REGION
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 3A
Achievement gap for American Indian
students persists in Pendleton, statewide
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
When presenting awards to
exemplary
American
Indian
students at a school board meeting
Monday at Wildhorse Resort &
Casino, many Pendleton School
District principals highlighted the
honoree’s perfect or near-perfect
attendance.
After the applause ended and the
families filed out, Matt Yoshioka,
the district’s curriculum, instruction
and assessment coordinator, said a
lack of attendance plays a large part
in the persistent performance gap
between Native American students
and their peers.
“The achievement gap is real,”
he said. “It’s alive and well.”
The data Yoshioka compiled
show only a slight gap during
kindergarten assessments that
measure English letter names and
sounds, math and interpersonal
skills. But that gap grew into double
digit territory when students took
the Smarter Balanced assessment in
grades 3-8 and 11.
Yet Yoshioka said some of the
statistics weren’t truly represen-
tative. Enrolled tribal members
that identified as more than one
race were sometimes considered
EO file photo
Students watch as Kimberly Minthorn, Native American education
coordinator for the CTUIR, lashes poles together while teaching
how to put up a teepee in May at Pendleton High School. The Pend-
leton School District is working to increase attendance to help close
the achievement gap for American Indian students.
“multi-racial” instead of Native
American and the attendance
figures (93.5 percent attendance for
all students versus 92.2 percent for
American Indian students in 2016)
didn’t properly reflect some of the
chronic absenteeism issues. He said
that might be better measured by
looking at the number of students
who miss more than 10 percent of
their school days.
Yoshioka said attendance issues
begin around kindergarten, which
makes it difficult for children
to meet the benchmarks later in
school.
“(People) have a notion, a belief,
that kindergarten doesn’t really
matter,” he said.
Lloyd Commander, the Confed-
erated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation youth services and
recreation program manager, said
the Pendleton School District had
the best tribal relationship of any
school district in Oregon, but said
the persistent achievement gap was
“shameful.”
“The foundation keeps shifting,”
he said, referring to the changes the
state has made to its assessment
system in recent years. “But in each
case, there’s been a gap.”
Commander added that the
CTUIR has done its part to help
tribal youth, offering a four-week
summer school session and after-
school tutoring. He said the school
district needed to shoulder more of
the burden.
Gary George, school board
member and Wildhorse CEO, asked
what the school district should do
differently.
Commander said the school
district could take measures like
setting achievement goals for
American Indian students and
tracking their improvement.
One measure the school district
is already undertaking is using a
state grant to improve attendance
at Washington Elementary School,
which has the district’s highest
American Indian population.
The district hired Brent Spencer,
a former employee in the tribal
education department, to track
American Indian student attendance
and create initiatives to improve it.
Since school started in
September, Spencer said he has
built relationships with students
during the breakfast and lunch
periods, made calls home when
children miss school and introduced
incentives like family nights and
Wildhorse cineplex movie tickets
to get families more involved in
attendance.
Spencer said tribal parents’
negative experiences at school can
sometimes transfer to their chil-
dren. So in a move toward cultural
inclusiveness, the Washington
school spirit shirts also include the
Umatilla word for the their wildcat
mascot, with the hope to include
more Umatilla words within the
school.
Although Spencer’s position is
only funded through the June, he
estimated the program would have
to be active for three years before
school officials began seeing a
noticeable impact.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0836.
HERMISTON
Meeting to weigh
‘The Butler Did It, Again!’ — or did he? in on Columbia
High school stages
whodunit play
River System
By TAMMY MALGESINI
East Oregonian
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
A play that spoofs murder
mysteries will have the
audience laughing during
Hermiston High School’s fall
drama production.
“The Butler Did It, Again!”
centers around a party thrown
by Miss Maple, a high society
widow known for her unique
weekend gatherings. She
invites a group of mystery
writers to a Southern mansion
where she plans to introduce
horror author Ruth Dice.
When the other writers realize
Ruth has gained favor in Miss
Maple’s publishing company,
they become willing to do
anything — from solving a
murder or even committing
one themselves.
“People like murder
mysteries ... and this one is
making fun of the mystery
writers,” said director Dana
Mercer. “It’s pretty witty.
There’s a bunch of slapstick.”
