Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 29, 2020)
WRESTLING TEAM PLACES SECOND AT HOME TOURNEY | PAGE A9 The Blue Mountain EAGLE Grant County’s newspaper since 1868 Wednesday, January 29, 2020 152nd Year • No. 5 • 18 Pages • $1.50 MyEagleNews.com Schools seek compliance with sex ed requirements Topics include LGBTQ, consent, bullying and abuse prevention By Steven Mitchell Blue Mountain Eagle Some local school districts are still working to implement new statewide health education standards that were supposed to take effect last school year. According to Sasha Grenier, a sex- uality education and school health specialist with the Oregon Depart- ment of Education, the state in 2018 began requiring school districts to comply with specific parts of the 2016 health education standards, which The Eagle/Steven Mitchell Grant School District 3 board members discuss health education require- ments at the Jan. 15 meeting. include LGBTQ inclusivity, consent, bullying and abuse prevention. Grenier said, each year, school districts statewide attest that they are meeting all academic standards the state requires. For the 2018-2019 school year, Grant County School District 3 reported it did not meet the state’s human sexuality guidelines at the ele- mentary school level. Long Creek School District Super- intendent Karl Coghill, who recently stepped into the position, said the dis- trict is actively seeking curriculum that meets the required standards. Dayville School District attested to the state that it is meeting the state’s guidelines, while Monument and Prai- rie districts have not reported whether the districts are meeting the state guideline. The deadline to report is Feb. 1. Meeting the new requirements has its challenges, however, because there isn’t a single curriculum available that covers everything, Grenier said. “Currently, there are no curricula available nationwide that meets all of Oregon’s health and sexuality educa- tion standards,” said Grenier. Additionally, Grenier said, K-12 students are required to have four sessions of age-appropriate sex ed topics every year. “Many teachers need the training to have the skills and comfort level to teach topics that include child abuse prevention, healthy relationships, friendships, LGBTQ inclusion,” she said. Board members at the Grant School District meeting on Jan. 15 said teachers had expressed discom- fort about teaching sex ed in the past. A Humbolt teacher said, at most schools, there is a school nurse and a school counselor who are trained to teach the curriculum and answer difficult questions about sexuality, puberty and changing body parts. In a rural area like Grant County, where See Compliance, Page A18 DIGGING HISTORY Archaeologists studying Chinese mining sites in Grant County By Erin Ross Oregon Public Broadcasting I OPB/Erin Ross Archaeologists excavate the hearth from a Chinese gold miner’s cabin in the Mal- heur National Forest. t was the kind of July day in Eastern Ore- gon when the dusty air waits for a spark to ignite a fire. In fact, two fires were already burning nearby. Chelsea Rose, clad in black jeans, a black woven cowboy hat and black leather combat boots, was leading a team of U.S. Forest Service employees, archaeologists and volunteers through the backwoods. Two-way radios crackled with fire spotters’ updates. Although the fires were still a distance away, another could have started at any minute. Everyone needed to be prepared to evacuate. Rose stepped over felled logs and rutted ground. Piles from a forest thinning opera- tion were scattered throughout the landscape. There was no trail, but Rose didn’t need it — she spotted a small, unassuming depression in the ground. “It’s a mining ditch, an aqueduct,” said Rose, an archaeologist from Southern Ore- gon University. She turned to follow it after pointing out a large reservoir and a bump in the aqueduct that probably held a gate. Mov- ing water, Rose said, was crucial for gold mining operations. Hand-built aqueducts like this one could stretch for miles, descending steadily across a mountainside. The people who created them are almost certainly dead, but only recently. Many of their children are still alive. Rose works on the Oregon Chinese Dias- pora project. She studies the mass immigra- tion of Chinese workers into Oregon, many of whom came as miners when Gold Fever hit Oregon in the mid-1800s. At one point, 40% of the residents of Grant County, where Rose is currently excavating, were Chinese. See Mining, Page A18 District developing plans to repair facilities Study shows Grant School District repair needs at $20 million By Steven Mitchell Blue Mountain Eagle Grant School District is developing a long-range plan to address millions of dollars of needed repairs. On Jan. 22, the the district received an estimate for the cost of major repairs at Humbolt Elementary, Grant Union Junior-Senior High School, Seneca Ele- mentary and the District Office: $21.2 million for repairs, while the price to build three new schools and a district office would be $71.4 million. According to Richard Higgins, an education architect with BLRB Archi- tects, a firm certified by the Oregon The Eagle/Steven Mitchell Education architect Heidi Slaybaugh presents the assessment from the long- range facilities assessment Jan. 22 at Grant Union High School. Department of Education to conduct the district’s long-range assessment, the cost to repair Humbolt Elementary would be $5.4 million compared to a replacement cost of $20.7 million. Seneca’s repairs would cost about $840,000 or about $4.3 million replace. Grant Union High School’s repairs would cost approximately $14.1 mil- lion, and the cost to build a new school would be roughly $45.3 million. Higgins based his findings on a facility assessment conducted on the four buildings through a $20,000 long- range planning grant. ODE awarded the district the grant last year to assess the physical condition and determine the level of deficiencies and provide an estimate for repair or replacement costs of the district’s schools and administra- tive office. The study found several crit- ical problems that need to be addressed, Higgins said. “There are minimal safety systems in place,” he said. According to Higgins, Humbolt, Grant Union and the district office do not have fire sprinklers. Seneca’s sprin- klers, located in the boiler room, are manually operated. See Repair, Page A18