East Oregonian
Page 3A
REGION
HERMISTON
Umatilla launches ACEs campaign to
Committee narrowing down logo ideas combat adverse childhood experiences
of Hermiston residents
Friday, February 26, 2016
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Hermiston’s
branding
committee is getting closer to
unveiling options to replace
“You Can GROW Here”
with a new city brand.
The committee anticipates
asking the community to
vote on two different brand
concepts, including a logo
and tagline, within a month.
On Wednesday committee
members met with Focal-
Point Consulting to look
at the latest round of logo
options created by graphic
designers, based on two
taglines the committee
favored.
Criticisms of an earlier
set of logos — which ranged
from a dislike of the colors
chosen to comments that a
sun on one looked like the
star of Bethlehem — were
incorporated in the new
designs, which committees
members were asked to
study, discuss and write down
another round of feedback.
All logos being discussed
featured some sort of nod to
Hermiston’s famous water-
melons, after 92 percent of
residents said in a previous
survey that the Hermiston
brand needed to include a
watermelon.
Meanwhile FocalPoint
employees shared results of
the due diligence they were
performing for the taglines,
including a check to make
sure none of them were
trademarked or being used
by other cities.
The 25-member branding
committee includes repre-
sentatives from the city,
Hermiston Chamber of
Commerce, high school
students and community
members from the private
sector. They were tasked
with coming up with a new
city brand after 67 percent
surveyed said they thought
“You Can GROW Here”
sounded too much like an
invitation to grow marijuana.
The new brand, including
a logo and tagline, will be
used in promotional materials
for the city and chamber as
well as implemented into city
property such as its website,
letterheads and city vehicles.
At the committee meeting
on Wednesday a mock-up of
each logo option was shown
displayed on the city’s water
tower. The paint job on the
water tower, consisting of
the “You Can GROW Here”
tagline in brown lettering,
helped kick off the search
for a new brand idea after
citizens repeatedly criticized
it.
The city has set aside
$30,000 to repaint the water
tower with a version of the
new logo and tagline as soon
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with community input.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
BRIEFLY
PSD issues calendar survey
PENDLETON — The Pendleton School
District is asking for input for the start date
for the 2016-2017 school year through an
online survey.
Although the new Washington and
Sherwood Heights elementary schools will
be completed by the end of the current school
year, demolition of the existing schools and
additional work means the school years for
those sites can’t start until Sept. 19, a district
press release states.
As a result, the district is asking for input
on two different options for the new school
year.
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in which all students start the school year
Sept. 19 and end on June 16.
The Green Calendar would be a challenge
for the middle high school programs and
their assessment timelines, extracurricular
activities and deadlines for graduations and
college admissions.
The “Gold Calendar” would start grades
1-5 on Sept. 19 and grades 6-12 on Aug. 29,
ZLWKNLQGHUJDUWHQJLYHQVRPHÀH[LELOLW\RQ
its start date.
All grades would end the school year
on June 8, with elementary school students
would making up instructional hours through
“adjustments to the school day.”
The Gold Calendar would present a
challenge to parents who rely on older children
to take care of younger siblings and the district
will work with the Pendleton Parks and
Recreation Department on a potential solution.
The results from the survey will be
considered by a calendar committee, who
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Pendleton School Board March 17 meeting.
The survey can be taken by visiting the
district website at www.pendleton.k12.or.us/
home.
Main Street intersection will
temporarily close Monday
PENDLETON — The city of Pendleton
will temporarily close the west side of the
South Main Street-Southwest Isaac Avenue
intersection Monday, Feb. 29, while the city
works on the water system.
The closures will start at 8 a.m. Monday
and could continue until Tuesday.
Drivers that need to access Southwest
Isaac will be diverted to Southwest Fourth
Street, Southwest 15th Street and Southwest
17th Street.
———
Briefs are compiled from staff and wire
reports, and press releases. Email press
releases to news@eastoregonian.com
By JENNIFER COLTON
East Oregonian
Did an adult in your
house often push, grab, slap
or throw something at you?
