byjeff mapes sundaya&e oregonlive.com/ empty desks...

F O U R T H O F A F I V E - PA R T S E R I E S

Empty desksBy Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian( Originally published February 2014 )

By Betsy [email protected]

Ahuge but overlookedproblem is jeopardizing thesuccess of tens of thousandsof Oregon students, leavingthem at risk of neverlearning to readwell orfailing to graduate fromhigh school.

It’s not class size,curriculumor teachertraining.

It’s attendance.Last school year nearly 1 in 5 Or-

egon students missed at least 10percent of the school year, an inves-tigation by The Oregonian shows.Those roughly 100,000 studentswere absent 3½weeks of schoolor more, in mostcases withoutraising alarms attheir school.

No other statehas been showntohavea chronicabsenteeismrateas bad as Ore-gon’s.

“ I t ’s a t r o -cious,” said RobSaxton, Oregonschools chief.

Students aredeemed chron-ical ly absentif they miss 10percent or moreof school days.Last school year24 percent of Or-egonhigh schoolstudents missedthat much. Andsodid20percentofeighth-gradersand18percentoffirst-graders.

At some Oregon schools, includ-ing North EugeneHigh, Glendale El-ementaryandBend’sMountainViewHigh, more than one-third of stu-dentswere chronically absent.

Frequent absenteeism has dev-astating consequences. One Oregonstudy found that students whomiss10percentofkindergarten lag,onav-erage, almost a year behind in read-ingby third grade andareunlikely toever catch up. Studies frommultiplestates show that chronically absenthigh school students are unlikely tograduate.

Empty desks | No state looks worse

‘Atrocious’ attendanceputs learning at risk

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Copyright © 2014 • Oregonian Publishing Co. • Vol. 164, No. 55,145 • 12 sections

MICHAEL LLOYD/THE OREGONIAN

A single empty desk is not normally a cause for alarm. More than 99 percent of students miss at least a day ofschool. But Oregon has an epidemic of chronic absenteeism that goes unnoticed. A student who misses school twodays a month ends up missing more than a tenth of the school year, enough to put him or her in academic jeopardy.

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicToday: Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at riskof failure.Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents backfor years.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Saturday: Middleschool and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.Next Sunday:Vigilance atClackamasHigh helps keepkids in class.

About 100,000 Oregon students missed 10 percent or moreof the 2012-13 school year.

Note: Excludes students who enrolled after the midpoint of the school yearand those attending alternative schools

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35%

Percentage of students, by grade, who were chronically absent

Absent from class

DAN AGUAYO/THE OREGONIAN

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Grade

All students Low-income students

Please see ABSENT, Page A16

Source: Analysis by Betsy Hammond of The Oregonian, using 2012-13 school year datafrom the Oregon Department of Education.

Missed fewer than5% of school days:53% Missed 5% to 9% of days:

29%

Missed 10% to 14% of days:11%

Missed 15% to 19% of days: 4%Missed 20% or more of days: 4%

Rampant absenteeismOne in 5 Oregon students missed 10 percent or more of theschool year in 2012-13.

Oregon officials saythey didn’t know aboutCalifornia’s inquiry intoher contract dealingsBy Jeff [email protected] [email protected], the formerOr-

egon Health Authority official atthecenterof thestormofOregon’snonfunctional health insuranceexchange,was investigatedbythestate of California for inappropri-ate contracting in 2008, The Or-egonian has learned.

Upon being hired by the Cali-fornia Public Utility Commission

in 2008, Law-son funneledfive contractsworth nearly$500,000 ina four-monthperiod to thesmall consult-ing companyrun by herformer bossin the privatesector. Theformer boss

was Steven Powell, whom Law-son later hired as her senior dep-uty in Oregon.

When Lawsonwas asked to re-sign in December, the state pro-moted Powell to replace her. Inthree years Powell rose from run-ning a tiny consulting companyto being interim chief informa-tion officer for the OregonHealthAuthority and the Department ofHuman Services, one of the high-est-rankingtechnology jobs in thestate.

The California incident raisesmore questions about Lawson’sjudgment and decision-making,issues that have already come upin the still-unfolding controversyover Oregon’s health exchange,Cover Oregon.

Stateofficialswere tight-lippedabout the matter Friday, otherthantosaytheydidn’tknowaboutCalifornia’s contracting investi-gation when they hired Lawson.“This was not disclosed by Law-sonoranyofher references,”OHAspokeswoman PattyWentz said.

Lawson could not be reachedfor comment. Powell declined tocomment.

Despite spending more than$160 million on the project, thestate was forced by the botchedproject to devise a stopgap appa-ratus to manually process health

Ex-healthofficial’spast workhad issues

• A searchable database with absenteestatistics on every public school inOregon• Interactive maps where you canzoom in to find statistics by school andarea, with schools color-coded to showlow, medium and high proportions ofchronically absent students

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:

• An interactive chart that shows therelationship between absenteeism andeconomic status• Videos on absenteeism’s disastrous effecton education; on Vernonia and its strugglewith high absenteeism; and on ClackamasHigh School and its successful approach toenforcing attendance

• Photo galleries andonline-only stories• An invitationto share yourexperiences withabsenteeism, whetheras a parent, educatoror community memberPlease see HEALTH, Page A17

LawsonForced to quit postat Health Authority

More wintry weather is forecast. How are people and businesses coping? METRO, B1

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By Nick [email protected] [email protected] than fourmonths afterOr-

egon’s $170millionhealth insuranceexchangewas supposed togo live, of-ficials say it couldbeupandpartiallyrunning later thisweek— though itwon’t beopen to thepublic.

By thisweekend, CoverOregonofficials hope to allow insuranceagents andotherswhoassist clientsto use apassword-protected versionof the site to enroll people as part ofa limited launch.

Exchangeofficials havebeenun-der great pressure tomake this dayhappen.

But just because the state’s ex-change is turnedondoesn’tmean itwill runwell. The system remainsriddledwith bugs—asmany as 1,200of them, according to the state, anddozens of themarepotentially quiteserious.

Here are someof the technologicaltroublesOregon still faces, in ques-tion-and-answer format.

Q:What’s been theproblemwiththe technology?

A:The exchange ismore than awebsite, it’s a combination of soft-ware and hardware. Its heart is asuite of different software productsthat the OregonHealth Authority

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200

210

220

Missed more than 20%

Missed 10-20%

Reading at grade levelMissed 5-10%

Missed less than 5%

3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade

Kindergarten’s long shadow

Source: 2012 ECONorthwest study of Oregon Department of Education data

Students who miss too muchkindergarten trail their peerseven years later.

Kindergartenattendance

Average readingscore in 5th grade

223223223221.4221219

215


BETSY HAMMOND/THE OREGONIAN

Michelle Eagleson, who teaches kindergarten and first grade at Vernonia Elementary, gets her students to work tirelessly because learning to read requiresmastering so much information. She uses songs, movement and encouragement to keep it fun and keep her students engaged.“Kiss your brain,” she saysafter they master a new letter sound.“You are getting smarter!”


Some of themost frequent truants in Oregon aren’t surlyhigh school students ormoodymiddle schoolers. They’re6-year-olds, almost one-fifth ofwhommissed at least 10percent of first grade in 2012-13.

Rampantfirst-gradeabsenteeismismost common inpoor rural commu-nities, includingontheWarmSpringsreservation and in small towns suchasGlendale,MyrtlePointandLaPine,an investigation by The Oregonianfound.

But it happens in Happy Valley,Northwest Portland and Fairview,too. First-graders who miss three orfourweeksof schoolare likely to trailbehind their classmates years later,even if they start coming to schoolregularly, teachers say and studiesconfirm.That’sbecause, formostOr-egonchildren,firstgrade is themagicyearduringwhichtheygofromfalter-ing to fluent at reading.

As kindergartners, students learnto map sounds onto letters, formthem into words and read simplesentences. In first grade, young-sters upgrade and flex those skills,so that untangling clusters of lettersand words becomes automatic and

the meaning can shine through. Butstudentswhostayhomefromschoolonce every two weeks or so duringthose critical early years don’t get aproper introduction to some letters,blends and sight words, then get in-sufficientpracticemelding themintowords and phrases.

A first-grader out for only one daymisses at least an hour and a half ofintensive coaching and practice atreading.

“What we find is those kids getstuck,” said Cyndi Hagey, achieve-mentspecialistatEarlBoylesElemen-tary inSoutheastPortland.“Theyarestill having to sound out every wordbecausetheyjusthaven’thadenoughpractice. They get bogged down andcan’t go faster, can’t understand thatit’s a sentence that hasmeaning.”

Across Oregon, 18 percent of first-graders missed at least 10 percent oflast schoolyear, leavingmostof them

Empty desks | The littlest truants

Early missed classeshold kids back for years

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:• A searchable database with absentee statistics on

every public school in Oregon• Interactive maps where you can zoom in to find statisticsby school and area, with schools color-coded to show low,medium and high proportions of chronically absent students• Photo galleries and online-only stories• An invitation to share your experiences with absenteeism,whether as a parent, educator or community member

Questions for Betsy Hammond? Join Betsy atoregonlive.com/education all day today with questions,comments and personal experiences.

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicSunday: Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at risk offailure.Today: Missingtoo much firstgrade setsstudents back foryears.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Saturday:Middle and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.Sunday: Vigilanceat Clackamas HighSchool helps keepkids in class.

By Jeff [email protected] — Norman Frink and

Mark McDonnell, two formerMultnomah County prosecutorswith tough-on-crimereputations,say they decided after the 2012election that marijuana legaliza-tionwas coming toOregon.

That’s the year whenWashing-tonandColoradobecamethefirststates to legalize marijuana andwhen an underfunded andmuchmore wide-open legalization ini-tiative in Oregon failed by lessthan 7 percentage points.

“It’s going to happen,” saidFrink,who retired last year as thecounty’s chief deputy district at-torney. “This is just apolitical factin Oregon, even if some peopledon’t want to admit it.”

