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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