OFF PAGE ONE
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
East Oregonian
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Cost: District steps in to help
Continued from Page A1
herself making up for the
cost.
“Mostly the lower income
families couldn’t afford it,”
she said. “It’s not something
you worry about when you’re
busy paying your bills.”
At the Hermiston and
Pendleton school districts,
some principals allocate a
classroom budget to teach-
ers. Faircloth has invested
hers in chair pockets, which
her students will use to hold
supplies.
“I didn’t have that at my
old district. I was shocked
when I found that out,” she
said.
Going into the year, she
said she prefers to have 10
or 12 sets of school supplies
she can pop into a student’s
cubby on the first day if they
don’t have any, so no one
feels left out.
But it’s not just about the
staples.
“Anything that makes
your classroom colorful and
welcoming usually comes out
of teacher pockets,” Faircloth
said. “If you were to have just
a government-funded class-
room, you would have blank
walls and everything would
be white or brown.”
She estimates that in the
past, she’s spent between
$500 and $600 a year out of
her own pocket funding her
classroom.
Faircloth’s estimates agree
with national statistics.
Date from the National
Teacher and Principal Survey
released during the 2016-17
school year shows that 94%
of teachers spend money out
of pocket on classroom sup-
plies. The data is currently
being reevaluated, but a pre-
vious finding from the same
survey shows that during the
2006-07 school year, 92% of
teachers in rural areas spent
an average of $407 yearly on
supplies for their classrooms.
Matt Yoshioka, the curric-
ulum, instruction and assess-
ment director for Pendle-
ton School District, said that
the district has hired 21 new
teachers this year, and he’s
tried to equip them the best
he can with extra resources
for their classrooms.
“We want them to start
off on the right foot,” Yosh-
ioka said.
Nationally, different cam-
paigns are being launched to
gift teachers school supplies
from wish lists created on
Amazon.
On the community Face-
book page “What’s Hap-
pening Hermiston,” teach-
ers from Umatilla to Union
counties are linking their
lists on a thread where com-
munity members are inter-
ested in helping out. They’re
looking for everything from
pencils and desk organizers
to books and visual aids —
things that make a classroom
a habitat for learning — but
that the untrained eye might
not think twice about.
Faircloth said she doesn’t
blame the schools for the lack
of available funding. And she
doesn’t blame parents either.
“I would like to see a
program where parents can
get some assistance getting
school supplies. I feel for
those parents who can’t pro-
vide it,” she said.
Jamie Campbell has two
children heading to school in
Hermiston this month and is
concerned about getting her
kids the supplies they need.
She moved back to Herm-
iston to care for her aging
father after living in Florida
for eight years. In the past,
Campbell said she’s worked
as a receptionist, but was
unable to find a position in
the area. Instead, she’s work-
ing at a local dollar store part
time. She has back and knee
problems, but that won’t stop
her.
“Now that I’m working on
my feet, it’s constant pain but
you’ve got to do what you’ve
got to do,” she said.
Campbell said her son,
who’s headed to high school,
wants to make sure he has
everything he needs. But
between her income and her
husband’s Social Security,
she’s not sure she can make
it happen as she continues
to pay the rent and put pay-
ments on the car.
“It’s kind of an embar-
rassment when all of the
kids have their supplies, and
you’re just sitting there,” she
said.
She reached out on social
media, asking about what
parents who can’t afford
school supplies should do,
and some people in the com-
munity offered to help her
out.
At this point, Campbell’s
not sure what she’ll end up
doing. She said she prefers
paying her own way and is
hoping to pick up more hours
at work.
“I love how the commu-
nity pulls together, but make
it more well known to peo-
ple,” she said. “I’m sure other
parents are going through
(this).”
In Hermiston, the Church
of the Nazarene held a school
supplies drive for Rocky
Heights Elementary, which
ended Sunday.
“We know school sup-
plies are getting expensive,”
said office manager Gabri-
elle Fritz.
