A4 The BulleTin • Friday, april 16, 2021
Schools
ized tests, unless their family
emails the school district and
asks if their child can partici-
pate.
Other school districts have
decided to not offer standard-
ized tests at all this year, in-
cluding Oregon Trail School
District and Salem-Keizer.
Salem-Keizer School District
spokesperson Sylvia McDaniel
said the school board canceled
the tests because students have
had limited opportunities for
in-person learning during the
pandemic.
VanLoo said Bend-La Pine
Schools’ ability to bring back
students earlier than many
other large districts means
missing a bit of regular instruc-
tion for tests isn’t as tough for
local students. While Bend-La
Pine high schoolers returned
to hybrid learning in February
and full time in-person Mon-
day, Portland high schoolers
won’t return to buildings until
next week, and it will be part
time.
“For kids who haven’t had as
much in-person instruction, I
could see that possibly being a
higher concern,” VanLoo said.
Both VanLoo and Morton
said they’ll respect the wishes
of any family that chooses to
pull their kid out of standard-
ized testing.
Continued from A1
Dave VanLoo, Bend-La
Pine’s director of school im-
provement, said this year’s
dramatically scaled-back stan-
dardized tests mean less class
time is lost.
Standardized testing was
largely canceled in 2020 due
to the COVID-19 pandemic,
and with students barely back
in the classroom this spring, it’s
been scaled back throughout
Oregon.
Earlier this spring, the Ore-
gon Department of Education
and the U.S. Department of
Education agreed that instead
of Oregon students taking
the traditional suite of tests in
various subjects, each student
would only take one test in one
subject this spring. Which sub-
ject a student is tested on de-
pends on the grade level.
“We don’t really anticipate a
detrimental impact on student
learning, having kids take one
test that takes an hour,” Van-
Loo said.
Some other Oregon school
districts — like Ashland and
Eagle Point in Southern Ore-
gon — are taking the opposite
approach to standardized test-
ing: opt in. That means stu-
dents won’t take any standard-
COCC
funding, Chesley said COCC
administrators all felt freezing
tuition would be possible.
“The whole senior leadership
team was in agreement on this
one, and when does that ever
happen?” Chesley said Wednes-
day night, chuckling. “I think
there was wide agreement that
this was the right thing to do.”
After the meeting, board
Chair Erica Skatvold told The
Bulletin that this was the per-
fect time to freeze tuition and
fees. Not only can the college
afford to do so thanks to federal
grants, but the past year has put
a lot of locals in financial hard-
ship, she said.
“We want to make Central
Oregon Community College
as accessible and affordable for
students as possible,” Skatvold
said Thursday. “In a time when
Continued from A1
“We are not recommending
any increase in tuition or gen-
eral fees for our students for
the coming year,” Dona told the
board. “The (financial) disci-
pline and the assistance we’ve
received are the two major rea-
sons for that.”
COCC received more than
$10 million from the first two
COVID-19 federal relief pack-
ages from 2020, more than $3.6
million of which went towards
student aid, Dona said. The col-
lege is expecting to soon receive
an estimated $11.2 million, half
of which must be used for stu-
dent aid, from the third federal
stimulus package signed by
President Joe Biden in March.
Partly because of this federal
Bend-La Pine and Red-
mond teachers’ union leaders
had mixed responses to their
schools moving forward with
the opt-out method for stan-
dardized tests this year.
Sarah Barclay, president of
the Bend Education Associa-
tion, is pushing for her school
district to move to an opt-in
style. She believes standardized
tests are a waste of time when
students had to spend more
than half the school year learn-
ing online.
“We have really precious
time with students in-person
this spring,” Barclay said. “So
even one week (of testing) is
just not a good use of time.”
Barry Branaugh, board
member of the Redmond Edu-
cation Association, doesn’t be-
lieve there should be standard-
ized testing this year. But if the
district is going to still give the
tests, it’s still easy for students
and families to opt out if they
choose, he said.
“I don’t think we really
should be having it, but given
that’s what the state wants,
it’s fine,” Branaugh said. “The
opt out is not a difficult thing.
It’s just a matter of filling out
a piece of paper or going to a
website.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
a lot people are in financial
hardship because of the pan-
demic or wildfires last summer,
it’s a little extra help.”
The tuition freeze means an
in-district student would pay
$4,527 in fees and tuition for a
full, 36-credit load next year —
the same cost as this year.
Tuition and student activ-
ity fees were raised by 3% for
students between the 2019-20
and 2020-21 school years. Since
1976, the average annual raise
for in-district tuition has been
5.3%.
The last time COCC did not
increase tuition for in-district
students was 2014, according to
college data. The last time there
was no tuition increase for any
students was 2008.
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7854,
jhogan@bendbulletin.com
Photos by Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
Near Space Corp. uses a Mobil Operations Center at the Madras Municipal Airport on Thursday to track a
large helium-filled balloon carrying a 100-pound payload 110,000 feet into air for a high altitude drop test.
Balloon
Near Space
Corp. personnel
carefully handle
the protective
sheath contain-
ing the 150-foot-
long balloon
Wednesday,
before weather
conditions can-
celed the flight.
Continued from A1
“That went well,” said
Kevin Tucker, president at
Near Space Corp., who over-
saw the test flight. “It’s always
interesting. The wind was ac-
tually changing, and that’s a
big deal. We were very careful
about that.”
Tucker’s company, which
produces balloons for scien-
tific tests, partnered with re-
searchers from the University
of Kentucky to launch the
balloon and test a delivery
system that could be used to
return individual items from
the International Space Sta-
tion back to Earth. The team
tracked the balloon’s flight
Thursday and recovered the
dropped device.
“The Kentucky team will be
gathering a lot of data as this
travels from 110,000 feet back
to the Earth’s surface,” Tucker
said before the flight.
The university engineering
students call the delivery sys-
tem the Kentucky Re-Entry
Universal Payload System and
their research was sponsored
by NASA’s Flight Opportu-
nities program, said NASA
spokesperson Megan Person.
“The flight aims to enable
testing of the technology’s
electronics and communica-
tions systems in preparation
for further research as part
of a commercial resupply
mission to the International
Space Station later this year,”
Person said.
NASA regularly identifies
projects, such as the balloon
launch, and connects research
teams with companies and
locations to help generate a
test. In this case, NASA con-
nected the Kentucky students
with Tucker’s company and
coordinated with the Madras
airport.
“Today’s successful flight
is one example of how the
Flight Opportunities pro-
gram helps advance promis-
ing space technologies before
they move on to riskier orbital
missions,” said Paul De Leon,
NASA Flight Opportunities
campaign manager.
Tucker and his crew orig-
inally scheduled the balloon
flight Wednesday, but called it
off because of high winds. On
Thursday, conditions were
mild enough to allow the
launch.
Tucker, who runs his com-
pany out of Tillamook, said
Madras was the ideal location
for the balloon flight. The
open spaces around Madras
offer several options to drop
and retrieve the device from
the balloon, Tucker said.
In addition, the Madras
airport is smaller and qui-
eter than other commercial
airports in the region, which
allows the team to work with-
out interfering with other
aircraft. The team still has to
coordinate with the Federal
Aviation Administration.
“The airport doesn’t have
a huge amount of traffic,”
Tucker said. “We are not
causing mayhem if we do a
launch.”
e e
Reporter: 541-617-7820,
kspurr@bendbulletin.com
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