NEWS
Wednesday, september 18, 2019
HermIstOnHeraLd.COm • A3
‘Rubber band kids’ snap back to teaching in their home district
By JESSICA POLLARD
STAFF WRITER
At a recent Hermiston School
District board meeting, chair
Karen Sherman remarked on the
number of what she called “rubber
band kids” in the district this year:
students who leave their districts
to get a college education away
from home, and “snap” right back
to the places they grew up.
Such is the case for Julio
Sotelo, who teaches Spanish at
Hermiston High School.
Growing up, he attended Sun-
set and Desert View Elementary
schools. By the time he made it to
high school, he knew he wanted to
be a teacher.
“I could really get along with
a lot of the teachers here, but I
felt like there weren’t many that I
could identify with,” Sotelo said.
“There weren’t many who were of
a hispanic background.”
After two years at Blue Moun-
tain Community College, he
headed to Oregon State Univer-
sity to study Spanish and educa-
tion. Originally, he didn’t want to
come home.
staff photo by ben Lonergan
Once a student of Hermiston High School, Julio Sotelo has returned to the
school as a Spanish teacher this school year.
“There’s this mindset where
students think there’s nothing to
do here in Hermiston. I thought
there would be more opportunities
outside of Hermiston, but as soon
as I left, I missed it,” Sotelo said.
Alayna Reese was valedic-
torian of her Hermiston High
School class, and is now a spe-
cial education teacher at the high
school. She’s the second-ever per-
son in her family to get a bache-
lor’s degree, and now she’s work-
ing on a master’s program online
while teaching.
She said that it’s been interest-
ing to see the high school from
the perspective of a teacher, and
to have colleagues who taught
her the ropes back when she was
a teenager.
“They can see that I made it,”
she said. “To see that I came out of
poverty a little bit, and I’m being
successful at what I do. They had
an impact on me and now I have
an impact on other students.”
Principal Tom Spoo said 27%
of staff at the high school this year
call Hermiston their alma mater.
“The kids who are raised here
and return here understand the
culture of this community. They
know what it’s like. It’s not some
boring Eastern Oregon town,” he
said.
Spoo said that taking on a new
teacher is both a monetary and
time investment, and that districts
do so hoping their teachers will
stay, which is not always the case.
Superintendent Tricia Mooney
said part of the benefit of hav-
ing educators who grew up in the
communities that they now teach
in is retention.
“They’re likely to stay here
longer. They know where things
are. They make great connec-
tions with teachers from out of the
Murdock to see for himself U.S. southern border crisis
By PHIL WRIGHT
STAFF WRITER
Umatilla County Com-
missioner George Murdock
left Monday on a fact-find-
ing visit to the United
States’ southern border.
Murdock, commissioner
since 2013, is one of the five
vice chairs on the National
Association of Counties’
Immigration Reform Task
Force. NACo, a pro-county
lobbying organization, put
54 members on the task
force, and Murdock is the
lone Oregonian. About a
dozen task force members
are traveling to El Paso,
Texas, he said, and over
the course of the week will
go into Mexico to see first-
hand what is happening on
the border. The group plans
to meet with local officials
there as well as members of
the U.S. Border Patrol.
“One of our major
focuses is trying to find
ways we can bring work-
ers into the country,” Mur-
dock said.
While immigration is a
hot political issue, Murdock
said NACo is nonpartisan
and looking for practical
solutions to a serious prob-
lem counties are facing —
the need for migrant labor.
He said Umatilla County
alone relies on 8,000-
10,000 Hispanic workers in
multiple job sectors. Agri-
culture tops that list, and
Murdock said local farm-
ers have reminded him they
need migrant labor.
“It’s not like we have
people lining up to harvest
crops,” he said.
The group also will
visit detention centers,
which have received polit-
ical and media scrutiny for
unhealthy and even inhu-
mane and dangerous condi-
tions. According to various
reports, at least seven chil-
dren have died in the past
year while in U.S. custody
at the border.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Or-
egon, has worked to shine
area,” she said.
Mooney said the district is
interested in the “grow your own”
movement, which has resulted in
programs like Oregon Teacher
Pathways, a program that recruits
potential future educators and
aims to increase diversity among
Oregon teachers.
