Local students could win a cash prize for participating in an essay contest put on by the Salem-Keizer NAACP. The civil rights organization is sponsoring a Juneteenth essay contest and recently extended the deadline to June 10, according to an email. Juneteenth, celebrated June 19, celebrates the end of slavery[Read More…]
Author: Rachel Alexander
Oregon will now drop indoor mask requirement March 12
Used masks fill a garbage can at Salem Hospital on Friday, Aug. 20, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) Oregonians can drop their masks indoors starting March 12, Gov. Kate Brown said Monday morning (February 28, 2022). The announcement moves up by one week the timeline state health officials announced just days ago. [Read More…]
Oregon to lift indoor mask mandate March 19, including in schools
Used masks fill a garbage can at Salem Hospital on Friday, Aug. 20, 2021. (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter) This article was updated to reflect the lifting of the state executive branch employee vaccination mandate. Oregonians will no longer be required to wear masks indoors starting March 19, state officials announced Thursday[Read More…]
Salem-Keizer cancels classes Friday due to staffing shortage
Students at Weddle Elementary on the first day of the 2021-22 school year. (File). Oregon’s second-largest school district is canceling all classes Friday because of staffing shortages. Christy Perry, superintendent of the Salem-Keizer School District, announced the decision in a Tuesday afternoon email to district employees and families. “We have[Read More…]
UPDATED: No gun or weapons found following report of armed person at McKay High School
This story was updated at 2 p.m. with additional information from Salem police. Salem police responded to McKay High School after a report of a student with a gun on campus led the school to lockdown late Wednesday morning, but found no weapon and made no arrests. The lockdown was[Read More…]
With new ag complex, Chemeketa sets sights recruiting high school agriculture students
The new agriculture complex at Chemeketa additional classroom and lab space. Every summer, Jared Hibbard-Swanson, the farm and garden program manager at Marion-Polk Food Share, helps a few dozen middle and high schoolers farm a six-acre plot in northeast Salem. The Marion-Polk Food Share’s youth farm provides free boxes of[Read More…]
Celebrity llama Caesar stars in new children’s book about finding community
Caesar the No Drama Llama with owner, Larry McCool during the 2018 Keizer Holiday Parade. Bee Dugan had never met Marion County’s most famous llama when she began idly sketching him on a TriMet ride in 2019. Dugan, a music teacher from Portland, said she came across Caesar the No-Drama[Read More…]
Split Salem-Keizer school board commits to antiracism in 4-2 vote
A full house packed into an Oct. 12, 2021 Salem-Keizer School Board meeting as the board considered a resolution committing to equity and antiracism. (Rachel Alexander/Salem Reporter) For Christy Perry, a school board resolution committing Oregon’s second-largest school district to antiracism was a continuation of the work she’s done for[Read More…]
What an Oregon pediatric doctor wants parents to know about COVID-19 as schools reopen
Clear Lake Elementary students arrive for their first day of in-person school last March (File). There’s still much pediatricians and infectious disease experts don’t know about how the more contagious Delta variant of COVID spreads among children, Dr. Dawn Nolt said. Dr. Dawn Nolt, a professor of pediatrics and infectious[Read More…]
Gov. Brown mandates Covid vaccines for Oregon educators, health care workers
Gov. Kate Brown Oregon teachers, school employees and volunteers must get vaccinated against Covid, Gov. Kate Brown announced Thursday, saying the measure will ensure the state’s schools can remain open for in-person classes this fall. She also said the state would now require health care workers to get a Covid[Read More…]