On Aug. 24, the Herm-
iston Education Foundation
will host a Back to School
Supply Dash run to gather
donations for elementary
and middle schools in the
district.
Lisa Roberts, child devel-
opment specialist at Sher-
wood Elementary in Pendle-
ton, collects wish lists from
the different schools to give
to the organization Altrusa,
which holds a school supplies
drive for the district each
year.
Roberts said that a high
poverty level in the area
means the district is stepping
in more to help kids get ready
for school.
“The number of kids that I
help with school supplies and
clothing has increased,” Rob-
erts said.
She said it’s important to
handle these situations with
care.
“We try to keep it con-
fidential. We always have a
little closet full of supplies
we can put together for kids
really quickly,” Roberts said.
“Throughout the year, once
school starts, if a teacher
notices a kid doesn’t have
what they need, they’ll let the
counselors know.”
Chief: Stability and service
Continued from Page A1
inspired by the 1987 comedy
“Roxanne,” a movie where
Steve Martin plays a fire
chief of a small town.
Still, he thought his ulti-
mate goal was as training
chief and not fire chief.
He went back to school,
culminating in a master’s
in business administra-
tion from the University of
Arizona.
And his rise at the Tucson
Fire Department didn’t stop
at training chief, with the
city naming him fire chief in
2011.
Critchley retired after
nearly three decades with
the Tucson Fire Department
at the end of 2017.
But the promise of more
days with family was inter-
rupted when both his mother
and father died shortly after
his retirement.
In the months that fol-
lowed, the home renovation
projects he used to keep him-
self busy started to dry out as
he completed them.
Before retiring, Critch-
ley had been a nine-year
member of the Western Fire
Chiefs Association, the same
organization that connected
Berardi with Pendleton.
He eventually reached
out to the association, telling
them that he was interested
in helping out wherever he
was needed.
The group hooked him up
with Pendleton, and he took
the job without visiting the
town, although he’s been to
the Northwest before when
visiting his wife’s family in
Eastern Washington.
Although the mechanics
of fighting fires and respond-
ing to emergencies are the
same, Critchley said the
main difference between the
fire departments in Pendle-
ton and Tucson are resources.
Critchley now manages
a $5.1 million annual budget
whereas he oversaw a budget
that was more than 18 times
that amount in Tucson.
Still, he likes what he sees
so far in Pendleton.
“It’s a good little fire
department in a good town,”
he said.
Critchley has spent his
early days driving the roads
of Pendleton and the sur-
rounding area to get the lay
of the land.
He’s also met with depart-
ment staff from all shifts and
intends to spend a lot of time
listening to personnel and
the community.
Critchley is the latest per-
son to take a job that’s cycled
through eight interim and
permanent fire chiefs since
2010.
He said he aims to bring
a sense of stability to the
department by focusing
everyone’s goal on why they
do their job — to serve the
community.
He also hasn’t ruled out
applying for the permanent
position when it opens. City
Manager Robb Corbett has
also indicated that he would
invite Critchley to apply for
the position when it opens,
but he hasn’t committed to a
hiring timeline.
As interim fire chief,
Critchley earns some-
where between $89,268 and
$119,232 per year.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
Jolene Hudson, a teacher with Pendleton School District, discusses safe places with a group
of new teachers during a training on Tuesday.
School: New PSD teachers
train for upcoming year
Continued from Page A1
staff are in the “probationary”
period, which means they’re in
the first three years of working
with the district.
On Monday, the new
instructors gathered for an
extensive two-day teacher ori-
entation geared toward pre-
paring them to hit the ground
running.
“We’ve never done more,”
the district’s Director of Cur-
riculum, Instruction and
Assessment Matt Yoshioka
said of the program. “When I
started in 2000, I was handed
a key and told, ‘Good luck, the
books are in the classroom.’”
The orientation program
will be tested by this year’s
group. Between the 21 new
teachers, there are just 15 full-
time years of experience in the
classroom, with 17 beginning
their first full-time position in
teaching.