As a result, Frink and McDon-nell, who headed the district at-torney’s drugunit before retiring,on Tuesday announced that theywanted legislators to refer amari-juana legalizationmeasure tovot-ers in November.

In doing so, the two formerprosecutors broke with the Or-egon District Attorneys Associa-tion, the Oregon State Sheriff’sAssociation and the chiefs of

Unlikelypair backmarijuanameasure

By Betsy [email protected] now make up one-

fourth of Oregon’s first-grade en-rollment, a record-high share, thestate reported Tuesday.

The proportion of Oregon stu-dents who are Latino has slowlyincreased over the past severalyears,while the share of studentswho are white non-Hispanic hasdeclined, theOregonDepartmentof Education said.

Over the past four years, La-tino enrollment in Oregon pub-lic schools has grown by 15,000students, to 125,000, while whiteenrollmenthasdroppedbynearly16,000, to 364,000.

Latinosmakeupalargerpropor-tionofOregon’syoungeststudentsthan its high school population,which is 20 percent Latino.

The state now has eight ma-jority-Latino school districts,including Woodburn and Milton-Freewater.

Forest Grove, with 5,900 stu-dents, is the most heavily La-tino district in the Portland area.

One-fourthof Oregon1st-gradersare Latino


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ShirleyTempleBlackdiesThe child starwhomade ’em smileduring Depression,dies at 85 | A4

Copyright © 2014Oregonian Publishing Co.

Vol. 164, No. 55,1487 sections

Oregon’s first-gradersStudents in the class of 2025

44,700 students

1.5% Native AmericanSource: Oregon Department of Education

2% AfricanAmerican

4% Asian

62% White 24% Latino

6%Multiracial


In Metro• Bills dealing with problemgambling bills pass House | B1• Developments on Native Americanmascots and blind hunting | B6

Follow our coverage of theOregon Legislature session

at OregonLive.com/politics

Please see POT, Page A9

Please see LATINOS, Page A9

Please see HEALTH, Page A8

UpdateWhat: CoverOregon’s websitecould be up andsort of running byweek’s end.

Who: Limited toinsurance agentsand others whoassist clients.

What’s next:The state isn’teven guessingwhen the publiccan use the site,but it shouldhelp peoplestill needingsubsidies in theindividual marketget signed upfaster through anagent or certifiedapplicationassisters.

A single empty desk is not normally a cause for alarm.

More than 99 percent of students miss at least a

day of school. But Oregon has an epidemic of chronic

absenteeism that goes unnoticed. A student who

misses school two days a month ends up missing more than a tenth of the

school year, enough to put him or her

in academic jeopardy.

PHOTO BY MICHAEL LLOYD THE OREGONIAN

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By Betsy [email protected] January, Principal Shelley Mitchell realized

thatBanks JuniorHighhadabigproblem:Aviruswassweeping through her small-town school, infectingwave afterwave of students.

As the illness peaked, 30 percent of students wereabsentonasingleday.Mitchell tookextrememeasuresto protect her students and their learning.

She hired an anti-germ team from facility-manage-ment giant Sodexo, which twice sent cleaners over-night to wipe down every desk, doorknob and flatsurface.

Itwasahugerelief,Mitchell recalls,whennormalcyreturned to the school,which serves remote flanks ofruralWashingtonCountyaswell as the townofBanks.

What Mitchell didn’t notice, however, was a moresignificant problem: From September to June, one-fourth of her school’s eighth-graders missed nearly amonth of school apiece. That was enough to jeopar-dize their ability to learnmath and their likelihood ofgraduating fromhigh school.

Chronicabsenteeism,definedbythestateasmissingat least10percentof theschoolyear,canbedevastatingto a student’s success and canundermine the successof an entire school. But it can go unnoticed, as it didin Banks, because studentswhomiss only twodays amonth end up exceeding that 10 percent.

Theproblemisubiquitous inOregonmiddleschools:rich and poor, urban and rural, large and small. Ex-cluding magnet schools, Oregon has 225 schools that

Empty desks | Diplomas in jeopardy

How to ride herd onmiddle school truants


Alice Ott Middle School counselors Steve Benner (left) and Alicia Wendler assist Principal James Johnston during a call to the parents of a student who hasmissed 11 days of the school year. Johnston informed the parents of the consequences of their child’s absences, including a possible court-ordered fine.

Banks Alice Ott Statewide chronicSchool Junior High Middle School absenteeism rates

Enrollment: 190 About 720

Districtwide poverty rate: 11% 35%

School free/reduced lunch rate: 29% 71%

Chronic absenteeism rates:Grade 6: n/a 12% 15%

Grade 7: 20% 17% 18%

Grade 8: 24% 18% 20%

Low-income students: 35% 16% 22%DAN AGUAYO/THE OREGONIAN

A tale of two schools

0 5

MILES

Portland

ForestGrove

Vancouver

Hillsboro

Beaverton

CLARKMULTNOMAH

Banks Junior High

Alice OttMiddle School

26

8

217

205

84

5

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:• A searchable

database with absenteestatistics on every publicschool in Oregon• Interactive maps whereyou can zoom in to findstatistics by school and area

• Photo galleries andonline-only stories• An invitation to shareyour experiences withabsenteeism, whetheras a parent, educator orcommunity member

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicSunday:Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at riskof failure.Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents back foryears.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Today: Middleand high schoolabsences putdiplomas injeopardy.Sunday:Vigilance atClackamas HighSchool helpskeep kids in class.

By Rob HotakainenMcClatchy News ServiceWASHINGTON — Marking an-

other milestone for the legalmarijuana industry, theObama ad-ministration on Friday said it hasadvised U.S. attorneys in stateswhere the sale ofmarijuana is legalnot to prosecute banks that allowpot stores toopenaccounts andac-cept credit card payments.

The policy will apply to Wash-ington and Colorado, where vot-ers legalized the recreational useof marijuana in 2012, and to the 20states and the District of Columbiathat allowmarijuana to be sold formedical reasons. Current federallawprohibits banks fromacceptingmoney linked to marijuana trans-actions because thedrug is bannedunder the federal Controlled Sub-stances Act.

Themovewashailedasastepfor-

ward by proponents of marijuanasales, but banking organizationswarned that accepting the depos-its was still illegal and said it wasunlikely to widely change banks’business practices.

“Legitimate marijuana busi-nesses will no longer be forced tooperate as cash-only businesses, acircumstancewhichhasmadethemhighly vulnerable to robbery andothercriminalactivities,”saidDem-ocratic Rep. Denny Heck of Wash-ington, who had lobbied hard forchange in federalpractices afterhisstate legalized the recreational useofmarijuana. Sales are expected tobegin there this spring; they beganin Colorado Jan. 1.

FrankKeating,chiefexecutiveof-ficerof theAmericanBankersAsso-ciation, was more cautious on thelikely effect of the policy change.

Feds shift policy onbanks and pot funds

By Harry [email protected] – It was called by one Or-

egon lawmaker “the mother of allasks.”

And perhaps it is, at least for thisshort legislative session. OregonHealth & Science University pleadedits case Friday for the state to au-thorize $200million in state-backedbonds to construct a new center tofight cancer.

“This is an opportunity … to be-comethepremiercancer research in-stitution in the country,” said BrianDruker, OHSU’s most famous re-searcher and developer of the anti-cancer drug Gleevec.

Druker spoke to the Legislature’sCapital Construction Subcommit-tee, one of the most influential pan-els inSalem.Members includeHouseSpeaker TinaKotek, D-Portland, andSenate President Peter Courtney, D-

Salem.OHSU sees the bonding as a cru-

cial jump-start tomeetinga$1billionfundraising effort spurred by Nikefounder Phil Knight. Knight and hiswife,Penny,haveoffereda$500mil-lion donation to OHSU for cancer re-search if the university canmatch it.

Thestate’smoneywouldnotgoto-wardthematch. Insteaditwouldhelpbuild 1million square feet of new re-searchandclinical trial space inPort-land’s SouthWaterfront area.

Lawmakers took no action on therequestFriday.Thesizeof therequestleft some skeptical.

“Two hundred million is a lot ofmoney,” said Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, who came up with the

OHSUhits up the statewith $200million ‘ask’

InsideView whichhigh schoolsand middleschools have thebest and worstattendancein Oregon | A6 SeeAbsent,A6

More coverage of the Oregonlegislative session on A10, B8

and oregonlive.com/politics.

SeeOHSU,A6SeeMarijuana,A6

Lake Oswego’s biotechfirm publishes a letterto investors regardingmarketing, stock sell-offBy Nick [email protected]

sawitsstockpricemorethantriplesince July has watched it plum-met in recent days after companyinsiders— includingdirectorsandofficers—mademillionsbysellinghundreds of thousands of shares.

The stock drop appears fueled,inpart,byanonlinereporter’sdis-closure of the stock sell-off and amarketing campaign funded byGalenaBiopharma.Thecampaigntowooinvestorsmayhavecrosseda line by not revealing who paidfor it, some observers say.

OnFriday,Galenapublishedanopen letter to investors respond-ing to the criticism.

Media attention “is having animpact on investor confidence,”wrote Galena President and CEOMark Ahn. “Let success or failurebe dictated by facts and data, notthe questionable logic of a head-line-seeking reporter.”

Ahnsaid thesell-offby insidersdoesn’t reflecta lossofconfidencein the company by its directors.Rather, they legally could not sellstock for anine-monthperiodbe-cause Galena had been engagedinbuying anotherfirm,Mill Phar-maceutical.

“There are narrow windowswhen executives and officers cansell,”Ahnsaid,addingthathissaleof $2.8 million worth of sharesconsisted of less than 20 percentof his holdings.

Considering the firm has pro-moted a potential breast cancervaccine, the riseandfallofGalenastockhaspotential significanceforthe roughly 200,000 women di-agnosed with breast cancer eachyear. It also serves as a reminderfor investors seeking stockadviceon the Internet: What you readmay not bewhat it seems.

