A10
STATE
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Strong report for NE Oregon schools
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
EASTERN OREGON — It
was a red-letter year for many
Northeastern Oregon school
districts, as numbers released by
the Oregon Department of Edu-
cation show that the majority of
the region’s counties beat state
averages for graduation rates
— even as graduation rates fell
from 82.6% to 80.6% across the
state.
Similarly, rates across
Northeastern Oregon fell as
well, with Baker County seeing
one the largest drops in gradu-
ation rates for the area, falling
from 84.7% to 77.9% — a 6.8
percentage-point drop from last
year’s graduation rates.
The rest of the Northeastern
Oregon counties — Umatilla,
Morrow, Union, Wallowa and
Grant counties — registered an
above-average graduation rate.
dent Dirk Dirksen. “We made a
real eff ort to get into the limited
in-person instruction as soon as
we can, and just try to maximize
every opportunity for the doors
to be open.”
Knowing that a signifi -
cant portion of rural communi-
ties are without stable internet
access, school districts across
Northeastern Oregon had given
out mobile hotspot devices
for students to use at home, as
well as Chromebooks to access
online coursework.
Guidelines by the Oregon
Department of Education for
limiting the spread of COVID-
19 included separating cohorts,
part-time school with remote
elements, or completely remote
learning environments —
known as Comprehensive Dis-
tance Learning, or CDL — in
the case of a localized outbreak
at a school.
A mixed bag
Leading the way
Grant, Morrow and Wal-
lowa counties topped the list
with more than 92% of their
respective cohorts graduating
during a pandemic year. Mor-
row County School District in
particular shined with a stagger-
ing 96.6% graduation rate for
the district.
School administrators credit
the push for in-person learning
— as opposed to distance learn-
ing or remote classroom envi-
ronments — as a critical factor
for success in rural classrooms.
“I would say one of the
things we were fortunate with in
Morrow County is that we were
able to stay in person more than
other school districts around
the state,” said Morrow County
School District Superinten-
At the individual school
level, results were mixed. Pend-
leton High School — the fl ag-
ship of the Umatilla County
School District — fell from
90.4% the previous year to
78.5% in 2020-21, a drop of
11.9%. It was among the highest
decreases among larger schools
in Northeastern Oregon.
“The drop in our data,
it’s obviously disappointing,
because there’s student names
tied to all of those numbers,”
Matt Yoshioka, Pendleton’s
director of curriculum, instruc-
tion and assessment, told the
East Oregonian on Wednesday,
Jan. 19. “It was certainly a hard
year.”
Schools that recorded a
lower graduation rate are Burnt
River School, North Powder
Tanni Wenger Photography/Contributed Photo
Members of Grant Union High School’s class of 2020 toss their
graduation caps in the air to celebrate earning their high school
diplomas. Grant posted an above-average graduation rate
during the pandemic year, according to state data.
Charter School, Umatilla High
School, Pendleton High School,
Elgin High School, McLough-
lin High School, Baker High
School, Weston-McEwen High
School, Baker Web Academy,
Union High School, Stanfi eld
Secondary School, Pilot Rock
High School, La Grande High
School and Joseph Charter
School.
Schools that saw an increase
in graduation rates were Cove
Charter School, Riverside
Junior/Senior High School,
Grant Union Junior/Senior
High School, Nixyaawii Com-
munity School, Heppner Junior/
Senior High School, Hermis-
ton High School, Irrigon Junior/
Senior High School, Burns
High School, Ione School Dis-
trict, Wallowa High School,
Echo School, Hawthorne Alter-
native High School, Enterprise
High School, Imbler Charter
School, Huntington School and
Pine Eagle Charter School.
Umatilla High School saw
the largest decrease in gradua-
tion rates among schools with
more than 100 seniors, with a
drop of 12%. Hermiston High
School saw the largest increase
for the same category with an
increase of 4.2%.
Eight schools had a grad-
uation rate of 100%, while 18
schools had a graduation rate
at or above 90%. Of the 37
schools in Morrow, Umatilla,
Union, Wallowa, Baker and
Grant counties, only nine had
graduation rates lower than the
state average.
On the rise
Graduation rates for Oregon
as a whole have been increasing
steadily over the past decade.
In 2010, the graduation rate —
that is, the four-year graduation
rate — was just over 66%, one
of the lowest in the nation. That
number climbed steadily until
it hit its all-time high in 2020,
when the state graduated more
than 82% of its seniors.
The 2021 record high still
falls short from the rest of the
nation. The average high school
graduation rate in the U.S. was
86% in 2019, according to the
National Center for Education
Statistics, and was more than
4% higher than Oregon’s rates.
Oregon consistently ranks lower
than other states when it comes
to high school graduations.
The average graduation rate
for this year is the second high-
est rate for Oregon in recent
decades.
“Eleven years ago, we were
at a 76% graduation rate,”
Dirksen said about the Mor-
row County School District’s
graduation rates, “and so this
is not a new goal of the district
— we’ve been working on the
improvement along the way and
were able to highlight it this last
school year.”
Last year’s graduation num-
ber was likely infl ated to some
degree by testing requirements
being relaxed due to the start of
the pandemic coinciding with
the fi nal months of the school
year. This year, challenges
with remote learning require-
ments and shortened school
hours were an alarm for school
administrators who saw that
reduced in-class time could be a
detriment to students.
