Blog

Today I updated the higher ed sponsorship section on the proposal page. They have to use the same evaluation criteria that the school board uses with one additional item. They can disapprove the proposal if it doesn’t align with their mission. The institutes main campus must also be located within 25 miles of the charter school. That leaves Lane Community College and the University of Oregon as options. Here are their mission statements:

• Lane Community College
  • Lane is the community’s college; we provide comprehensive, accessible, quality, learning-centered educational opportunities that promote student success.
• University of Oregon
  • http://www.uoregon.edu/our-mission

We have not chosen our mission yet, but I’m confident it will align with the mission of the UofO and Lane.

The only criteria that I think a school board will be able to debate on is “Whether the value of the public charter school is outweighed by any directly identifiable, significant and adverse impact on the quality of the public education of students residing in the school district in which the public charter school will be located”. I don’t think Lane or the UO will debate on this criteria once they see our proposal.

To get the word out about our charter school I think our first step should be to request a list of vacant and unused public buildings and portions of buildings suitable for the operation of a charter school from the following government bodies:

• City of Lowell
• Lowell School District
• Pleasant Hill School District
• City of Pleasant Hill
• U.S. Forest Service
• City of Springfield
• Springfield School District
• Lane ESD

ORS 338.045 subsection 5 states: School districts, education service districts and other public bodies, as defined in ORS 174.109, shall make available to the public lists of vacant and unused public buildings and portions of buildings that may be suitable for the operation of a public charter school. The lists shall be provided to developing or operating public charter schools within 30 days of a written request. Nothing in this subsection requires the owner of a building on the list to sell or lease the building or any portion of the building to a public charter school or a public charter school governing body.

ORS 174.109 states: As used in the statutes of this state “public body” means state government bodies, local government bodies and special government bodies.

Today I continued reviewing ORS 338 and updated the Proposal and Starting a Charter School pages. I also renamed the Our Team page to “Team/Goals” and added our goal to the page.