By Rachel Cavanaugh
Editor, The Sentinel
Friends, host families, peers, and educators gathered Monday to say goodbye to Martha Paz de Noboa, the Peruvian exchange student killed last Saturday at a Portland nightclub shooting.
The gymnasium of Columbia High School in White Salmon filled with tears as friends and clergymen spoke in both English and Spanish about 'Tika,'the 17-year-old girl whose life was cut short when a gunman opened fire outside The Zone where she and friends were celebrating a birthday.
The incident, which was the deadliest of its kind in Porland's history, also took the life of Clackamas High School student Ashley Wilks, 16, and injured seven others.
Friends offered songs and memories and organizers showcased the girl's artwork during the service.
At times, participants spoke to a video camera perched in the upper bleachers, which captured the ceremony for family members in Peru, who were unable to get visas to the United States.
"Your loss is felt here in White Salmon, Washington," said a clergyman. "We understand the pain you are going through and we want you to know we are in pain too."
Towards the end of the service, students played a slide show set to music that offered photographic glimpses of Tika's stay in the United States.
"Obviously, it has been devastating," said Jonathan Blake, president of the White Salmon-Bingen Rotary Club, which hosted her stay. "It's still hard to grasp what's happened, especially the way it's happened. We want to make sure her family knows how crushed we are up here."
Jason Spadaro, one of her host fathers, spoke in between tears during the service about the kindness and enthusiasm he had observed in Tika.
"She will forever be part of our family," Spadaro said.
Local schools keep bar high
Despite budget strains, local educators fight to keep high standards
By Rachel Cavanaugh
Editor, The Sentinel
With budget cuts looming on the horizon, local educators are holding steady to a pledge to keep high standards of learning within their districts.
In fact, according to administrators, things like the number of credits needed to graduate, minimum grade point averages (GPA) for sports participation, and how many classes a student must pass are currently higher in many districts in Klickitat County than statewide.
"We're doing more requirements than the state level," said Martin Huffman, superintendent of the Lyle School District.
"This whole Core 24 thing won't really affect us because we're already doing more than that," he added, referring to recent legislation aimed at boosting state requirements.
In Goldendale, the district now requires 23.5 credits to graduate even though the state only asks for 19 credits. The Lyle School District requires 25, according to Huffman.
In both schools, athletes cannot fail any classes, even though the state historically has allowed up to two, and many districts have imposed GPA requirements to participate in sports, which are not required by the state.
In March, Huffman said he will meet with administrators to decide, among other things, whether to bump the requirement from 2.0 to 2.5 GPA.
"The state has a duty to set a benchmark for performance," said Huffman. "We can take it from there to raise it higher to meet our needs."
At Goldendale High School, Principal Clay Henry has made several changes since he arrived in 2007.
One has been to shave off minutes of "passing time" in the schedule, where kids go from one class to another. When totaled over the year, he said, those minutes add up to more time in the classroom.
In October, the principal introduced a system that allows parents to monitor student progress online. Homework, test scores, and class participation are updated daily.
These measures, he said, help combat some of the answerability questions he found when he began a year and a half ago.
"I was surprised at the lack of accountability pieces that were in place," said Henry, citing other examples. "One instance would be when it came to athletics in terms of checking grades - they did it every eight weeks."
Henry quickly moved the checks to every two weeks. He is now in the process of setting up certain requisites to participate on the homecoming court, such as not having suspensions, expulsions, or police arrests on a student's record.
The challenge, he said, in linking requirements to extracurricular activities, is they are part of what ties many kids to school. If standards become too high, some will fall through the cracks completely.
Huffman agreed.
"It's a little tug-of-war," said Huffman. "How high can we raise the bar and still keep kids coming?"
Henry said data shows activities connect kids to school and help produce better grades. As a testament, he pointed to his "ineligible list," which contains 210 names of students with sub-par performance. Of those, only 11 are athletes.
He said those numbers indicate the desire to remain an athlete often acts as an academic motivator.
To help balance things, Henry has imposed sports GPA requirements but also offers teacher contracts if kids begin slipping. That allows for individualized attention.
