photo by E.J. Harris First-year teacher Mariana Medina helps fourth-grader Sergio Avila with a math question on Thursday at Rocky Heights Elementary School in Hermiston. A teacher like me moving made reading and writ- ing a more dif¿ cult prospect. Umatilla County school districts try to close minority student-teacher gap Not a unique problem By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Being a teacher of color in Eastern Oregon makes you a mi- nority within a minority. Because even as the minority population in Umatilla County continues to grow, the number of minority teachers has remained stagnant. $fter years of trying to ¿ nd such teachers with little suc- cess, plus continual underper- formance in tests and graduation rates for minority students com- pared to their white peers, local school districts are starting to look at their increasingly diverse student body for solutions. Mariana Medina is exact- ly the type of ¿ rst-year teacher many Eastern Oregon school districts are looking for. The Rocky Heights Elemen- tary School fourth grade teacher is young, Latina and a product of a Hermiston School District. According to the Oregon De- partment of Education, 49 per- cent of Rocky Heights students are Hispanic, roughly in line with the district’s Latino popula- tion as a whole. Although the district boasts the highest minority teacher population in the county, it still employs only 9 percent teachers of color. While a Hispanic student from Hermiston has a mod- est chance of being taught by someone of his or her own eth- nic background today, Medina wasn’t one of those students. Over her thirteen years as a student in Hermiston, Medina said she had no Hispanic teach- ers. Medina said she admired many of her teachers, but added that the presence of a Hispanic teacher could have helped, espe- cially in her early years. From kindergarten through second grade, Medina’s family migrated between Hermiston and Mexico. Medina would spend three to four months of the year in a Mexican school, and while her social skills allowed her to pick up English quickly, the constant While some areas of the country do better than others, the problem is persistent nation- wide. About 40 percent of the country’s students belong to a minority, but only 17 percent of the people who teach them are people of color. In Oregon, minorities com- prise 8.5 percent of teachers compared to 35 percent of stu- dents. Despite the clear disparity, the issue hasn’t garnered nearly as much attention as other edu- cational topics like the Common Core State Standards and the Smarter Balanced assessment. But the issue hasn’t escaped the notice of Donald Easton- Brooks, the dean of business and education at Eastern Oregon University. According to research Easton-Brooks conducted him- self, minority students with at least one minority teacher before ¿ fth grade score higher in math and in reading. Other studies have shown that minority teach- ers generally have higher expec- tations of minority students. Easton-Brooks said the bias See SCHOOL/12A SALEM — Newly minted Gov. Kate Brown said Friday she will pursue the $51.6 million water development fund in former governor John Kitzhaber’s budget targeted to help irrigators and conservationists reach a deal in the Umatilla Basin. “I anticipate we will maintain that in the bud- get,” Brown said during her ¿ rst press confer- ence since being sworn in as governor. “I know how critical it is to the Brown economy in that area, so I look forward to working with folks to make sure we get some more resources into that project.” Under the Kitzhaber’s proposal, com- munities around the state could compete for government loans and grants to assist with planning and development of water supply, watershed restoration and other projects. Oregonians outside the Portland metro- politan area are watching to see how Brown handles issues of importance in their com- See BROWN/10A Sides in ports dispute reach agreement By JUSTIN PRITCHARD Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Negotiators reached a tentative contract covering West Coast dock- workers on Friday evening, likely ending a protracted labor dispute that snarled interna- tional trade at seaports handling about $1 tril- lion worth of cargo annually. The breakthrough came after nine months of negotiations that turned contentious in the fall, when dockworkers and their employers began blaming each other for problems get- ting imports to consumers and exports over- seas. The ¿ ve-year deal, con¿ rmed by Inter- national Longshore and Warehouse Union spokesman Craig Merrilees, still must be ap- proved by the 13,000-member union’s rank- See PORTS/10A PENDLETON Local birders await Vaux’s swifts’ return By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian The tiny birds À itting around Pendleton City Hall were oblivious to the stir they caused. Aaron Skirvin and Diana La- Sarge spotted the black cloud as they walked back to their car after enjoying the carnival during the Pendleton Round-Up week last September. To the untrained eye, the creatures might have looked like dozens of bats on the wing, but the two experienced birders recog- nized them as Vaux’s swifts. The tiny birds weigh less than an ounce and depend on hollowed-out trees and chimneys for shelter from the cold. Unlike most other birds, they are unable to À uff their feathers for warmth and they can’t wrap their toes around branches and wires to perch. Instead they cling to the mortar in brick chimneys and bunch together. Bird club members had never seen the birds amass in Pendleton. Excited, Skirvin called fellow Pendleton Bird Club member Jack Simons and told him the happy news. The next night just before sun- See BIRDS/12A Photo by Jack Simons About 500 Vaux’s swifts swirl around the chimney at Pendleton City Hall in September 2014.
