Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Seaside signal. (Seaside, Or.) 1905-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 2020)
OUR 113th Year January 10, 2020 $1.00 SEASIDESIGNAL.COM Prevention seen as key to health during flu season By KATHERINE LACAZE For Seaside Signal Amid flu season, Providence Seaside Hospital is restricting some visitations and encouraging the community to take measures to prevent the viral infection from spreading. Every year, infection prevention nurse Graham Seaton said he worries about flu rates going up around the holiday season, especially with travel influencing the spread of the virus. The main public health measure imple- mented to manage the virus on a community level is encouraging seasonal flu vaccines, which are available to individuals six months and older. They are geared toward the most com- mon variations of the flu, Seaton said, adding Providence Health and Services is seeing “a lot more Influenza B in the valley and state- wide” this year compared to Influenza A. Flu prevention Kat Davidson, Inpatient manager; Don Lemmon, chief executive; Michel Adler, M.D.; Mailyn Mulford; Carson Mulford; Odessa Mulford; Pat Heck, chief nursing officer; Julie Hedford, R.N. FIRST BABY OF THE DECADE Welcome Odessa Mulford Seaside Signal T he care team at Providence Sea- side welcomed the first baby of the decade, Odessa Zorannon Mulford. Born on Thursday, Jan. 2, at 2:59 p.m., sweet Odessa weighed 7 pounds, 1.2 ounces and measured 18 inches long. Parents Mailyn and Carson Mulford knew she might be the first baby born in Seaside in 2020 and that added to the excitement of the birth, according to Providence Seaside staff. The couple live in Hammond and can’t wait to take home their newest family member. Providence Seaside chief executive Don Lemmon congratulated the fam- ily. “It’s fun to celebrate milestones like the first birth of the year in our hospital,” he said. Since the flu and other serious respiratory illnesses — like respiratory syncytial virus, whooping cough, and severe acute respiratory syndrome — are spread by coughing, sneez- ing and unclean hands, people should take extra care to cover their mouth or nose with a tissue and to wash their hands frequently. Other ways people can protect themselves: 1. Avoiding close contact with people who are sick. 2. Staying home from work, school or running errands when sick. 3. Practicing good health habits, such as drinking fluids, eating nutritious food, get- ting sufficient sleep, being physically active and managing stress. Children are especially at risk for getting the flu because they are more prone to behav- iors that facilitate its transmission, such as touching their eyes, mouths and noses and not washing their hands. See Flu, Page A6 School district policies get a New Year’s update Rules bring more latitude for dealing with minor issues By KATHERINE LACAZE Seaside Signal The Seaside School District is following rec- ommendations from state agencies regarding which administrative rules need to be approved by the board of directors and which ones do not. Implementation will provide the administration more latitude for dealing with minor issues. As Superintendent Sheila Roley explained to the board during its regular meeting Dec. 19, policy relates to the law and the district’s inter- pretation of it, while admin- istrative rules, are “what we do back at the schools to implement that law.” “There are so many small details of just running the day-to-day operations of the school district that are not momentous decisions,” Roley said. “They don’t have any legal implications. It’s more just the practical application of how you (fol- low the law) in the school environment.” Previously, all admin- istrative rules had to be approved by the board, but the Oregon School Boards Association and Oregon Department of Education now recommend districts rescind board approval for most rules except a few spe- cific, big-issue items. Requiring all rules to go through the board before being implemented “really ties the hands of the super- intendent in terms of being able to make changes to Lucy Kleiner how we do business,” Roley said. “We can’t change the law, but we might change how we respond to it.” She gave the example of students vaping, which was a large issue at the middle and high schools last year. However, at the time, the administrative rules didn’t have provisions for dealing with that substance, only “tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.” Vaping falls into the cat- egory of “other drugs,” she said, which put it on par with hard drugs when really it should have been on par with tobacco, adding if the administrative rules didn’t need to be board-approved at the time, “we could have just made that change.” At its meeting, the board adopted a resolution to rescind adoption of all administrative rules, except for a few pertaining to sig- nificant issues, such as work- place harassment, cyber- bullying, drug and alcohol testing, reporting require- ments for suspected sexual conduct with a student, and reporting suspected abuse of a child. The board then adopted new language for those administrative rules, which will continue to require board approval moving for- ward. Other administrative rules will be shared with the board, Roley said, but they simply won’t require adoption before being acted upon. In other news • The board approved a gift of $636 from Seaside Brewery. The money was raised during the Hops for Teacher fundraiser in Octo- ber, when the brewery intro- duced a beer made with hops grown by fifth-grade teacher John Meyer. Proceeds from upstairs food and beverage sales for the evening were donated to the district. The donation will go toward restoring trails at The Heights Elementary School that have been impacted by construction, along with building benches. • The Cannon Beach Academy is in the process of completing its renewal application as the school’s charter is set to expire in June, according to executive director Amy Fredrickson. After delivery of the application, the staff will continue working on that process for the next few months. Seaside High School band students ‘spread the music’ More than 20% of students participate By KATHERINE LACAZE For Seaside Signal While some high school directors might be inter- ested in creating an exclu- sive organization for elite musicians within the student body, Terry Dahlgren’s main mission is to have as many people involved as possible. “That’s the goal: to spread the music,” said Dahlgren, who has been the band director at both Seaside High School and Broadway Middle School for 18 years. Thanks to that philos- ophy, the Seaside High School Symphonic Band includes 93 young musi- cians — or roughly 20% of the student population — for the 2019-20 school year. The band’s membership typ- ically fluctuates between 70 and 90 students. The benefits of band There is no audition pro- cess to join the symphonic band, which attends compe- tition on behalf of the high school and has gone to the state finals every year since 2006. One of the benefits of teaching at the middle school, Dahlgren said, is that Katherine Lacaze See Band, Page A6 Seaside High School Band Director Terry Dahlgren conducts the symphonic band.
