A4 THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JUNE 20, 2021
EDITORIALS & OPINIONS
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
Heidi Wright
Gerry O’Brien
Richard Coe
Publisher
Editor
Editorial Page Editor
How should Bend’s
school district teach
controversial subjects?
W
hat books students are asked to read in school can
put parents on edge. The Bend-La Pine Schools
is reviewing its policy on teaching controversial
subjects in part because of a book. Language arts teachers at
Cascade Middle School have had students read “Ghost Boys” by
Jewell Parker Rhodes.
The book begins with Jerome
dead. He’s a 12-year-old Black boy
shot by a policeman in Chicago. By
mistake. He had a toy gun. Jerome
follows the aftermath of his death
as a ghost. He meets the ghost of
Emmett Till, a Black boy killed in
1955, and more ghost boys. We’d ar-
gue the hope of the book is that skin
color won’t matter. “Only friendship.
Kindness. Understanding,” as it says.
It’s a compelling book, brimming
with relevance.
Some parents in Bend protested
its choice. It’s gotten attention else-
where, as well. The book “is propa-
ganda that pushes an inaccurate and
absurd stereotype of police officers
in America.” That is from a letter
from Paul Kempinski, the district
director for Florida State Fraternal
Order of Police District 5, to the
Broward County School Board. The
Broward County School Board tem-
porarily pulled the book earlier this
year.
The book does not attempt to give
deep insights into police officers
making fast and sometimes fatal de-
cisions. The ghosts in the book are
more substantial than any effort to
reveal more about the police officer
who shot Jerome. So if there is no
attempt in a class to think critically
about what the book says and what it
doesn’t say and to question some of
the facts stated, well then that would
not be a very good teacher.
We’d still argue the book is more
nuanced than Kempinski and others
give it credit for. Read the book be-
fore passing judgment based on our
summary or anything you can find
about it posted online. (If you don’t
want to buy it, it’s available at the
public library.)
Without question “Ghost Boys”
explores sensitive, controversial sub-
jects. It will make students think.
With good leadership in the class-
room, reading it could be a powerful
educational exercise.
Some parents may vehemently
disagree. That’s why the district is
reviewing its policy. It wants a clear
procedure to describe how such sup-
plemental materials are selected. It
wants a clear policy to describe how
parents can opt out their child and
how an alternative will be incorpo-
rated for them.
If you have thoughts about how
Bend-La Pine Schools should struc-
ture its policies about teaching con-
troversial subjects, you may want to
talk to a teacher or principal first.
You can also email the school board
at school-board@bend.k12.or.us.
Library voters should
get what they voted for
V
oters should get what they vote
for when they pass a bond. So
when voters passed the De-
schutes Public Library System’s $195
million bond in November what did
they believe they would get?
The question is an important one.
There’s an effort to have the library
board revisit its expansion plans.
The board has planned to use the
bulk of the money to build a new
central library on land it purchased
on the north end of town, near the
Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office
on U.S. Highway 20. The Redmond
library also would be doubled in
size, and other libraries get upgrades
and improvements.
Anne Ness, who was recently
elected to the board, and some other
community members want a more
regional approach. People have
called for less emphasis on a big,
central library. More money spent
to build up the community libraries.
More certainty about the future of
the East Bend library. And we have
heard the suggestion that the new
central library should be located
more toward the core of Bend, not
on the outskirts.
Before the November election,
the library did spread the word that
its intent was to build the big new
central library at the location on
Highway 20. That was not spelled
out in the Voters Pamphlet. Staff
of the library and the library board
did tell people that. It was reported
in local media in The Bulletin and
elsewhere. Library board members
wrote about it in a guest column in
The Bulletin before the November
election. The news articles and guest
columns were also consistent with
the board’s vision of a big central li-
brary, expansion at Redmond and
modernization and improvements
elsewhere.
The library board has some lat-
itude. But if the board’s expansion
plan shifts significantly, the danger
is some voters may feel the board is
breaking its promise.
Editorials reflect the views of The Bulletin’s editorial board, Publisher Heidi Wright, Editor
Gerry O’Brien and Editorial Page Editor Richard Coe. They are written by Richard Coe.
Proposed library location in Bend
will make a bad problem worse
BY MICHEL BAYARD
A
s the president of the Hunnell
United Neighbors , I’ve dealt
with transportations issues in
Bend’s north corridor for 17 years.
The HUNS’ geographic focus includes
areas that surround U.S. Highway
97, U.S. Highway 20, Cooley Road
and Robal Road. To say the least, the
area is heavily congested. Gridlock
increases in the summer when out-
of-area visitors pour into town. They
populate Bend’s highways with “rec-
reational vehicles.” Most visitors enter
and leave Bend using Highway 97 or
Highway 20. Both highways are also
freight corridors characterized by
heavy “tractor trailer” traffic.
The Deschutes Public Library plans
to build a central library in the same
area where some of Bend’s worst con-
gestion exists. The library board voted
to pay $1.35 million for 12.75 acres
of land owned by Gumpert Family
Limited Partnership on the east side
of Highway 20 at Robal Road. If they
succeed with their plans to build a
115,000- square-foot central library
there, it will make a bad traffic situa-
tion far worse.
For more than a decade, ODOT
has tried to limit “traffic choking”
(idling vehicles unable to advance due
to clogged highways). Yet, conges-
tion continues to accelerate. Further,
Costco and Fred Meyer hope to build
super stores directly across Highway
GUEST COLUMN
20 from the Deschutes Public Li-
brary’s proposed central library site
on land owned by Gumpert Family
Limited Partnership. Increased grid-
lock is virtually assured.
