A6 • Friday, September 17, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
NEWS IN BRIEF
Sou’Wester Garden Club to meet
The Sou’Wester Garden Club will hold a workshop
from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 22 at the Bob Chisholm
Community Center in Seaside.
The workshop, presented by Ann Pilger, will focus on
how to make paper from recycled newspaper.
Finding strength through art
Photos by Katherine Lacaze
Students returned for full-time in-person instruction at Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School on Tuesday, Sept. 7.
Back to school: ‘We are going to protect
the sanctity and opportunity for these kids’
Davis named to dean’s list
Wayne Davis of Seaside has been named to South-
ern New Hampshire University’s summer 2021 dean’s
list. Eligibility for the dean’s list requires that a student
accumulate an academic grade point average above 3.5
and earn 12 credits for the term.
Continued from Page A1
However, the rule makes
allowances for when people
are actively eating or drink-
ing, sleeping, playing a musi-
cal instrument that requires
using the mouth, or engag-
ing in a sport during physical
education class or an extra-
curricular program where
wearing a mask could be a
strangulation hazard.
“We are full steam ahead
for all of our fall sports,” Sea-
side Middle and High School
Principal Jeff Roberts said.
At both schools, that includes
cross-country, volleyball and
football. The high school also
starts its soccer season.
Currently,
student-ath-
letes aren’t required to wear
face coverings during sporting
events. However, all spectators
and personnel attending indoor
athletic events are required
to wear masks, regardless
of vaccination status. Rob-
erts stressed the importance
of adhering to these rules to
enable the athletic programs to
continue operating.
“We are going to protect
the sanctity and opportunity
for these kids,” he said.
The schools are also using
district-developed
proto-
cols for entry and screening,
cleaning and disinfecting,
and visitors and volunteers.
Students will be spaced 3 feet
apart to the extent possible,
and contact tracing proce-
dures are in place with assis-
tance from the local health
authority. All classrooms are
equipped with functioning air
purifying systems.
The common areas are
cleaned and disinfected mul-
tiple times per day, while the
individual classrooms are fully
sanitized at the end of day.
“Those were the protocols
we used for summer school
throughout the month of
August and it was really suc-
cessful,” Penrod said.
Dylan Milliren of Seaside created a group on Face-
book called Artists Unite, dedicated to bring artists of
all types together to bring hope to those captive in their
homes, encouraging those on the front line to fi nd a cure
and ending the coronavirus pandemic, help encouraging
to end the pandemic and lockdown, and inspire other
artists to join the cause.
When the lockdown aff ected Oregon last March, he
started drawing to bring hope and encourage to end the
pandemic, for he’s a cartoonist by trade.
With the help of his life-long good friend, Sean
Davies, the group started to grow.
“Staying healthy is crucial and staying home, masks
and 6-feet are good ways to keep from being aff ected,
but if we keep living like this, the coronavirus simply
won’t go away forever, and cannot simply live like that
forever. And art is just one of the cures to help all of
that,” Milliren said. “For artists are soldiers as well,
our creativity and imagination are our strengths and our
projects are our weapons.”
To join the group, visit Artists Univte on Facebook.
Peckenham-Hernandez joins
CMH-OHSU health care staff
LEFT: Molly Albright welcomes back students Landon and Cash Thompson to Pacifi c Ridge
Elementary School. RIGHT: Staff member James Downes helps students get safely inside
Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School during the fi rst day of the 2021-22 school year.
OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY REPORTS CASES
The Oregon Health Authority, in a weekly outbreak report
released last week, disclosed a virus case for a student at
Seaside High School and a virus case for a student at Pacifi c
Ridge Elementary School in late August. The weekly out-
break report said the high school case was reported Aug. 27
and the Pacifi c Ridge case was reported Aug. 28.
Superintendent Susan Penrod disputed the report. “Aug. 27
was the last day of our summer school program and Aug.
28 was a Saturday,” she said. “None of our summer school
students had symptoms or tested positive.”
Seaside High School and Middle School Principal Jeff Rob-
erts said “there have not been any reported positive cases
at the high school of students that have been in school.”
At Pacifi c Ridge Elementary School, Principal Juliann
Wozniak said “There have not been any reported positive
cases at Pacifi c Ridge of students or staff that have been in
school. School started for students on Tuesday, Sept. 7.”
Meanwhile, the criteria for
quarantine have changed. Last
year, if a student was exposed
to a COVID case, they were
required to quarantine. This
year, if a student was exposed
but they were wearing a mask
and not within 3 feet of the
person, they are only required
to quarantine if they exhibit
symptoms.
Mandatory staff
vaccinations
In August, the state also
expanded its COVID-19 vac-
cine requirement to include all
teachers, educators, support
staff and volunteers in K-12
schools. The Seaside School
District asked certifi ed staff
to fi le a religious or medical
exception by Sept. 3. Clas-
sifi ed staff were given until
Sept. 10.
