6A | WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2021 | SIUSLAW NEWS
EATERIES from page 1A
families sheltered. It has also been a
challenging period for business own-
ers who point to a lack of coherency
in the statewide mandates, which
make running a successful business
very difficult during the current pan-
demic.
Scott Waiss, owner of the Beach-
comber Pub, has managed to remain
operational for much of the pandem-
ic, shifting between indoor dining,
takeout-only and now expanded
outdoor seating — with no indoor
seating.
“It’s been very hard; we have had to
continue to make adjustments at ev-
ery level of our business,” Waiss said.
“Every time we have to close our in-
terior seating, it creates issues with
our food and beverage suppliers.
They are having a difficult time get-
ting product from their suppliers and
they are constantly having to change
what they have available. So, this has
limited what we can substitute, which
leads to us having to keep our menus
simple.”
MAPLETON from page 1A
For many of the children, it is
their first time attending school
in person.
Students are in two separate
cohorts and attend school for
four hours on two days a week.
Half of the students require
school transportation, so those
students come on Mondays
and Tuesdays. Students whose
families can drop them off at-
tend Wednesdays and Thurs-
days.
“It seems to be going really
well with the kiddos,” O’Mara
said. “It’s so great to have all the
kids back on campus.”
Additionally, the district
is working on improvements
to the preschool wing of the
school. This will include as-
bestos abatement, new flooring
and updated plumbing. The
projects are still in the planning
phase.
The next big item on the
board’s agenda was standard-
ized testing, which directors
had previously discussed at
past meetings. These are the
Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium tests (SBAC),
which test students for Com-
mon Core standards in grades
three to eight and 11 in math
and language arts. School dis-
tricts must reach 95 percent
participation and can be penal-
ized by their state if they do not
reach this level.
The tests are held via com-
puter and require both time to
take the test and to learn how
to take the test — for both stu-
dents and staff members.
Director Michelle Holman
led the discussion.
“At our last board meeting,
we passed the resolution to en-
courage parents to opt out,” she
said. “Since then, we did kind
of start something in our state.
Mapleton was the first to react.
Since that time, Ashland, San-
dy, Eagle Point, Portland Pub-
lic Schools and Salem Keizer …
instead of encouraging parents
to opt out, they will require
parents to opt in. They are not
having standardized testing
unless the parent wants stan-
dardized testing. … I would
like us to do the same.”
At the March board meeting,
the directors had hoped that
the federal government would
not require states to conduct
the testing. However, the U.S.
Last week, he decided to avail him- weather was not cooperating at all,” our inside dining,” the restaurant
self of the barrier seating sections he said. “With this better weather, posted to social media.
provided by the City of Florence for we decided to give it a try. This last
It shows how local businesses have
restaurants to use to expand outdoor weekend business was great and, continued to adapt to the pandemic.
seating capacity.
surprisingly, the month of April was
As Waiss said, “Hopefully, the good
Beachcomber joins Old Town phenomenal business-wise.”
weather will continue, and we will be
restaurants Nosh
able to keep serv-
Eatery,
Mari’s
ing people outside
Kitchen,
Love- “Hopefully, the good weather will continue, and we will be and eventually we
joy’s
Tearoom, able to keep serving people outside and eventually we will re- will reopen our
1285
Restobar, open our inside seating. We will do whatever it takes to keep inside seating. We
Bridgewater Fish our business open for our customers and our employees.”
will do whatever
House & Zebra
it takes to keep
— Scott Waiss, owner of the Beachcomber Pub our business open
Bar, Homegrown
Public House and
for our customers
Waterfront Depot
and our employ-
in using City-installed high-visibility
Like other area restaurants over ees.”
barricades along the street that allow the course of the pandemic, Beach-
When Brown made the announce-
for additional outdoor seating space. comber has tried to keep staffing ment of the state’s county risk levels,
Additionally, Off Bay Street Bistro is levels steady, but has had to cut some she called attention to the most re-
using one of the barricades to desig- positions and reduce the hours for cent surge in COVID-19 cases across
nate a parking space for vehicles to most employees.
the state.
pick up takeout.
