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145th Year, No. 148
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2021
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LEARNING CURVE
As schools restart, so do COVID-19 outbreaks
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
UMATILLA COUNTY — The contin-
ued surge in new COVID-19 cases in
Umatilla County is beginning to take a
toll on the local education system.
On Wednesday, Sept. 29, Blue Moun-
tain Community College announced it was
putting its Pendleton campus under quar-
antine, moving all classes and services
online through Oct. 13. The BMCC
campuses in Hermiston, Boardman,
Milton-Freewater and Baker City remain
fully open.
In an interview, BMCC President Mark
Browning said college leaders made the
decision after a staff member tested posi-
tive for the virus.
“It’s the safest thing to do,” he said.
According to Browning, the staff
member got tested after learning they
had been exposed to someone who
already tested positive for COVID-
19. Their test came back positive on
Sept. 28, despite being vaccinated and
asymptomatic. Browning said it is Blue
Mountain’s only confirmed case, but
the college wanted to quarantine the
campus to prevent any further spread
and sanitize its facilities.
The county’s two largest K-12 school
districts have avoided a large-scale return
to distance learning, but they still are feel-
ing the impacts of COVID-19
In the Pendleton School District, Super-
intendent Chris Fritsch said the district is
experiencing an uptick in students in quar-
antine after Round-Up week, which the
district has typically granted students and
staff as a day off . In a Sept. 28 interview,
Fritsch said 125 students were in quaran-
tine, either because they had tested posi-
tive for COVID-19 or because they had
been exposed to the virus. The Oregon
Health Authority issues weekly reports
on outbreaks in schools, and its most
Explore
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By BRYCE DOLE AND
GARY A. WARNER
EO Media Group
Photos by Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
A “building quarantine notice” on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2021, adorns the doors of Mor-
row Hall at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton. A staff member at the cam-
pus tested positive for COVID-19, prompting BMCC leaders earlier that day to move all
classes and services online through Oct. 13.
recent report from Sept. 22, documented
eight Pendleton students and two staff as
contracting COVID-19 since the start of
the school year.
Still, Fritsch said he thinks the beginning
of the school year has gone well considering
Pendleton started its school year as COVID-
19 was peaking around the state. The quar-
antined students represent about 5% of
Pendleton’s student body, and students are
sent home with laptops so they can continue
their schoolwork. No classes or buildings
have been shut down completely because
of an outbreak, Fritsch said.
In talks with Umatilla County Public
Health, Fritsch said most student cases
were being traced back to their households.
Hermiston School District Superin-
tendent Tricia Mooney said she hadn’t
had the chance to check with the public
health department about the origins of
her district’s cases, but the county’s
largest school district also has the coun-
ty’s most cases, recording 36 student
cases and seven staff cases, according
to the Sept. 22 Oregon Health Author-
ity report.
Based on attendance reports, Mooney
estimated the number of students that have
come down with the virus is much higher.
But Hermiston also has avoided shutting
down classes or schools, Mooney said.
See Schools, Page A6
Teacher Jacey Wilson, right,
leads her fourth-grade class
on Aug. 31, 2021, at Sherwood
Heights Elementary School in Pend-
leton. The Pendleton School District
had 129 students in COVID-19 quarantine
as of Tuesday, Sept. 28, according to Super-
intendent Chris Fritsch.
SALEM — Gov. Kate Brown said Tuesday,
Sept. 28, she was “gravely concerned” about
an alarming spike in COVID-19 cases across
Eastern Oregon with a common factor — the
Pendleton Round-Up.
During a morning press call, Brown and
state health offi cials gave an upbeat update
on the state’s eff orts against the highly conta-
gious delta variant of COVID-19. Statewide,
the COVID-19 surge of late summer and early
fall “appears to have reached its peak,” said
deputy state epidemiologist Dr. Tom Jeanne.
