OUR 112th Year
September 6, 2019
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
$1.00
FIRST DAY!
Katherine Lacaze
Cannon Beach Academy Director Amy Fredrickson prepares
the school for the start of the 2019-20 school year. The
academy’s enrollment was at full capacity with 50 students.
Full enrollment
at the Cannon
Beach Academy
Moving forward,
school will use
waiting list,
lottery system
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
The Cannon Beach Acad-
emy is looking forward to
starting the 2019-20 school
year with a full capacity
of students in kindergarten
through fi fth grade. Moving
forward, the academy will
use a waitlist and lottery sys-
tem to fi ll open positions as
they come available.
“Because of the demand
for the seats, so to speak,
there needs to be an equita-
ble way to be able to deter-
mine who gets to come to
the school,” Director Amy
Fredrickson said.
The academy faced pos-
sible closure last school year
due to fi nancial woes tied to
lower-than-expected enroll-
ment and unpaid pledges.
For the new school
year, which began Tues-
day, 50 students from Asto-
ria to Nehalem were regis-
tered at the academy, with
one student on the waitlist.
The school’s admission is
capped at 50 students, based
on the number of teachers, as
they are committed via their
charter to having 25 or fewer
students per classroom.
“It’s kind of a circular
thing: Our enrollment is lim-
ited to our staff and our staff
is connected to our enroll-
ment,” Fredrickson said.
Once the school has at
least 16 more students regis-
tered to attend, they can hire
another full-time teacher
and increase their capacity
to 75, which is the goal for
the 2020-21 school year.
The random lottery
process
In Oregon, using a ran-
dom lottery system for
admissions is common
among charter schools,
which provided a model for
the academy.
For each grade, appli-
cants are divided into two
groups: In-district and out-
of-district. Once the lottery
is conducted, all students
who have been selected
for admission are notifi ed.
The remaining students are
placed on a waitlist, and as
openings come available,
“we offer them to families
based on their waitlist posi-
tion,” Fredrickson said. If a
student leaves, the position
is offered to the next per-
son on the waitlist, if they
are interested in transferring
mid-year.
Applications
continue
to be accepted through-
out the year for transfers or
after Jan. 1 of each calen-
dar year for the upcoming
school year. The lottery is
normally held the fi rst week
of April. Applications are
still accepted after the fi rst
lottery and drawn at ran-
dom May 1 and June 1 to be
added to the current waitlist.
Photos by Katherine Lacaze
Raine Krecic steps off the bus for her fi rst day of school. Raine recently moved to Seaside with her family from
California.
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
T
he Heights Elementary
School was a hive of
activity Tuesday morn-
ing as students, teachers,
and parents ushered in
the start of the 2019-20 year.
Parents and guardians snapped
photos, offered encouragement,
and bid farewell to their kinder-
garten through fi fth-graders, sev-
eral of whom expressed excite-
ment and trepidation — or some
of both — heading into the new
school year.
“I most look forward to see-
ing all of my students,” said Juli
Wozniak, principal of The Heights
and Gearhart Elementary School.
“Their smiling faces make my job
truly the best job in the world.”
For all four schools in the dis-
trict, administrators anticipate this
year will be a bittersweet one, as
For this student, the fi rst day of
school is a family aff air.
three of the four student bodies are
transfering to the new school cam-
pus after next summer.
“This is probably going to be one
of the most momentous years in the
history of our district,” Superinten-
dent Sheila Roley said. “We have
so many important things on our
plate.”
Despite Gearhart Elemen-
tary School, Broadway Middle
School, and Seaside High School
having some leaks in their roofs
and outdated heating systems and
being located in the tsunami zone,
“they’ve been home for us for a
long time,” Roley said. Each activ-
ity and event that occurs at the
facilities throughout the year will
be tinged by the awareness that it
is happening in that location for the
last time.
“The process of closure is not
just locking the doors and handing
over the keys,” Roley said. “We
really feel it’s important to honor
the history and the traditions and to
close those buildings with a wor-
thy ending for the service they’ve
given to our community and our
kids.”
Wozniak agreed.
See School, Page A8
See CBA, Page A8
A fond farewell to Ken and Sons Market
his wife Carolyn and fi ve
children as pivotal players
in its success.
“They help make it what
it is,” he said. “It was good
for our children and it was
good for us.”
‘It was good for
our children and
it was good for us’
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
Since 1967, Ken Smith
has been the owner and
proprietor of Ken and Sons
Select Market on Avenue
U, delivering groceries to
the public with his family
by his side.
As of Monday, the store
will become the Hamilton
Market when new owners
Natasha Montero and Mike
Hamilton take over.
Ken Smith at Ken and Sons
market. During the past
52 years, each of his fi ve
children, along with other
in-laws and grandchildren,
have
worked
at
the
neighborhood grocery store
at one time or another.
As Smith, 87, refl ects
on the past 52 years run-
ning the small, neighbor-
hood market, he identifi es
Passing on the ‘mom and
pop’ torch
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
Giving the
business a go
After working several
years in the grocery industry
as a young man, Smith had
the inclination to run his own
business. The family was
living in Hillsboro when the
market on Avenue U, then
owned by the Biamont fam-
ily under a different name,
became available.
A Seaside landmark
grocery will change
hands Sept. 9 as Ken and
Sons Market becomes the
Hamilton Market. Origi-
nally known as the Ocean
Vista Market, Ken Smith
and his family have
owned the market at 250
Avenue U since 1967.
See Farewell, Page A8
See Market, Page A8
R.J. Marx
Natasha Montero and
Mike Hamilton, who will
open Hamilton Market at
the site of Ken and Sons.