A4 The BulleTin • Thursday, May 6, 2021 IN THE OREGON LEGISLATURE TODAY Today is Thursday, May 6, the 126th day of 2021. There are 239 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On May 6, 1954, medical stu- dent Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile during a track meet in Oxford, England, in 3:59.4. In 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclu- sion Act, which barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10 years. In 1915, Babe Ruth hit his first major-league home run as a player for the Boston Red Sox. In 1937, the hydrogen-filled German airship Hindenburg caught fire and crashed while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey; 35 of the 97 people on board were killed along with a crewman on the ground. In 1941, Josef Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership. Come- dian Bob Hope did his first USO show. In 2004, President George W. Bush apologized for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers, calling it “a stain on our country’s honor”; he rejected calls for Defense Secretary Don- ald Rumsfeld’s resignation. In 2010, a computerized sell order triggered a “flash crash” on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrials to a loss of nearly 1,000 points in less than half an hour. In 2013, kidnap-rape victims Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, who went missing separately about a de- cade earlier while in their teens or early 20s, were rescued from a house outside Cleveland. In 2015, the NFL released a 243-report on “Deflategate” that stopped short of calling Patriots quarterback Tom Brady a cheater, but did call some of his claims “implausible” and left little doubt that he’d had a role in having footballs deflated before New England’s AFC title game against Indianapolis and probably in previous games. Ten years ago: President Barack Obama met with the U.S. com- mandos he’d sent after terror mastermind Osama bin Laden during a visit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Al-Qaida vowed to avenge the death of bin Laden, which it acknowledged for the first time in a statement. Five years ago: For the second month in a row, the aerospace upstart SpaceX landed a rocket on an ocean platform just off the Florida coast, this time following the successful launch of a Japa- nese communications satellite. One year ago: Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued a new policy reshaping the way schools and universities dealt with complaints of sexual mis- conduct; the policy bolstered the rights of the accused. Today’s Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays is 90. Rock singer Bob Seger is 76. Gos- pel singer-comedian Lulu Roman is 75. Actor Alan Dale is 74. Actor Richard Cox is 73. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is 68. TV personality Tom Bergeron is 66. Actor Roma Downey is 61. Rock singer John Flansburgh (They Might Be Giants) is 61. Actor-director George Clooney is 60. Rock musician Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) is 54. Rock musician Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters) is 50. Actor Adrianne Palicki is 38. Actor Gabourey Sidibe is 38. Rapper Meek Mill is 34. Houston Astros infielder Jose Altuve is 31. — Associated Press Bill would allow motorcyclists to ride between lanes Motorcyclists could drive between lanes of traffic in certain conditions un- der a bill approved Wednesday in the Oregon Senate. Called “lane splitting” or “lane filtering,” the idea is to give mo- torcycles the ability to slip between slow or stopped vehicles. Senate Bill 574, sponsored by a bi- partisan group of urban and rural law- makers, lays out some very specific re- quirements. First, it can only happen on roads with two or more lanes of traffic heading in the same direction. Sur- rounding traffic has to be traveling at 10 mph or slower before the motorcyclist School board Continued from A1 Position 2 Lorien Stacona Stacona, 32, was motivated to run for the school board after raising concerns last year about her seventh-grade daughter not getting the same educational opportunities at the Warm Springs K-8 Acad- emy as students at Jefferson County Middle School in Ma- dras. Stacona’s daughter, now in eighth grade, doesn’t have the same access to elective classes, advanced classes and tutoring as other students in the school district. This year, Stacona consid- ered transferring her sixth- grade son to Jefferson County Middle School, but then de- cided that wouldn’t be fair to him or his classmates in Warm Springs. Instead, she decided to seek a spot on the school board. “For me, running for school board is not something I want to do,” Stacona said. “I feel like I have to do it, and it’s my last option to create change for our children that don’t have a voice.” Stacona is also focused on improving communication with the school board, staff and parents. Over the years, Stacona said, she has heard from several teachers about how they don’t feel supported, but don’t feel comfortable shar- ing their concerns. “When you have teachers that feel that way but can’t ex- press that, we have a problem,” Stacona said. Stacona wants to create an environment where the school board can have more con- versations with teachers and parents, rather than the lim- ited opportunities to speak at board meetings. “Having that communica- tion is so important for our children,” Stacona said. “As adults, we have to have that be- cause it impacts the kids.” Jamie Hurd Hurd, 37, a former wildlife biologist with three children in kindergarten, fourth grade and sixth grade, has served on the school board for the past four years. Hurd said she wants to build off of progress the school board has made, such as secur- ing more than $20 million in grants over the past four years, and making financial decisions that helped the district avoid can move between the lanes. While riding between the slow or stopped traffic, motorcyclists could go up to 10 mph faster than surrounding vehicles. Once traffic speeds up to at least 10 miles per hour, the cyclist would have to merge back into a regular lane. Lane splitting would only be allowed on highways with a speed limit of 50 mph. That