Oregon Public Broadcasting

Demand for online education is growing among Oregon’s public school students. This fall is expected to be no different.

The debate over how to manage the rising need, though, pits entrenched forces, like the teachers’ union, against rising powers, like Oregon’s virtual charter schools. Rob Manning reports.

Oregon has a handful of online charter schools already in existence, but how to govern them is still in question.

Online schools raise questions that weren’t anticipated when Oregon’s charter school law was written.

Charter school attendance was always limited by geography. But when you attend an online school, you can learn wherever you can reach the internet.

So now online schools, particularly two online schools based in North Bend and Scio, have enormous out-of-district populations.

Brenda Frank chairs the state board of education.

Brenda Frank: “Now, it’s just ‘how do we apply the rules.’ It came on very fast, and came on very surprisingly with overwhelming support. So now we’re trying to balance everything, and come to an agreement of what’s in the best interest of the student and their education.”

The state board members’ balancing act doesn’t stop with the students who want online classes. They have to consider students in traditional schools, too.

That’s because as a student leaves one district for an online charter school in another district, he or she takes about $6000 out of the district, too. 

So the question the state board asked: should there be limits on how many students can leave a district for an online program?

Thursday the board said yes.

Laurie Wimmer with the teachers’ union, Oregon Education Association, agrees with that decision.

Laurie Wimmer: “We appreciate that they are acknowledging that there is harm to the students who are in brick-and-mortar schools when the school they attend has a funding loss based on students leaving the district, or home-schoolers taking money that is meant for the home district, to another kind of entity.”

Charter school advocate, Rob Kremer, chafes when he hears teachers or board members talk about “losing” students to charter schools. He says it’s a choice – and he was disappointed at hearing the board support a cap on transfers.

Rob Kremer: “ I’m not sure it makes sense to arbitrarily limit children’s choice of a school.”

Kremer says he came away confused by some of the board’s actions. He says the board gave no reassurance to parents of kids in the state’s largest online charter school, Oregon Connections Academy.

The school, which has more than 2,000 students, continues to operate under a year-to-year rule waiver.

The state board didn’t exactly please the teachers’ union, either. The union doesn’t want charter schools involved in online education at all.

The union’s Laurie Wimmer says the board is missing the big picture. She says most students want online education and a traditional school experience – not one or the other.