It also shows the tenuous exis-tenceofabiotechfirmthat largelybuilt its profile on an unprovenproduct, the potential vaccinecalledE75 and since trademarkedas Neuvax. Already, a New Yorklaw firm has announced it is in-vestigatingapotentialclass-actionlawsuitagainstGalenaonbehalfofshareholdersandnotedthat insid-ers sold nearly $10 million worthof stock in the last twomonths.

The company’s precipitous fallfromahigh of $7.77 per share onemonth ago to $3.72 Friday on theNasdaq exchange appears fueledin part by an article on TheStreet.com that disclosed a Galena-funded Web-based promotional

GalenaBiopharmadefendsits actions

SeeGalena,A10

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PART FOUR | EMPTY DESKS: DIPLOMAS IN JEOPARDY

How to ride herd on middle school truants By Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian( Originally published Saturday, February 15, 2014 )

Last January, Principal Shelley Mitchell realized that Banks Junior High had a big problem: A virus was sweeping through her small-town school, infecting wave after wave of students.

As the illness peaked, 30 percent of students were absent on a single day. Mitchell took extreme measures to protect her students and their learning.

She hired an anti-germ team from facility-management giant Sodexo, which twice sent cleaners overnight to wipe down every desk, doorknob and flat surface.

It was a huge relief, Mitchell recalls, when normalcy returned to the school, which serves remote flanks of rural Washington County as well as the town of Banks.

What Mitchell didn’t notice, however, was a more significant problem: From September to June, one-fourth of her school’s eighth-graders missed nearly a month of school apiece. That was enough to jeopardize their ability to learn math and their likelihood of graduating from high school.

Chronic absenteeism, defined by the state as missing at least 10 percent of the school year, can be devastating to a student’s success

A6 THE OREGONIAN • SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2014

Best and worst highschool attendancePortion of Oregon public schoolstudents absent 10 percentor more of the 2012-13 schoolyear. “Best” does not includemagnets or charters.

Best high schools %Gold Beach 1

Creswell 2

Riverdale, Dunthorpe 3

Riddle 5

McLoughlin, Milton-Freewater 6

Knappa, Astoria 6

Gaston 6

St. Paul 8

Stayton 9

Seaside 10

Best in metro area %Gaston 8

Lake Oswego 11

Clackamas 12

Sunset, Beaverton 13

Sam Barlow, Gresham 13

Westview, Beaverton 14

Wilson, Portland 15

Grant, Portland 15

Lakeridge, Lake Oswego 16

Cleveland, Portland 16

Best, with poverty* %Sam Barlow, Gresham 19

Clackamas 20

Century, Hillsboro 21


Milwaukie 23


Forest Grove 24

Grant, Portland 24

Rex Putnam, Milwaukie 25

Parkrose 25

* At least 100 low-incomestudents

Worst high schools %Vernonia 56

La Pine 44

Taft, Lincoln City 41

Roosevelt, Portland 39

Waldport 39

Woodburn Art, Science, Tech 39

The Dalles-Wahtonka 38

Nestucca, Cloverdale 38

Prospect Charter 38

Sweet Home 38

Worst in metro area %Roosevelt, Portland 39

Jefferson, Portland 36

Sandy 35

Estacada 34

Molalla 30

Hillsboro 29

Wilsonville 28

Aloha 27

Reynolds, Troutdale 27

Madison, Portland 26

Worst alternative schools*%Central Medford High 87

Armadillo Technical Institute,Phoenix 78

New Urban High,North Clackamas 75

Gateways High, Springfield 75

Oregon City ServiceLearning Academy 4

* State did not provide data onPortland Public Schools’ privatelyrun alternative schools

Worst metro-area schoolsfor low-income studentattendance*Portion of low-income studentswho missed at least 10 percentof the 2012-13 school year.Sandy 42

Lincoln, Portland 42

Estacada 40



Banks 34

Hillsboro 34

Wilsonville 33

Sherwood 32

Liberty, Hillsboro 31

Best and worst middleschool attendancePortion of Oregon public schoolstudents absent 10 percentor more of the 2012-13 schoolyear. “Best” does not includemagnets or charters.

Best middle schools/K-8s %Beverly Cleary, Portland 5

Laurelhurst, Portland 6

Mt. Angel Middle 6

Springville K-8, Beaverton 7

Stoller Middle, Beaverton 7

Damascus Middle 7

Roseway Heights, Portland 8

Gaston Jr. High 8

West Sylvan, Portland 10

Broadway Middle, Seaside 10

Best in metro area %Stoller, Beaverton 7

Damascus Middle 7


Conestoga, Beaverton 12

Cedar Park, Beaverton 12

Lake Oswego 13


Highland Park, Beaverton 14

Happy Valley 14

Whitford, Beaverton 14

Best, with poverty* %Conestoga Middle, Beaverton15

Alice Ott, David Douglas 16

Mountain View, Beaverton 16


Mt. Tabor, Portland 16

Five Oaks, Beaverton 16

Neil Armstrong, Forest Grove 17

Stoller, Beaverton 17

Meadow Park, Beaverton 17

Parkrose 18


Worst middle schools %Talmadge, Independence 39

La Pine 36

Seven Oaks, Lebanon 33

Newport Prep 32

Welches 32

Coffenberry, Myrtle Creek 32

Santiam Jr. High, Mill City 31

Harbor Lights, Bandon 31

Baker 30

Glide 30

Worst in metro area %Welches 32

H.B. Lee, Gresham 29

Cedar Ridge, Sandy 27

George, Portland 26

Estacada Jr. High 25

Rowe, Milwaukie 24

Molalla River 24

Reynolds, Fairview 24

Alder Creek, Milwaukie 23

Banks Jr. High 22

By Betsy [email protected] has one of the na-

tion’s worst high school grad-uation rates, with only 69percent of students earning adiploma in four years.

Thestateisalsorifewithhighschools where 25 percent, 35percentandeven40percentofstudentsmiss weeks of schooleach year, enough to earn thelabel “chronically absent.”

It is no coincidence that Or-egon has both an epidemic ofempty desks and huge prob-lems getting students to grad-uate. Experts draw a straightline fromstudentsmissing toomuchhigh school to their fail-ure to earn a diploma.

A study that followed everyteen in Indiana’s class of 2010,for example, found that only24 percent of students whomissed 10 percent of schooldays managed to graduate,compared with 88 percent ofbetter-attending classmates.

Oregon teachers and coun-

selorsmake the same connec-tion, one student at a time. Astheycombthrough listsof stu-dentswho are failingmultipleclasses or behind in credits,it’s strikinghowmanyof themskip class, they say.

“When we see studentswho are missing a class overand over and check to see ifthe grades are good — it justdoesn’t happen,” said MarthaGuise, a seasoned assistanthigh school principal in Hills-boro.“Attendance is thebuild-ing block to everything else: Ifyou don’t get them here, youcan’t teach them.”

Statewide problem

It’sexceedinglycommonforOregonhighschoolstudentstoskip a lot of school.

Last year, almost half thestudents at Taft High Schoolin Lincoln City missed a tenthof the school year or more. Inthe college town of Corvallis,at well-regarded Corvallis andCrescent Valley high schools,

31 percent did.All three schools also posted

mediocre to poor graduationrates, including abysmal onesforlow-incomestudents:59per-cent, 53percentand54percent,respectively,fortheclassof2013.

In themetroarea,Portland’sRoosevelt and Jefferson highschools had the third- andfourth-worst worst chronicabsenteeism rates for low-in-come students: 40 percentand 35 percent. They also hadsome of the highest shares oflow-incomestudents failing toearnadiplomainfouryears:39percent and 35 percent. (Lin-colnHighSchoolwasworseonthatmeasure,with 40percentof low-income students notgraduating on time.)

Oregon historically judgedhigh schools in part by theiroverallattendancerates.Schoolswere expected to have an aver-age daily attendance of 92 per-cent — andmost did. However,thoseacceptable-soundingratesmaskedthefactthatalotofindi-

vidual studentsmissedenoughclassestotorpedotheirchancestoearnadiploma.

Banks High School Princi-palMark Everett saw just howdevastating poor attendancecan be to a student’s futurewhen, in his first year as prin-cipal last year, he tried to helpstudentswho lackedcredits togetacross thefinish line.Someof them couldn’tmake it.

He understood that beingshort-handed,nota lackofcar-ing, kept the school from ad-dressing absenteeism as earlyand as forcefully as it shouldhave—but thatdidn’t take thestingoutofhavingtowithholddiplomas last June.

“Itwasnot for lackof intelli-genceatall.…They justhadn’tattended,” Everett said. “I al-waystellparentsandstudents,‘If you come to school regu-larly, youwill be successful.’ ”

Turnaround in Banks

Foryears,Everettsaid,BanksHigh had a culture of indiffer-

ence to student absences. Hedidn’t succeed in changingthat last year. However, withhelp from an assistant princi-palwhose jobwas restored, heisaddressingabsenceshead-onthis year—and seeing results.

Everett compares statisticsfor September through No-vember:Lastyear,95studentsmissedmorethan10percentofschool days, including 13 whowereabsentmore than30per-cent of the time. This year, 22students hit the 10 percentmark by the end of Novem-ber, and none crossed the 30percent threshold.

Intervening promptly andconsistentlyhasmade“an im-mense difference,” said long-time registrar Susan Helm,whose daughters graduatedfromBanksHigh.

“Kids learn what they canget by with,” she said. “Nowthe administration is very ontop of it. It’s amazing howquickly kids get used to beingheld accountable.”

Missing school, failure to graduate linkedEMPTY DESKS | OREGON’S ABSENTEEISM EPIDEMIC

serve eighth-graders— and at213of them,at least 10percentofeighth-graderswerechroni-cally absent last school year.

They include schools insome of Oregon’s most com-fortablecommunities.At least20 percent of eighth-gradersmissed 17 days or more lastyear at Sherwood’s middleschools, Sherwood and Lau-rel Ridge. The district’s chiefacademic officer, Gary Ben-nett, and Sherwood MiddleSchool Principal MarianneFunderhidesaidbothschoolsworked aggressively to pre-vent the problem, but couldnot, primarily because of stu-dents’ health problems.

