OFF PAGE ONE
A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2021
School:
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during the six weeks, from
places such as Three Mile
Canyon Farms in Board-
man to Fort Walla Walla.
Fun learning experience
According to Melissa
Doherty, the middle school
summer program coordina-
tor, the summer school pro-
gram was “really focusing
on making education fun
and the learning experience
fun.”
The program was made
possible by a $250 mil-
lion “Summer Learning and
Child Care Package” that
Gov. Kate Brown, Senate
President Peter Courtney
and House Speaker Tina
Kotek introduced in March
2021.
“Our children are being
really affected by this pan-
demic,” Courtney said in a
press release. “We’ve intro-
duced these summer pro-
grams because it has never
been more urgent to invest
in our kids. This summer,
we want them to go outside.
We want them to have fun.
We want them to learn. We
need to support their mental
and physical health. These
programs will get our kids
back out doing the things
they love.”
The funding is bro-
ken up into different cate-
gories, including summer
enrichment and academic
programs for grades K-12,
summer activities, child
care grants and early learn-
ing programs.
When the Legislature
announced these pockets of
money, Hermiston School
District Superintendent Tri-
cia Mooney began thinking
about the needs of the com-
munity and started conver-
sations as a district.
“We have some staff
members that put in a ton of
time coordinating because
it’s something different than
we’ve ever done,” she said.
The resulting program
Restrictions:
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tilla County reported 53
new cases July 23-25. Case
reporting during weekends
often lags behind the actual
totals because of staff-
ing and communications
limits.
The Oregon Health
Authority and the office of
Gov. Kate Brown on July
26 referred reporters to the
official press release that
morning, statements during
a press call last week and
the new County COVID-
19 Community Spread
Report.
“There are no updates
to add at this time,” said
OHA spokesperson Rudy
Owens.
Kathy Aney/Hermiston Herald
First grader Penelope Moon receives some help from teacher Yisel Amaya during summer school Thursday, July 22, 2021, at
Sunset Elementary, Hermiston.
took a lot of different part-
ners coming together,
Mooney said. The coordi-
nators at the elementary,
middle and high school lev-
els spent considerable time
building the program, try-
ing to be creative and think-
ing about ways to engage
with kids in different ways
to get them excited about
school.
“It wasn’t just the Herm-
iston school teachers,”
Kennedy said. “There was
a mix of the teachers, our
licensed subs, our classified
staff, our classified subs,
we had some EOU teachers
involved and then we also
had high school students.
So it was a big collabora-
tion of lots of different peo-
ple from our community.”
Lots to offer
After COVID-19 had
Murdock said.
OHA pointed to county
officials as the proper
authorities to determine
the public health risk and
take actions. Edicts from
Salem would be coun-
terproductive, said OHA
Director Allen.
Allen said an “I don’t
care what you think, you
have to get vaccinated”
message from the gov-
ernor or the health care
agency might just rein-
force
divisions
over
vaccinations.
Allen had cited the
“highly political” nature of
the COVID-19 debate as a
reason for locally focused
responses. In addition to
taken away many in-person
activities, Mooney said the
district didn’t want the pro-
gram to be all academic and
strove to make it feel less
like “summer school” and
more like a summer pro-
gram with a lot of different
offerings.
Doherty agreed that
many students didn’t want
to attend “summer school”
but said children are lov-
ing the program the school
district put together and
they’ve had really positive
experiences. She mentioned
that parents such as herself
have had a very positive
experience with the pro-
gram as well.
Doherty’s
daughter,
who is in the program,
didn’t want to go to sum-
mer school either, “but
she loved it every day,”
Doherty said. “She saw
the Pendleton Whisky
Music saw at least 12,000
people at the Pendleton
Round-Up Grounds. Fiu-
mara said at least 30 cases
in four counties — Uma-
tilla, Union, Morrow and
Walla Walla — have been
traced directly back to the
concert.
“My sense is that num-
ber’s going to go up,” Fiu-
mara said.
The
recent
cases
from Whisky Fest has
county officials alarmed
with more large summer
events coming up, includ-
ing the Umatilla County
Fair and the Pendleton
Round-Up. Murdock said
county officials met with
Take action
Those trends, which
public health experts say
is being driven by the delta
variant spreading rap-
idly in unvaccinated com-
munities, were the topic
of a press conference last
week where Oregon Health
Authority Director Patrick
Allen urged counties with
low vaccination rates to
“take action now.”