Across town, Fresh Harvest Café
“As we are facing widespread cases,
Waiss also decided to purchase also made changes. Proprietor Gil- driven by new, more contagious vari-
new tables and chairs for the seating mar Ortiz and his staff paved an ants, I was presented with data show-
area.
entire patio in time for the “extreme ing two paths Oregon could take:
“The last time the city offered us risk” designation. The restaurant one in which we took no additional
the barriers, I was hesitant to add now has 1,500 square feet of outdoor action and stood by while more peo-
the street seating, mostly because the seating — “which will be bigger than ple die from this disease. The other
Department of Education de-
termined that states should
hold the tests this spring.
Also in March, Mapleton
School Board passed a reso-
lution allowing families to opt
out of the testing. O’Mara sent
letters to the district’s families
earlier in April, telling them
about the option to opt out of
the tests. Several families have
since filed to opt out.
Now, however, Holman re-
quested that the board update
the resolution to instead be
opt-in.
During the discussion, Di-
rector Mizu Burruss clarified
that there are students for
whom the testing is beneficial.
“I think it’s important that
if we do opt in, just like if we
do opt out, we would need to
make a real effort to make sure
that every family has the op-
portunity to take advantage of
either way we go about it,” she
said. “The more communica-
tion the better with individual
families.”
Through the board discus-
sion, directors made it clear
that the option for students to
take the tests was always avail-
able.
O’Mara also advised the
board on the penalties the
school district could face for
not complying with Division
22 regarding standardized test-
ing.
“What that means for the
district is in November, when I
report to the board on Division
22 standards, my report will
say we are noncompliant in this
area, and this is the corrective
action that we’re turning into
ODE to say, ‘Here’s how we will
correct this deficiency for the
2021-22 school year,’” O’Mara
said.
She added that ODE is still
looking into standardized test-
ing, and what it might mean for
districts in noncompliance.
Board Chair Mary Ellen
Mansfield said, “If we do go this
route, I don’t have a problem
with being out of compliance
this year, because it doesn’t
sound like there’s a penalty for
being out of compliance for
this year. But my understand-
ing is, if we don’t have a correc-
tive action that says we will test
next year, then there is some
potential loss of funding that
could come.”
The board agreed to delay a
decision on the further future
of standardized testing until
more information becomes
available.
As for this year, the board
moved to update the wording
of the resolution to an opt-in
version.
“But I do want to make sure
that we are conscientious about
contacting all the families and
letting them know that they
have the option to opt in,” Bur-
russ said.
O’Mara said the district
could send out letters to the
families of students in the
grades required to take the
tests.
While all members of the
board were present throughout
the meeting, Director Andrea
Milbrett had a poor connection
to the virtual meeting and did
not vote on the resolution.
People can read the full text
of the resolution, as well as the
procedure to opt in to stan-
dardized testing, under the
“Standardized Testing” tab at
the top of www.mapleton.k12.
or.us.
Moving forward, Holman
said she would continue to
meet with other interested
parties to consider the future
of standardized testing in Or-
egon, as would O’Mara as she
attended an Oregon Small
Schools Association confer-
ence.
“I would love to know where
small schools are around stan-
dardized testing,” Holman
said. “For small schools, when
we lose funding is a different
thing than when big schools
lose funding. We’d really like
to hear the pulse of adminis-
trators on that topic.”
required a temporary tightening of
restrictions for certain counties but
could save hundreds of lives and pre-
vent as many as 450 hospitalizations
over the next three weeks. As gover-
nor, I chose to save lives,” said Brown.
On Monday, the Oregon Health
Authority showed a statewide
COVID-19 case count of 186,877
since the start of the pandemic, with
351 currently hospitalized. In addi-
tion, 2,502 people have died from the
virus.
The state also has climbing vacci-
nation rates, with 30 percent of the
state’s residents fully vaccinated and
another 12.9 percent with vaccina-
tions in progress. In Lane County,
34.3 percent of the population is fully
vaccinated.
Data regarding Lane County test-
ing, patient status, case ZIP codes
and more is available at www.Lane-
CountyOR.gov/localdata. Additional
COVID-19 data, including how to
get vaccinated in Lane County, can
be found at lanecounty.org/corona-
virus. Statewide information can be
found at coronavirus.oregon.gov.
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