Stanfield School District, like
other smaller rural school dis-
tricts, faces a unique set of chal-
lenges when it comes to keeping
teachers at the district.
“We are just smaller, everyone
has to do a little bit more. We’re
hoping our teachers will teach us
and maybe do something extra,”
said superintendent Beth Burton.
Teachers at Stanfield com-
monly take on extracurricular
activities, and Burton said that
means they’re looking for teach-
ers who don’t mind volunteering
time for the community.
She said that this year, the
district is picking up the cost
of PERS for their employees.
The move, according to Burton,
will hopefully make the district
more appealing for prospective
teachers.
Hermiston store helps
Walmart pilot pollinator
garden project
By KYLE SPURR
EO MEDIA GROUP
staff photo by ben Lonergan
County Commissioner George Murdock waves to parade-goers during the Westward Ho!
Parade in Pendleton on Friday afternoon.
a light on the effects of
U.S. policy and practices
at the southern border. In
March he visited the U.S.
port of entry at Tijuana,
and in June he tried to visit
a detention center for child
immigrants in Brownsville,
Texas. Merkley on Friday
was in Pendleton for the
Round-Up and said he and
Murdock talked about the
upcoming trip.
Going for several days
will allow Murdock and
the other officials to get a
better sense of what’s hap-
pening, Merkley said, but
he encouraged Murdock to
check out key points.
People seeking asylum
have crowded bridges at
ports of entry, he said, and
the U.S. policy to assess
whether those seekers have
credible fears forces them
to become refugees in Mex-
ico and wait weeks in antic-
ipation of a court hearing
they can’t possibly prepare
for.
They lack access to a
lawyer, money, comput-
ers and more, he said, and
immigration judges know
this.
The senator also stressed
the harm from detention
policies separating children
from families.
“That infliction of trauma
on children is beyond the
pale,” Merkley said.
The need for migrant
workers is real, he said, and
the Senate passed biparti-
san comprehensive immi-
gration reform to provide a
way to meet that need while
beefing up security on the
border. But the Republi-
can-controlled House never
voted on the bill.
Murdock said the NACo
group is keen to take in as
much as it can, including
finding out about the treat-
ment of refugees at deten-
tion centers.
“I want to see what it’s
like,” he said. “I think it
will be enlightening and
help to make an informed
decision.”
For the past few months,
Walmart has used its Herm-
iston and Pendleton stores
for a pollinator garden proj-
ect to help increase the num-
ber of bees and butterflies,
which have suffered severe
population declines.
The Umatilla County
stores — along with 20
other Walmart stores across
the country — have a gar-
den outside with flowers and
plants to attract pollinators
such as bees and butterflies.
Wendy Widener, pro-
gram leader for the Walmart
pollinator project, said the
pilot project is a way for the
national retail corporation to
use its size and scale to help
with an ongoing environ-
mental issue.
According to national
reports, the population loss
of honeybees reached 40.7%
this year. And the monarch
butterfly population has
dropped 90% in the past 20
years.
Widener, who works
from Walmart’s corporate
headquarters in Benton-
ville, Arkansas, said a goal
of the project is to encour-
age customers, employees
and other community mem-
bers to plant their own polli-
nator gardens.
“We hope it really inspires
our customers to make a nice
garden in their own area,”
Widener said.
Pollinator gardens are
at Walmart stores in three
other Oregon cities — Red-
mond, Lebanon and Salem.
The other gardens are at 14
stores in Washington, one in
North Carolina and one at
the corporate headquarters in
Arkansas. The gardens were
planted in April and May.
Walmart chose the loca-
tions in the Northwest and
North Carolina to launch the
project because those areas
had willing community part-
ners who helped create the
gardens, Widener said.
Next spring, Walmart
plans to grow the project and
add gardens at more stores.
No decisions have been
made about how the project
will grow, but plans will be
discussed over the winter,
Widener said.
Helping to increase the
populations of bees and but-
terflies has a direct benefit to
food production. In Oregon,
pollinators help grow blue-
berries, Marionberries, rasp-
berries and pears.
Widener hopes the garden
project helps make a differ-
ence for the pollinators.
“We want to make our
communities and locations
more beautiful,” Widener
said. “We want to be a part-
ner with the communities
and make an impact on the
environment.”
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