EDUCATION
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2020
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A11
Hermiston School District encourages registration
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
REGISTER YOUR STUDENT
After announcing an
online-only start to the 2020-
21 school year, Hermiston
School District is encour-
aging parents to keep their
child with the district.
Students
have
two
options with HSD if they
return in the fall. In the fi rst
option, they can sign up for
temporary distance learning,
where they will be assigned
teachers who would nor-
mally be teaching them in
an in-person classroom to
work with online, with the
hope that eventually they
will be able to transition into
that teacher’s classroom in
person.
In option two, for fami-
lies that decide they would
prefer to keep their student
home the entire year even
if the district is allowed to
For Hermiston Online! or the comprehensive distance learn-
ing through the district, parents must register their student.
They can register from home by visiting the district’s page,
www.hermiston.k12.or.us, clicking the Parents & Communi-
ty tab, and scrolling down to online registration.
They can also visit the district offi ces at 305 S.W. 11th St.
in Hermiston from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 10-13 for on-site
registration or to return the Chromebook they borrowed in
the spring for maintenance and upgrades.
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan, File
Laptops charge in a classroom at Armand Larive Middle
School in Hermiston on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. The Hermiston
School District will begin the year with distance learning.
return students to the class-
room, students can regis-
ter for Hermiston Online!,
the district’s virtual acad-
emy that it has been running
since before the pandemic
began.
Hermiston Superinten-
dent Tricia Mooney told the
school board on Monday,
Aug. 10, that kindergarten
registration is down from
previous years, likely due to
the pandemic.
However, the district is
urging parents who would
like to go with an online-
only school year to regis-
ter for Hermiston Online!
instead of a charter school or
other online option not spon-
sored by the district, so that
those students can still have
access to Hermiston School
District’s resources, includ-
ing counselors, fi nancial aid,
extracurricular
activities,
special education, school
meals, English Language
Learner programs, libraries
and school nurses.
During an update to the
Hermiston City Council
after the school board meet-
ing on Aug. 10, Mooney
said wherever people are
on the political spectrum or
what their life situation is,
the community should be
focused on doing what needs
to be done to return students
to the classroom safely.
“We know that our econ-
omy doesn’t fully return
until our kids are back in
school,” she said. “It is a
huge impact on families
across the community not
being able to have our kids
have face-to-face instruc-
tion, so it’s critical we all do
whatever it is we need to do,
step up and do our part, to
get our kids back.”
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Education’s current
guidelines are that a school
of more than 100 students
can only open if the county
where the school is located
has less than 10 new con-
fi rmed cases of COVID-
19 per 100,000 people over
a seven-day period, three
weeks in a row, and has a
less than 5% rate of COVID-
19 tests coming back posi-
tive for three weeks in a row.
For the week of Aug. 2-8,
Umatilla County had 361
new cases per 100,000 and a
20% test positivity rate.
District announces staffi ng changes
District close on new school name
to areas that the district needs to
strengthen.”
Hermiston School District has
“Now more than ever, the dis-
announced that Maria Durón will
trict wants to better communicate
serve as the district’s new family
and engage our Hispanic fami-
engagement specialist.
lies,” she said. “Maria has built
Durón already works for the
Durón
strong bonds with community
district, previously in the position
members over the last couple of
of communication offi cer and com-
years. We are excited to expand
munity relations specialist. Before
that connection with our Hispanic
she worked for the district, she also
population.”
served on the school board.
The responsibility of com-
In her new role, her focus will
munications will shift to Briana
be on strengthening the district’s
Cortaberria, executive assistant
Cortaberria
relationship with its Hispanic fam-
to the superintendent and school
ilies. In an email to media mem-
board. Cortaberria handled com-
bers alerting them of the change, she said munications for the district in the past,
helping families is her passion and she was prior to Durón’s employment. Cortaber-
excited to make the change.
ria and Durón will partner with Graphics
Superintendent Tricia Mooney said & Media Producer Roger Pope to form the
the district decided to make the change district’s communications team, according
as the pandemic “has brought a new light to a news release.
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
HERMISTON HERALD
Hermiston School Dis-
trict has narrowed its fi nal-
ists for a new elementary
school on Theater Lane
down to three options, and
plans to send out a survey
soon asking the public to
help them choose between
the three names: Artemisa
Elementary School, Loma
Vista Elementary School
or La Senda Elementary
School.
Superintendent
Tri-
cia Mooney told the school
board Aug. 10 that a previ-
ous survey about what peo-
ple wanted to see showed
that 61% of participants
thought the school should
be named for a geograph-
ical feature, similar to the
district’s other fi ve elemen-
tary schools. The district
also heard feedback that the
name should be representa-
tive of the district’s increas-
ingly diverse student body,
which is why the fi nal three
names are in Spanish.
Artemisa means sage-
brush in Spanish, while
Loma Vista is roughly trans-
lated to “hill view” and La
Senda means “the path.”
When the options were
fi rst presented to the board,
the fi rst option was Artemisa
Valley Elementary School,
but board members disliked
the mixture of valley, an
English word, with artemisa
in Spanish. There was con-
cern about people being able
to pronounce artemisa, but
people also pointed out that
people have learned to pro-
nounce Armand Larive Mid-
dle School.
After the survey is
released in the next few
days, the results of the sur-
vey will be presented to the
school board for discussion
at a Sept. 14 meeting.
The new elementary
school, paid for by the
school bond passed by the
community in 2019, will
be on East Theater Lane at
Northeast 10th Street. Con-
struction is set to begin in
the spring of 2021.
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