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Coquille parents, students debate pros, cons of reconfiguration BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
COQUILLE — Coquille school administrators faced anxious parents during a discussion of a proposed junior-senior high school Monday evening. Coquille Valley School gym’s bleachers were packed with parents and students voicing their concerns about the possibility of moving seventhand eighth-graders to the high school. The proposed reconfiguration would turn Coquille High School into a junior-senior high school with grades 7-12. Coquille Valley School would If you go become an eleFuture public forums to be held mentary school regarding the proposed reconfiguwith grades 1-6 ration: and Lincoln Ele■ 7 p.m. Sept. 25: Lincoln mentary would Elementary School board room become an early ■ 7 p.m. Oct. 7: Coquille High learning center School library with pre-kinder■ 7 p.m. Oct. 14: Coquille garten and kinderValley School library garten. Parents’ main concerns were not academic, but social. Many parents asked, “What will happen when you put my seventh-grade daughter in the same building as junior and senior boys?” The administrators didn’t have an exact answer. They said that’s what a meeting Oct. 7 at the high school is for, to look at the proposed future layout of the school and how the different grades would or would not interact. “It’s not that we’re trying to avoid your questions, it’s just hard to see without being at the locale,” said Superintendent Tim Sweeney. Parents also wondered if bullying would increase at both the proposed elementary and junior-senior high schools. Sweeney said bullying likely wouldn’t be a problem at the elementary school, since grades 1-6 would be “self-contained.” Coquille Valley Principal Geoff Wetherell said “there are ways to work around it,” where there would be little to no interaction between the youngest and oldest students at a school, as is the case currently at Coquille Valley. Grades 3-5 are kept completely separate from grades 6-8. But Kat Jackson, parent of two sixth-graders and a fourth-grader, worried that cyber-bullying would increase at a junior-senior high school. “I don’t philosophically think seventh-graders should ever be left unsupervised with high school seniors,” said Coquille High Principal Jeff Philley. But it happens, the parents said, and physical separation in class only goes so far. What about interaction in the hallways, bathrooms and bus zones?
By Lou Sennick, The World
Jon Davison and Marci Stadiem are the management team at North Bend Middle School this year. The entire school district is dealing with an influx of about 100 students more than they had at the same time last year.
Flood of students surprises North Bend administrators BY CHELSEA DAVIS The World
NORTH BEND — North Bend schools have had to shuffle students throughout the district following an unexpected spike in enrollment this fall. At North Bend school district’s board of directors meeting last week, Superintendent BJ Hollensteiner
described a hectic preparation in the weeks leading up to school as the district realized more students would be filling its classrooms than projected. Sherri O’Connor, North Bend school district’s director of business and financial services, said the district has 100 more students now than at this time last year. Between North Bay and Hillcrest
Elementary Schools there are more than 800 children enrolled, bumping up class sizes and forcing 90 children to bounce between the schools to balance class sizes. Due to this flood of youngsters, O’Connor requested the addition of two more bus routes. “You don’t want 37 students in one SEE STUDENTS | A10
Why multiple school districts? Over the years rural Oregon school districts have consolidated due to declining enrollment and to save costs. Fewer students means less funding, which means smaller districts are unable to financially support the staff necessary to ensure an education on par with school districts throughout the state. The Oregon legislature 17 years ago required a forced merger of some districts, including the North Santiam School District, which at the time was supervised by current North Bend schools Superintendent BJ Hollensteiner. But she said she wouldn’t recommend forced mergers, especially since it “caused a lot of angst” throughout the community. “It’s hard to give up your identity,” she said. “It’s all fine in North Santiam, but it was tough on people. At the time the Legislature thought it would save money, but when it’s all said and done, I’m not sure that it did.”
Coos Bay schools Superintendent Dawn Granger said prior to her arrival three years ago, there had been discussion of merging North Bend and Coos Bay, though the idea was eventually abandoned. The long-standing rivalry between Coos Bay and North Bend could definitely deter a merger of the districts, Hollensteiner said. “Lots of people say, ‘Consolidate, consolidate,’ but there has to be a willingness to do so,” Granger said. “I think people in Coos Bay have a fierce sense of pride, as do people in North Bend. Consolidating could make them feel like we’re giving something up.” While collaborating on food services and transportation could work, entirely merging the two districts would take intense planning in terms of staff contracts, policies and scheduling, she said.
SEE COQUILLE | A10
Navy Yard shooter was in Navy Reserves
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Intranet network. His life over the past decade has been checkered. Alexis lived in Seattle in 2004 and 2005, according to public documents. In 2004, Seattle police said Alexis was arrested for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what he later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.” According to an account on the department’s website, two construction workers had parked their Honda Accord in the driveway of their worksite, next to a home where Alexis was staying. The workers reported seeing a man,
SALEM (AP) — Gov. John Kitzhaber met with House and Senate leaders on Monday in an attempt to reach an agreement on tax increases and publicemployee pension cuts. The daylong meeting at Mahonia Hall, the governor’s official residence, did not produce a deal, but Republicans and Democrats both sounded an optimistic tune. A spokesman for Kitzhaber said it was a “very productive conversation,” and the group is
scheduled to continue talking on Tuesday. The talks are aimed at finding middle ground that could lead to a special session on Sept. 30. Months of negotiations have failed to produce a settlement that both sides could support. Many Democrats oppose steeper cuts to pension benefits for retired government workers, and tax increases are a tough sell to Republicans. But proponents say a deal would give schools badly needed funds.
SEE GUNMAN | A10
Colorado’s heartbroken evacuees The rains finally stopped, allowing many Colorado flood evacuees to return home to toppled houses and upended vehicles. Page A6
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Aaron Alexis seems a study in contradictions: a former Navy reservist, a Defense Department contractor, a convert to Buddhism who was taking an online course in aeronautics. But he also had flashes of temper that led to run-ins with police over shootings in Fort Worth, Texas, and Seattle. A profile began to emerge Monday of the man authorities identified as the gunman in a mass shooting at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., that left 13 people dead, including the 34-year-old man. While some neighbors and acquaintances
described him as “nice,” his father once told detectives in Seattle that his son had anger management problems related to post-traumatic Aaron Alexis stress brought on by the terrorist Accused attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He also complained about the Navy and being a victim of discrimination. At the time of the shootings, he worked for The Experts, a subcontractor on an HP Enterprise Services contract to refresh equipment used on the Navy Marine Corps
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BY DAVID CRARY The Associated Press
Kitzhaber, key lawmakers meet on tax-pension deal
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