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THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2022
The Eas
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146th Year, No. 74
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INSIDE EAGLE CAP EXCURSION TRAIN ROLLS AGAIN IN GO!
T he h
POLL
State school
boards have
low public
support
PA GE 3
PA GE 4
PA GE 12
Education on the G O
By COURTNEY VAUGHN
Oregon Capital Bureau
SA LEM — O regon ia n s
broadly support funding educa-
tional programs, yet recent state-
wide survey respondents generally
lacked support for their local school
boards.
Only 36% of those polled
said they feel their school board
represents their values and beliefs.
Another 38% said they don’t feel
represented by their local school
board and 26% said they were
unsure.
Oregon Values & Beliefs
Center’s latest survey, which polled
1,563 Oregon residents ages 18 and
older, found that Democrats are
more likely than Republicans to
voice support for the school board
in their area. Respondents who are
higher income — earning $100,000
or more annually — and those who
are higher educated are more likely
to feel represented by their school
boards than those with less income
and education.
The 26% of respondents who
said they were “unsure” about their
local school board indicated a lack
of familiarity with the work and
decisions of elected education offi -
cials, but that isn’t the case every-
where.
Last year saw a public rift
between school leadership and resi-
dents in Newberg, where a school
board voted to ban staff from
displaying political or controver-
sial fl ags, apparel and images, such
as Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ
pride fl ags, on school district prop-
erty. A few months after that vote,
the school board fi red its superin-
tendent without cause.
Fallout from the controversial
board decisions led to an unsuccess-
ful but close recall eff ort against
Newberg School Board members
Dave Brown and Brian Shannon
in January. The election revealed
sharp public divide on whether the
school board was representing its
community, with 52% of voters
opposed to the recall and 48%
voting in favor.
A large number of respondents
cite political influences in their
disapproval of their local school
board.
“School boards have become
too political,” one Yamhill County
Republican noted. “They should
focus on education, not social
justice and political indoctrination.”
A Deschutes County Republi-
can respondent said: “The school
board is focused on social issues,
culture and indoctrination. They do
Greater Oregon STEM Hub staff
and volunteers from the Eastern
Oregon University football team
pack supplies into STEM kits at the
university’s shipping and receiv-
ing building on March 5, 2022.
David Melville/Contributed Photo
Science, Technology Engineering and Math
opportunites come to Eastern Oregon students
By DAVIS CARBAUGH
The Observer
L
A GRANDE — An organiza-
tion in Union County is spread-
ing education opportunities in
science, technology, engineering
and mathematics across Eastern
Oregon.
The Greater Oregon STEM Hub, a state-
funded education center housed at Zabel
Hall at Eastern Oregon
University in La Grande,
recently dispersed more than
2,000 STEM kits to fourth
graders in the region. The
initiative is one of the wide
variety of ways the organi-
zation is providing learning
Melville
opportunities for students
and teachers in rural areas.
“We want our program to be equitable
for all students in our region,” GO STEM
Hub Executive Director David Melville said.
“We were trying to think of what we could
do in the middle of a pandemic to support
UPCOMING GO STEM PLANS
The Greater Oregon STEM Hub, based at EOU, will be participating in the Earth Day event
at Max Square from 4-5:30 p.m. on Friday, April 22. The organization is also gearing up for
Oregon STEM Week, which begins on May 14.
STEM education. We needed something that
was versatile.”
The staff of three at the GO STEM Hub,
with help from the EOU football team and
coaching staff , on Saturday, March 5, pack-
aged and prepared 2,300 kits to be deliv-
ered across GO STEM Hub’s seven-county
service range — many of the kits have
already been delivered to schools, with
the remaining kits set to arrive in time for
Oregon STEM Week in May.
The kits contain STEM projects, mate-
rials, instructions in both English and
Spanish, snacks and giveaways. Students
received catapults kits, engineering kits and
gravity racer kits. The organization part-
nered with Sodexo food services to include
two snack items per box.
The STEM kit event came about last year
during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
when at-home learning was at the forefront
for students. The GO STEM Hub upped the
total number of kits from 2,000 to 2,300,
making adjustments to this year’s kit based
on teacher feedback.
“We learned a lot from last year,”
Melville said. “We really liked the idea of it
and just wanted to keep doing it.”
‘Pivotal point’
The GO STEM Hub works with students
as well as providing resources for teach-
ers, taking their input and needs into high
consideration.
“Working in this position, we see that it
means a lot to teachers when their voices
See STEM, Page A7
Thorn Hollow Bridge replacement moves forward
By JOHN TILLMAN
East Oregonian
See School, Page A7
UMATILLA COUNTY —
Umatilla County is waiting on bids
to come in for the project to replace
Thorn Hollow Bridge.
Umatilla County Commis-
sioner George Murdock in his
weekly update on April 5 reported,
“Each step toward replacement is
good news. Bridges are diffi cult
issues to deal with. They are criti-
cal to transportation routes … very
expensive to replace, and the regula-
tions surrounding their replacement
provide a mountain of red tape.”
The bridge spans the Umatilla
River about 10 miles southeast of
Adams. The fl ooding of February
2020 rendered the bridge impass-
able.
The Athena-Weston school bus
route crosses the bridge, which is
the main access point to Highway
11 for people living up and down
the river from Thorn Hollow. The
closest alternate crossing is about 5
miles west near Cayuse.
County Commissioner Dan
Dorran said when the bids are in,
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian, File
The Thorn Hollow Bridge on the Umatilla Indian Reservation sags on
Feb. 3, 2021, after sustaining signifi cant damage during fl ooding in Feb-
ruary 2020. Umatilla County is waiting on bids to come in during spring
of 2022 for the project to replace the bridge, which could begin in 2023.
demolition can proceed.
“We’re on a tight schedule,
because of the water window,” he
added. “But if everything goes
well, work could be completed by
July to August.”
The six-week “in-stream work
window,” is intended to minimize
the potential impacts of demolition
and rebuilding on fi sh, wildlife and
habitat. Last year, offi cials said the
work window made it impossible to
complete the project in less than two
construction seasons.
“If all the per mits are
completed,” Dorran concluded,
“then construction could start next
year.”
Original schedules suggested
the bridge would take up to seven
years to fi x. Costs were estimated
at around $5 million. But in a press
conference on March 10, 2021,
county and state offi cials said that
if all went well, what was left of the
road could be demolished as early
as that year. They hoped construc-
tion could start in 2023, four years
earlier than previously thought.
However, the plan to demolish
the fl ood-damaged bridge in 2021
did not pan out. But, as Dorran
noted, replacement still could
commence in 2023.
Last year, county officials
worked with the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reser-
vation and the Oregon Department
of Transportation to make the new
plans with funding from the state.
Dorran then said the county also
See Bridge, Page A7