The epidemic of emptydesks isworst inruralOregon,with 40 percent of eighth-graders at Talmadge MiddleSchool in Independence, 36percent at Taft Middle/HighinLincolnCityand33percentatSweetHomeMiddleSchoolchronically absent last year.

But rampant absenteeismalsomanifests itself inmetro-area schools: 41 percent ofeighth-graders at WelchesMiddle School, 32 percentat H.B. Lee Middle School inthe Reynolds district and 31percent at Portland’s VernonSchoolmissed at least a tenthof the school year.

A system that worksAlice Ott Middle School, a

high-povertyschool intheDa-vid Douglas School District,lies at the other end of thespectrum.

Theschool,withmore than700students inahardscrabbleeast Portland neighborhood,hasoneof thebestattendancerates for students from low-incomefamiliesofanymiddleschool in Oregon. The schoolachieves exceptional read-ing andmath results. It is theonlymiddle school inOregonto be named a model schoolby the state two years in arow, largelybecause studentsmake huge strides each year.

Principal James Johnstonsaid the school could neverachieve such success with-out its highly structured at-tendance program. The keyfirst step: A school counselorand secretary monitor atten-dance every morning. Thesecretary calls every parentof an absent student. And acounselor, the principal orboth intervene immediatelyif a student misses three orfour days.

In thecaseofsixth-graders,the school doesn’t wait thatlong. Students who arrivewith a track record of absen-teeism in elementary schoolare put on a check-in systembefore theymiss a day.

Counselorskeep itpositive.Students stop by each morn-ing to put a sticker on a chart,

and get warm greetings andmaybe a granola bar or pieceof candy when they do. Thedaily interaction lets studentsknow theymatter and are be-ing watched. Spreadsheets,shared and updated by keyadults in the building, showwhich students have missedthe most days, which staffmember has checked in withthefamily,andwhat interven-tions are underway.

Studentswho’vemissed aslittle as twodaysamonth justmight see a big white pickuppull up to their apartment orhouse.Johnston, theprincipaland truck owner, and coun-selor Steve Benner knock ondoors all over the neighbor-hood, rustling sleepy middleschoolersoutofbedandhaul-ing them to school or coach-ing overwhelmed parents onstrategies togetareluctantkidto attend.

Small school suffers

Banks Junior High, withfewer than 200 students, asingle administrator and aless-than-half-timecounselor,has no such system. Instead,informalhumanjudgmentde-termines when a child seemsabsent too often.

“My secretary is great,”Mitchell said. “She’ll look atthe (absentee) list and shewill flagme. She is very expe-rienced.”

When a student’s atten-dance surfaces as a problem,

Mitchell said, she phones ormeets with the parents tolearnwhatmightbe theprob-lem and how the school canhelp. The district has a half-timementalhealth counselorwho can offer family coun-seling or help with anxietyor depression, she said. Anafter-school homework clubhelps studentswho feel over-whelmed or who have fallenbehind.

“Wewant tohelp themfeelsuccessful,”Mitchell said.

But there is no automaticthreshold, such as missing 5percent of school days, thattriggers outreach. Missingmany days in a row — some-thing chronically absent stu-dents may never do — likelywouldcatchthesecretary’sat-tention,Mitchell said.

“We’re so small. I know allmy students by name andknow many of the families.… It’s prettyup close andper-sonal in a small district likethis.”

Despite that, Mitchell hadno idea so many Banks stu-dentswerechronicallyabsentlast year.

In an interview with TheOregonian, she insisted hereighth-graders’ absenteeismrate was below 5 percent. Yetherownrecordsshowexactlywhat the state’s do: 22 stu-dents in that class of 90 stu-dents — 24 percent — missedat least 10 percent of theschool year.

AbsentContinued fromA1


Banks Junior High Principal Shelley Mitchell finds her students housed in temporary classrooms behind the construction of anew building. School attendance data show that Banks Junior High is lagging.

“mother of all asks” com-ment. He described himself asan OHSU graduate and cancersurvivor who wants to see theprojectgoforward.Buthewon-dered aloud why the startupmoney has to come from thestate and not from the univer-sity’s ownholdings.

“If we’re going to do this weneed to get on with it,” saidOHSU President Joe Robert-son,callingtheproject“aneco-nomicstimulusofunparalleledopportunity.” But, he said, “ifthe bonds are not approved, Ican’t hit the launch button onMarch 1.”

KnighthasgivenOHSUuntilFebruary2016 tocomeupwiththe matching half-billion dol-lars. Robertson said state bondauthorization would allow the

university to start developingthe new buildings and recruit-ingscientists tobecomepartofthe new research center.

OHSU is seeking the state’spromise of $200 million, butdoesn’t need the money im-mediately.Thebondswouldn’thavetobesolduntil 2016. If theuniversity hasn’t met Knight’schallenge, or other problemsdevelop, the state wouldn’thave to issue the bonds.

Girod also questionedwhether, once the new centerisupandrunning,OHSUwouldbe forced to come back to thestate to ask formore operatingdollars.

Robertson said the centerwould be a magnet for do-nations once it gets running,which would help pay for op-erations.

“Our success in the futurewill become evermore depen-dentonphilanthropy,”Robert-son said.

OHSUContinued fromA1

“As it stands, possession ordistribution of marijuana vi-olates federal law, and banksthat provide support for thoseactivities face the risk of pros-ecution and assorted sanc-tions,” he said.

Richard Hunt, president oftheConsumerBankersAssocia-tion,agreed,sayingtheonlyso-lutionisforCongresstochangethe law.

“Until then, the nation’s7,000 banks will be highly re-luctant to participate in thisnew type of commerce,” hesaid.

Noone’sexpectingCongressto move on full legalizationanytime soon, even thoughpolls now show a majority ofAmericans back it. A bill tolegalize marijuana has lan-

guishedsinceitwasintroduceda year ago, not even receivinga hearing. And only 18 mem-bersof theHouseofRepresen-tativessignedaletterthisweekaskingObamatolift theSched-ule1designationformarijuana,whichputs it in the samecate-gory as heroin andLSD.

The change in Justice De-partment policy was expectedafter Attorney General EricHoldersaidlastmonththattheadministrationwasworking toprevent“hugeamountsofcashin these places.”

“There’sapublicsafetycom-

ponenttothis,”Holdersaidinaspeechat theUniversityofVir-ginia. “Huge amounts of cash— substantial amounts of cashjust kind of lying around withno place for it to be appropri-atelydeposited—issomethingthatwouldworryme, justfroma law enforcement perspec-tive.”

While accepting depositsfrommarijuana businesses re-mains a violation of money-laundering laws, prosecutorshave wide discretion on whatcases topursue.Andwhile theJustice Department cannotwaive federal banking laws, itsnewpolicyadvisesprosecutorsto pursue only businesses thatuseretailstoresaspartof largercriminal enterprises.

Essentially, the administra-tion is promising to let banksand pot stores work together,so long as they abide by somebasic rules: preventing thedis-tribution of marijuana to mi-

nors, preventing violence andmaking sure no pot is allowedon federal property, amongothers.

In a memorandum issuedto all U.S. attorneys on Fri-day, Deputy Attorney GeneralJamesColesaidthenewpolicyguidance applies “to the exer-ciseofprosecutorialdiscretion”and warned that prosecutorsstill retain the right to enforceany federal laws relating tomarijuana.

In a separate memo, theTreasury Department’s Finan-cial Crimes Enforcement Net-work said the new guidanceis an attempt to “enhance theavailability of financial ser-vices” for marijuana-relatedbusinesses. However, it saidthatbanksshouldconductduediligence,ensuringthatanypotstore they do business with isfully licensed and registeredby the state and not a front formoney laundering.

MarijuanaContinued fromA1

Essentially, theadministration ispromising to let banksand pot storesworktogether, so long asthey abide by somebasic rules. se

e46

and can undermine the success of an entire school. But it can go unnoticed, as it did in Banks, because students who miss only two days a month end up exceeding that 10 percent.

The problem is ubiquitous in Oregon middle schools: rich and poor, urban and rural, large and small. Excluding magnet schools, Oregon has 225 schools that

serve eighth-graders — and at 213 of them, at least 10 percent of eighth-graders were chronically absent last school year.

They include schools in some of Oregon’s most comfortable communities. At least 20 percent of eighth-graders missed 17 days or more last year at Sherwood’s middle schools, Sherwood and Laurel Ridge. The district’s chief academic officer, Gary Bennett, and Sherwood Middle School Principal Marianne Funderhide said both schools worked aggressively to prevent the problem, but could not, primarily because of students’ health problems.

The epidemic of empty desks is worst in rural Oregon, with 40 percent of eighth-graders at Talmadge Middle School in Independence, 36 percent at Taft Middle/High in Lincoln City and 33 percent at Sweet Home Middle School chronically absent last year.

But rampant absenteeism also manifests itself in metro-area schools: 41 percent of eighth-graders at Welches Middle School, 32 percent at H.B. Lee Middle School in the Reynolds district and 31 percent at Portland’s Vernon School missed at least a tenth of the school year.

A system that works

Alice Ott Middle School, a high-poverty school in the David Douglas School District, lies at the other end of the spectrum.

The school, with more than 700 students in a hardscrabble east Portland neighborhood, has one of the best attendance rates for students from low-income families of any middle school in Oregon. The school achieves exceptional reading and math results. It is the only middle school in Oregon to be named a model school by the state two years in a row, largely because students make huge strides each year.