Brown hailed the state’s eff orts in curb-
ing new infections
and hospitalizations
as the state appeared
COVID-19
to descend from a
spike from
two-month spike in cases
Pendleton
that set new pandemic
records in Oregon.
Round-up
It was only during
has Brown
a question and answer
period at the end of the
‘gravely
presentation that the
concerned’
Pendleton Round-Up
spike was addressed as
a sour point in the state’s
progress.
County and tribal health offi cials reported
Sept. 27 the spike in COVID-19 cases in
Umatilla County had been tied to the annual
rodeo event held Sept. 15-18.
At least 95 COVID-19 cases have been
traced back to the event and all its venues, up
from 49 Sept. 27 and 68 Sept. 28, according to
Umatilla County Public Health Director Joe
Fiumara. And health offi cials across Eastern
Oregon are reporting a surge in cases.
“That was a very large outdoor event,”
Jeanne said of the Round-Up. “And there may
not have been great compliance with mask-
ing there. We do expect to see some impact on
cases from that, but it’s still too early to know
the full extent of that.”
Umatilla County reported 167 COVID-
19 cases on Sept. 28, more than any other
county in Oregon. The county’s total set a
new pandemic record for cases reported in a
single day and brought average daily cases to
the highest levels since the pandemic started.
CHI St. Anthony in Pendleton and Good
Shepherd Medical Center in Hermiston
reported they are seeing more patients hospi-
talized with COVID-19.
A spokesperson with Good Shepherd said
in an email that nine people had been admitted
to the hospital with COVID-19 over the past
week, a “slight increase” from the previous
week. A spokesperson with St. Anthony said
six people were hospitalized with COVID-19
as of Sept. 28, adding “we are pretty full, but
not to the brim from what I understand.”
See Cases, Page A6
Oregon redistricting fi ght is over, but fallout might linger
Republicans try and fail
to censure Kotek for
breaking her promise
By DIRK VANDERHART
Oregon Public Broadcasting
SALEM — A broken handshake
agreement could have repercus-
sions in the future, as leaders in both
parties blame the other.
Even by the sour standards that
often mark action in Salem these
days, the Oregon Legislature’s freshly
ended special session managed to
stand out.
Many of the hallmarks Orego-
nians have seen frequently in recent
years were accounted for: a Republi-
can walkout, accusations of bullying
and partisan sniping about COVID
safety among them.
But it’s a more novel aspect of the
session that could linger longest.
On the first day of the special
session, House Speaker Tina Kotek
pulled out of a deal reached in April,
in which she gave House Republi-
cans an equal say in redistricting in
exchange for their commitment to
stop requiring bills to be read in full
before passage.
That agreement yielded huge
benefits for Democrats, who saw
their agenda largely breeze through
the House during this year’s regu-
lar legislative session. But Kotek’s
decision to abandon the deal when
it appeared Republicans would use
their equal footing to block her
party’s maps seems certain to have
consequences going into the future.
Republicans in the last week have
questioned why they would ever
make another deal to end tactics
like requiring bill readings. Without
such deals, legislative sessions could
more and more resemble the scenes
that played out earlier this year, when
both the House and Senate resorted
to having a computer program read
bill language aloud for hours on end,
while lawmakers accomplished noth-
ing.
“As far as I’m concerned, we held
up our end of the bargain as long as
we could,” Kotek said Monday, Sept.
27. “The challenge for us was, when it
came a week out from getting every-
thing done, what we were seeing from
the House Republicans in particular
was just not engaging at the level they
needed to engage so we could reach
consensus and compromise.”
Republicans insist they were
cheated. The party was so incensed
by Kotek’s decision that they stayed
away from the Capitol on Sept.
Sam Stites/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon House Majority Leader Bar-
bara Smith Warner (left) and House
Speaker Tina Kotek speak on the
dais of the House fl oor as they await
confi rmation of a quorum Saturday,
Sept. 25, 2021.
25, refusing to grant Democrats a
quorum to pass their proposals.
See Fallout, Page A6