Did you often feel that you
had no one to protect you?
Did you often feel that no
one in your family loved
you or thought you were
special?
Answering yes to any
of those questions adds
a point to the Adverse
Childhood Experience —
ACE — score, and making
sure children can overcome
those
experiences
to
become healthy adults is
the backbone of a new
initiative of the Umatilla
School District.
The Umatilla School
District is part of a
seven-district consortium
working on ACE strategies
in Oregon. The consortium
formed in the spring of
2014, after a conversation
between
superinten-
dents about students not
responding to traditional
intervention strategies. The
discussion turned to ACEs
and different strategies for
helping students succeed
despite those experiences.
Within a short period of
time, the districts had
decided to band together to
change the trajectory.
As part of the consor-
tium, each district is
tackling a different strategy.
When compared with larger
consortium districts, such
as Gresham and Portland
Public, Umatilla’s small
size puts it in the best
position to work with staff,
parent and community
awareness.
“What we’re trying to
do is gain an awareness for
staff and use that to build
resources with parents,”
Heidi
Sipe,
Umatilla
district
superintendent,
said Tuesday. “One of the
things that’s been proven
is you can get through this
with counseling. The key
to success for our kids is
making sure they have the
ability to move forward
and overcome those expe-
riences.”
When talking with
parents, the district will
discuss resiliency strategies
— aspects of life that help
a child move past traumatic
events — as well as the
link between ACEs and
health and social problems.
High ACE scores and low
resiliency scores are asso-
ciated with increased risks
of alcoholism, drug use,
obesity, depression, suicide
attempts, heart disease,
sexually
transmitted
diseases, stroke and heart
disease.
When Umatilla began
investigating
ACEs,
administration
surveyed
district staff, and the results
surprised them: 32 percent
of staff reported zero ACEs;
36 percent have four or
more. The superintendent
said the district has worked
with staff on putting
supports in place — both
for those who did not expe-
rience ACEs growing up
and for those who did and
could discover triggers as
work moves forward.
“We know that we have a
really great group of people
who have high ACEs but
overcame and went on to
have successful careers,”
Sipe said.
What the schools didn’t
know was that Danny
Bane, violence prevention
coordinator for Umatilla
County, was also working
on the same thing. Bane
began his position in
November and had heard
about the Umatilla work by
December. Bane and Sipe
met earlier this month.
“We had found out that
we were simultaneously
working in the same direc-
tion. We are so excited to
be working together now
and moving pretty quickly,”
Bane said Thursday. “What
ACEs is going to do for our
county is it’s going to help
us understand people who
are hurting in a way that will
give us the opportunity to
really help them. We don’t
quite understand everything
we need to know yet, which
is why the new information
for adverse childhood expe-
riences is so important.”
Bane said ACEs and
resiliency speak for them-
selves and that education is
an important part of tackling
the issues. The Umatilla
School District agrees, and
the district’s social media
campaign begins Monday.
The district will open a
discussion of what ACEs
are and will begin posting
resiliency tips each day
throughout the week. After
next week’s launch, the
district will continue to
bring ACEs and resiliency
up in conversation and keep
the awareness growing.
“We want to help as
many students as possible
and make sure families
understand the services we
offer,” Sipe said. “ACEs
are out of kids’ control,
but resiliency changes
that from out of control to
empowerment.”
New students to the
district will have the
opportunity to take a quiz
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authorizing any counseling
or parental information.
“We do not ask what
the ACE was. We do not
need to know that. What
we do ask is the number,”
she said. “We’re not trying
to judge — we just want
to help the kids. ACEs do
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become, but they will if we
do not overcome them.”
No ACE information
is recorded in a student’s
academic record and is
not tracked for educational
purposes. Sipe said this
initiative is a way of
looking at the health of the
whole child.
“This is one of those
projects that we don’t
know — and won’t know
for 30 years — if it was
successful,” Sipe said. “I
do believe we have a moral
imperative to try. If we try
and fail, we tried. If we
try and succeed, then that
is worth every bit of extra
work.”
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