Creswell 2


Riddle 5


Knappa, Astoria 6

Gaston 6

St. Paul 8

Stayton 9

Seaside 10


Lake Oswego 11

Clackamas 12




Wilson, Portland 15

Grant, Portland 15




Clackamas 20



Milwaukie 23


Forest Grove 24

Grant, Portland 24


Parkrose 25



La Pine 44



Waldport 39




Prospect Charter 38

Sweet Home 38



Sandy 35

Estacada 34

Molalla 30

Hillsboro 29

Wilsonville 28

Aloha 27











Estacada 40



Banks 34

Hillsboro 34

Wilsonville 33

Sherwood 32





Mt. Angel Middle 6



Damascus Middle 7


Gaston Jr. High 8




Damascus Middle 7




Lake Oswego 13



Happy Valley 14











Parkrose 18



La Pine 36


Newport Prep 32

Welches 32




Baker 30

Glide 30




George, Portland 26


Rowe, Milwaukie 24

Molalla River 24



Banks Jr. High 22









Statewide problem











Turnaround in Banks
























































e46

Principal James Johnston said the school could never achieve such success without its highly structured attendance program. The key first step: A school counselor and secretary monitor attendance every morning. The secretary calls every parent of an absent student. And a counselor, the principal or both intervene immediately if a student misses three or four days. In the case of sixth-graders, the school doesn’t wait that long. Students who arrive with a track record of absenteeism in elemen-tary school are put on a check-in system before they miss a day.

Counselors keep it positive. Students stop by each morning to put a sticker on a chart, and get warm greetings and maybe a granola bar or piece of candy when they do. The daily interaction lets students know they matter and are being watched. Spreadsheets, shared and updated by key adults in the building, show which students have missed the most days, which staff member has checked in with the family, and what interventions are underway.

Students who’ve missed as little as two days a month just might see a big white pickup pull up to their apartment or house. Johnston, the principal and truck owner, and counselor Steve Benner knock on doors all over the neighborhood, rustling sleepy middle schoolers out of bed and hauling them to school or coaching overwhelmed parents on strategies to get a reluctant kid to attend.


Banks Junior High, with fewer than 200 students, a single administrator and a less-than-half-time counselor, has no such system. Instead, informal human judgment determines when a child seems absent too often.

“My secretary is great,” Mitchell said. “She’ll look at the (absentee) list and she will flag me. She is very experienced.”

When a student’s attendance surfaces as a problem, Mitchell said, she phones or meets with the parents to learn what might be the problem and how the school can help. The district has a half-time mental health counselor who can offer family counseling or help with anxiety or depression, she said. An after-school homework club helps students who feel overwhelmed or who have fallen behind.




Creswell 2


Riddle 5


Knappa, Astoria 6

Gaston 6

St. Paul 8

Stayton 9

Seaside 10


Lake Oswego 11

Clackamas 12




Wilson, Portland 15

Grant, Portland 15




Clackamas 20



Milwaukie 23


Forest Grove 24

Grant, Portland 24


Parkrose 25



La Pine 44



Waldport 39




Prospect Charter 38

Sweet Home 38



Sandy 35

Estacada 34

Molalla 30

Hillsboro 29

Wilsonville 28

Aloha 27











Estacada 40



Banks 34

Hillsboro 34

Wilsonville 33

Sherwood 32





Mt. Angel Middle 6



Damascus Middle 7


Gaston Jr. High 8




Damascus Middle 7




Lake Oswego 13



Happy Valley 14











Parkrose 18



La Pine 36


Newport Prep 32

Welches 32




Baker 30

Glide 30




George, Portland 26


Rowe, Milwaukie 24

Molalla River 24



Banks Jr. High 22









Statewide problem











Turnaround in Banks
























































e46




Creswell 2


Riddle 5


Knappa, Astoria 6

Gaston 6

St. Paul 8

Stayton 9

Seaside 10


Lake Oswego 11

Clackamas 12




Wilson, Portland 15

Grant, Portland 15




Clackamas 20



Milwaukie 23


Forest Grove 24

Grant, Portland 24


Parkrose 25



La Pine 44



Waldport 39




Prospect Charter 38

Sweet Home 38



Sandy 35

Estacada 34

Molalla 30

Hillsboro 29

Wilsonville 28

Aloha 27











Estacada 40



Banks 34

Hillsboro 34

Wilsonville 33

Sherwood 32





Mt. Angel Middle 6



Damascus Middle 7


Gaston Jr. High 8




Damascus Middle 7




Lake Oswego 13



Happy Valley 14











Parkrose 18



La Pine 36


Newport Prep 32

Welches 32




Baker 30

Glide 30




George, Portland 26


Rowe, Milwaukie 24

Molalla River 24



Banks Jr. High 22









Statewide problem











Turnaround in Banks
























































e46

“We want to help them feel successful,” Mitchell said.

But there is no automatic threshold, such as missing 5 percent of school days, that triggers outreach. Missing many days in a row — something chronically absent students may never do — likely would catch the secretary’s attention, Mitchell said.

“We’re so small. I know all my students by name and know many of the families. … It’s pretty up close and personal in a small district like this.”Despite that, Mitchell had no idea so many Banks students were chronically absent last year.

In an interview with The Oregonian, she insisted her eighth-graders’ absenteeism rate was below 5 percent. Yet her own records show exactly what the state’s do: 22 students in that class of 90 students — 24 percent — missed at least 10 percent of the school year.

PART FOUR, CONTINUED

Missing school, failure to graduate linked

By Betsy Hammond | The Oregonian

Oregon has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates, with only 69 percent of students earning a diploma in four years.

The state is also rife with high schools where 25 percent, 35 percent and even 40 percent of students miss weeks of school each year, enough to earn the label “chronically absent.”

It is no coincidence that Oregon has both an epidemic of empty desks and huge problems getting students to graduate. Experts draw a straight line from students missing too much high school to their failure to earn a diploma.

A study that followed every teen in Indiana’s class of 2010, for example, found that only 24 percent of students who missed 10 percent of school days managed to graduate, compared with 88 percent of better-attending classmates.

Oregon teachers and counselors make the same connection, one student at a time. As they comb through lists of students who are failing multiple classes or behind in credits, it’s striking how many of them skip class, they say.

“When we see students who are missing a class over and over and check to see if the grades are good — it just doesn’t happen,” said Martha Guise, a seasoned assistant high school principal in Hillsboro. “Attendance is the building block to everything else: If you don’t get them here, you can’t teach them.”

Statewide problem

It’s exceedingly common for Oregon high school students to skip a lot of school.

Last year, almost half the students at Taft High School in Lincoln City missed a tenth of the school year or more. In the college town of Corvallis, at well-regarded Corvallis and Crescent Valley high schools, 31 percent did.

All three schools also posted mediocre to poor graduation rates, including abysmal ones for low-income students: 59 percent, 53 percent and 54 percent, respectively, for the class of 2013.

In the metro area, Portland’s Roosevelt and Jefferson high schools had the third- and fourth-worst worst chronic absenteeism rates for low-income students: 40 percent and 35 percent. They also had some of the highest shares of low-income students failing to earn a diploma in four years: 39 percent and 35 percent. (Lincoln High School was worse on that measure, with 40 percent of low-income students not graduating on time.)

Oregon historically judged high schools in part by their overall attendance rates. Schools were expected to have an average daily attendance of 92 percent — and most did. However, those acceptable-sounding rates masked the fact that a lot of individual students missed enough classes to torpedo their chances to earn a diploma.

Banks High School Principal Mark Everett saw just how devastating poor attendance can be to a student’s future when, in his first year as principal last year, he tried to help students who lacked credits to get across the finish line. Some of them couldn’t make it.

He understood that being short-handed, not a lack of caring, kept the school from addressing absenteeism as early and as forcefully as it should have — but that didn’t take the sting out of having to withhold diplomas last June.

“It was not for lack of intelligence at all. … They just hadn’t attended,” Everett said. “I always tell parents and students, ‘If you come to school regularly, you will be successful.’ ”

Turnaround in Banks

For years, Everett said, Banks High had a culture of indifference to student absences. He didn’t succeed in changing that last year. However, with help from an assistant principal whose job was restored, he is addressing absences head-on this year — and seeing results.

Everett compares statistics for September through November: Last year, 95 students missed more than 10 percent of school days, including 13 who were absent more than 30 percent of the time. This year, 22 students hit the 10 percent mark by the end of November, and none crossed the 30 percent threshold.

Intervening promptly and consistently has made “an immense difference,” said longtime registrar Susan Helm, whose daughters graduated from Banks High.

“Kids learn what they can get by with,” she said. “Now the administration is very on top of it. It’s amazing how quickly kids get used to being held accountable.”

To see the entire series, as well as additional online-only features, go to:

www.oregonlive.com/absent

All content copyright The Oregonian 2014


Ahuge but overlookedproblem is jeopardizing thesuccess of tens of thousandsof Oregon students, leavingthem at risk of neverlearning to readwell orfailing to graduate fromhigh school.

It’s not class size,curriculumor teachertraining.

It’s attendance.Last school year nearly 1 in 5 Or-

egon students missed at least 10percent of the school year, an inves-tigation by The Oregonian shows.Those roughly 100,000 studentswere absent 3½weeks of schoolor more, in mostcases withoutraising alarms attheir school.

No other statehas been showntohavea chronicabsenteeismrateas bad as Ore-gon’s.

“ I t ’s a t r o -cious,” said RobSaxton, Oregonschools chief.

Students aredeemed chron-ical ly absentif they miss 10percent or moreof school days.Last school year24 percent of Or-egonhigh schoolstudents missedthat much. Andsodid20percentofeighth-gradersand18percentoffirst-graders.

At some Oregon schools, includ-ing North EugeneHigh, Glendale El-ementaryandBend’sMountainViewHigh, more than one-third of stu-dentswere chronically absent.

Frequent absenteeism has dev-astating consequences. One Oregonstudy found that students whomiss10percentofkindergarten lag,onav-erage, almost a year behind in read-ingby third grade andareunlikely toever catch up. Studies frommultiplestates show that chronically absenthigh school students are unlikely tograduate.

Empty desks | No state looks worse

‘Atrocious’ attendanceputs learning at risk




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A single empty desk is not normally a cause for alarm. More than 99 percent of students miss at least a day ofschool. But Oregon has an epidemic of chronic absenteeism that goes unnoticed. A student who misses school twodays a month ends up missing more than a tenth of the school year, enough to put him or her in academic jeopardy.

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicToday: Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at riskof failure.Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents backfor years.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Saturday: Middleschool and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.Next Sunday:Vigilance atClackamasHigh helps keepkids in class.