He and Huffman said issues like poverty, family problems, lack of parental support, and drugs and alcohol are some of the barriers to education he sees. Sixty percent of his students are on free and reduce meal plans, showing the district is economically in a "struggling community."
Yet beyond personal and socioeconomic issues, one of the biggest challenges to administrators in all parts of the county remains the budget.
At the moment, Henry said they are facing the same technology issues they've been dealing with for years, and budget shortfalls will only increase that.
The infrastructure of the building, for example, is not set up for quality high speed Internet. The lag time between screens is sometimes ten seconds or more.
"It's frustrating because there are a lot of thing I'd like to do that we can't get the bandwidth," said Henry. "We've been put off again. We thought it was coming this year and now with the economy."
An ongoing lack of resources has confined the school to the "one class, one computer" model.
Goldendale Superintendent Mark Heid said economic downturns will continue to impact the budget and the quality of education.
"There will be reductions and we won't be able to offer the same things," said Heid. "That's disappointing.
When asked what would be top on his wish list, Henry said he could not pinpoint one thing. He said education in Washington is a complex thing.
"There are so many pieces to the puzzle," says Henry. "There's no Golden Apple out there that's going to make everything better. There's a myriad of things that need to occur to make things better and more successful for everybody."
Nevertheless, he said he is certain of one thing: in order for the system to work, kids must be given the confidence needed to believe they can achieve.
Integral to that confidence is a building an environment that fosters it and sets high expectations.
"Not one thing can make a building or student or whatever better," said Henry. "I truly believe it's a culture."
KC Planning seeks eco review for proposed wind farm
By Rachel Cavanaugh
Editor, The Sentinel
The Klickitat County Planning Department issued a Determination of Significance (DS) last week on a proposed wind project near Bickleton.
The Miller North Wind Energy Project, which would produce up to 150 megawatts (MW) of electricity, has been proposed about six miles southeast of town.
The determination made by the planning department, which accompanies a Request for Comments on Scope on Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), was made last Monday, Jan. 26.
It essentially asks for additional evaluation of the environmental impact of the project.
According to the Department of Ecology, DS and Scoping Notices are used when a proposal is likely to have "significant adverse environmental impact."
The idea is to notify other agencies and about the EIS and invite comments on the issues discussed within.
Two alternatives are being addressed in the EIS. First, No Action, which would stop the project completely. The second would be to grant an alternative project, already designated by a proposal known as "Miller North."
The planning department described several elements of the original proposal:
"The turbines will be arranged in strings and connected by an underground and overhead electrical collector cable system," reads the project description. "An underground feeder system will collect electricity at 34.5 kilovolt (kV) from each turbine and deliver it to the project substation,"
At its closest, the project will run about 11 miles north of the Columbia River. Portions of the transmission line will cross land leased by Iberdrola Renewables under agreement with that company and its landowners.
Northwest Wind Partners, LLC put forward the EOZ application in December 2008.
Comments for EOZ permit (EOZ2008-07) will be accepted until 5 p.m. on Feb. 20.
Commissioners give green light to ABATE motorcycle festival
By Rachel Cavanaugh
Editor, The Sentinel
Klickitat County commissioners have decided to allow a motorcycle festival, which had drawn debate in recent weeks, to take place this spring at the Klickitat County fairgrounds.
At their regular meeting last Tuesday, commissioners discussed the ABATE Spring Opener with local law enforcement including Police Chief Rick Johnson and County Sheriff Rick McComas.
Although Commissioner David Sauter said McComas would have rather postponed the event to next year, he deferred it to the commissioners.
"His preference was still to wait another year," said Sauter. "But he was okay with it happening in '09 if that was our choice."
Sauter said festival organizers agreed to hire a third party security firm and will name the county in a $2 million liability insurance policy, set to cover costs in the case of an incident.
Furthermore, Sauter said, they used "clear, strong language" in the contract to about who would be responsible.
"We want this to work and they want this to work," said Sauter. "We're all kind of going out on a limb here and we're going to see how it goes."
The ABATE group will hold a fundraiser at the event to go to a local cause, Sauter added.
