A2 The BulleTin • SaTurday, auguST 7, 2021
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COVID-19 data for Aug. 6
Deschutes County cases: 10,880 (54 new cases)
Deschutes County deaths: 87 (zero new deaths)
Crook County cases: 1,479 (10 new cases)
Crook County deaths: 24 (zero new deaths)
Jefferson County cases: 2,547 (7 new cases)
Jefferson County deaths: 42 (zero new deaths)
Oregon cases: 226,899 (970 new cases)
Oregon deaths: 2,889 (4 new deaths)
COVID-19 patients hospitalized at St. Charles Bend on
Friday: 32 (3 in ICU)
The Bulletin had been tracking the seven-day average case
count based on state data since local coronavirus cases were
first reported in March of last year. Starting with the July Fourth
weekend, the state stopped providing county-level data for
weekends or holidays. When data is available, The Bulletin will
continue to publish information about the pandemic.
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Transparency issues surround bill
ending proficiency requirements
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ADMINISTRATION
Publisher
Heidi Wright ..............................541-383-0341
Editor
Gerry O’Brien .............................541-633-2166
BY HILLARY BORRUD
The Oregonian
For the next five years, an
Oregon high school diploma
will be no guarantee that the
student who earned it can read,
write or do math at a high
school level.
Gov. Kate Brown had de-
murred earlier this summer re-
garding whether she supported
the plan passed by the Legisla-
ture to drop the requirement
that students demonstrate they
have achieved those essential
skills. But on July 14, the gov-
ernor signed Senate Bill 744
into law.
Through a spokesperson,
the governor declined again
Friday to comment on the law
and why she supported sus-
pending the proficiency re-
quirements.
Brown’s decision was not
public until recently, because
her office did not hold a sign-
ing ceremony or issue a press
release and the fact that the
Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications
director, wrote in an emailed statement that suspending the
reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while
the state develops new graduation standards will benefit
“Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian,
Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”
governor signed the bill was
not entered into the legislative
database until July 29, a depar-
ture from the normal practice
of updating the public database
the same day a bill is signed.
The Oregonian asked the
governor’s office when Brown’s
staff notified the Legislature
that she had signed the bill.
Charles Boyle, the governor’s
deputy communications direc-
tor, declined to answer.
Boyle wrote in an emailed
statement that suspending the
reading, writing and math pro-
ficiency requirements while
the state develops new grad-
uation standards will benefit
“Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina,
Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pa-
cific Islander, Tribal, and stu-
dents of color.”
“Leaders from those com-
munities have advocated time
and again for equitable gradu-
ation standards, along with ex-
panded learning opportunities
and supports,” Boyle wrote.
The requirement that stu-
dents demonstrate fresh-
man- to sophomore-level
skills in reading, writing and,
particularly, math led many
high schools to create work-
shop-style courses to help stu-
dents strengthen their skills
and create evidence of mastery.
Most of those courses have
been discontinued since the
skills requirement was paused
during the pandemic before
lawmakers killed it entirely.
Democrats in the legislature
overwhelmingly supported
ending the longtime profi-
ciency requirement, while Re-
publicans criticized it as a low-
ering of academic standards.
A couple lawmakers crossed
party lines on the votes.
Proponents said the state
needed to pause Oregon’s high
school graduation require-
ments, in place since 2009 but
already suspended during the
pandemic, until at least the
class of 2024 graduates in or-
der for leaders to reexamine its
graduation requirements.
Much of the criticism of the
graduation requirements was
targeted at standardized tests.
Yet Oregon, unlike many other
states, did not require students
to pass a particular standard-
ized test or any test at all. Stu-
dents could demonstrate their
ability to use English and do
math via about five differ-
ent tests or by completing an
in-depth classroom project
judged by their own teachers.
A variety of factors appear
to have led to the lack of trans-
parency around the governor’s
bill signing decisions this sum-
mer. Secretary of the Senate
Lori Brocker said a key staffer
who deals with the governor’s
office was experiencing medical
issues during the 15-day period
between when Brown signed
Senate Bill 744 and the public
database was updated to reflect
that. By the time legislative staff
belatedly entered the informa-
tion into the bill database on
July 29, the software vendor had
shut off bill updates to members
of the media and the public who
had requested them. They cut it
off because of a July 21 system
malfunction, said legislative in-
formation services Systems Ar-
chitect Bill Sweeney.
