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Women of Influence
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El Dorado County Women Shaping The Past and The Present
Inside SEPTEMBER 2020
(530) 313 -0364 info @blissfu
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
mtdemocrat.com
Volume 169 • Issue 114
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Candidate forums to go virtual Submit questions by email
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Democrat staff
Mountain Democrat photo by Sel Richard
Parents and students gather in front of Oak Ridge High School to support reopening the high school for instruction. “I just feel it’s so important not only academically, but for sports and socially, they need to be with their peers and teachers,” said Oak Ridge parent Stephanie Wengel. “It’s hard to learn online,” said Oak Ridge freshman Ethan Brady, who added that he looks forward most to hanging out with his friends when the school reopens.
El Dorado Union High School District going hybrid
Sel Richard Staff writer
D
espite efforts of protesting students and parents who pleaded with school officials to rethink the hybrid learning model as currently structured, last Tuesday the El Dorado Union High School District Board of Trustees unanimously voted to open schools for hybrid learning Oct. 8. Hybrid learning, the next step in the district’s three-phase guidance to reopening, alternates between distance learning and in-person instruction with students attending school twice a week. Students will be divided into two cohorts where approximately 50% of students attend on assigned days. Issues surrounding the decision were ardently contested, with impassioned pleas from supporters of both distance learning and the hybrid model as a necessary step to opening up classrooms to full in-person learning. Parents, teachers and students weighed in at the meeting, live and by phone. District Superintendent Ron Carruth referenced the unprecedented amount of feedback the board received regarding the opening. “The volume has been unequaled over the course of my career,” he said. “What is clear is that no choice is perfect in this environment.” However, in a district-wide parent survey that returned 3,191 responses, a solid majority of 79% of parents voted in support of reopening the schools. Oak Ridge High School was represented by 37.8% of the votes, Ponderosa 25.9%, Union Mine 16.1% and El Dorado 14.6%. Carruth assured that the hybrid model meets all the requirements in the memorandum of understanding agreed to this past July between n
Students on the Divide return 5 days a week Democrat staff The Black Oak Mine Unified School District Board of Trustees decided at a special meeting Sept. 24 in a unanimous vote to return to face-to-face instruction. Students will go back to school five days a week starting Oct. 5. Transitional kindergarten through thirdgrade students will be on a 230-minute daily schedule and fourth through 12th graders will be on a 240-minute daily schedule. Distance learning remains an option, according to district officials, for families who are not comfortable with a return to face-to-face instruction or for parents who are not willing to require their child to wear a mask at school for some period of time. Trustees will revisit this learning model prior to the second semester. Staff, community members and parents n
See divide students, page A3
The League of Women Voters of El Dorado County has organized virtual candidate forums for the Placerville City Council and El Dorado County Board of Supervisors District 1 and District 2 races. Members of the public are invited to submit questions by email and each forum will be recorded and posted online. The Placerville City Council forum will take place Oct. 1. The Board of Supervisors District 1 and District 2 forum is set for Oct. 2. Recordings of each will be posted n
See forums, page A2
Echo Summit opens ahead of schedule Tahoe Daily Tribune SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — In the early hours of Sunday Caltrans workers reopened Highway 50 over Echo Summit five days ahead of schedule. One-way, intermittent daytime traffic control will continue over the next few weeks to finish the project, said Caltrans officials. The construction was scheduled to last through Oct. 2 but the road was reopened at 12:01 a.m. Sunday. A full closure of Highway 50 began Sept. 18 to install seven precast, prestressed, 96-foot bridge girders and associated work that included pouring ultra highperformance concrete to connect the girders, building concrete barrier walls and approach slabs, applying a polyester overlay on the bridge and asphalt paving approaching both sides of the new structure. Local residents and commuters were issued special passes to use Johnson Road during the closure.
See hybrid, page A3
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See Echo Summit, page A2
‘Freedom Celebration’ trots in for Founders Day Horseback riders trot into Georgetown Saturday as the community organized an unofficial Founders Day parade.
Gazette staff Georgetown celebrated what some called “unofficial Founders Day” Saturday, the day the community otherwise would have held its actual, annual Founders Day event but could not obtain the necessary permits due to COVID-19 restrictions. As it turns out, the Divide community didn’t really need permits to celebrate its history and the pioneers who were the first to settle in the area. Locals rode through Georgetown’s Main Street on horseback, by horse-drawn carriage, in flag-flying pickups, old Volkswagons and more as part of a short parade. Main Street was not closed but motorists were respectful to accommodate the celebration. People lined the street to watch the parade and shop trunk and sidewalk sales as bands, one near the American River Inn and another at the Georgetown Hotel, filled the air with festive tunes. Eventgoers also enjoyed horse-drawn carriage rides until the horses n
See Founders day, page A2
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