John Notarianni's Feed

With the fall semester underway, schools across Oregon are facing a shortage of teachers. That shortage is especially severe when it comes to bilingual teachers, even as the demographics of some communities continue to change. 

A program at Western Oregon University is reaching into Oregon’s communities to train more bilingual people to become teachers and getting them into classrooms in local communities. 

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Two years ago, Oregon voters agreed to stop charging people carrying small amounts of illegal drugs with a crime. Now, that decision is a controversial talking point in the midterm elections.

As students return to class, schools everywhere are dealing with the ongoing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic: a growing achievement gap, youth mental health crises, even violence in the hallways sometimes. But many students in East Portland’s David Douglas School District  are coming back into the classroom with a little bit of additional support.

All of the district’s elementary schools have added a new assistant principal of restorative practices.

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You might not know the name Bob Stacey, but if you live in Oregon, you probably feel the impact of his work every day.

When he died this week at age 72, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumeauer said “Oregon just lost the most important person that most people have never heard of.”

He had a major impact on how dense our neighborhoods are, how we get from place to place -- and he even battled a notorious religious cult.

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 Indigenous people have traveled on trails through the woods of the northwest for millennia. Some were adopted by early fur traders, and for a time, were major paths for turn-of-the-century logging operations. But many of those early trails have been almost completely forgotten.

Oregon Field Guide Producer Ian McClusky has been working to unearth the history of one of these forgotten trails.

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There aren’t many college students who are headed back to class with an Olympic gold medal in their trophy case, but Jade Carey is not an ordinary college student.

The 22-year-old gymnast and Oregon State sophomore won gold for her floor routine at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. This summer, she added two more major accolades to her already sterling gymnastics career: last month, she won vault at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Tampa. She was also recently named the USA Gymnastics Athlete of the Year.

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The days of Astoria as a sleepy coastal hamlet are in the past. The city has seen an influx of new restaurants, businesses, and housing in recent years. The Astoria City Council is now looking to implement a new system development charge program in the city. The city would create a structure of fees that developers pay for the right to build in Astoria, which would then go into a special fund to help pay for the infrastructure improvements the growing city needs.

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Eugene recently took a big step towards becoming the first city in Oregon to require most new housing to go all-electric. It’s a bold step in the fight against climate change that’s already been adopted in cities like Seattle, San Francisco and New York.

Portland police announced this week that they have made an arrest in the high-profile 2019 murder of local anti-fascist activist Sean Kealiher. The arrest brings new light to reporting that OPB did last year in “Dying for a Fight,” a nine-part podcast investigating the unsolved killing.

We’re entering day six of a heat emergency across much of Oregon and Washington, with temperatures still hovering near or above 100 degrees. It’s uncomfortable for all of us, but for the most vulnerable people in the Pacific Northwest, it’s dangerous.