Many of the new hirees,
Yoshioka said, have just fin-
ished their bachelor’s degrees
and student teaching but are
licensed to work in Oregon
while enrolling in a master’s
program.
While that means most are
inexperienced, Yoshioka also
sees a group that is fresh and
excited to get to work.
“It’s awesome, it’s like,
‘This is it.’ All of a sudden they
have a grown-up job,” he said,
laughing. “(College) programs
are preparing them better than
they ever have before.”
Still, Monday and Tues-
day were dedicated to getting
the new teachers up to speed
as fast as possible. Monday
began with the hirees meeting
Superintendent Chris Fritsch
and the Pendleton Association
of Teachers before focusing on
professionalism training.
The group also took a trip
out to Tamástslikt Cultural
Institute at the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indi-
ana Reservation to learn about
local tribal history and culture,
which was then followed by a
lunch with the school board.
Tuesday’s training started
with a morning session on
Conscious Discipline led by
four teachers from the district.
Josh McGraw, Maria Davis,
Jolene Hudson and Betty
Townsend taught lessons on
how to handle emotional situa-
tions with students in a healthy
and effective way.
“For Conscious Discipline,
discipline is not a form of pun-
ishment,” Hudson said.
Yoshioka said the instruc-
tion helps teachers be more
“self-aware” of themselves
and the students.
“It’s a mindset shift pro-
gram,” he said.
This is the second year
the district has presented the
program to teachers, though
McGraw said that he and oth-
ers have been using the les-
sons it showcases for the last
four years. The program is
over two decades old and
has become popular around
Umatilla County, with class-
rooms implementing it around
the world in Africa, Asia and
Mexico too.
The session featured les-
sons on how to defuse emo-
tional situations that arise
between and within students
in a way that students can
learn how to acknowledge and
address their own emotions.
Some of its important ele-
ments included creating a safe,
age-appropriate space for stu-
dents in the classroom where
they can go to when they need
to process emotions. These
spaces include materials, such
as plush toys with expressive
faces to help the student iden-
tify what they are feeling, and
items like sensory sequin pil-
lows that relax them to help
work through those emotions.
The point isn’t to be perfect
or have children rely on these
materials, McGraw said, but
instead to make them avail-
able to students and reinforce
the program’s values enough
to make a difference.
“If we do this 20% of the
time, students in our com-
munity are going to benefit,”
McGraw said as he ended
Tuesday’s lesson.
While the concepts of the
program are designed to be
implemented across all ages
of students, much of Tues-
day’s lesson focused on exam-
ples of students in elementary
school and younger, which
got Kiana Rickman and Beth-
any Van Cleave talking about
how they could implement the
same concepts in their classes
this year.
Rickman was hired to
teach history at Pendle-
ton High School, while Van
Cleave will be an eighth grade
English/language arts teacher
at Sunridge Middle School.
Though both are in their first
full-time teaching job out of
college, both are familiar with
the school district.
Before seeing each other
for the orientation on Monday,
Rickman and Van Cleave last
met at PHS. Rickman grad-
uated in 2015 before attend-
ing Nebraska-Wesleyan Uni-
versity where she joined the
women’s soccer program,
while Van Cleave graduated
the following year and went
to Eastern Oregon University.
Neither had any idea they’d
soon be working in the same
district.
While the school district
managed to bring two of its
own products back, it’s also
attracted others from around
the Pacific Northwest.
Jennifer Wirth grew up in
Brush Prairie, Washington,
and will be teaching special
education classes for second-
and third-graders. She grad-
uated from Eastern Washing-
ton University and said she
was drawn to Pendleton by the
community and the district’s
educational philosophy.
Hali Fugere grew up in
Timber before attending EOU
and said she came to the dis-
trict after her {span}fiance{/
span} was hired in the city.
While the four first-time
teachers sat together at lunch
on Tuesday, all expressed
more excitement than nerves
ahead of next week’s first day
of school and the challenges
ahead of them.
“I’m excited to learn from
my mistakes,” Van Cleave
said. “I’m just excited to meet
my kids.”