According to the state
mandate, districts must ensure
there are extra safety mea-
sures to protect unvaccinated
staff and those around them,
Penrod said. For the Seaside,
that includes having unvac-
cinated staff members wear
soft, folded N95 masks, main-
tain 6 feet of physical dis-
tance from colleagues and
students, refrain from eat-
ing or drinking around other
staff and students, and sign up
for a weekly COVID testing
program through the Oregon
Health Authority.
As a whole, Penrod said,
the district “has embraced vac-
cination.” About 90% of staff
— including certifi ed, classi-
fi ed and confi dential employ-
ees and coaches — have
received their vaccination.
“I feel like that 90% is
going to go up,” she said.
Along with Penrod, the
building
administrators
and school board members
expressed a commitment to
creating a robust academic
experience for students, with
an emphasis on in-person
instruction.
“Now we can get every-
body here, and that’s all we’re
worried about,” board mem-
ber Mark Truax said. “We’ve
got too much catching up to
do.”
Board member Brian Tay-
lor agreed.
“Distance learning is not
an option anymore,” he added.
“We’ve got to keep these kids
in school.”
Thomas Peckenham-Hernandez, PA-C, physician
assistant, joins the CMH-OHSU Health Cardiology
Clinic, where he began working this week.
Peckenham-Hernandez earned a bachelor’s degree
at the University of Oregon and a mas-
ter’s degree in physician assistant stud-
ies from Oregon Health & Science Uni-
versity in Portland. He was a surgical
assistant at the OHSU Veterans Aff airs
Medical Center prior to joining Colum-
bia Memorial Hospital.
Peckenham-Hernandez has been
Thomas
recognized for his work by OHSU,
Salud America and the University of Peckenham-
Hernandez
Oregon. His medical interests are car-
diology and migrant farmworker health
care access.
Peckenham-Hernandez is a member of the Oregon
Society of Physician Assistants, the American Acad-
emy of Physician Assistants and the American College
of Cardiology.
Orthopedic surgeon Sherman
joins Columbia Memorial Hospital
Columbia Memorial Hospital announced Dr. Ben-
jamin Sherman has joined the CMH-OHSU Health
Orthopedic Clinic as an orthopedic surgeon.
Sherman earned his doctor of osteo-
pathic medicine degree at Western Uni-
versity of Health Sciences in Pomona,
California. He completed an internship
and residency at Riverside University
Health System in Moreno Valley, Cali-
fornia, as well as a fellowship in sports
medicine and arthroscopic surgery at
Benjamin
the Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics
Sherman
& Sports Medicine in Gulf Breeze, Flor-
ida, where he trained under world-re-
nowned orthopedic surgeon James R. Andrews.
Sherman specializes in the treatment of complex
knee, shoulder and elbow injuries. His clinical and
research interests include sports-related injuries, ACL
tears, meniscus/cartilage preservation, rotator cuff tears,
shoulder instability/labral tears and minimally invasive
surgical techniques.
When he isn’t working, Sherman enjoys hiking,
exercising, reading, spending time outdoors with his
family and traveling.
First day: More parents are dropping their kids off
Continued from Page A1
At the middle and
high schools, sixth- and
ninth-graders also jumped
into the new school year
on Sept. 7, with their peers
joining the following day.
As in years past, freshmen
and transfer students partic-
ipated in Link Day — Sea-
side’s unique take on ori-
entation, led by teacher Jeff
Corliss.
“It was great to have stu-
dents back in person,” Prin-
cipal Jeff Roberts said, add-
ing “the fi rst week of classes
went very well, and it was
apparent students and staff
were excited to all be back
in class.”
Like with other districts
across the state, Seaside’s
leadership team, along with
staff at every facility, has
put in ample work to make
in-person learning possi-
ble, despite the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic, Pen-
rod said.
Unique to Seaside was
the additional variable of
having all students on the
Seaside High School students returned to campus for the
2021-22 school year on Tuesday, Sept. 7.
Photos by Katherine Lacaze
Seaside High School students participate in the on-campus Link Day, designed to help ninth-
graders and transfer students integrate into the student body.
hillside campus at one time
for daily instruction.
One area where that chal-
lenge manifested was the
slow-moving traffi c during
pickup and drop-off , as the
school buildings utilize the
same access road. Also at
play was the increased con-
cern of families because of
the pandemic.
“What we’re seeing,
along with other districts,
is a lot of parents at least
starting the year by driving
their own students because
they’re being cautious, and
I totally understand that,”
Penrod said. “More par-
ents are dropping their kids
off than ever before because
they want to be extra careful,
they want to have their own
safety measures.”
She said she anticipates
the issue will smooth out as
more families become com-
fortable with bus transporta-
tion and start taking advan-
tage of that option again.
There tends to be an
adjustment period as par-
ents and guardians get reac-
climated at the start of
the school year and grow
accustomed to the drop-off
process.
“Like with anything that
is new, it takes a little bit
of time to get used to,” she
said.
According
to
Rob-
erts, there were also some
logistical issues with mov-
ing into the new building
and having all middle and
high school students on-site
simultaneously.
“We anticipated a num-
ber of those challenges but
really needed to see how
things worked with students
onsite,” he said, adding they
will make adjustments as
necessary as the school year
progresses. “All in all, it was
a great week.”