COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL JULY 26, 2017
Summer reading in South Lane
3A
House Bill
addresses
traffi c stops
By Caitlyn May
cmay@cgsentinel.com
PHOTO BY ZACH SILVA/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL
Summer Reading Spots volunteer Hailie Intros reads to a group of kids during the program.
South Lane School District and United Way team up to keep students sharp all year long
By Zach Silva
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Armed with the knowledge that reading is the key to creating smart and en-
gaged students and citizens, United Way of Lane County and the South Lane
School District brought the Summer Reading Spots program to Cottage Grove.
The goal of this program is to improve kindergarten and elementary school
aged kids reading literacy. By getting students to read throughout the summer
the hope is that they will then be prepared for school come fall.
“Our overarching goal is to provide some opportunities for kids and families
during the summer around literacy to prevent summer learning loss,” said Unit-
ed Way Lane County’s vice president of community impact Holly Mar Conte.
This goal works “right along with ensuring that kids enter kindergarten ready
to learn.”
This is the fi fth year of this program in Cottage Grove and it now is at three
locations: Bohemia Elementary School, Harrison Elementary School and the
Dorena Post Offi ce. This summer, in the fi rst week of the program, over 100
children were at these locations in the fi rst week. At each location, Food for
Lane County offers free summer meals and at the conclusion of the meal the
reading programs begin.
The key incentive of the reading program is that each time a child attends
they receive a free book, some of which are in Spanish, of their choice. Over the
last year, through the help of various community sponsors United Way brought
Cottage Theatre presents
2017
in over 1,400 books to be used for the program.
The reading program is specifi cally working to get books in the hands of
students who are below the poverty level. According to statistics from United
Way and the South Lane School District, two thirds of children living below the
poverty line do not have books in the home. That statistic paired with the fact
that 50 percent of South Lane families with children under fi ve are below the
poverty level created a need for a program that promotes reading.
“When you have a super harried family where parents might be working mul-
tiple minimum wage jobs they don’t have time to take their child to the library,
story hour or sit down and read to them every night,” said Jackie Lester who
is the former Bohemia Elementary School principal and current P-20 Outreach
Coordinator for South Lane. “Kids are coming in requiring a lot of support…as
they make it to kindergarten.”
Lester sees the strength of the program is in how it can go and help these
students get to the reading level they need to be at. This manifests itself at each
reading location when students show up and have a great variety of books to
choose from. Then for the next hour they get the chance to read aloud with vol-
unteers who range from middle school students to retired teachers.
“The kids really enjoy it and they love being read to,” said Cheri Jensen who
regularly brings her daycare kids to the program. ”They look forward to coming
to lunch and getting their book. It’s defi nitely a highlight for them.”
The program runs until August 24th.
House Bill 2355 passed both houses
of the Oregon Legislature and landed
on Governor Kate Brown’s desk for
her signature before becoming law
earlier this month. Its purpose? To help
better track interaction between law
enforcement and the public as well as
stem possible discriminatory practices
based on race and gender.
The bill, carried by Sen. Jackie
Winters, R-Salem, requires that law
enforcement collect data regarding a
person’s age, race and gender during
an offi cer initiated traffi c stop.
The Oregon Criminal Justice Com-
mission, the agency in charge of im-
plementing the new law, and the De-
partment of Public Safety Standards
and Training have until July 2018 to
develop a reporting method for the
data and train offi cers on the street on
how to properly engage with residents
while executing the chosen method.
“This procedure will certainly in-
crease the time needed for person and
vehicle stops, as there will have to be
a separate document completed to re-
cord all the required information,” said
Captain Conrad Gagner of the Cottage
Grove Police Department. “Offi cers
will need to carry in their vehicles/pa-
trol bags an additional stock of what-
ever forms are decided on by the Or-
egon Criminal Justice Commission.”
He also noted that offi cers who stop
pedestrians do not have to document
the encounter in accordance to the law
unless the resident is cited, arrested or
searched. Vehicle stops must be docu-
mented in all cases.
“Based on the number of law en-
forcement offi cers Cottage Grove em-
ploys, CGPD must begin recording
this information no later than July 1,
2020. We then must begin reporting
this data to the Oregon Criminal Jus-
tice Commission no later than July 1,
2021, and annually thereafter,” Gagner
said.
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