January 24 2021
State should offset the cost to Oregon families who have given up paychecks to accommodate forced home-based distance classes.
The Oregon Department of Education recently announced relaxed guidelines for school reopenings.
The new guidelines provide a roadmap for districts in the Portland area and much of the state to roll out in-person instruction for elementary school students.
Regardless of the new guidelines, it is looking more likely that many of Oregon s largest school districts will not return to full-time, in-person instruction for all students this year.
Earlier this month, the presidents of teachers unions representing Oregon s five largest school districts sent a letter to Gov. Kate Brown. The letter demanded all school staff be fully vaccinated before schools reopen for any in-person instruction. If all goes well, that means mid-February would be the soonest that schools can reopen.
January 15 2021
Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley will again seek to end the legacy of a clause long used as a tool of control over people of color.
America was founded on beautiful principles of equality and justice. And our nation was also founded on horrific realities of slavery and white supremacy. If we are ever going to fully deliver on our founding principles, we have to directly confront those gruesome realities.
One deeply disturbing reality is that when our nation ratified the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, it included an exception. In the second clause, often referred to as the Punishment Clause, are the words that allowed thousands of Black Americans to be re-enslaved during and after reconstruction, and set off a chain reaction that has destroyed the lives of generations of Black Americans: except as a punishment for crime …
Amid the horrors of Wednesday s violence, the words we heard from local people continue to resonate.
A Portland-area rabbi told us that, in January, her congregation begins its annual reading of the Book of Exodus: the story of the civil disobedience of midwives who wouldn t commit murder, and the emergence of a liberation leader. But the anger and violence and vandalism on display Wednesday in Washington weren t that, she said, and shouldn t be confused with it.
A high school history teacher spoke with sadness, saying that America has made many mistakes over the centuries, some of them horrific, but we could always say we got this one thing right: the peaceful transition of power. And now, I guess, we don t get to say that anymore.