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East Oregonian
SCHOOL: 513 students enrolled on the irst day
Continued from 1A
While staff members
do utilize fans like the one
in Farley’s ofice, opening
doors during class time to
take advantage of natural
cooling isn’t an option. With
no front gates and open air
corridors, the ease of access
at Rocky Heights means
teachers are advised to keep
their doors closed as a secu-
rity precaution.
And as with every other
school in the district, Rocky
Heights is trying to keep
up with an enrollment that
seems to grow exponen-
tially. At 5,500 students at
the start of the 2015-2016,
a Portland State University
study released in February
states that Hermiston was
the second fastest growing
district in Oregon, growing
at twice the rate the univer-
sity originally anticipated.
Farley said 513 were
enrolled on the irst day, but
expects the number to settle
in around 520.
That’s right around where
Rocky Heights ended at the
close of the last school year,
but Farley said adding one
more class would present a
challenge without a ready
solution.
As it is, teachers are
trying to work around
Rocky Heights’ present
facilities with their current
enrollment.
While the district’s more
modern schools have sepa-
rate spaces for the cafeteria
and gymnasium, it’s a shared
space at Rocky Heights.
This year, Rocky Heights’
kindergarten lunch overlaps
with one of Greg Hamm’s
physical education classes,
meaning he has to hold it
in a classroom instead of
the gym. The room is in
the school’s “quadroom,” a
former communal teaching
space that has since been
subdivided
into
four
sections.
Farley said the walls are
so thin that teachers are
able to speak to each other
through the barriers without
opening a door.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
LEAD: Poisoning can harm
kidneys, central nervous system
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Rocky Heights Elementary School principal Jarad Farley, left, helps students ind
their buses at the end of the irst day of school Monday in Hermiston.
“Our teachers are absolutely phenom-
enal. They’re doing more than they’ve
ever been asked to do before.”
— Jerad Farley, Rocky Heights Elementary School principal
While no regular classes
run concurrently with the
PE class, Farley said speech
services sometimes does.
Hamm said the quadroom
PE class is unfair to the
students who take it because
he has to create a separate
curriculum for a class that
doesn’t get to use a wide
space for physical activity.
“It’s certainly not an
environment that’s equi-
table,” he said.
Facility
shortcomings
also affect grade-level
classes, like the one that
belongs to ifth grade
teacher Josh Linn.
Linn said his class was
80 degrees Monday and the
water radiator in his room
often crackles and pops,
distracting students.
For Linn, the building’s
deiciencies
not
only
hurt students’ education
environment but have also
burdened the district’s
resources through its high
maintenance and energy
ineficiencies.
“It’s kind of like pouring
money into a sink hole,” he
said.
To alleviate some of
the overcrowding, Rocky
Heights has ive modulars,
trailers that act as extra class-
rooms, but Linn said those
present their own logistical
challenges like coordinating
bathroom
breaks
and
keeping children in sight
while they’re playing on the
nearby playground.
Farley attributed much of
the school’s success despite
its building struggles to its
teachers.
“Our teachers are abso-
lutely phenomenal,” he said.
“They’re doing more than
they’ve ever been asked to
do before.”
The
school
district
already requires its teachers
be involved in leadership
committees and is looking
to its educators to lead more
professional development
sessions.
Rocky Heights’ situation
is on the district’s radar, and
replacing it with new facili-
ties is one of the top prior-
ities being considered for a
new bond measure. A citizen
review committee recom-
mended a $104 million
bond that would replace
both Rocky Heights and
Highland Hills, the district’s
two oldest schools, as well
as build a new elementary
school and expand the
current high school.
The district has yet to
decide whether to put it on
the May 2017 ballot.
In 2008 voters approved
a $69.9 million bond that
allowed the district to replace
its oldest facilities West
Park and Sunset elementary
schools and Armand Larive
Middle School.
Since he took the helm
in 2015, Farley has tried to
instill the mission statement
“Preparing every student
for their next experience”
in every student and staff
member.
Now it could be up to
Hermiston voters where that
next experience is.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra
at asierra@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0836.
have already been removed.
Another site at the PHS
concession area previously
tested for higher levels of
lead earlier this summer.
Kovach said the equipment
was replaced, and levels
are now back within the
acceptable range.
