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East Oregonian
Thursday, January 24, 2019
OFF PAGE ONE
Gap: Local districts see rise in graduation rates
Continued from Page A1
Across all grade levels,
she said, they’re focusing on
more attendance efforts.
“I think we’re breaking
down silos of work,” she
said. “We’re not looking at
anything different for next
year, we’re looking at stay-
ing the course.”
On its face, the Pendleton
School District had a status
quo year for graduation rate.
The district’s gradua-
tion rate dropped by nearly
2 points, but its 81 percent
rate is still higher than the
state average.
But drilling down into
the data reveals some vic-
tories and some setbacks
for Pendleton. Matt Yosh-
ioka, the district’s director
of curriculum, instruction
and assessment, highlighted
the growth in the American
Indian graduation rate, long
a sore spot in the district’s
performance.
Staff photo by Kathy Aney, File
Hermiston grads toss their mortarboards into the air during the school’s 2018 commence-
ment exercises at the Toyota Center in Kennewick.
Although Native Amer-
ican students still gradu-
ate at a lesser rate than their
white peers, their 71 percent
clip represented a more than
17-point boost from the year
before.
Yoshioka
attributed
much of the progress to
improved performance to
Nixyaawii
Community
School, the Umatilla Indian
Reservation charter school
where a majority of the stu-
dent body is Native Ameri-
can. Nixyaawii’s graduation
rate jumped nearly 17 points
to 58.8 percent in 2017-18.
The district’s 85 percent
on-track rate for freshmen
also suggests that the school
system will have solid grad-
uation rates in the future.
But not all of Pendleton’s
data trended positively.
Yoshioka said the district
wants to work on reducing
the school system’s 4.2 per-
cent dropout rate, which is
higher than both the state
average and Umatilla Coun-
ty’s average.
The district also contin-
ues to be the tale of two high
schools. While Pendleton
High School graduated 89.7
percent of its seniors, only
30.8 percent graduated from
Hawthorne
Alternative
High School, the same exact
figure as the year before.
Yoshioka said the district
has already made efforts to
improve outcomes at Haw-
thorne, including increased
staffing levels and offering
a “hybrid” approach where
students split their time
between Hawthorne and
Pendleton High School to
keep them engaged.
Other schools in Uma-
tilla County saw improve-
ment, as well. Umatilla
School District cleared the
statewide rate by nearly six
points, graduating students
at a rate of 84.16 percent in
2017-18. Their rates were up
from 81.72 percent the pre-
vious year.
Superintendent
Heidi
Sipe said via email that she
was proud of students’ con-
tinued success, but their
goal is still helping all stu-
dents receive a high school
diploma, whether in four
years or a few years longer.
“We continue to wel-
come our non-completing
students back until age 21 to
finish their diplomas,” Sipe
said.
“While those students do
not always count in gradua-
tion calculations, they count
in our community and we
are honored to support stu-
dents until they earn their
diplomas.”
Stanfield School District
fell just below the state aver-
age, with a 76.92 percent
graduation rate. Stanfield
had 42 students in its 2017-
18 class.
Echo School graduated
87.5 percent of its students,
in a class of 34 students.
Delays: Owners discuss reasons behind long waits for construction
Continued from Page A1
Often
construction
delays don’t come down
to one specific problem.
Allan Lambert of Afford-
able Family Eyewear said
their remodel of a build-
ing on the corner of North-
east Third Street and Gladys
Avenue has been prolonged
by a combination of “self-in-
flicted” problems and things
out of their control.
The sign on the build-
ing originally said “Com-
ing in Summer.” Then it
was changed to “Coming
in Autumn.” Now Lambert
said he thinks they might be
done in April.
“I guess we were a little
optimistic,” he said.
For Affordable Family
Eyewear, there hasn’t been
one major roadblock, just
a series of smaller delays.
Every time an appraiser or
contractor says they’ll be
there in three weeks and it
turns out to be eight, that
adds up, Lambert said.
New banking laws have
also set up more hoops to
jump through before getting
financing, stretching out the
process.
