Phone: 503-357-3181 www.fgnewstimes.com
Books: Many purchased with memorial or PTO funds
Another disappointment But to Melinda Fischer, a Gales Creek mom and past PTO president at the former school, the administrative directive to scatter the books, announced to the school board last month, was another disappointment in a
TriMet: Customer service was lacking ■ From page 1 rider in Forest Grove. “I don’t think it was fair and I don’t think it was just,” Ackerson said, adding that he was speaking for himself and not the union. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see how she did anything wrong.” Ackerson spoke to Hendren Thursday and she is making plans to file a complaint with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries because of TriMet’s actions. Hendren’s possible dismissal was the final act in a series of rider complaints during the
“This is part of the pain of a school closing.”
past decade. Last fall, Hendren gained national attention when she ordered a Forest Grove mother with a crying baby off a bus in Hillsboro. Several passengers on that bus got off in protest of Hendren’s actions. She was suspended for 10 days after the incident, and told that any future complaints could lead to her dismissal. The latest confrontation happened late at night on June 7, when Hendren, who was driving the Line 57 bus, got in an argument with passenger Maria Ruiz of Cornelius about an expired bus fare. The argument became so heated that Ruiz’s children began to cry. The only other passenger on the bus, a Beaverton man, flagged down a passing Forest Grove patrol officer to help in the situation. An investigation into the June 7 incident found that Ruiz tried to board the bus with expired fare, and when Hendren asked her to pay, Ruiz went to the back of the bus and sat down with her children. Hendren turned in her seat and asked Ruiz to pay. Hendren and Ruiz then started arguing. Ruiz said she told Hendren she was
getting her money out to pay. Michael Canoy, the other passenger on the bus, then also started yelling at Ruiz for being disrespectful to Hendren. He called 9-1-1 at Hendren’s request, and then got off the bus to flag down a Forest Grove patrol officer. When police officer Ernesto Villaraldo got on the bus, Ruiz and her children were all distressed and crying. Hendren said she couldn’t drive the bus with crying children. Villaraldo drove the family to their Cornelius home. TriMet officials could not review a video of the June altercation, as the tape was taped over before they were made aware of the dispute. TriMet Executive Director of Operations Shelly Lomax said the incidents with Hendren do not reflect the level of customer service the agency expects from its employees. “This incident and how the operator handled the situation is not representative of the vast majority of our operators who deliver excellent customer service every day,” Lomax said.
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added, the Gales Creek PTO “worked at supplementing” the collection by holding book fairs as fundraisers. “Without the parents’ support and energy, new books would not have been purchased,” she said. Sauber pointed out that the Gales Creek inventory was “specially selected for the student demographics out here,” and that the former school’s displaced pupils don’t have easy access to the Forest Grove public library after school. “When they get off the school bus late in the afternoon, their parents aren’t going to drive the nine to 15 miles back into town to take them to the library,” she said. She believes the district has reneged on its pledge to provide the community an open-door policy at its old school. “This is just one more stab in the back for Gales Creek,” Sauber said.
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But since last fall, when nowretired human resources director Dave Willard walked a small group of citizens through the emptied building and, according to Sauber, “promised the library would be available to our kids,” district leaders have come to a different decision: the books will be taken away and used to fill in collections at other K-4 schools. Parent Corrie Bates, who along with Sauber was a regular at school board meetings during the long debate over closing Gales Creek, is disappointed over what she views as a betrayal of trust. “It was my understanding that the board [and] district made a pledge to the Gales Creek community that, despite the closure of the school, children and parents could continue to make use of the library as an intact entity,” she said. District communications director Connie Potter couched the matter differently. “It’s not a change of heart, but a re-evaluation of the needs of the district,” Connie Potter said Monday. “We allowed [residents] to use the building as much and as long as we could, but it was never meant to be a long-term thing.” The Gales Creek books will instead enhance the inventories at other schools, Potter said, adding that Forest Grove High School librarian Dee Maderos and a volunteer from Echo Shaw Elementary School’s library helped evaluate book stacks district-wide. “The books will be put to good use filling in the gaps,” noted Potter.
string of many. nated books in a box.” “We would like to keep using Kids came to the school each the books,” said Fischer, whose week to check out books from two children were the second the box by hand, something that generation in her family to at- was “very popular,” Bates noted. tend Gales Creek Elementary “There was definitely interest in before budgetary constraints set getting books.” in motion a series of financial decisions by the local school Library’s demise imminent With no strong objection from board that included dropping the 152-year-old elementary pro- the board at a June 25 meeting, when Superintendent Yvonne gram. Gales Creek’s final year serv- Curtis told the panel the books ing as the community’s smallest were due for removal, it appears the library’s demise is imminent. grade school was 2010-11. Board member Fred Marble, Last academic year, the building on Northwest Sargent Road who voted no on the district’s housed a half-dozen special edu- 2010-11 operational budget because it included cation students with plans to shut behavioral issues down Gales Creek under the banner of School, called the Gales Creek Curtis’ notice an Therapeutic Day “informational School. In an atitem.” tempt to provide a — Fred Marble , Marble said chance for former Forest Grove School there’s no quesclassmates — many Board member tion in his mind who were bused to that the books are Dilley Elementary and other grade schools after district property, and with Gales their school closed down — to Creek unlikely to re-open as an stay connected, Bates, Fischer, elementary in the foreseeable Sauber and others came up with future, he’d like to see them used elsewhere. a mid-week play night concept. “I sympathize with Joyce, but Since January, between 20 and 40 parents and children have this is part of the pain of a school gathered at the school on closing,” he noted. His colleague on the board, Wednesday evenings to let the community’s kids enjoy time to- Gales Creek resident Kate Grangether — and to borrow library dusky, put a different spin on what should happen to the books. “We were told we could check books. “I have been trying to advoout the Gales Creek books and that a computer would remain cate that the Gales Creek library on site so we could keep track of collection go to the [Forest the volumes, but that did not Grove] Community School,” happen,” said Fischer, who noted Grandusky wrote in an email the old library contained “thou- Sunday evening. The public sands of dollars worth” of books charter school, she said, has whose bookplates “state if they “room for the library and [does] were donated by a family or an not have a library at this time. “The collection could still be individual.” But Potter insists the books shared as needed throughout are district property. “The books the district with the computer in our school libraries belong to check-out system.” Still, she indicated the clean the district,” she said. Bates said that after finding sweep of the Gales Creek library the school library “in disarray” was unfortunate. With few dollars allocated by at its meeting in June, the group created its own portable lending the district in recent years to library consisting of “some do- buy library books, Grandusky
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News-Times July 18, 2012