Oregon House narrowly defeats online school bill

On a dramatic tie vote of 30-30, the Oregon House defeated legislation that would loosen enrollment restrictions on online virtual schools in the state.

Immediately after the vote, legislative leaders for both parties held closed-door caucuses to discuss whether the bill might be revived and how to proceed on the rest of a package of education bills.

House Bill 2301 would allow online schools to enroll as much as three percent of a school district’s population without getting permission from the state.  Currently, students need to get permission from their local school district before they can enroll in an online school.  The schools also have a cap on their total enrollment.

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Lawmakers loosen admissions for online charter schools as state’s largest such school graduates biggest class

On Saturday, Oregon Connections Academy, the state’s oldest and largest online public school, will graduate its biggest senior class yet, 150 students, up nearly 70 from the year before. It’s a distinction that won’t likely last.

A flurry of last-minute deal making in Salem this week secured the passage of a bill that loosens enrollment restrictions for online charter schools, a move that all but guarantees the academy’s gradual growth.

ORCA, as the school is called, is operated by Connections Academy, a Baltimore-based for-profit corporation that runs online schools in 21 states. The school got permission from the tiny Scio school district to launch in 2005, and in just six years it has become the state’s fourth largest school with some 2,500 students. But, like other online schools in Oregon, it has been restricted from growing.

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Wide-ranging education reform bills begin moving in Oregon Legislature

SALEM — Oregon legislators broke a session-long logjam over education policy Friday by beginning to move several bills that could eventually have a big impact on students and their schools.

The legislation includes Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposal to create a new investment board that would coordinate funding for all levels of education, from pre-K to the universities, as well as measures providing a boost for both online and bricks-and-mortar charter schools.

Kitzhaber agreed to sign all of the bills if they reach his desk, including the online and charter school bills that have drawn particularly heavy opposition from the Oregon Education Association as well as many public school officials. Several Republican legislators had worked to keep Kitzhaber’s priorities bottled up until they got action on the online and charter bills.

“I think we are close to having the most consequential legislation on education reform in Oregon history,” said Rep. Matt Wingard, R-Wilsonville. He’s also a consultant who works with an online charter school managed by one of the country’s largest for-profit education firms, and who played a lead role in pushing the online and charter school bills.

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Dispatches

Former Westbrook Superintendent Reza Namin, who resigned in March, is one of five finalists for a national superintendent-of-the-year award.

The National Association of School Superintendents announced the finalists Thursday. The other four are from Colorado, South Carolina, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

Theresa Daem, the association’s executive director, wrote in a news release that Namin’s outstanding achievements in Westbrook included the development of a strategic plan for the district, reduction in drop-out rates and the initiation of virtual high school courses.

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Bellevue-based Online High School Issues Layoff Notices

Insight Schools Inc.  has told the state it plans to close its Bellevue location and has issued layoff notices to 168 employees, the Employment Security Department said Friday on its website.

The closure of the Insight School of Washington, the state’s first online public high school, at 12011 Bel-Red Road is listed as permanent, with layoffs taking effect July 18.

The news follows a report in the Portland Business Journal reported that a similar office in Portland issued layoff notices, related to Insight parent company Kaplan’s decision to sell its online K-12 schools to K12 Inc., which also operates online public high schools in Washington.

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Legislature Considers Anti-Virtual Charter School Bill Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m., the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education will hold a public hearing for a bill that essentially would force Oregon’s virtual charter schools to close.

The bill (SB 927) closely resembles an idea that the OEA (Oregon Education Association, a union) proposed last year to the Oregon State Board of Education. The bill in its current form would:

• Force all existing virtual charter schools to close and to reopen as alternative schools, which in Oregon are generally only for at-risk students.

• Make existing districts the creators and providers of online content, managed by a consortium called the Oregon Option Consortium. Individual districts would be able to purchase courses from the consortium (which would be run by the Oregon Virtual School District).

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HHS ends contract with Hilltop High

Describing the motivation for the center, High School principal Buzz Brazeau theorized that Hilltop High struggled because the school followed a traditional classroom model with regular hours despite serving students who had trouble succeeding in traditional school. Instead of the cliche of trying to force a square peg through a round hole, the principal proposes changing the shape of the program to fit better the student.

“No matter what size the circle, when you put a square peg through a round hole, what you’re getting is 63.7 percent effective. The rest is wasted,” he said. “(We need to) make a peg of a different shape, maybe it’s a hexagon, maybe it’s an octagon. When you look at a hexagonal peg, it’s 82.7 percent effective.”

To help serve different student needs, the Innovative Learning Center would operate from 1-9 p.m. Monday-Thursday. The evening program would provide direct instruction and credit recovery options for students while the non-traditional schedule would also include time for students only working on finishing a GED, not a diploma. It would allow students identified as “safety risks” to take classes only in the last hour of the day, when other students had already left. Some students could also benefit from virtual school and home tutor options.

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Online education bill could threaten virtual charter schools

Each school district would be required to provide online learning courses to “eligible students” on the school and district level, unless it would have a negative financial impact on the district. A student could only be deemed eligible by a district appointed student advisory team.

The bill, however, passed without the changes offered Tuesday by the OEA to grandfather in existing virtual charter schools.  As it stands, it would require the closure of these schools, making them reopen as alternative schools, most often associated with educating districts’ “most at-risk” students.

Last year, the OEA proposed the State Board of Education recommend the online school consortium to the legislature. The recommendation included stripping online schools from the charter school model leaving it for “brick and mortar” schools where students attend class in person. They also asked to allow the virtual charter schools to stay open as alternative schools.

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Virtual schools are an innovation deserving our support Guest viewpoint

Oregon also offers two public charter virtual schools out of our more than 100 charter schools: ORVA, the Oregon Virtual Academy, and ORCA, the Oregon Connections Academy, are full-time online schools.

Together, they boast more than 3,000 Oregon students for 2010-11. In a statewide survey, 96 percent of these students’ parents gave grades of “A” or “B” to their public charter virtual school.

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Hillsboro School District will add education options to some schools over the next few years

Hillsboro School District is moving forward with plans to eventually offer its students six more educational options.

Hillsboro will start its own virtual learning, offering online classes for students inside and outside the district.

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