About 100,000 Oregon students missed 10 percent or moreof the 2012-13 school year.

Note: Excludes students who enrolled after the midpoint of the school yearand those attending alternative schools

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35%

Percentage of students, by grade, who were chronically absent

Absent from class


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Grade

All students Low-income students


Source: Analysis by Betsy Hammond of The Oregonian, using 2012-13 school year datafrom the Oregon Department of Education.

Missed fewer than5% of school days:53% Missed 5% to 9% of days:

29%

Missed 10% to 14% of days:11%

Missed 15% to 19% of days: 4%Missed 20% or more of days: 4%

Rampant absenteeismOne in 5 Oregon students missed 10 percent or more of theschool year in 2012-13.

Oregon officials saythey didn’t know aboutCalifornia’s inquiry intoher contract dealingsBy Jeff [email protected] [email protected], the formerOr-

egon Health Authority official atthecenterof thestormofOregon’snonfunctional health insuranceexchange,was investigatedbythestate of California for inappropri-ate contracting in 2008, The Or-egonian has learned.

Upon being hired by the Cali-fornia Public Utility Commission

in 2008, Law-son funneledfive contractsworth nearly$500,000 ina four-monthperiod to thesmall consult-ing companyrun by herformer bossin the privatesector. Theformer boss

was Steven Powell, whom Law-son later hired as her senior dep-uty in Oregon.

When Lawsonwas asked to re-sign in December, the state pro-moted Powell to replace her. Inthree years Powell rose from run-ning a tiny consulting companyto being interim chief informa-tion officer for the OregonHealthAuthority and the Department ofHuman Services, one of the high-est-rankingtechnology jobs in thestate.

The California incident raisesmore questions about Lawson’sjudgment and decision-making,issues that have already come upin the still-unfolding controversyover Oregon’s health exchange,Cover Oregon.

Stateofficialswere tight-lippedabout the matter Friday, otherthantosaytheydidn’tknowaboutCalifornia’s contracting investi-gation when they hired Lawson.“This was not disclosed by Law-sonoranyofher references,”OHAspokeswoman PattyWentz said.

Lawson could not be reachedfor comment. Powell declined tocomment.

Despite spending more than$160 million on the project, thestate was forced by the botchedproject to devise a stopgap appa-ratus to manually process health

Ex-healthofficial’spast workhad issues

• A searchable database with absenteestatistics on every public school inOregon• Interactive maps where you canzoom in to find statistics by school andarea, with schools color-coded to showlow, medium and high proportions ofchronically absent students


• An interactive chart that shows therelationship between absenteeism andeconomic status• Videos on absenteeism’s disastrous effecton education; on Vernonia and its strugglewith high absenteeism; and on ClackamasHigh School and its successful approach toenforcing attendance

• Photo galleries andonline-only stories• An invitationto share yourexperiences withabsenteeism, whetheras a parent, educatoror community memberPlease see HEALTH, Page A17

LawsonForced to quit postat Health Authority

More wintry weather is forecast. How are people and businesses coping? METRO, B1

For the latest weather news, closures and road reports, go to OREGONLIVE.COM/WEATHER

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By Nick [email protected] [email protected] than fourmonths afterOr-

egon’s $170millionhealth insuranceexchangewas supposed togo live, of-ficials say it couldbeupandpartiallyrunning later thisweek— though itwon’t beopen to thepublic.

By thisweekend, CoverOregonofficials hope to allow insuranceagents andotherswhoassist clientsto use apassword-protected versionof the site to enroll people as part ofa limited launch.

Exchangeofficials havebeenun-der great pressure tomake this dayhappen.

But just because the state’s ex-change is turnedondoesn’tmean itwill runwell. The system remainsriddledwith bugs—asmany as 1,200of them, according to the state, anddozens of themarepotentially quiteserious.

Here are someof the technologicaltroublesOregon still faces, in ques-tion-and-answer format.

Q:What’s been theproblemwiththe technology?

A:The exchange ismore than awebsite, it’s a combination of soft-ware and hardware. Its heart is asuite of different software productsthat the OregonHealth Authority

Health exchangemay golive, but far fromhealthy


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200

210

220

Missed more than 20%

Missed 10-20%

Reading at grade levelMissed 5-10%

Missed less than 5%

3rd grade 4th grade 5th grade

Kindergarten’s long shadow

Source: 2012 ECONorthwest study of Oregon Department of Education data

Students who miss too muchkindergarten trail their peerseven years later.

Kindergartenattendance

Average readingscore in 5th grade

223223223221.4221219

215



Michelle Eagleson, who teaches kindergarten and first grade at Vernonia Elementary, gets her students to work tirelessly because learning to read requiresmastering so much information. She uses songs, movement and encouragement to keep it fun and keep her students engaged.“Kiss your brain,” she saysafter they master a new letter sound.“You are getting smarter!”


Some of themost frequent truants in Oregon aren’t surlyhigh school students ormoodymiddle schoolers. They’re6-year-olds, almost one-fifth ofwhommissed at least 10percent of first grade in 2012-13.

Rampantfirst-gradeabsenteeismismost common inpoor rural commu-nities, includingontheWarmSpringsreservation and in small towns suchasGlendale,MyrtlePointandLaPine,an investigation by The Oregonianfound.

But it happens in Happy Valley,Northwest Portland and Fairview,too. First-graders who miss three orfourweeksof schoolare likely to trailbehind their classmates years later,even if they start coming to schoolregularly, teachers say and studiesconfirm.That’sbecause, formostOr-egonchildren,firstgrade is themagicyearduringwhichtheygofromfalter-ing to fluent at reading.

As kindergartners, students learnto map sounds onto letters, formthem into words and read simplesentences. In first grade, young-sters upgrade and flex those skills,so that untangling clusters of lettersand words becomes automatic and

the meaning can shine through. Butstudentswhostayhomefromschoolonce every two weeks or so duringthose critical early years don’t get aproper introduction to some letters,blends and sight words, then get in-sufficientpracticemelding themintowords and phrases.

A first-grader out for only one daymisses at least an hour and a half ofintensive coaching and practice atreading.

“What we find is those kids getstuck,” said Cyndi Hagey, achieve-mentspecialistatEarlBoylesElemen-tary inSoutheastPortland.“Theyarestill having to sound out every wordbecausetheyjusthaven’thadenoughpractice. They get bogged down andcan’t go faster, can’t understand thatit’s a sentence that hasmeaning.”

Across Oregon, 18 percent of first-graders missed at least 10 percent oflast schoolyear, leavingmostof them

Empty desks | The littlest truants

Early missed classeshold kids back for years

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:• A searchable database with absentee statistics on

every public school in Oregon• Interactive maps where you can zoom in to find statisticsby school and area, with schools color-coded to show low,medium and high proportions of chronically absent students• Photo galleries and online-only stories• An invitation to share your experiences with absenteeism,whether as a parent, educator or community member

Questions for Betsy Hammond? Join Betsy atoregonlive.com/education all day today with questions,comments and personal experiences.

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicSunday: Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at risk offailure.Today: Missingtoo much firstgrade setsstudents back foryears.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Saturday:Middle and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.Sunday: Vigilanceat Clackamas HighSchool helps keepkids in class.

By Jeff [email protected] — Norman Frink and

Mark McDonnell, two formerMultnomah County prosecutorswith tough-on-crimereputations,say they decided after the 2012election that marijuana legaliza-tionwas coming toOregon.

That’s the year whenWashing-tonandColoradobecamethefirststates to legalize marijuana andwhen an underfunded andmuchmore wide-open legalization ini-tiative in Oregon failed by lessthan 7 percentage points.

“It’s going to happen,” saidFrink,who retired last year as thecounty’s chief deputy district at-torney. “This is just apolitical factin Oregon, even if some peopledon’t want to admit it.”

As a result, Frink and McDon-nell, who headed the district at-torney’s drugunit before retiring,on Tuesday announced that theywanted legislators to refer amari-juana legalizationmeasure tovot-ers in November.

In doing so, the two formerprosecutors broke with the Or-egon District Attorneys Associa-tion, the Oregon State Sheriff’sAssociation and the chiefs of

Unlikelypair backmarijuanameasure

By Betsy [email protected] now make up one-

fourth of Oregon’s first-grade en-rollment, a record-high share, thestate reported Tuesday.

The proportion of Oregon stu-dents who are Latino has slowlyincreased over the past severalyears,while the share of studentswho are white non-Hispanic hasdeclined, theOregonDepartmentof Education said.

Over the past four years, La-tino enrollment in Oregon pub-lic schools has grown by 15,000students, to 125,000, while whiteenrollmenthasdroppedbynearly16,000, to 364,000.

Latinosmakeupalargerpropor-tionofOregon’syoungeststudentsthan its high school population,which is 20 percent Latino.

The state now has eight ma-jority-Latino school districts,including Woodburn and Milton-Freewater.

Forest Grove, with 5,900 stu-dents, is the most heavily La-tino district in the Portland area.

One-fourthof Oregon1st-gradersare Latino


INDEX

RainHigh: 50 Low: 44Complete weather on

A10

MORE NEWS AT MOBILE.OREGONLIVE.COM

Business........C1Class. Index.. D7Comics ......... L6Croswrd NYT D9Editorial........B4Foodday/Liv ..L1

Health............ F1Metro.............B1Movies.......... L4Obituaries .... B3Sports ...........D1Television ..... L5

ShirleyTempleBlackdiesThe child starwhomade ’em smileduring Depression,dies at 85 | A4



Oregon’s first-gradersStudents in the class of 2025

44,700 students

1.5% Native AmericanSource: Oregon Department of Education

2% AfricanAmerican

4% Asian

62% White 24% Latino

6%Multiracial


In Metro• Bills dealing with problemgambling bills pass House | B1• Developments on Native Americanmascots and blind hunting | B6

Follow our coverage of theOregon Legislature session

at OregonLive.com/politics

Please see POT, Page A9

Please see LATINOS, Page A9

Please see HEALTH, Page A8

UpdateWhat: CoverOregon’s websitecould be up andsort of running byweek’s end.

