News and Culture

Education Showdown: Online Charter School and State Ed Department Will Square Off

5:38 PM February 16th, 2009 by Nigel Jaquiss
Education / Legislature / News |  Email This Post |

A long-running battle between advocates for an online charter school and the Oregon Department of Education headed by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo (above)  has flared up again.

A group of Republican lawmakers released a letter (PDF) today calling on the state Education Department to grant Scio-based Oregon Connections Academy, which serves 2,600 students, a waiver from a law that charter advocates say unfairly penalizes Connections for attracting students from outside the Scio district.

The State Board of Education will consider the waiver request on Thursday, February 19 at 1 pm on the 2nd floor of the Public Services Building, 255 Capitol Street NE, in Salem.

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Tags: Oregon Connections Academy

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Education, Legislature, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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6 Responses to “Education Showdown: Online Charter School and State Ed Department Will Square Off”

1. Mother of 4 says:

   February 16, 2009 at 7:37 pm

   I am a mother of 2 children whom attend ORCA. This is our first year with ORCA. My oldest is in 4th grade and has been in the traditional public school since K. At the beggining of the school year he was unable to read and was at a first grade reading level. Beacause of this we choose to make the switch to ORCA hoping that the one on one attention and flexibility would help improve his reading, to date he is now at a second grade reading level and can read books, something he could never do before. My other school aged child is in K and is so advanced that a regular school would not have been a good fit for him. He is a fast learner and gets easily bored. With ORCA he has completed teh K curriculum and is working on first grade now.
   None of my childrens accomplishments would have been possible in a brick and morter school. I pray the board approves the waiver so that my children and others can continue to thrive in their education where as regular public school has failed our children.

   Reply
2. Elaine B says:

   February 16, 2009 at 11:47 pm

   I am the single mother of a 10th grader who, in the last year, has gone from a D average to having 2 A+, a B and 2 Cs. In 8th grade, He was in a public school that was so disinterested in helping him suceed, that they actually drove him to become suicidal. He was so frustrated by teachers who wanted him to "just do his work", but who wouldn’t take any time to give the extra instruction needed by him to complete it. Instead of helping, they pushed him into "special ed" class, where he was grouped with mentally and developementally challenged kids. The special ed teacher didn’t let one day go by without telling the kids he was supposed to be helping, that he hated his job and wanted to teach science, not spec.ed. So my son grew more and more frustrated and angry at the whole system, so that by the end of the year, he was telling me and school counselors that he wanted to die, that he HATED school, and wouldn’t even discuss going the next year. Since we started with ORCA, his whole attitude has changed. He slowly returned to his old self, now looks forward to school every day and is planning on going to college (something he would shout NO WAY about before ORCA. Please don’t make him go through that all over again. Our children deserve much better than the public schools can offer. You will definately have an increase in the dropout rate, starting with mine, if you take away this wonderful program.

   Reply
3. Emily J. says:

   February 17, 2009 at 8:52 am

   What is going on? Why would the people who are in charge of our state department of education trying to shut down a big school like this? This doesns’t make sense. What does Susan Castillo say? Have they answered any questions or explained their behavior?

   It is a sad day indeed when the people supposedly in charge of making our schools successful try to shut down successful schools just to cater to special interest groups like teachers unions.

   Reply
4. Flakjacket says:

   February 17, 2009 at 3:27 pm

   In light of entire school districts contemplating reducing the school year by FOUR WEEKS it is almost criminal to remove education alternatives from our families. For many families this is the first school that has ever worked and reached their kids. Shame on Susan. She’s had a vendetta against charter schools since she ran for this office…now she’s going to push her power hungry agenda on innocent students.

   Reply
5. Proud ORCA Mom says:

   February 18, 2009 at 8:13 pm

   It will be a very sad day if the OED lives up to it’s reputation and proves once again to everyone that they, like Susan Castillo, truly don’t care about the education of our children only their own interests and bottom lines. ORCA and schools like it should be the future for education as the current system continues to be a total failure. I for one believe the person/persons that wrote the 50/50 senate bill are evil and greedy, their intent was a blatantly obvious attempt to put a stop to online learning. ORCA should be grandfathered and granted the waiver as they were formed prior to the rule. We for one will never put our daughter back in our local school district. She deserves the best education possible and that is not an option in our home town without ORCA. I for one will pray for the OED board members as they have the power to destroy this school and take with it the futures of 2600+ students and their families, let’s make sure they know that and see if they can sleep at night and then I would like to demand they look my 9-year-old in the eye and explain to them why they would take away her school.

   Reply
6. CD in Hillsboro says:

   March 11, 2009 at 6:23 pm

   It seems a right to be able to choose what public school you send your children to with-in reason. I know that you can go to public schools outside your district if the reason is sound. So…What difference does it make that children must be with-in Scio district to attend a virtual school? Hello, what does the word virtual mean? Furthermore,the district that the child lives in still retains a % of the funding ( evidently a factor for acceptance) that is allocated per school age child with-in each district. The virtual school, Oregon Connections Academy is posting very good test scores across the board, so what is the problem? I think that it’s because the majority of the money is going to a non-union school, that’s the only reason I can think that someone would vote against this program. Who’s interest is really being served here?

   Stand up parents for alternatives in education!

   Reply