While the EPA warns
there is no safe level of
lead in drinking water,
the agency says schools
need to take some kind of
corrective action once lead
reaches 20 parts per billion.
Young children are espe-
cially susceptible to lead
poisoning, which can harm
their kidneys and central
nervous system, according
to the Centers for Disease
Control.
Extremely high levels
of lead have been reported
at other schools across
Oregon. Water from a
classroom sink at McNary
High School in the Salem-
Keizer School District
registered 800 parts per
million for lead, according
to the Statesman Journal,
and a sink at Grant High
School in Portland tested a
whopping 57,600 parts per
billion for lead.
Kovach said they are
currently
bringing
in
drinking water for employees
working in McKay School.
“If necessary, we’ll bring
in drinking water for our
students, too,” he said.
Kovach said they are
expecting additional test
results early next week
for the Pendleton Early
Learning Center, Sherwood
Heights and Washington
elementary schools.
“We will continue to
communicate to families
and the community when
we have additional infor-
mation,” he said.
Full test results are
posted on the Pendleton
School District website at
www.pendleton.k12.or.us.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0825.
DRONES: Operators must pass
a test administered by the FAA
Continued from 1A
bridges and transmission
lines, assist ireighters,
ilm movies, and create real
estate and wedding videos,
among dozens of other uses.
In general, the new rules
apply to drones weighing 55
pounds or less, and require
commercial operators to:
• Keep the drone within
sight at all times.
• Keep drones from
lying over people not
involved in their operation.
• Limit drone operations
to the hours from a half-
hour before sunrise to a
half-hour after sunset.
• Limit speed to no more
than 100 mph.
• Fly no higher than 400
feet.
Drone operators must
also pass a test of their
aeronautical
knowledge
administered by the FAA.
More than 3,000 people had
registered with the FAA to
take the test as of Monday.
The Air Line Pilots
Association
complained
that the new regulations
are “missing a key compo-
nent” because there’s no
requirement that drone
operators irst have an
FAA pilot license to ly a
plane. The FAA considered
requiring drone operators
to have manned aircraft
pilot licenses, but relented
when the drone industry
complained that the time
and expense involved
in obtaining a license,
including considerable time
practicing lying a plane,
would be prohibitive.
Mylan launching cheaper, Abedin dumps husband Weiner
generic version of EpiPen over new sexting scandal
By LINDA A. JOHNSON AND
TOM MURPHY
AP Health Writers
The maker of EpiPens will
start selling a cheaper, generic
version of the emergency
allergy shots as the furor over
repeated U.S. price hikes
continues — and looming
competition threatens its
near-monopoly.
Despite
its
second
move in ive days to make
EpiPens more affordable for
consumers, maker Mylan
N.V. still faces condemnation
from critics who accused
it of price-gouging. They
note Mylan hasn’t reduced
the $608 list price for a pair
of EpiPen auto injectors or
explained why it hiked the
price more than 500 percent
from $94 after acquiring the
product in 2007.
“More must be done—and
more quickly—to make
this life-saving drug more
affordable,” Sen. Richard
Blumenthal, D-Connecticut,
said in a statement Monday.
“Mylan may appear to be
moving in the right direc-
tion, but its announcement
raises as many questions as
solutions—including why the
price is still astronomically
high, and whether its action is
a pre-emptive strike against a
competing generic.”
Mylan, which mainly
sells generic medicines, said
Monday it will begin selling
its generic version for $300
for a pair of EpiPens, in doses
for adults or children, like
the current EpiPens. That
will still bring Mylan tens
of millions of dollars while
helping it retain market share
against current and future
brand-name and generic
competition.
“We need real competition
to lower drug prices, not
corporations offering generic
versions of their own drugs
for whatever price they
want,” Sen. Bernie Sanders,
D-Vermont, wrote in a Twitter
post Monday.
EpiPens are used in emer-
gencies to stop potentially
fatal allergic reactions to
insect bites and stings, and
foods like nuts and eggs.
People usually keep multiple
EpiPens handy at home,
school or work, but the
syringes, preilled with the
hormone epinephrine, expire
after a year.
Some analysts have esti-
mated that the tiny amount
of epinephrine in an EpiPen
is worth barely $1, and the
auto-injectors might cost as
little as $5.