In addition to the two-day
training, the district also pro-
vides yearlong support for the
new teachers. Each will receive
a staff mentor who will be
their liaison for questions, take
them on observatory walks
to other classes and observe
them in their own classrooms.
The district also holds monthly
teacher workshops, and pro-
vides an instructional coach
to assist with developing les-
son plans along with offering
other professional develop-
ment opportunities.
While 21 new teachers in
the district may present some
challenges, Yoshioka is opti-
mistic and committed to their
long-term success, noting that
all of last year’s hires were
retained.
“We have an amazing
group,” he said. “We want
to invest more in the teach-
ers. They’re important to
us and they’re important to
the kids.”
Immigrants: Immigrant Oregonians fear signing up for Oregon Health Plan
Continued from Page A1
which benefits are covered by
the new rule, including social
media posts in English and
other languages, outreach to
community organizations and
providing talking points to the
state’s call center for Oregon
Health Plan members.
Jonathan Modie, a spokes-
man for the Oregon Health
Authority, emphasized the
importance of health care.
Modie described the rule as
“really stigmatizing” and said
it “punishes people who work
hard but may not have the best
income, who are trying to pro-
vide for their families and
themselves.”
About 132,000 Oregon
children with at least one
immigrant parent have access
to health care through the Ore-
gon Health Plan, the state’s
public health program for
low-income people and other
qualifying groups.
Medicaid recipients under
21 years old will not be
affected by the new rule. Preg-
nant women’s use of Medicaid
will also not count toward the
public charge rule.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity reported that at least about
68,000 people who are not
citizens receive health care
through the Oregon Health
Plan.
According to the Oregon
Department of Human Ser-
vices, each case is different,
and assessing whether some-
one is a public charge “looks at
all a person’s circumstances”
and weighs “various positive
factors against any negative
ones.”
“This rule is impacting
people’s behavior in a context
of this larger climate of fear
around anything having to do
with immigration,” Englander
said.
Salem organizations have
seen the impact of the pro-
posed changes for about a year,
ever since Trump administra-
tion officials announced they
were considering means-test-
ing applicants for green cards.
Levi Herrera-Lopez, exec-
utive director of Mano a Mano,
said fears have led some fam-
ilies not to enroll in the Ore-
gon Health Plan, which leaves
them reliant on emergency
room care.
Mano a Mano has a con-
tract with the state to enroll
people.
“They’re fully eligible for
the benefits and they’re opting
not to have access to preventa-
tive care,” said Herrera-Lopez.
Fewer than 20 eligible fam-
ilies in the past year decided
against enrolling. Confusion
about what the changes are and
to whom they apply is ram-
pant, Herrera-Lopez said.
The impact is magnified
because many Latino families
are of mixed immigration sta-
tus, he said, and may include
members who are U.S. citi-
zens, green card holders, visa
holders or people without legal
status.
If families fear enrolling for
benefits could harm someone’s
immigration case “that means
the whole family will go with-
out,” he said.
Herrera-Lopez believes the
rule change is motivated by a
desire to “make it so people are
having such a hard time to live
here they just leave,” he said.
Mano a Mano advises fam-
ilies to consult immigration
attorneys about the potential
impact of changes, and will
still encourage people to enroll
in OHP, he said.
Oregon is home to about
400,000 people born in other
countries, according to 2017
Census Bureau estimates,
though that count doesn’t dis-
tinguish between naturalized
citizens and non-citizens.
Immigrants from the
Americas make up the larg-
est share, accounting for
nearly half of foreign-born
Oregonians.
About one in three are from
Mexico. Another third are
from Asia, with Vietnam and
China as the most well repre-
sented countries.
Non-U.S. citizens are far
less likely to have health insur-
ance than their U.S. citizen
counterparts, whether born
here or naturalized, Census
data shows.
About one in four families
with a Latino head of house-
hold reported receiving food
stamps in the 2017 Census
Bureau survey.
Statewide, about 15% of all
Oregon households reported
receiving food stamps.