“It used to be once you
got the appraisal, you were
good to go,” he said.
Deciding to save money
by doing some work them-
selves has added more
time than expected as well.
The building — which has
served as everything from
a Sears to a church — is
getting an extensive make-
over with a completely new
layout.
Lambert said new “to
do” items keep popping
up as they go along. They
decided to double-insu-
late all the interior walls
with sound-proofing mate-
rials, for example, because
they plan to lease part of
the building to professionals
such as lawyers and doctors,
who want to keep conversa-
tions confidential.
Still, he said, they are
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Financing has held up Delish Bistro’s planned move into the old Stet’s Steakhouse in Hermiston.
lucky to be able to continue
operating out of their cur-
rent building they can stay
in until the remodel is fin-
ished, and they are excited
about the chance to custom-
ize a new, larger office.
Another business move
still waiting to happen is
Delish Bistro, which is
located at 1725 N. First
Street but is also leasing the
former Stet’s Steakhouse
building on Highway 395.
The bistro at one point was
slated to move to the former
steakhouse building in Feb-
ruary 2018, but is still at its
original location.
Herman Hull said the
restaurant plans to remodel
the kitchen before mov-
ing in, but is waiting on the
financing to do it.
“It’s going to be a while
yet,” he said.
The move will provide
indoor seating, and a larger
kitchen will open up new
options on the menu. If any-
one is interested in partic-
ipating in a private financ-
ing initiative — 9 percent
annual interest paid monthly
— they should get in touch
with Delish Bistro, Hull said.
The Union Club, a project
that originally envisioned
a summer 2018 opening, is
now looking at opening its
doors during the upcoming
summer instead.
“Obviously I can’t say
anything with complete
assurance, because you’ve
seen how it’s been, but I’m
more sure now that I have
been,” said Justin Doyle,
one of the partners in the
project.
The club will be a cof-
fee-by-day,
bar-by-night
gathering space that plays
homage to the original
Union Club of the 1940s.
The building on the corner
of Main Street and North-
east Second Street, which
was erected in 1906, was
most recently home to Roe-
Marks Men’s and Western
Wear.
Doyle said he wasn’t
interested in recounting a
blow-by-blow of what the
holdups have been, but he
did say that remodeling a
historic buildings comes
with extra challenges. It’s a
“game” of finding out which
elements — plumbing, wir-
ing, etc. — need replaced,
and special care also needs
to be taken to preserve the
building’s historical integ-
rity as much as possible.
“It definitely adds addi-
tional layers of discovery,
but the value of keeping the
history alive outweighs all
the difficulties,” he said.
Doyle said they are get-
ting ready to sign off on a
bid and final design, how-
ever, and contractors should
be starting on the four- to
five-month project within
weeks.
“It’s been challeng-
ing, it’s taken longer than
Wildfire: Inter-agency team hopes to control drugs
Continued from Page A1
and Union counties, and the
execution of multiple search
warrants leading up to last
week’s busy day of arrests.
Umatilla County District
Attorney Dan Primus said
he considers his office part
of BENT, and his chief dep-
uty, Jacklyn Jenkins, who
has worked for years with
the team and its detectives,
was ready for the influx of
cases.
“We knew all the infor-
mation involving each indi-
vidual,” Primus said, “and
which individuals were
appropriate for charges
and which charges were
appropriate.”
Primus also called Wild-
fire a boon for local commu-
nities. He and his family are
in Pendleton, he said, and
this police work makes the
community feel safer.
Roberts said sweeps
like this let drug dealers
know BENT is here and not
going away, but the mea-
sure of success is difficult to
quantify.
“The subjective standard
for us is how soon can we
start buying drugs again in
the community,” he said.
Big busts leave a “dry up
effect” in their wake, Rob-
erts said, which comes from
taking drugs off the streets
and from drug suppliers rec-
ognizing the area is hot with
cops and not the best place
to do business. Removing
children from dangerous
situations is itself a win, he
said, and seizing the weap-
ons could save lives.
“There’s so many ways
to analyze this, basically
you can’t put a realistic
number on it,” he said.
