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143rd Year, No. 93
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FEBRUARY 23-24, 2019
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WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
EOCI cuts $300K in energy use
Classroom
outbursts
disrupting
instruction
Local districts see increase in
teachers injured by students
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution has found ways to save about $300,000 off their annual electric bill. By overhauling
their heating system, insulating buildings and replacing older style lightbulbs with LEDs, the institution has cut their overall
utility bill by 20 percent.
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
T
he state prison in Pendleton is working hard to keep
the lights on and the power use down. Moves to save
energy are shaving about $300,000 a year from East-
ern Oregon Correctional Institution’s power bill.
Ron Miles said that’s in actual
savings and estimations for the
rest of the fi scal year, which ends
in June. Miles is the supervising
executive assistant at EOCI, the
only prison in the nation to earn
the U.S. Department of Energy’s
50001 Ready designation. That’s
a fancy way of stating the prison
is using global best practices to
save energy. Miles said the prison
staff is proud of the achievement,
but it was not the goal.
“When we started down this
path,” he said, “the idea was we
would be the best in terms of
reducing our carbon footprint and
the overall effi ciency effort.”
Mike Cleveland is the pris-
on’s physical plant manager and
has headed up EOCI’s change to
conserve power and resources.
When he took the manager posi-
tion in 2003, gas bills in the win-
ter were $100,000 a month. That
far exceeded his spending author-
ity and required the approval of
the superintendent.
“She asked how many months
is this,” Cleveland recalled. “I
said December.”
The big bills led him to seek
remedies for almost 500,000
square feet of building space, he
said, but energy effi ciency was
not part of the design.
EOCI opened in 1985, becom-
ing the fi rst prison the state estab-
lished outside of Marion County.
The state originally built the place
See EOCI, Page A10
In classrooms across Eastern Oregon,
teachers have seen a swell in concerning
behaviors: verbal outbursts, or students
getting violent toward themselves, peers
and teachers.
A report published last month by the
Oregon Education Association reveals
that statewide, schools are dealing with
these problems more frequently.
John Scanlan, a teacher at Pendleton’s
Sunridge Middle School, said teachers
have noticed more students coming into
class ill-equipped to handle their emotions.
He said there have been instances of
students fl ipping desks, lashing out, and
teachers having to do “room clears” —
removing all the other students out of a
room while one child is out of control.
As board member for the National
Education Association, Scanlan travels
to Washington, D.C., three times a year
to meet with congressional delegates and
lobby for education policy.
When he went this month, he said law-
makers were blown away by the reports
they heard.
“Senator Wyden’s education person
asked us what a ‘room clear’ was,” he said.
“He’s talking about education at the pol-
icy level, but this is a real boots-on-the-
ground situation.”
Increase in reports
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution adminis-
trators have replaced 109 high-pressure sodium
lights at the prison with LEDs. LED lights provide
two-thirds more light at two-thirds less wattage.
Hermiston School District provided
data for teachers injured on the job in the
past fi ve years. There has been a steady
increase in the number of teacher injury
reports, as well as reports in which a stu-
dent caused the injury. In 2015-16, there
were two student-related teacher injury
reports, and in 2017-18 there were 13, out
of 24 total teacher injury reports.
District spokesperson Maria Duron
said there is a difference between reported
injuries and worker’s comp claims. An
employee is required to report an incident,
but may decline to submit a claim. Addi-
tionally, she said, there has been a recent
push by the Oregon School Employees
Association to report student-related inci-
dents, which has caused the incident count
to climb.
See Outbursts, Page A10
Committee shakeups amid shifting Capitol culture
Democrat, Republican lose
seats for lack of civility
By AUBREY WIEBER
and CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM – Growing political ten-
sions at the Legislature boiled over
Thursday as House Speaker Tina
Kotek stripped a powerful Portland
Democrat of two committee chair-
manships because of his behavior.
Kotek at the same time booted a
Republican legislator off a commit-
tee, justifying both steps as moves
to keep governance in the Capitol
civil.
She acted, she said in a statement, “to
uphold the new standards we are all
trying to model.”
Committee placements are not just
a matter of ceremony or title. Chairs
have signifi cant infl uence over legis-
lation, with authority to kill a bill by
never giving it a hearing or advancing
legislation to a fl oor vote.
Greenlick
Post
See Capitol, Page A10
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