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OFF PAGE ONE
Wallowa County Chieftain
Masks:
It’s one more thing they
have to discipline students
over.
“At times, yeah,” it’s
been diffi cult, Enterprise
Superintendent Tom Crane
said.
Homan agreed, saying,
“At times, for sure.”
The OHA statement con-
tinued to recommend uni-
versal masking in K-12 set-
tings where children are
required to attend. Those
settings bring together vac-
cinated and unvaccinated
individuals, as well as indi-
viduals who are at higher
risk for severe COVID-19
illness.
However, local school
offi cials said that while
their students are required
to attend school, they can
do so remotely and are
not required to be in the
building.
Continued from Page A1
Emergency board
meeting
Offi cials at Wallowa
County schools anticipate
and welcome the return to
local control of any mask
mandate.
Mandy Decker, chair-
woman of the Enterprise
School Board, said the issue
was the subject of a spe-
cial meeting the board held
Feb. 27 rather than waiting
for its next regular meeting
March 14.
At that meeting, the
board decided to lift the
mask mandate whenever the
state decided to do so.
“They decided to support
the state’s recommendation
to end the mask mandate
whenever that happens,”
Superintendent Tom Crane
said. “They support local
control and they support
choice of whether to wear
masks or not.”
That means families may
decide for their children and
employees may decide for
themselves.
Decker said that Sun-
day’s decision falls in line
with what the board has
stated in the past.
“The board has already
said we’d like local control.
… My opinion is choice is
really important,” she said.
Lance Homan, super-
intendent of Joseph Char-
ter School, said the school
board will offi cially decide
if it will take advantage of
the option at its next meet-
ing March 14. He declined
to speculate on what its
Foster:
Continued from Page A1
focus on keeping children
with families and providing
support.
If foster care is necessary,
Blessing said the fi rst step is
to look for relatives or close
friends who can foster the
child.
“We’re trying to maintain
Wednesday, March 2, 2022
Wallow County Chieftain, File
Hallie Duncan plays with friends on the “hand rock” in front of
the Enterprise Elementary School in October 2020.
decision will be.
However, he said, last
summer the board voted
to make masks optional.
But then the county got hit
with a surge in coronavirus
cases and the governor and
the OHA rescinded local
control.
Wallowa Superintendent
Tammy Jones was in meet-
ings with other school offi -
cials Thursday morning and
had already come to similar
conclusions as her counter-
parts elsewhere in the county.
She, too, said the school
board in Wallowa would con-
sider an offi cial decision on
the matter at its next board
meeting, March 14.
“Over the next weeks,
we’re going to learn more
details,” she said, such as
about quarantines, isolation,
contact tracing and other
related issues.
Jones recalled that at the
July board meeting, the Wal-
lowa School Board voted —
like Joseph did — to make
masks optional, a decision
rendered moot by the uptick
in cases that followed.
“We’ve done our best
to live with it,” Jones said,
adding that the recent
change “is good news for
us.”
School offi cials will fi nd
it a relief to not have to
enforce the mask mandate.
relational connections with
kids — trying to keep kids
connected to people they
already know,” she said.
In the case that a relative
can’t be found, the child is
cared for by a general appli-
cant foster family — but
Blessing said work contin-
ues to fi nd a relative.
The current recruitment
eff orts across the state are for
general applicant families.
“So we have enough
families, and they’re diverse
enough, that we can match
children to a family,” she
said.
Every Child
Those who aren’t ready
to provide full-time care can
learn more about foster care
by volunteering with Every
Child NE Oregon, which
works to expand the support
system around foster care.
“There are ways to sup-
Case numbers
subsiding daily
COVID-19 hospitaliza-
tions have declined 48%
since peaking in late Janu-
ary, the release stated. Over
the past two weeks, hospi-
talizations have fallen by an
average of more than 30 a
day. On Feb. 28, there were
479 people hospitalized
with COVID-19 across the
state. In Region 9, which
includes Wallowa County,
that number is at 10.
Reported
COVID-
19 infections also have
dropped precipitously in
recent weeks. Over the
past month, new infections
have declined by more than
80%. The seven-day mov-
ing average for new cases is
84% lower than at the peak
of the omicron surge.
port fostering without tak-
ing a child into your home,”
Blessing said. “It’s a way
to dip your toe in and learn
what it’s about.”
She said that a general
application family, on aver-
age, thinks about becoming
a foster family for two to
three years.
To learn more about
Every Child, visit every-
childneoregon.org/ or fol-
low the page on Facebook.
Mandate:
Continued from Page A1
mask mandates.
Brown had originally
said that the mask man-
date would end March 31,
about when Oregon Health
& Science University pro-
jected the state would drop
below 400 daily patients
in hospitals who were pos-
itive for COVID-19.
The decline in omi-
cron-related severe cases
accelerated and the date
was moved last week to
March 19. But on Thurs-
day, OHSU issued a fore-
cast showing Oregon
would dip below the 400-
mark by March 12. The
next OHSU forecast is due
Thursday.
OHA said the lifting of
the mask mandate did not
include changes to federal
and state rules on masks in
health care settings, airline
fl ights, public transit, and
other specialized setting.
Updates will be provided
in coming days and weeks.
Brown’s statement on
Monday did not change
her plan to lift the state
of emergency earlier
than April 1, the date she
announced last week.
The emergency rules
gave Brown wide pow-
ers to set public policy
during the crisis, including
the closing and reopen-
ing of in-person class-
room instruction, business
hours, mask usage and
limits on event sizes.
The three West Coast
states have sought to coor-
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dinate on COVID-19
response throughout the
pandemic, though they
have gone their own way
at times, such as the vac-
cine priority list in early
2021. Brown said the gov-
ernors believed the mask
mandate change was best
done at the same time for
the stretch from the Mexi-
can border to the Canadian
border.
“Our communities and
economies are linked,”
Brown said.
Brown underlined that
the move did not mean the
pandemic was burning out
or nearly over.
“We will build resil-
iency and prepare for the
next variant and the next
pandemic,” she said. “As
we learn to live with this
virus, we must remain vig-
ilant to protect each other
and prevent disruption to
our schools, businesses,
and communities — with
a focus on protecting our
most vulnerable and the
people and communities
that have been dispro-
portionately impacted by
COVID-19.”
Oregon offi cials say
they are confi dent that the
move will not replicate the
premature lifting of safe-
guards in July 2021 that
came almost simultane-
ously with the arrival of
the virulent delta variant
that caused a record 918
deaths in September. Crit-
ics said at that time that
lifting the ban statewide
did not take into eff ect the
wide diff erences in vac-
cination rates and prior
COVID-19 exposure.