OUR 112th Year
November 29, 2019
SEASIDESIGNAL.COM
Pickleball big
in Seaside, too
PICKLEBALL
CRAZE
SWEEPS
GEARHART
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
C
amp Rilea was closed for the day
and pickleball players sought an
alternate place to play.
They found it in Gearhart last
Wednesday, Nov. 20, a decidedly
chilly but bright and sunny day, fi ll-
ing the new pickleball courts as tennis
players volleyed on the tennis court to
the west.
“We usually go to Camp Rilea on
Wednesday mornings, but Camp Rilea
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
P
ickleball is big in Gear-
hart but don’t underes-
timate its popularity in
Seaside.
Along with pickleball,
sports popular at the rec
district for adults include
a coed softball league,
open gym basketball
and drop-in soccer.
Numbers are staying
the same or staying
even, she said, with
the exception of
one sport: pickle-
ball.
That’s on the rise,
according to Sunset
Empire Park and
Recreation District’s
Grace Lee, manager of
recreation and community
programs.
R.J. Marx
Pickleball advocate
Wally Hamer, right, on
the court in Gearhart.
is closed,” enthusiast Wally Hamer,
wearing shorts and carrying a rac-
quet, said between matches. “Since the
weather is good, we’re out here tak-
ing advantage of our courts. We’ve had
over 80 people in the last few months
on these courts.”
Pickleball, similar to tennis, is an
11-point game and described as a cross
between ping-pong and tennis.
The sport fi rst came before the coun-
cil when Hamer and others approached
the City Council in May, proposing
alterations to Gearhart’s two existing
tennis courts to facilitate pickleball play.
In August, the council unanimously
voted to modify the tennis courts, keep-
ing both tennis while adding lines for
two pickleball courts to the east court.
Two rollaway pickleball nets create a
multiuse court.
Hamer had high praise for the new
Gearhart courts. “They’re fantastic.
The surface is really nice. It’s true.”
Hamer will continue to pursue
options for pickleball courts at Gear-
hart Elementary School. “Pickleball
is a great recreational game. We’re
just looking to get people out and
playing.”
SEASIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT
New targets for performance
Goal to put students
on graduation path
By KATHERINE LACAZE
For Seaside Signal
After a “do-over” for sixth-
and ninth-grade students, the
Seaside School District set new
targets for performance in math-
ematics and literacy.
The
district
previously
adopted goals based on the stra-
tegic plan for the 2019-20 school
year in August with the exception
of the math and reading targets
for the sixth and ninth grades,
which they reviewed at the Tues-
day, Nov. 26 board meeting.
“The results we got on our
baseline assessment at the end of
the year just didn’t make sense,”
Superintendent Sheila Roley said
during the board meeting Nov. 19.
Roley added when they gave
the fi rst test to students, staff
were still learning to use the new
system and not confi dent they
had administered the assessment
“in the way we needed to.”
To reach the fi rst goal of the
strategic plan, which is that by
2024 all students will be on track
to graduate and be prepared with
a plan beyond high school, the
district is setting more specifi c
performance indicators for each
school year.
They readministered the
assessment and “the results made
way more sense,” Roley said.
“We also had a much better sense
of working with the program.”
Based on the results of the
new assessment, the administra-
tion recommended a goal for the
$1.00
2019-20 school year of seeing
the percent of students meeting
academic targets increase from:
• 61% to 72% in sixth-grade
math;
• 40% to 60% in ninth-grade
math;
• 57% to 65% in sixth-grade
literacy;
• 44% to 64% in ninth-grade
literacy.
The third-grade targets —
which include increases from
53% to 63% in math and 36%
to 51% in literacy — stayed the
same for the 2019-20 school year,
and students were not reassessed.
According to Roley, the dis-
trict is exploring its curricu-
lum and instructional practices
for mathematics and working to
make improvements.
See Targets, Page A6
Two new courts were
installed in the spring of
2018, located just behind the
Seaside Youth Center off of
Broadway. Nets, paddles and
balls are available for check-
out at the front desk of
Sunset Pool. Drop-in games
take place every Tuesday
from 10 a.m. to noon.
“This pickleball tournament
in April 2020 will be our
second year,” Lee said at the
Tuesday, Nov. 19 district
board meeting. “We wrote a
grant to the city of Seaside
that gave us $5,000 to run
it the fi rst year, this year it’s
being funded again because
it went really well. I’m hoping
in three years it will sustain
itself. We had 65 people the
fi rst year. I’m expecting 100
the next.”
Beacon on Broadway is
city’s newest event space
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
The building at 735 Broad-
way fi rst went on the tax rolls in
Seaside 100 years ago, in January
1920, Neighbors at clothing store
Selnes and Wheatley were offer-
ing a special sale on underwear and
shoes. Down the street at the Strand
Theatre, fi lmgoers were watching
“Woman in the Suitcase” and “Can-
nibals of the South Seas.”
The 3000-square-foot event
space sits on the second fl oor of
Beacon on Broadway, which fi rst
opened as the Beacon Hotel a cen-
tury ago. The Moose Lodge occu-
pied the space for many years
before purchase by owner Ron
Hoxie.
“It was a bigger project than we
R.J. Marx
expected it to be, but it turned out
really beautiful,” Beacon on Broad-
way manager Angi Wildt said at the
See Beacon, Page A6
New names for the schools on the hill
Broadway becomes
‘Seaside Middle School’
By KATHERINE LACAZE
Seaside Signal
CONFIDENTIAL BALLOT
‘I had a second-grader say to me,
“I can’t tell you what I voted on
because it’s my personal choice and
I keep it to myself.”’
— Susan Penrod
The deafening cheers of more than
700 elementary-aged students perme-
ated the gymnasium at The Heights
Elementary School on Wednesday,
Nov. 20, during a joint assembly with
Gearhart Elementary School at which
the school’s new name, mascot and
colors were revealed.
Effective July 1, the Seaside School
District’s elementary school at the new
campus will be called Pacifi c Ridge
Elementary School, while Broad-
way Middle School is being renamed
Seaside Middle School to refl ect the
relocation.
The new elementary school’s col-
ors, as approved by the Seaside
School District’s board of directors
during their Nov. 19 meeting, will be
turquoise, black and silver, while the
middle school will transition to white,
black, and Columbia blue.
During the joint assembly, led by
Seaside School Board member Brian
Taylor and fi fth-grade teacher Brett
Deur, it was also revealed that the new
See Mascot, Page A6
Katherine Lacaze
The new mascot for Seaside’s elementary school, which will be renamed
Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School eff ective July 1, is the puffi n. The new
Seaside Middle School will retain the sharks as their mascot.