“When we could have in per-
son, that was our fi rst priority,”
said La Grande School District
Superintendent George Men-
doza. “We recognized that not
everybody participated as well
as we would like with Com-
prehensive Distance Learning;
not everybody participated as
well with packet-based learn-
ing. And so we knew in-per-
son learning was the best mode
of operation for us, and so our
fi ght has always been to be in
person.”
Morrow County, which saw
its highest graduation rate yet,
had distance learning for only a
short few weeks at the beginning
of the school year, according to
Dirksen. In comparison, Pend-
leton and Baker High School,
which had remote classrooms
for much longer — Pendleton
for half the school year, accord-
ing to East Oregonian reports,
and Baker High School up
until the beginning of January,
according to Lindsey McDow-
ell, public relations and com-
munications coordinator for
Baker School District — and
their graduations fell by more
than 10%.
But correlation does not
imply causation, and the data
released by the Oregon Depart-
ment of Education does not
include the duration that schools
spent in distance learning envi-
ronments. Nor did schools have
control over how long they
would be in distance learning
beyond measures put in place to
combat the spread of COVID-19
among students and staff .
Curiously, Baker Web Acad-
emy — an online high school
founded in 2008, and one of six
web academies that reported
graduation numbers to the Ore-
gon Department of Education —
had a precipitous drop in gradu-
ation rates, falling from 75.8%
to 69.8%, a drop of 6% from
the previous year. Just 164 of
the web academy’s 235 seniors
graduated in 2021.
Other web academies —
including Metro East Web
Academy and Clackamas Web
Academy — also reported a sig-
nifi cant drop in graduation rates,
with the online schools’ gradu-
ation rates dropping 10.7% and
6.9%, respectively. Sutherlin
Valley Online Academy, FLEX
Online School and Hillsboro
Online Academy also reported
decreases in graduation rates.
ODOT cautions drivers to obey road closures
By BEN LONERGAN
East Oregonian
MILTON-FREEWATER —
Vaun Miller had been dodging
winter weather for four days,
trying to make it home Jan. 2 to
Milton-Freewater following a
trip to San Diego.
But an early January snow-
storm spelled trouble for the
72-year-old Miller, bringing his
drive to an end about 2 miles
short of his home.
“I stopped — and the next
thing I know a gust of wind hit
me and it swirled and took me
off the side of the road,” he said.
While the highway had been
closed for hours before, Miller
said he didn’t encounter a bar-
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ricade when leaving Pendleton
and a few gas station employees
he had talked to were unaware
of a closure at the time. Miller
said he recalls seeing a barri-
cade parallel to the highway at
the road’s usual closure point
— the intersection with High-
way 331 — but thought the sign
referred to a closure of High-
way 331 based on the way it
was positioned.
“So on I went,” he said.
“And within 3 miles it was get-
ting crazy, crazy, crazy winds
— I would guesstimate at least
60 (mph).”
Despite the inclement
weather, Miller pushed on. He
said he encountered several
other vehicles and was traveling
about 20-25 mph for most of the
distance. As he was approach-
ing milepost 24, the wind
kicked up higher, and Miller
said he slowed to a stop as he
was no longer able to see the
road. The next thing he knew,
the wind pushed his car into the
gully.
“I had a few people stop and
ask me if I was OK,” he said.
“And then it was about an hour
before (Oregon Department of
Transportation) got there.”
Robin
Berheim,
dis-
trict operations coordinator
for ODOT in Pendleton, was
responding to a stuck snow-
plow in the area when she came
across Miller and gave him a
ride home to Milton-Freewater.
“I was real surprised when
she said, ‘Oh, you know it’s
closed,’” he said.
The next morning, snow
had buried Miller’s car to its
roofl ine.
“It was buried for four days
and we couldn’t fi nd it,” Miller
said.
Conditions among worst
in 28 years
While Miller returned a
week later to dig out his belong-
ings from the car, it was not
until Wednesday, Jan. 26, that
he was able to free his vehi-
cle. Miller said he spent sev-
eral days digging and received
some help from passing motor-
ists as he tried to free the car in
the weeks since.
“I hate even thinking about
what we would’ve found the
following day had she not got-
ten to that car,” said Rob-
ert Cash, ODOT transporta-
tion maintenance manager in
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Pendleton.
Berheim, said road condi-
tions the night of Jan. 2-3, were
among the worst she had seen
in her 28 years with the depart-
ment. High winds and heavy
snowfall resulted in snow drifts
several feet high and obscured
visibility.
“It was almost the whole
length of Highway 11,” she
said. “I’ve seen it probably that
bad around the Athena area, but
I’ve never seen it go from one
end to the other.”
According to Tom Strand-
berg, ODOT Region 5 public
information offi cer, the depart-
ment reported more than 20
abandoned or stuck vehicles
and tow trucks were brought in
the following day to help clear
the road so snow removal could
resume.
“We were worried sick
about what we would fi nd the
following day with all of those
vehicles that weren’t following
the road closure,” Cash said.
Cash said the high wind
speeds meant plow opera-
tors were forced to plow into
the wind, putting them against
the road’s direction of travel.
He added this practice is usu-
ally not a problem when the
roads are closed, but the num-
ber of people ignoring the clo-
sure meant plows would have
to stop and back up to allow for
oncoming traffi c.
“Generally speaking in the
evenings and wee hours of
the night we don’t have a lot
of traffi c and most of the traf-
fi c we do have is locals who
understand the closures — that
night it just seemed like we had
a nonstop parade of vehicles,”
Cash said.
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