Per the Deschutes Public Library’s
Director Todd Dunkelberg, their
board chose the land near the Cas-
cade Village Shopping Center, “be-
cause it’s easy to get to from almost
everywhere in Deschutes County. It’s
right off the highway, so it’s easily ac-
cessible from Redmond, Sisters, La
Pine,” he said. But, the central library
isn’t easily accessible from La Pine;
residents who live there face a 50-mile
round trip (or more) to access it.
How much “due diligence” did the
library board perform before pay-
ing $1.35 million cash to purchase
the land? What alternatives were ex-
plored? Was the board aware that
Fred Meyer and Costco are hoping
to build super centers directly across
from the central library’s site?
Bend’s Urban Growth Boundary
expansion map was finalized in 2016.
Bend’s south end will expand by 1,117
acres. The “Triangle” (area north of
the junction of Highway 97 and High-
way 20) and land in the vicinity of
O.B. Riley Road (to the west of High-
way 20) will expand by only 335 acres.
The East Side Library is located in a
leased building. Why not build a cen-
tral library on Bend’s east side?
The central library is not only
planned for the wrong quadrant of
Bend. It will also serve as a performing
arts center, which is clearly beyond the
mission of a public library. If the com-
munity wants a performing arts cen-
ter, shouldn’t we vote to approve one?
The central library concept was es-
tablished prior to the pandemic. Since
then, many patrons appreciate the ease
of accessing materials on line. That ser-
vice should be developed further and
more funds devoted to acquire digi-
tal materials. Unspent funds from the
Deschutes Public Library’s 2019 bond
should be used to expand and improve
Deschutes County’s local libraries.
As it is, the library district is rush-
ing to award a nearly $200 million
contract to an architect/builder of
the central library. The vote is slated
for July 14 , the very day that the li-
brary board’s newest member, Anne
Ness, will be sworn in. Ness has had
no time to become familiar with the
project, yet she defeated the board’s
current president Martha Lawler by
10 percentage points. That fact, alone,
should cause the board to pause and
reassess its plans to spend precious
public funds on a project that will be
sited in what is arguably the most traf-
fic congested part of Bend.
Michel Bayard is president of Hunnell United
Neighbors Association.
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As my father aged, the words began to flow
nings and even many weekends, he
was at work or at the Brownsville-East
hen I was a child, the stron- New York Liberal Party headquarters,
gest presence I felt in our
where he was an officer.
house in Brooklyn was my
The sense that I couldn’t reach my
father’s absence. It clung to his pos-
father stayed with me into adulthood. I
sessions and places, like the
often dreamed that I saw him
drop-leaf desk at which he
across a room or on a train
worked when he was home,
platform but couldn’t get to
and the cellar where he had
him.
built the desk. Only my fa-
After he retired at 70, my fa-
ther used the cellar, with
ther had more time, but he al-
its massive table saw, tools
ways ceded conversation to my
hanging in neat rows and
mother. When I visited, she
Tannen
shelves holding baby food
and I would become engrossed
jars with nails and screws
in talk — and he would retreat
sorted by size.
to his desk to pay bills or write
To me, my father was as tall as the
letters. If he answered when I called
Empire State Building and knew as
home, he’d say as soon as he heard my
much as the encyclopedia. I loved the voice, “I’ll tell Mother you’re on the
feel of his huge, callused hand, a big,
phone.” He’d stay on while she picked
safe house around my little one. But
up an extension, but before long, I’d re-
he was rarely home. Most days, eve-
alize he’d stopped speaking.
BY DEBORAH TANNEN
Special to The Washington Post
W
“Where’s Daddy?” I’d ask.
“He hung up.”
But there was one situation in which
my father would stay on the phone: if
I happened to call when my mother
was out, and I got him talking about
his past. I once asked why. “Maybe be-
cause it’s pent-up words,” he said. “I
like to reminisce. I can’t reminisce with
Mother because she doesn’t like it. She
complains, ‘You only want to talk about
people who are dead.’ ”
The dead people my father liked to
talk about were from his childhood in
Warsaw, where he was born in 1908
and lived for 12 years before coming
to the United States. Until he was 7, he
lived, together with his mother and sis-
ter (his father had died when he was
very young), in a household headed by
his grandfather, a white-bearded, ul-
tra-Orthodox Hasid who arose each
morning at 5 to study a large Talmud.
My father never tired of describing
his grandparents : their large, gaslit
apartment, the way his grandfather
held sugar cubes in his mouth while
sipping tea from a glass. He never
tired of talking about the Hasidic
neighborhood, the crowded streets
lined with stores, the beggars who
came into the courtyard along with
vendors offering to sharpen knives.
And I never tired of listening. I soon
decided I could bring back to life World
War I Hasidic Warsaw by including it
in a book about my father’s life. This
gave me license to spend hours talking
to him — conversations that were not
recreation, but research.
My father, in his early 90s, is in the
hospital after surgery for an infected
gallbladder. I walk with him down the
hall, accompanied by an IV pole on
wheels. In an alcove with chairs, we sit
and continue the conversation we’ve
been having all afternoon. Though it
breaks my heart to see him so weak, I
treasure the hours — the days — the
hospital gives us to talk.
When we talked about his past, my
father was as pleased that I wanted to
listen as I was that he wanted to talk.
I think most fathers are pleased when
their children want to hear what no one
else can tell them — what the world
was like for them when they were
growing up. My father died in 2006. In
his last years, I knew that the man who
looked to me like my father looked to
the world like an old man. But when
we talked, I’d forget he was old. And
I’d bask in what had seemed impossi-
ble when I was young: my father’s un-
divided, unlimited attention.
Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at
Georgetown University and the author, most
recently, of “Finding My Father,” from which this
essay is adapted.