Allen singled out Uma-
tilla County as having sig-
nificantly high rates of
infection and low vaccina-
tion rates — less than 40%,
according to the Centers
for Disease Control and
Prevention.
In a statement, Brown’s
office also said it is
“strongly recommending
that local leaders consider
implementing temporary
measures such as masks
and physical distancing.”
But Shafer and fel-
low county Commissioner
George Murdock say they
would be hard pressed to
implement any sort of pan-
demic mandates to curb
the spread of infection.
They claim that enforcing
the restrictions would be
challenging in a commu-
nity that has largely come
to disdain restrictions like
masks.
“If we tell (county res-
idents) to wear masks
all of a sudden, who’s
going to enforce that?”
“BEING NEAR THE
BOTTOM, IN TERMS
OF VACCINATIONS,
AND BEING NEAR
THE TOP, IN TERMS
OF CASES, WE
MAKE OURSELVES
VERY VULNERABLE
TO A MANDATE
OR ANY KIND OF
INTERVENTION.”
– George Murdock, county commissioner
government leaders, Allen
said civic and faith lead-
ers could help by urging
vaccination.
Getting vaccinated
Meanwhile,
social
gatherings and summer
events continue to spur
outbreaks. Fiumara said
nearly 70 cases came on
July 16, six days after
the Round-Up and Happy
Canyon board to discuss
new messaging to encour-
age people to get the shot.
Fiumara attributed the
recent surge directly to the
state reopening and lift-
ing masking and distanc-
ing restrictions on June
30. And the vast majority
of the cases are coming
from unvaccinated peo-
how fun it was and is look-
ing forward to attending the
second session.”
According to Mooney,
there were an estimated 600
students who enrolled in the
program at the elementary
level, 300 between Herm-
iston’s two middle schools
and 300 at the high school
level. It was so popular,
Kennedy said, that some
families that signed up for
two weeks asked if their
children could attend more.
“I think the kids have
really enjoyed what they’re
doing,” she said.
Additionally, the free
child care starting at
6:30 a.m. with Champi-
ons, an after-school pro-
gram that partnered with
the school district, has been
a draw to parents who work
and aren’t able to watch
their kids all day. When the
ple. Fiumara said 92% of
COVID-19 cases in Uma-
tilla County since May 1
were from unvaccinated
people.
If case counts remain
at their current levels,
Fiumara said he would
ask the commissioners to
issue recommendations
for the businesses to limit
capacity and for people to
wear masks.
Shafer and Murdock
— each of whom have
been vaccinated — have
encouraged people to get
the shot and maintain that
it’s the best way to stop
the spread of COVID-19.
“The ultimate solution
is the vaccination,” Mur-
dock said.
Murdock noted the
county has taken a variety
of measures to encourage
vaccinations, including on
billboards, advertisements
and making staff available
for people who want to get
the shot.
However, if cases con-
tinue to rise, officials
believe that the state could
still step in and reinstate
restrictions.
“Being near the bot-
tom, in terms of vacci-
nations, and being near
the top, in terms of cases,
we make ourselves very
vulnerable to a mandate
or any kind of interven-
tion,” said Murdock. “So
that’s why we’re going to
continue to advocate for
vaccinations.”
But the state main-
tains that decisions should
come from a local level
— a responsibility that
county officials were pur-
suing for months before
restrictions were lifted.
“A localized pandemic
demands effective local-
ized public health inter-
ventions, not a statewide
response,” Allen said.
Over the past week,
Umatilla County sur-
passed another pandemic
milestone of 9,000 cases,
rising to 9,231 on July
26. In all, the county has
reported 92 COVID-19
deaths since the pandemic
began.
— EO Media Group
reporter Gary Warner
contributed to this feature.
academic portion of the day
finishes at 1:45 p.m. par-
ents also have the option to
enroll them in Champions
after school as well.
According to Kennedy,
Champions has hit a new
level of popularity with the
summer program. “Cham-
pions usually didn’t have
too many students enrolled,
but on any given day there’s
about 200 students there at
the after-school program
with Champions,” she said.
And, when the program
finishes Friday, July 30, the
school district will continue
working with Champions to
provide care for kids until
the first day of school on
Aug. 30.