The play will be staged
Thursday through Saturday
at 7 p.m. in the school’s
auditorium, 600 S. First St.,
Hermiston. The cost is $6
for adults, $4 for students,
and free for senior citizens
and HHS students with ASB
cards.
Playwright Tim Kelly,
Members of the public
are invited to weigh in on
how the federal government
should operate each of 14
dams on the Columbia River
System during a meeting
Thursday in Walla Walla.
The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, Bonneville
Power Administration and
Bureau of Reclamation have
five years to update an envi-
ronmental impact statement,
or EIS, for the river system,
which broadly addresses
how the dams should be run
to protect everything from
fish and wildlife to flood
control.
Dams on the Columbia
River System are spread
out between Oregon, Wash-
ington, Idaho and Montana
within the interior Columbia
Basin. They include: Bonne-
ville, The Dalles, John Day,
McNary, Ice Harbor, Lower
Monumental, Little Goose,
Lower Granite, Dworshak,
Albeni Falls, Grand Coulee,
Chief Joseph, Libby and
Hungry Horse.
BPA spokesman David
Wilson said the agencies
intended to update the
existing EIS, which is 25
years old, even before
U.S. District Court Judge
Michael Simon essentially
expedited the process as
part of his ruling to protect
endangered salmon runs.
Earlier this year, Simon
rejected the feds’ 2014
biological opinion intended
to
safeguard
salmon.
Among the issues, Simon
found that agencies needed
to update their EIS of the
entire Columbia River
System, which in turn
would support the opinion
on salmon.
Wilson said the EIS will
consider a range of alterna-
tives that analyze impacts
on navigation, hydropower,
irrigation and flood risk
management, in addition
to fisheries. But first, the
agencies have kicked off
a series of public scoping
meetings to gather input
Staff photo by Tammy Malgesini
Hermiston High School drama students rehearse the dinner party arrival scene for
“The Butler Did It, Again!” The play will be staged Thursday through Saturday at 7
p.m. in the school’s auditorium.
“People like murder mysteries ...
and this one is making fun of the
mystery writers. It’s pretty witty.”
— Dana Mercer, director
Mercer said, geared the
content of the play for high
school productions. Because
of that, she said, it’s a fun
play that’s appropriate for all
ages.
“I like that any age can go
to it and find something they
like,” she said.
During the theme party
gathering, the mystery-
writing guests are to come
dressed and play the roles
of the fictional investigators
they’ve created. This aspect
of the production, Mercer
said, resulted in a lot of
creativity and amusement
with the costuming.
As Ruth Dice’s popularity
wanes, a storm brews —
both within the party and
the weather outside. And,
of course, in keeping with
the classic murder mystery
scenario, someone winds up
dead after a brief blackout.
For more information, call
541-667-6100.
———
Contact
Community
Editor Tammy Malgesini at
tmalgesini@eastoregonian.
com or 541-564-4539
HERMISTON
Volunteers needed for Rose Festival parade
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
The Hermiston City
Council wants to bring its
message that life is sweet to
the Portland Rose Festival
next year.
City manager Byron Smith
told the council on Monday
that organizers of the Grand
Floral Parade approached the
city about sending a float to
the 2017 parade.
“It would be a great way
to showcase our community,”
Smith said.
The parade has a “mini-
float” program with slots for
15 Oregon cities each year to
put a small float built around
a golf cart in the parade.
The floats must be made of
all organic material, such as
flowers and different colors
of seeds and beans.
Hundreds of thousands
of people turn out for the
parade each year or watch it
on television. Mayor David
Drotzmann said he thought
the parade would be an
“awesome opportunity” to
show off the city’s new logo
and brand to people across
the state.
Councilors said it would
be important to begin now to
find community volunteers
willing to spearhead the
effort and make sure the final
product was something the
community could be proud
of.
“It’s a great idea but very,
very labor intensive at the
end,” Jackie Myers said.
The city does not have
to officially commit until
February, so councilors
directed staff to begin
searching for community
members interested in taking
the project on. The Rose
Festival will take place the
weekends between May 27
and June 12.
On Monday the council
also re-approved its financial
policies and approved a
supplemental budget. The
city had expected to pay
to drain the lagoons at the
recycled water treatment
plant during the previous
fiscal year but did not do so
until later in the summer,
meaning the money had to
be re-appropriated into the
2016-2017 budget. Draining
the lagoons of solid waste
and taking it to the landfill
cost $1,390,100 plus $9,880
for engineering costs and
$22,220 for pump repairs.