There’s currently little
competition for EpiPen. Rival
Adrenaclick carries a list price
of $461, and there’s a generic
version, but doctors typically
prescribe EpiPen, originally
launched in 1987, because it’s
so well known.
Parents doing back-
to-school
preparations
encountered sticker shock
at pharmacy counters this
month and began protesting
to politicians and on social
media, leading to an uproar
in an election year when drug
prices already are a hot issue
and other drugmakers have
been blasted for astronomical
price hikes.
Last Thursday, Mylan
offered more inancial aid
to patients getting EpiPens,
including coupon cards
covering up to $300 off
patient copayments, triple the
$100 discounts previously
offered.
Coupon cards are a stan-
dard pharmaceutical industry
strategy, one that leaves
employers and taxpayers still
footing at least two-thirds of
a big bill — and everyone
facing higher insurance
premiums eventually. And
like other drugmakers that
increase prices sharply when
generic competition is on
the horizon, Mylan has been
taking bigger annual price
increases on EpiPens the last
few years.
A generic competitor was
expected in 2015 but has been
delayed. Now that product
and a couple rival brand-name
ones could hit the U.S. market
in mid- to late 2017. Then last
Thursday the compounding
pharmacy Imprimis Pharma-
ceuticals said it hopes to sell
a version of the allergy shot in
a few months for around $100
for two injectors.
A chorus of politicians,
consumer groups and others
has been calling for hearings
and investigations of EpiPen
pricing, along with action by
the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration to speed approvals of
any rival products.
On Monday, Reps. Jason
Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Elijah
E. Cummings, D-Mary-
land, heads of the House
Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform,
wrote to Mylan CEO Heather
Bresch, requesting docu-
ments and communications
regarding Mylan’s revenues
from EpiPens since 2007,
manufacturing costs and how
much Mylan receives from
federal health care programs.
TWO
HOURS
every
morning
paid off
my credit
card debt.
NEW YORK (AP) —
Hillary Clinton aide Huma
Abedin is done playing
the good wife to Anthony
Weiner, announcing Monday
she is leaving the serially
sexting
ex-congressman
after he was accused of
sending raunchy photos
and messages to yet another
woman.
Abedin, who as vice chair
of Clinton’s campaign is
destined for big things if the
Democrat is elected presi-
dent, stayed with Weiner
after a sexting scandal
led him to resign from
Congress in 2011 and after
a new outbreak of online
misbehavior wrecked his
bid for New York mayor in
2013. She didn’t leave even
when a recent documentary
blew up tense moments in
their marriage to big-screen
proportions.
But on Monday, she
effectively declared she had
had enough.
“After long and painful
consideration and work on
my marriage, I have made
the decision to separate
from my husband,” she said
in a statement issued by the
campaign. “Anthony and
I remain devoted to doing
what is best for our son, who
is the light of our life.”
The New York Post
published
photos
late
Sunday that it said Weiner
had sent last year to a
woman identiied only as
a “40-something divorcee”
who lives in the West and
supports Republican Donald
Trump. The photos included
two close-ups of Weiner’s
bulging underpants.
In one of the pictures,
Weiner is lying on a bed with
his toddler son while texting
the woman, according to
the Post. The tabloid also
ran sexually suggestive
messages that it said the two
exchanged.
Weiner told the Post that
he and the woman “have
been friends for some time.”
“She has asked me not
to comment except to say
that our conversations were
private, often included
pictures of her nieces and
nephews and my son and
were always appropriate,”
the 51-year-old Democrat
told the newspaper.
Weiner didn’t return a
call, text or email from The
Associated Press. He deleted
his Twitter account Monday.
Please Welcome
JD Ward, DO
OB/ GYN
Now Scheduling Appointments
541-966-0535
Become an
East Oregonian
Carrier.
211 SE Byers Ave.
Pendleton
or call:
541-276-2211
1-800-522-0255
Dr. Ward is originally from Boise, Idaho and graduated
from Boise State. He attended medical school at Western
University of Health Science in Pomona, California and
completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology
in Muskegon, Michigan. He considers himself to have
the best job in the world and fi nds joy in all aspects of
obstetrics and gynecology and taking care of women of
all backgrounds, ages, and sizes. He and his family, wife
Robin, and their three children, are active in their church
and look forward to being involved in the community.
Family Clinic
3001 St. Anthony Way
Pendleton, Oregon
www.sahpendleton.org