The Office of National
Drug Control Policy, how-
ever, put BENT on a num-
ber — $130,000. That’s the
funding the federal agency
provided to the team for
2018-19 to fight the drug
war in Umatilla County
and other federally desig-
nated High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Areas. BENT
also receives a little money
for police sales of property
seizures.
The team consists of offi-
cers, detectives, and agents
from local law enforcement,
Oregon State Police and the
FBI. Those agencies cover
the wages and benefits of
their personnel on the team.
Roberts said the amount
of federal money fluctu-
ates from a low of about
$110,000 to a high near
$135,000, and the federal
budget cycle differs from
the city’s cycle, creating a
bit of a dance to cover costs.
The team’s funds go to a
variety of activities, from
leasing cars to stay under
the radar of bad guys to
paying informants. That
$130,000 is not much, Rob-
erts said, so BENT is frugal.
BENT can sustain itself
for a few years if the feds
cut the money, he also said,
at least long enough until a
new funding strategy comes
along.
The team for the past
several years focused on
taking down bigger drug
suppliers and the heads of
criminal
organizations.
Wildfire was a turn toward
the neighborhood. But drug
busts at either end produce
plenty of offenders willing
to talk and cut themselves
a deal.
Roberts said the situation
resembles a “huge game of
tag” with offenders “tag-
ging” someone else so they
can get out of a jam.
“At the end of the day,”
he said, “if you don’t want
to get jammed up, don’t get
involved in the activity.”
we thought, but we’re still
here,” he said.
Other
Hermiston-area
projects delayed but still in
the works include Ranch
& Home. The retailer was
originally slated to open by
Jan. 1, 2018, but has yet to
announce an opening date.
While the company has
mostly been silent about the
construction process, it did
cite a problem with finding
electrical
subcontractors
when discussing an exten-
sion of its incentive package
with the city of Hermiston
in early 2018. Because the
retailer missed a June 2018
deadline, it is missing out
on $100,000 in reimbursed
development costs from the
city of Hermiston.
The Maxwell Pavilion,
originally slated to host the
summer 2018 farmer’s mar-
ket in Hermiston, is still
putting finishing touches on
the project after a disagree-
ment between owner Mitch
Meyers and the city’s build-
ing department resulted in
a stop-work order over the
summer.
The city was set to build
an RV park at the Eastern
Oregon Trade and Event
Center in time for the 2019
Umatilla County Fair, but
a ruling by the city’s own
planning commission, ban-
ning construction at the site
until an overflow parking
plan is approved, has put the
original timeline in doubt.
The delay is far from the
first construction delay for
EOTEC.
In December the Wash-
ington State Department of
Transportation announced
that the Interstate 82 bridge
across the Columbia River
would not be finished in
2018 as originally planned,
but instead finish up some-
time in the spring or sum-
mer of 2019. The depart-
ment blamed “additional
work” that cropped up unex-
pectedly, causing workers
to not get concrete pouring
finished before the weather
turned too poor to continue.
There is hope, however:
Other Hermiston-area proj-
ects that were significantly
delayed have opened in
recent years. The Harken-
rider Senior Activity Cen-
ter, delayed from a planned
spring 2018 opening, opened
in September 2018.
The Holiday Inn Express
had its grand opening in
February 2018 instead of
October 2017.
And Shiki Hibachi Sushi,
which displayed a sign
announcing “opening soon”
for more than a year, did
open at the end of 2017 and
is still in operation.
CHI St Anthony Hospital
Scholarships
OPEN TO ANYONE IN
UMATILLA OR MORROW COUNTIES
High school senior or
College students
pursuing a degree in healthcare.
Scholarships up to $1000 will be awarded.
Funded by the SAH Volunteers.
Download the application at
sahpendleton.org/scholarship
Return your application
packet no later than March 1, 2019.
(Postmark does not count.)
Submit application to:
Emily Smith, Volunteer Services 2801
St. Anthony Way, Pendleton, OR 97801
EmilySmith@chiwest.com • Questions? Call 541-278-2627