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Police: Medford school
custodian who planned
attack is in custody
Man alleged to take
‘significant steps’
toward planning a
‘mass casualty event’
The Associated Press
MEDFORD — A custodian
at a high school in Medford
faces felony charges after police
say he took “significant steps”
toward planning a “mass casu-
alty event” — including one at
South Medford High School,
where he worked.
The Mail Tribune reports
Kristopher Wayne Clay, 24, is
in the Jackson County Jail on
charges surrounding a cache
of guns, ammunition and
handwritten manifestos found
at three locations in Jackson
County.
Authorities say Clay ob-
tained multiple rifles two years
after courts prohibited him
from owning firearms.
Clay began working as a
custodian for the school start-
ing in February until an in-
vestigation that began July 20,
when authorities say he came
into the Medford police lobby,
asked to talk to an officer and
confessed to having homicidal
thoughts and plans to carry out
an attack.
The officer placed him un-
der a mental health hold, and
transported Clay to Asante
Rogue Regional Medical Cen-
ter’s behavioral health unit.
Police place a person under
a mental health hold when the
individual poses a danger to
themselves or others, accord-
ing to Medford police Lt. Mike
Budreau. From there they typi-
cally admit a person to the hos-
pital’s behavioral health ward
and leave the case to mental
health experts.
“In this particular case, we
believe that he’d taken some
pretty significant steps to carry
out his plan,” Budreau said.
Budreau called it “unfortu-
nate” that Clay had to be fully
prosecuted, because Clay pre-
vented himself from carrying
out his plans by contacting
police.
“Had he not come for-
ward, who knows what
could have happened?”
Budreau said.
Clay made his initial
appearance Thursday in
Jackson County Circuit
Court on felony charges
of attempted second-de-
gree murder, attempted
second-degree assault, un-
lawful use of a weapon,
and misdemeanor counts
of unlawfully possessing a
firearm and tampering with
physical evidence accusing
him of damaging or de-
stroying a journal he kept at
the hospital.
Judge Laura Cromwell
ordered no early release un-
less Clay posts a 10% bond
on bail set at $2 million. Ef-
forts to reach an attorney
for Clay weren’t immedi-
ately successful.
Medford School District
terminated Clay’s employ-
ment, according to Hurd,
and the school district is
working closely with Med-
ford police School Resource
Officers.
BOARDMAN-HEMINGWAY
Judge rejects challenge to
transmission-line project
BY MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A federal judge has rejected
arguments by opponents of a
300-mile transmission line in
Eastern Oregon who sought
to stop the project for al-
legedly violating environmen-
tal laws.
U.S. District Judge Michael
Simon has determined the
U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement approved a right-of-
way across public land for the
project in compliance with
the National Environmental
Policy Act and Federal Lands
Policy Management Act.
The Stop B2H Coalition
and other plaintiffs filed a
complaint in 2019 stating the
transmission line between
Boardman and the Hem-
ingway substation in Idaho
should have been more closely
scrutinized for impacts to the
greater sage grouse and other
factors.
The proposal has also
stirred controversy for taking
farmland out of production
and disrupting agricultural
practices, such as aerial pesti-
cide spraying.
The lawsuit argued that
BLM should have updated its
environmental analysis of the
project — known as a final en-
vironmental impact statement
or FEIS — with new informa-
tion about sage grouse pop-
ulations, which have plum-
meted from historic levels.
While studies completed af-
ter the project’s approval pro-
vided new information about
population counts and the
effects of transmission lines,
the judge said they’re “not sig-
nificant or seriously different”
enough to warrant a supple-
mentary analysis.
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EO Media Group File
A crew works on a transmission line tower outside Boardman. A federal
judge has rejected a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the government’s
right-of-way for the Boardman-to-Hemingway transmission line across
public land.
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