Smith said there was
more material in the lagoon
than expected, which is why
the cost came close to $1.4
million instead of the $1
million the council was told
last year.
“Forty percent is a big
miss,” Drotzmann responded.
“Wasn’t that the engineer’s
job to tell us?”
Smith said it was the first
time emptying the lagoons
with the new wastewater
treatment system, which
filters more solids out of the
water than the old system, so
in the future the engineers will
have a better idea of costs.
On an unrelated note, he
reported that the city tested all
of its drinking fountains and
none of them had dangerous
levels of lead.
The first few minutes of
the council’s regular session
were packed with people in
red shirts bearing the words
“I Love My City.” The shirts
are part of a campaign by
Hermiston Assembly of God
to spread acts of service and
positivity around the city.
“It’s good to see a full
house and I love to see what’s
on the T-shirts the full house
is wearing,” Drotzmann said.
He said the group was
helping their community
without any expectation of
reward, but he felt it was
important to invite them to
the council meeting to recog-
nize their work.
Pastor Terry Haight said
he had gotten calls from 10
different religious leaders
since the group’s first activity
in October, asking to help out
with future projects. They
will be providing free gift
wrapping in the Wal-Mart
parking lot the weekend
before Christmas and hope
to continue performing acts
of service throughout the
coming year.
The city council meeting
began with a work session
about rules for the city
committees. Smith said there
had been some confusion
about vague rules — whether
city council representatives
to the committee counted
toward a quorum, for
example.
The council discussed
adjusting the size of some
committees and making
rules about terms and other
aspects more uniform across
committees. They
also
supported Smith’s suggestion
of holding a training with
committee members, partic-
ularly committee chairs, on
public records and public
meeting laws.
Smith said he would work
with city attorney Gary Luisi
to draft an ordinance spelling
out rules for committees and
bring it back to the council at
a later date.
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at
jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
from communities affected
by the river system.
“The federal govern-
ment is in listening mode,”
Wilson said. “What the EIS
looks at exactly will be
determined by the scoping
process.”
The closest meeting to
Pendleton and Hermiston
will be held Thursday at the
Courtyard Walla Walla, 550
W. Rose St., from 4-7 p.m.
The scoping process will
run through Jan. 17, 2017,
and a final EIS won’t be
done likely until 2021.
One of the signature
issues raised is the potential
breaching of four dams on
the Lower Snake River. In
his earlier ruling, Judge
Simon stated that a proper
analysis of protecting
Snake River salmon runs
“may well require” consid-
ering removing one or more
of those dams.
“Dam breaching will
likely be one of the actions
analyzed in the EIS,”
Wilson said.
While the dams hamper
fish migration, they also
provide about 5 percent of
the Northwest’s hydroelec-
tric power, according to
a recent Associated Press
report. BPA estimates that
replacing the Lower Snake
dams’ production with
natural gas would cost
between $274 million and
$372 million annually.
BPA is in charge of
marketing and selling
electricity generated off the
Columbia River System.
The Bureau of Reclamation
operates and maintains two
of the 14 dams — Grand
Coulee and Hungry Horse
— while the U.S. Army
Corps operates the other 12.
Alternatives developed
in the EIS will take a look at
both system operations and
structural modifications at
the dams moving forward.
“We’re taking comments
so we can look at all
options,” Wilson said.
For more information
on ways to comment, visit
www.crso.info or call
1-800-290-5033.
Sheriff’s office continues search
for dead man’s relatives
East Oregonian
The Umatilla County
Sheriff’s office continues
to search for relatives of a
man whose body was found
almost two weeks ago.
“We think we located a
relative in Mexico,” under-
sheriff Jim Littlefield said.
“But we haven’t been able
to contact them.”
The body was found Nov.
4 at the Sand Station Recre-
ation Area on Highway 730,
about 10 miles northeast
of Hermiston. Littlefield
reported
fingerprints
revealed the identity and the
sheriff’s office wanted to
notify any relatives before
making that information
public.
That, however, is the
sticking point. Littlefield
said the person may not
have had local relatives.
Detectives, though, were
working on that Tuesday
and the sheriff’s office said
it would release the identity
as soon as it was able.