Page 12A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
BOARDMAN
Firefighters knock down motel fire
East Oregonian
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erview Motel in Boardman
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Friday afternoon, but the
damage was minimal.
Chief Marc Rogelstad
of the Boardman Rural Fire
Protection District said a
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called in after seeing smoke
at the motel located at 200
Front St., between Inter-
state 84 and Riverside High
School.
No one was injured in
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have started in a stack of
mattresses that were along
the south end of the build-
ing, shot up the structure’s
into the wall.
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still under investigation, Ro-
gelstad said.
Eight personnel from
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Irrigon were initially called
for mutual aid, Rogelstad
said they were told to stand
down shortly after Board-
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scene.
The motel’s manager de-
clined to give his name or
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Staff photo by E.J. Harris
motel occupants, who asked
Boardman firefighters mop up at the scene of a fire at QRW WR EH LGHQWL¿HG VDLG
the Riverview Motel on Friday in Boardman.
they were grateful the blaze
two-story outside wall. of the structure. The chief didn’t result in very much
However, he said, it ap- VDLG ¿UH¿JKWHUV QHHGHG WR damage to the building.
“We got lucky,” the
peared the damage was con- tear out some of the wood to
tained to the outer portion HQVXUHWKH¿UHKDGQ¶WJRWWHQ woman said.
SCHOOL: EOU started the Oregon Teacher Pathway program to help
tional assistants and secretar-
ies, but Superintendent Heidi
isn’t explicit with most Sipe said Latino teachers are
teachers. Instead, teachers still hard to come by.
and students of the same mi-
Hermiston also has a larg-
nority group have shared cul- HUUDWLRRI+LVSDQLFFODVVL¿HG
tural traits that lead to higher personnel. The district used
student achievement.
to use some of their federal
“Minority teachers go into PRQH\WRKHOSFODVVL¿HGHP-
it with a different lens than ployees become teachers, but
white teachers,” he said.
those funds have since been
But many hurdles remain redirected.
in front of minorities who
To help districts in their
could enter the profession.
effort to close the gap, EOU
Agricultural jobs in the started the Oregon Teacher
area pay a comparable sala- Pathway program.
ry straight out of high school
Spearheaded by Easton-
while teaching jobs require Brooks, the program iden-
a four-year degree. Even if WL¿HV PLQRULWLHV LQWHUHVWHG
a minority student decides in teaching through Eastern
to attend college, teaching Promise’s Success 101 class.
might not be the most attrac-
Students that are recom-
tive option.
mended by faculty are put in
With minority students a special Pathway class and
more likely to graduate col- participate in weekly peer
lege with student debt than mentoring at local elemen-
their white peers, many mi- tary schools. All students
nority students choose to that complete the program
pursue more lucrative de- are automatically admitted
grees.
to EOU, where they pay $45
Medina said many of her per credit hour instead of the
friends in Hermiston pursued standard $134.
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Pathway members that
was interested in until she graduate from EOU’s Mas-
started volunteering at West ters of Arts in Teaching pro-
Park Elementary School as gram get priority hiring in the
part of a peer mentoring pro- three districts participating in
gram.
the program — Pendleton,
After enrolling at Corban Umatilla and Milton-Free-
University in Salem, Medina water.
was able to pay for much of Pendleton’s Strong
her tuition with scholarships.
When Medina started to take Response
the mandatory tests the state
Even though the Pendle-
requires to obtain licensure, ton School District has the
she worked up to three jobs lowest minority population
to cover the fees.
Continued from 1A
A new path
Local districts have been
aware of the disparity for
some time and are seeking
ways to address it.
Hermiston School District
Deputy Superintendent Wade
Smith said the district partici-
pates in job fairs in Washing-
ton, Idaho and Montana and
is considering expanding into
California and Arizona.
While the expansive pres-
ence exposes the district to
wider pool of applicants, it
also presents a new set of
problem.
Beside the fact that each
state has a different teacher
licensing process, homesick
teachers tend to go back
to their home states after a
few years. As a result, many
local districts have started
their own “grow your own”
programs, which usually in-
volves peer mentoring and
teacher shadowing.
The Umatilla School
District, which had a 34-to-
1 minority student to teach
ratio in 2013, started such a
program.
The program boosted the
number of Hispanic educa-
at 33 percent, Easton-Brooks
singled the district out for
having one of the stronger
responses to the program.
The district is unique in
the sense that it draws heav-
ily from the Umatilla Indian
Reservation, which presents
a new set of cultural issues.
Marissa
Baumgartner,
19, is an aspiring teacher,
a Pendleton High School
graduate, a former Happy
Canyon Princess and a tribal
member.
While
she
initially
planned to pursue a career in
elementary school education,
she’s since switched career
tracks to early childhood ed-
ucation after getting a job at
the Cay-Uma-Wa Head Start
on the reservation.
Like Medina, Baumgart-
ner’s teachers were almost
all white.
While she valued her ed-
ucational experience, she
would have liked to have
an American Indian teacher.
She said some of her teach-
ers didn’t understand certain
Indian customs, like root dig-
ging in the spring and funer-
als that spanned several days.
Baumgartner said it can
be hard for some tribal mem-
bers to leave the reservation
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opportunities.
While some districts are
already experiencing posi-
tive results from the Path-
way program, the Hermiston
School District decided to
pass after showing initial in-
PENDLETON MUSIC CO.