Bridging the gap
The summer program
also is providing a bridge
for students who are mov-
Tower:
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the Pittsburgh Paint Company.
Along with updating struc-
tural issues and painting an
additional “STANFIELD” on
the other side of the tower, the
team decided to add program-
mable lights to the tower. The
illumination was red, white
ing between elementary
school and middle school.
Normally, students have a
move-up date between fifth
and sixth grade, however,
this couldn’t take place with
COVID-19. While it can be
an intimidating experience
for students to move up a
grade, the summer program
helped bridge that gap, said
Doherty.
While in past years there
were often different require-
ments for summer school,
this year it was open for
all students enrolled in the
Hermiston School District.
“This year it doesn’t mat-
ter who you are,” Doherty
said. “What matters is you
want to have fun.”
With the strong suc-
cess of the program, many
are hoping to take some
of the lessons learned into
the school years ahead
by implementing more
hands-on and experiential
learning activities into les-
son plans. And a summer
program similar to the one
taking place this summer
may become a more perma-
nent fixture for Hermiston
School District.
Mooney said the district
wrote in an extended sum-
mer school into their stu-
dent’s investment account
plan for next year and are
taking lessons they’ve
learned this year to pro-
vide opportunities for kids
again.
“I anticipate that we will
offer something similar next
summer,” Mooney said,
“that’s an expanded oppor-
tunity from what we’ve tra-
ditionally been able to offer
with summer school.”
Kennedy and Doherty
agreed they would love to
see something like the sum-
mer program continue and
believe it has been ben-
eficial for both kids and
parents.
“Learning
is
fun,”
Doherty said. “Learning
doesn’t just have to be in
the confines of the book.
Your only limitation is
your imagination.”
and blue lights for Fourth of
July, but can change the colors
for various events, holidays
and special occasions, such
as blue and gold for Stanfield
High School’s graduation.
Morris is glad residents
wanted to keep the water
tower, and they were able to
keep an important part of the
town alive.
“This is us,” he said.
Irrigon gets a
new, safer path
By NICK ROSENBERGER
HERMISTON HERALD
IRRIGON — Irrigon res-
idents, parents and students
can expect a safer method
for arriving at school with the
construction of a new multi-
use pathway along the west
side of Division Street from
Highway 730 to Southeast
Wyoming Avenue. The city is
aiming to complete it before
the start of the school year.
According to the Irrigon
Public Works Department,
the Division Street project will
provide a “clear and safe area
for bicyclists and pedestrians,
a needed safe zone especially
for children going to and from
school.”
Division Street previously
had no sidewalk or path for
pedestrians or students going
to school, with cars driving
past a couple of feet away.
“Kids would ride their
bikes down the middle of
Division,” said Aaron Palm-
quist, Irrigon’s city manager.
The street was a safety
issue and dangerous, said
Palmquist, noting a child had
been killed in a motorcycle
accident several years prior.
A path like the one under
construction has “been needed
for years,” he said.
Palmquist said he has been
working on implementing
some sort of path since 2013,
when he became city manager,
but it had been a challenge to
secure funding for the project.
Finally, in July 2015, the city
made an official application
to the Oregon Department of
Transportation for Statewide
Transportation Improvement
Program funding. The funding
became available in the 2018-
21 biennium and they started
construction this year.
Palmquist said the path
was about safety and a “very
strong community need and
desire.”
The 10-foot-wide multi-
use path, with a price tag of
about $1.2 million to $1.4 mil-
lion, will allow walkers and
cyclists a safer opportunity to
travel between 730 to South-
east Wyoming and tie into
their “safe school route.”
Along with the addition of
a flashing beacon on Division
Street and barriers that sepa-
rate the road from the path,
the city recently added 12
street lights that light up the
road and intersection. Previ-
ously, “It used to be dark all
the way,” Palmquist said.
Additionally, Palmquist
hinted at another project
going up to bid in November
that will go from First Street
through 14th Street and con-
nect with the Division Street
pathway.
While it’s likely more than
30 students made the trek
during the school day without
the pathway, Palmquist said,
many parents were afraid to
have their children walk the
dangerous road. He said there
has been much excitement
from parents and kids for the
pathway and he expects the
number of pedestrians and stu-
dents walking to school will
increase.
“It’s exciting to finally
see it come to pass,” Palm-
quist said.