Who: Limited toinsurance agentsand others whoassist clients.

What’s next:The state isn’teven guessingwhen the publiccan use the site,but it shouldhelp peoplestill needingsubsidies in theindividual marketget signed upfaster through anagent or certifiedapplicationassisters.


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Obituaries .... B3Prep Friday.... F1Sports ...........D1

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By Betsy [email protected] — This sleepy former

mill town, surrounded by miles ofverdant forest, is trying to throwoffatraditionthatmaystemfromitsdeeplogging roots: It is a community thatdoesn’t put a whole lot of stock insending its children to school.

At Vernonia Elementary last year,40 percent of first-graders werechronically absent, missing an aver-age of more than a month of schoolapiece.

Among highschool juniorsandseniors, skip-ping school wasepidemic. Sev-enty-twopercentwereabsentmorethan10percentofthetime,andhalfof those missedthe equivalent offivetonineweeksof classes.

A c r o s s a l lgrades, fullyone-third of Vernoniastudents werewhat the stateterms “chroni-cally absent”because theymissed 10 per-cent or more ofthe school year.

Surprisingly,however, evenschool officialswho kept the re-cordsandwalkedthe halls at the city’s sparkling new$40 million school building had noidea attendance was off-the-chartsbad.

Inacombinedelementary,middleand high school with 540 students

Empty desks | A culture of not caring

In Vernonia, absences soaras families shrug off school

Source: Analysis by The Oregonian of 2012-13 attendance data from OregonDepartment of Education

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th Avg.

40%

14% 16% 17% 16%21% 20%

32%40%40%

66%

77%

33%

Grade

Percentage of students in each grade who missed 10 pecentor more of the 2012-13 school year.


Vernonia absences

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicSunday: Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at risk offailure.Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents back foryears.Today: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Saturday:Middle and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.Sunday: Vigilanceat ClackamasHigh School helpskeep kids in class.


• A searchabledatabase with absenteestatistics on every publicschool in Oregon

• Interactive maps whereyou can zoom in to findstatistics by school and area.

• An interactive chart thatshows the relationshipbetween absenteeism andeconomic status

• Photo galleries and online-only stories

• Videos on absenteeism’sdisastrous effect oneducation, on Vernoniaand its struggle with highabsenteeism, and onClackamas High School andits successful approach toenforcing attendance

• An invitation to shareyour experiences withabsenteeism, whetheras a parent, educator orcommunity member


Justin Ward, who grew up in Vernonia and returned to teach there, is frustrated when families in his hometown don’tput a high priority on children attending school.

SouthHillsboro:1,063 acres

South CooperMountain:543 acres

Roy RogersWest: 49 acres

North Hillsboro:330 acres

Source: Metro

Growth plan

North Hillsboro:

Industrial Residential

Urban growthboundary

Wilsonville

MULT. CO.

CLACK. CO.

WASH.CO.


0 4

MILES

A plan developing in the Legislaturewould bring four areas inside the urbangrowth boundary.

26

217

205

5

5

By Ted [email protected] report released last week sug-

gests that public power customersin the Northwest could end up onthe losing end of a speculative andpolitically motivated deal to sub-sidize an outdated and financiallytroubled nuclear fuel processingplant in Paducah, Ky.

Thereport,authoredbyPortland-based energy consultant RobertMcCullough, describes a complextransaction in which the opera-tor of the Northwest’s sole nuclearplant, Energy Northwest, bought$687 million worth of nuclear fuelcomponents, most of which it willnever need.

The plan is to sell most of thatstockpile to the Tennessee Val-ley Authority in a series of trans-actions that begin in 2015 and rununtil 2022. Itwilluse the rest to fuelits ownplant, theColumbiaGener-ating StationnearRichland,Wash.,until 2028.

It’s a convoluted deal, and itsvalue depends on the economicbeholder.

McCullough insists this isnodealat all for customers of the Bonnev-illePowerAdministration,whobuythe plant’s output and financiallybackstopped the fuel purchase. Hesays itdidn’t comethroughthenor-mal channels, it doesn’t fit Energy

BPA purchase of nuclearfuel is called a bumdeal

By Christian [email protected] — Oregon lawmakers are

working on legislation dubbed the“land-usegrandbargain” thatwoulduntie a political knot in WashingtonCounty and set the course for thePortland area’s growth for the next50 years.

In 2010, the Metro regional gov-ernmentadoptedacontroversial sys-tem designating thousands of acresas urban or rural reserves, keepingsome parcels as farmland or natureand opening others to future devel-opment.

That set off afirestorm,miring the

plan in legal disputes and halting aneffort to open 2,000 acres in Wash-ington County to development. Andwith the system incapacitated, themetro area’s growth has essentiallystalled.

Untangling the controversy couldbe one of the biggest achievementsof the Legislature’s 35-day session.

“This compromise protects someof the most important farmland inWashingtonCountyandallowssomeneeded development where there isconsensus that it makes sense,” saidRep. Ben Unger, D-Hillsboro. “If youcan get that done, it’s a good deal.”

Legislators step ontoMetro’s land-use turf

By Harry [email protected]

bills to live or die at the OregonLegislature.Anybill thatdidn’tgeta committee vote by the end ofthe day is considered kaput — al-thoughthedeadhavebeenknownto rise again at the Capitol.

Herearesomehighlightsofbillsthat didn’t make it, ones that didand ones that hover somewherein between.

Bills that raise or spendmoney,suchas theproposed$200millionin bonds for OregonHealth & Sci-ence University, aren’t subject tothe deadline.

Dead

E-cigarette regulation: Effortsto restrict sales tominors andbanso-called “vaping” in some pub-lic places has been pushed to the2015 session.

Licenseplateprivacy:Abill thatwouldhave required lawenforce-mentagenciestopurgelicensesur-veillance data died in committee.

Liquor sales: A bill that wouldhave allowed grocery stores tostock booze was amended to re-quireataskforcetostudytheissue.

Clean fuels: A bill that wouldhaverepealedthesunsetclauseona low-carbon fuel standard didn’teven get a hearing. Instead, Gov.JohnKitzhaberusedhis executiveauthoritytoadvancetheprogram.

Statebills hitlive-or-die cutoff

Go to oregonlive.com/politics to:

• Join our live chat today at noon;bring any question to our team ofpolitics reporters covering stategovernment• Read more Oregon Legislaturenews Please see ABSENT, Page A9

Please see NUCLEAR, Page A9

Please see BILLS, Page A8

Please see GROWTH, Page A8

3568626V

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By Betsy [email protected] January, Principal Shelley Mitchell realized

thatBanks JuniorHighhadabigproblem:Aviruswassweeping through her small-town school, infectingwave afterwave of students.

As the illness peaked, 30 percent of students wereabsentonasingleday.Mitchell tookextrememeasuresto protect her students and their learning.

She hired an anti-germ team from facility-manage-ment giant Sodexo, which twice sent cleaners over-night to wipe down every desk, doorknob and flatsurface.

Itwasahugerelief,Mitchell recalls,whennormalcyreturned to the school,which serves remote flanks ofruralWashingtonCountyaswell as the townofBanks.

What Mitchell didn’t notice, however, was a moresignificant problem: From September to June, one-fourth of her school’s eighth-graders missed nearly amonth of school apiece. That was enough to jeopar-dize their ability to learnmath and their likelihood ofgraduating fromhigh school.

Chronicabsenteeism,definedbythestateasmissingat least10percentof theschoolyear,canbedevastatingto a student’s success and canundermine the successof an entire school. But it can go unnoticed, as it didin Banks, because studentswhomiss only twodays amonth end up exceeding that 10 percent.

Theproblemisubiquitous inOregonmiddleschools:rich and poor, urban and rural, large and small. Ex-cluding magnet schools, Oregon has 225 schools that

Empty desks | Diplomas in jeopardy

How to ride herd onmiddle school truants


Alice Ott Middle School counselors Steve Benner (left) and Alicia Wendler assist Principal James Johnston during a call to the parents of a student who hasmissed 11 days of the school year. Johnston informed the parents of the consequences of their child’s absences, including a possible court-ordered fine.

Banks Alice Ott Statewide chronicSchool Junior High Middle School absenteeism rates

Enrollment: 190 About 720

Districtwide poverty rate: 11% 35%

School free/reduced lunch rate: 29% 71%

Chronic absenteeism rates:Grade 6: n/a 12% 15%

Grade 7: 20% 17% 18%

Grade 8: 24% 18% 20%

Low-income students: 35% 16% 22%DAN AGUAYO/THE OREGONIAN

A tale of two schools

0 5

MILES

Portland

ForestGrove

Vancouver

Hillsboro

Beaverton

CLARKMULTNOMAH

Banks Junior High

Alice OttMiddle School

26

8

217

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5

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:• A searchable

database with absenteestatistics on every publicschool in Oregon• Interactive maps whereyou can zoom in to findstatistics by school and area

• Photo galleries andonline-only stories• An invitation to shareyour experiences withabsenteeism, whetheras a parent, educator orcommunity member

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicSunday:Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at riskof failure.Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents back foryears.Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.Today: Middleand high schoolabsences putdiplomas injeopardy.Sunday:Vigilance atClackamas HighSchool helpskeep kids in class.

By Rob HotakainenMcClatchy News ServiceWASHINGTON — Marking an-

other milestone for the legalmarijuana industry, theObama ad-ministration on Friday said it hasadvised U.S. attorneys in stateswhere the sale ofmarijuana is legalnot to prosecute banks that allowpot stores toopenaccounts andac-cept credit card payments.

The policy will apply to Wash-ington and Colorado, where vot-ers legalized the recreational useof marijuana in 2012, and to the 20states and the District of Columbiathat allowmarijuana to be sold formedical reasons. Current federallawprohibits banks fromacceptingmoney linked to marijuana trans-actions because thedrug is bannedunder the federal Controlled Sub-stances Act.

Themovewashailedasastepfor-

ward by proponents of marijuanasales, but banking organizationswarned that accepting the depos-its was still illegal and said it wasunlikely to widely change banks’business practices.