Locally owned & family operated
Manager Angela Thompson welcomes
accredited instrument technician
JOSHUA FREEMAN
to our team of professionals.
Come see what else is new!
We are ready to serve you!
Mon. - Sat. 11-6
541-276-6621 340 S. Main St.
7 (55,),& 7 8
(6'$<
Learn how some expanded their land
holdings during the Homesteading era.¬
They did it with Timber Cultures!¬
Bonnie Sager, local historian, will present
Timber Cultures of Umatilla County – A Variation
of the Homestead Act .¬ Some of the trees from
these timber cultures (1880s) are still standing.
February 24th – 7:00 pm
Event is FREE and open to the public
Heritage Station Museum
541-276-0012
108 SW Frazer Ave.
Pendleton
Thank You, Pendleton Foundation Trust!
Student Scholarships: The Foundation administers
several student scholarships yearly including the
Pendleton Foundation Trust Fisk Award. This
$5,000.00 scholarship is awarded to a Pendleton High
School graduate. In addition, two $2,500.00
scholarships are awarded to deserving PHS graduates.
Back Row: Brent Fife, David Blanc, Kevin Hale, John G. McBee
Front Row: Pat Terjeson, Ron Hughes, Kathy Houk
Your gift lives in our
community! You can
help!! All donations,
small and large,
continue to help
build and protect
the many activities
of our town.
Pendleton People Helping
Pendleton People
Learn more at www.pendletonfoundationtrust.com
terest.
Hermiston High School
principal Jocelyn Jones said
LWZRXOGFRQÀLFWZLWKWKHGLV-
trict’s Education 198 class,
which she thinks offers a
more hands-on approach to
peer mentoring and teach-
er shadowing than the lec-
ture-based Pathway class.
“That’s just not the best
sell to get kids into the teach-
ing profession,” she said.
Regardless which route
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district named hiring more
minority teachers a priority.
After graduating college,
Medina declined a job of-
fer from the Salem-Kaizer
School District to come back
to Hermiston. She uses her
experience as a Hispanic
student to offer suggestions
to her fellow fourth grade
teachers, like teaching some
lessons at a slower pace to
accommodate Latino stu-
dents that are still learning
English.
She also takes advice
from the other teachers about
a challenge that’s universal
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———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
BIRDS: During migration,
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The brick chimneys are
disappearing, especially in
set, Simons set up his cam- earthquake-prone Southern
era on a tripod to capture California. When he learns
some photos of the birds, of a possible new site, such
which had made the city as the one in Pendleton, he
hall chimney near the city gets excited. The roost sites
council chambers their are dotted along the route,
temporary home. He also including chimneys at
counted the birds as best churches, schools, homes,
he could. He would give businesses and college
the data to Vaux’s swift re- buildings such as Agate
searcher Larry Schwitters, Hall on the University of
who documents roost sites Oregon campus. The birds
for the Audubon Society. fasten themselves to the
Simons counted about 500 inside of the brick, overlap-
birds.
ping their bodies and mov-
Pedestrians craned their ing downward as the tem-
necks to see where Simons perature cools and upward
was looking.
as the air warms.
“All kinds of people
During migration, the
stopped,” he said. “They ELUGV FDQ À\ XS WR
asked why I was watching miles a day. Roost sites are
the bats.”
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As the birder good-na- DSDUW DV WKH\ À\ VRXWK WR
turedly set them straight, Mexico for the winter.
he heard the sound of a
Schwitters thinks the
helicopter taking people swifts will return to Pendle-
on sightseeing rides. He re- ton, possibly in April on the
alized the craft’s trajectory way back north, but almost
was directly over the chim- GH¿QLWHO\ LQ 6HSWHPEHU
ney.
during the southern migra-
“The swifts saw the heli- tion. He doesn’t know what
copter and dropped vertical, led them to the Pendleton
500 black ribbons falling chimney. He said some-
as fast as you can imag- times wind or a rainstorm
ine,” Simons said. “They interrupts their travels to
all dropped out of the sky, an established site and they
backdropped by the sunset, look for something close
then turned toward the riv- by.
er.”
Bird club members say
Within several minutes they’ve heard reports of the
DIWHU WKH KHOLFRSWHU ÀHZ insect-eating birds nesting
over, he said, the birds were in northeast Oregon and
back. They spent several À\LQJLQVPDOOJURXSVRYHU
nights inside the chimney the Umatilla River, but
before heading west to hadn’t yet seen a large local
Portland and then south to roost site.
Mexico for the winter.
Besides the decline of
Simons, Skirvin and the hollowed-out trees and
rest of the bird club invit- chimneys, the population is
ed a Vaux’s swift expert to also affected by pesticides.
town now that their inter-
“The same pesticides
est was piqued. They won- that kill bugs also kill the
dered if the birds would birds that eat bugs,” he said.
return, how they found the
The more roost sites
chimney and more about along the migration routes
these tiny creatures.
the better, said Schwitters.
Schwitters, who con- He and the members of the
tracts with the Audubon Pendleton Bird Club will
Society, is something of await the swifts’ return.
a Vaux’s swift detective.
“They may return or
+H ¿QGV FKLPQH\ URRVW they may not (in April),”
sites along the birds’ mi- Simons said. “We’ll have
gration routes and works volunteers out there watch-
to ensure their survival. ing.”
Continued from 1A
