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