“Legitimate marijuana busi-nesses will no longer be forced tooperate as cash-only businesses, acircumstancewhichhasmadethemhighly vulnerable to robbery andothercriminalactivities,”saidDem-ocratic Rep. Denny Heck of Wash-ington, who had lobbied hard forchange in federalpractices afterhisstate legalized the recreational useofmarijuana. Sales are expected tobegin there this spring; they beganin Colorado Jan. 1.

FrankKeating,chiefexecutiveof-ficerof theAmericanBankersAsso-ciation, was more cautious on thelikely effect of the policy change.

Feds shift policy onbanks and pot funds

By Harry [email protected] – It was called by one Or-

egon lawmaker “the mother of allasks.”

And perhaps it is, at least for thisshort legislative session. OregonHealth & Science University pleadedits case Friday for the state to au-thorize $200million in state-backedbonds to construct a new center tofight cancer.

“This is an opportunity … to be-comethepremiercancer research in-stitution in the country,” said BrianDruker, OHSU’s most famous re-searcher and developer of the anti-cancer drug Gleevec.

Druker spoke to the Legislature’sCapital Construction Subcommit-tee, one of the most influential pan-els inSalem.Members includeHouseSpeaker TinaKotek, D-Portland, andSenate President Peter Courtney, D-

Salem.OHSU sees the bonding as a cru-

cial jump-start tomeetinga$1billionfundraising effort spurred by Nikefounder Phil Knight. Knight and hiswife,Penny,haveoffereda$500mil-lion donation to OHSU for cancer re-search if the university canmatch it.

Thestate’smoneywouldnotgoto-wardthematch. Insteaditwouldhelpbuild 1million square feet of new re-searchandclinical trial space inPort-land’s SouthWaterfront area.

Lawmakers took no action on therequestFriday.Thesizeof therequestleft some skeptical.

“Two hundred million is a lot ofmoney,” said Sen. Fred Girod, R-Stayton, who came up with the

OHSUhits up the statewith $200million ‘ask’

InsideView whichhigh schoolsand middleschools have thebest and worstattendancein Oregon | A6 SeeAbsent,A6

More coverage of the Oregonlegislative session on A10, B8

and oregonlive.com/politics.

SeeOHSU,A6SeeMarijuana,A6

Lake Oswego’s biotechfirm publishes a letterto investors regardingmarketing, stock sell-offBy Nick [email protected]

sawitsstockpricemorethantriplesince July has watched it plum-met in recent days after companyinsiders— includingdirectorsandofficers—mademillionsbysellinghundreds of thousands of shares.

The stock drop appears fueled,inpart,byanonlinereporter’sdis-closure of the stock sell-off and amarketing campaign funded byGalenaBiopharma.Thecampaigntowooinvestorsmayhavecrosseda line by not revealing who paidfor it, some observers say.

OnFriday,Galenapublishedanopen letter to investors respond-ing to the criticism.

Media attention “is having animpact on investor confidence,”wrote Galena President and CEOMark Ahn. “Let success or failurebe dictated by facts and data, notthe questionable logic of a head-line-seeking reporter.”

Ahnsaid thesell-offby insidersdoesn’t reflecta lossofconfidencein the company by its directors.Rather, they legally could not sellstock for anine-monthperiodbe-cause Galena had been engagedinbuying anotherfirm,Mill Phar-maceutical.

“There are narrow windowswhen executives and officers cansell,”Ahnsaid,addingthathissaleof $2.8 million worth of sharesconsisted of less than 20 percentof his holdings.

Considering the firm has pro-moted a potential breast cancervaccine, the riseandfallofGalenastockhaspotential significanceforthe roughly 200,000 women di-agnosed with breast cancer eachyear. It also serves as a reminderfor investors seeking stockadviceon the Internet: What you readmay not bewhat it seems.

It also shows the tenuous exis-tenceofabiotechfirmthat largelybuilt its profile on an unprovenproduct, the potential vaccinecalledE75 and since trademarkedas Neuvax. Already, a New Yorklaw firm has announced it is in-vestigatingapotentialclass-actionlawsuitagainstGalenaonbehalfofshareholdersandnotedthat insid-ers sold nearly $10 million worthof stock in the last twomonths.

The company’s precipitous fallfromahigh of $7.77 per share onemonth ago to $3.72 Friday on theNasdaq exchange appears fueledin part by an article on TheStreet.com that disclosed a Galena-funded Web-based promotional

GalenaBiopharmadefendsits actions

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By Betsy [email protected] Byzewski, dean of students at Clackamas High

School, gets straight to the point with Jonathan, a juniorat the big suburban school:

“Youhave42missedclassperiods. Ineedtoknowwhatis going on.”

Theteen,whoenrolledatClackamasHigha fewweeksinto theschoolyear,didnotsee thiscoming.Heroutinelyskipped class at his previous school, and no one calledhimon it like this.

He verbally dodges and weaves, claiming the recordsarewrong, that he’s been in class, that therewas a familyemergency, that he’s thinking of trying for a GED.

Byzewski, however, has donehis homework andbuysnone of it. He offers help but says firmly: “While you arehere at ClackamasHigh, youwill go to class.”

And like that, the dark-haired junior finds himself ona path familiar to many Clackamas students, one withfirm guardrails on each side. School officials will makeit impossible to go unnoticed and as difficult as possibleto skip class.

There’sa reasonClackamasHighSchoolhas the fourth-lowest chronic absenteeism rate among Oregon’s 100largest high schools anda top-10 graduation rate for low-income students.

Byzewskiandotheradultshaveformedawebdesignedtocatcheverystudentwhomisses 16classes, theequiva-lentof fourdaysofschool.Theycheckonred-flaggedstu-dents every day, telling themhowmuch they care abouttheir success.

They hand out candy and high-fives to students whoshow.But studentswhokeep skippingmayfindaparent

Empty desks | Steps to success

Clackamas High Schoolcracks the attendance code


Clackamas High junior Paxton Donato has made a habit of showing up forevery class every day, and his grades are now strong. Clackamas has one ofthe lowest absentee rates of any large or medium-size Oregon high school.


Heather Dabud, a Clackamas High junior, is back on track to graduate on time with her class. When she got mired in a pattern of skipping classes and failingthem, the school responded with relentless prodding to do better.

Go to oregonlive.com/education to find:• A searchable database with

absentee statistics on every publicschool in Oregon

• Interactive maps where you canzoom in to find statistics by schooland area

• An interactive chart that shows therelationship between absenteeismand economic status

• Videos on absenteeism’s disastrouseffect on education and on ClackamasHigh School and its successfulapproach to enforcing attendance

• Photo galleries and online-only stories

• An invitation to share yourexperiences with absenteeism,whether as a parent, educator orcommunity member

Oregon’sabsenteeismepidemicLast Sunday:Rampantabsenteeism putsthousands ofstudents at riskof failure.

Wednesday:Missing too muchfirst grade setsstudents back foryears.

Friday: Despitea sparkling newschool, Vernoniastudents skip atsky-high rates.

Saturday:Middle and highschool absencesput diplomas injeopardy.

Today: Vigilanceat ClackamasHigh Schoolhelps keep kids inclass.

Idaho workers come toOregon for higher pay, in asnapshot of what a federalchange couldmeanBy Kirk JohnsonNew York Times News ServiceONTARIO — Carly Lynch

dreams of a life one day on theprofessional rodeo circuit, but fornowshecommutes20miles fromIdaho to this small city in east-ern Oregon to work as a waitress.Thereare restaurant jobscloser tohome, but she’s willing to drivethe extra miles for a simple rea-son: Oregon’s minimum wage is$1.85higherperhourthanIdaho’s.

“It’s abigdifference inpay,” saidLynch,20,whomovedlastsummerfromherparents’homeinBoise,30miles farther east, tomake herOr-egon commute more bearable. “Icanactuallyputsomeinthebank.”

In the nation’s debate over theminimumwage, which PresidentBarack Obama has proposed in-creasing at the federal level to$10.10 from $7.25, this borderlandofonionfarmsandstripmallspro-videsatesttubeofsortsforobserv-inghowtheminimumwageworksindaily life,andhowdifferencesinthe ratecanaffecta local economyin sometimesunexpectedways.

Lynch is one of the many min-imum-wage migrants who travelfrom homes in Idaho, where therate is $7.25, to work in Oregon,where it is the second highest inthe country at $9.10. Similar mi-grationsunfoldeveryday inotherparts of Idaho: at the border withWashington, which has the high-eststateminimum,$9.32,andintoNevada,where theminimumratetops out at $8.25.

Their experiences underscorewhatmany proponents of raisingthe wage assert: that even seem-ingly small increases in pay cangalvanize people’s lives, allowingworkers to quit second jobs, buycars or take vacations.

Minimumwage canbe a boonat state line

SeeAbsent,A15

HowdoPortland’sclass sizes stackup?Teachers’ workloads andclass sizes are a hugesticking point in contractnegotiations betweenPortland Public Schoolsand the union, but they’reactually smaller than inalmost every othermetro-area district |Metro, B1

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Complete weather on B8

SUNDAYA&E A ballerina’s farewell E1

Sponsored by

NEW14 “Excellence in Landscaping”Display Gardens in a new up-frontlocation. Step into springtime themoment you enter!“A Taste Of Home” EntertainmentAreawith live cooking shows,Northwest authors’ showcaseand bookshop.

PLUSHome & Garden Expo Hundreds of displaysoffering the best products, services andprofessionals at their best prices.Annual Plant Sale and Orchid Show Shop yourfavorite local nurseries for show-only savings.Artisan GalleryWatch talented local artistsworking their craft on site for yourentertainment and purchase.

Remodel, landscape, renovate or update: Your best local resource since 1948.

FREE PARKING after 4PM Thursday & Friday

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on admission with this couponSAVE $2*Feb. 20- 23

at the

STARTS THURSDAY!

Official Show ofthe Home BuildersAssociation

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byjeff mapes sundaya&e oregonlive.com/ empty desks...

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