The old adage that the squeaky wheel gets the grease sppears to be coming true for Sweet Home as the Oregon Scholastic Activities Association gets ready to finalize its high school league alignments for the next five years.
As we report beginning on page 1 of today’s issue, Sweet Home High School finds itself staring at the probability that, starting next fall and for five years following, local athletes will be traveling icy highways over the mountains to Sisters and LaPine during the winters. That’s because OSAA’s Classification and Redistricting Committee has decided the Sky-Em Conference would be the best home for the Huskies.
The committee’s latest proposal is not good for several reasons. Committee members are required to weigh several criteria: safety, minimizing loss of instructional time, keeping costs as low as possible and making sure the enrollments of schools within a given league are within limits set by the OSAA.
In this case, they fall short on the first three.
This isn’t just a case of whining over inconvenience. Lots of teams in Oregon have to travel great distances to compete. Many of them travel on snow.
Sweet Home and Sisters were both members of the Capital Conference before the currently alignment took effect in the fall of 2005. The road to and from the Outlaws’ den, Highway 20, is a familiar one. But it isn’t what it was even a few years ago.
That’s because Highway 20 has been downgraded to a D maintenance level from the C level it was in 2005.
What that means is that clearing the highway after storms, rock or landslides, or avalanches has become a lower priority for the cash-strapped state. Essentially, the Oregon Department of Transportation will get to it when they can.
The main issue here is safety. The quickest and shortest route to Sisters and to LaPine from Sweet Home is Highway 20. But that road east of Sweet Home can be treacherous, at best, during the winter months. In good weather the highway already has sharp curves, steep upgrades and downgrades and spots where rock slides are a regular danger. During winter months, iffy highway maintenance and snow removal spells potential for disaster.
If buses and other vehicles loaded with students, coaches and fans from Sweet Home, Sisters or LaPine try to traverse that highway during the winter, they’re taking more of a chance now.
The alternative, of course, is that Sweet Home (and Sisters and LaPine) will have to travel Highway 22 through Stayton or Highway 126 through Marcola and Springfield to get to and from Sisters. They’ll have to travel Highway 58 to get to and from LaPine.
We’re talking three- or four-hour trips here, if the pavement is halfway clear. That is the kind of bus time that got the OSAA in hot water with Eugene schools in the last realignment go-around, who protested trips of that duration to southern Oregon schools.
So OSAA is falling short on the issues of time spent out of class and costs to the district.
But the issue Sweet Home officials are concerned about, and that we all should be, is safety.
It’s easy to sit in a comfortable conference room, look at a map, and decide that, given the numbers, desires of affected
schools, and all the other criteria, the current solution is the best for everyone.
It’s not for everyone. And if Sweet Home parents, coaches, school officials and fans question whether this proposal meets the safety requirement, now’s the time talk about it.
The committee meets Monday. If they’re wrong, this is the time to convince them of that.