means most surface streets in the Portland metro area would not qualify, but freeways such as U.S. 26, In- terstate 5 and Interstate 84 would. The bill now moves to the House. Lane splitting has been legal in Califor- nia for many years. Utah and Montana have legalized it more recently, although parameters differ from state to state. layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’ve made some really sound and strategic budget in- vestments that have allowed us to weather the cost of COVID a lot better than neighboring districts,” Hurd said. “Where some had to lay off staff, we are adding and expanding. We are doing a lot better than most.” The next year will also be important for welcoming the new school superintendent, Jay Mathisen, who was hired earlier this year, Hurd said. Mathisen worked as the direc- tor of educational leadership at George Fox University in Newberg. “I feel like it’s essential that the board connects him to the work we have been building upon and helps him connect with our community so that none of this progress stops,” Hurd said. Another goal for Hurd is ex- panding the school district’s community outreach. Through the pandemic, the district reached families over virtual platforms. Hurd wants to con- tinue offering virtual meetings since it’s easier for busy families to offer feedback, she said. “It’s not face-to-face and it’s not as personable, but we have gotten a lot more information,” Hurd said. “We just have to keep getting creative on how we connect with families.” Position 3 Jaylyn Suppah Suppah, 34, has dedicated her professional life to advocat- ing for more educational op- portunities in Warm Springs. She has served on the Confed- Ronald L. Boughton of Bend, OR March 2, 1939 - April 30, 2021 Arrangements: Autumn Funerals, Bend 541-318-0842 www.au- tumnfunerals.net Services: Private services will be held later OBITUARY DEADLINE Call to ask about our deadlines 541-385-5809 Monday - Friday, 10am - 3pm No death notices or obituaries are published Mondays. Email: obits@bendbulletin.com Hurd Oregon Senate passes bill to ban day care, preschool suspensions A proposal to eventually ban sus- pensions and expulsions at private day cares and preschools that receive public funding is on its way to the state House, after Senate lawmakers passed the plan on a bipartisan vote Tuesday. Senate Bill 236 would ban private programs from suspending or expelling children starting in 2026, an effort to interrupt what supporters described as the school-to-prison pipeline. It can begin in preschool, when national statistics show Black boys are disciplined at a highly disproportionate rate. Stacona erated Tribes of Warm Springs’ education committee, worked in the tribe’s early childhood education center and repre- sented the tribes on a statewide American Indian/Alaska Na- tive Advisory Council “This work has been my life, and it’s not just an election for me,” Suppah said. “It’s really about being able to provide a voice for the communities that we are supposed to serve.” Suppah, who has two chil- dren in second and fourth grade at the Warm Springs K-8 Academy, said the vast major- ity of students in the school district are Native or Latino, but the current school board does not match the demo- graphics. “When you look at who is serving on the school board, there is only one representative who is from Warm Springs,” Suppah said, referring to Danzuka. “It just doesn’t re- ally equal out to the amount of people who should be serving on that board that reflects the community.” As a board member, Suppah Struck Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat who carried Senate Bill 236 for the floor vote, said in a statement that “national and state data show con- sistently that discipline against BIPOC kids and those with disabilities happens at disproportionate rates. It creates a distrust –and dislike –of the education system and it functions to push kids out.” Child care providers and the union that represents them, AFSCME, testi- fied against the proposal and asked law- makers to ban the state’s Early Learning Division from using its rulemaking au- thority to crack down on suspensions and expulsions. Suppah would be motivated to pro- vide leadership and support to other people of color who are interested in serving in public office. The school board cur- rently has no Latino members, which Suppah hopes changes in future elections. Suppah sees the school board as an opportunity to share her experience working on educational issues in the re- gion. For her, win or lose, she plans to stay involved through her work as a community plan- ner. “I’ll still be advocating,” Sup- pah said. “I’m not going any- where.” Jacob Struck Struck, 34, a construction superintendent for Skanska USA Building, grew up in Madras and credits his shop classes in high school for in- spiring him to pursue his ca- reer. From 2016 to 2018, Struck was invited back to Madras High School to help launch the Career and Technical Educa- tion program. “I did that for two years, and — Bulletin wire reports that really opened my eyes to what many of our kids are go- ing through and what chal- lenges they are facing and what they really need in the school district,” Struck said. As a school board member, Struck would like to bolster the existing vocational programs and see where there are op- portunities to add more. It is important to offer a variety of programs, since the majority of students do not go on to col- lege, Struck said. “Having those programs available and allowing our youth another option other than college would be a high priority for me on the board,” he said. Struck, who has three chil- dren in kindergarten, sec- ond and fourth grades, said he wants to get more families engaged with their children’s education and make sure their children are consistently going to school. When Struck taught at the high school, he noticed many kids would be absent for weeks. He understands the tardiness is likely a result of the poverty issues in the re- gion, but it is something Struck wants to address. “That importance of show- ing up to school and being a part of school is huge,” Struck said. e e Reporter: 541-617-7820, kspurr@bendbulletin.com