School board cuts reconfiguration option

Published 5:00 pm Monday, March 10, 2014

NORTH BEND — One grade reconfiguration option is off the table.

North Bend school board members voted unanimously to remove Option B from reconfiguration discussions at their meeting Monday night.

Option B would have made Hillcrest and North Bay into K-5 schools, grades 6-8 would have stayed at the middle school and Lighthouse School would have stayed in the North Bay building.

Now, three options remain:

The board will make its decision at a work session 5:30 p.m. Monday in the middle school’s cafeteria.

Board member Alane Jennings echoed Lighthouse families’ concerns that moving the school is risky.

“They might think, gosh, it would be much more convenient to have their kids in town, but there are lots of questions about the middle school and K-8 coexisting under the same roof,” she said. “And there’s a considerable cost for Lighthouse to make that move to the middle school. There are a lot of questions in their minds about who would shoulder that cost.”

The Lighthouse school board will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday to discuss reconfiguration’s effects on the charter school.

Option A would give the district “a veritable middle school,” said board member Deb Reid, which could help those students academically where in the past they’ve lagged.

It’s also the only option that aligns with curriculum, said interim superintendent Bill Yester.

Curriculum is set up as K-5 and 6-12, as are the Common Core State Standards.

The district would still see Hillcrest “bursting at the seams” in Option D, said board chair Megan Jacquot. The school currently sees around 550 students every day. The middle school would also stay full, since it would still have more than 600 students.

In Option C, Oregon Coast Technology’s sixth-grade class would get cut since the sixth grade class would be spread through three buildings.

“And whatever you would do, our music programs would probably be hurt (in Option C),” Yester said. “I don’t think I want to move a teacher through three buildings. I don’t think we would have sixth grade band anymore.”

Advanced classes would also suffer in Option C, he said. Currently, some sixth-graders are taking seventh- and eighth-grade math classes.

Jennings worried she doesn’t have all the information she needs in order to make a decision in a week.

“Based on what I know right now, I feel like I have the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “I can see this much information, but there’s all this information down here that’s going to be essential in making a good choice. One of the things I feel like I need is more contact with the DLT (district leadership team).”

Reporter Chelsea Davis can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 239, or by email at chelsea.davis@theworldlink.com. Follow her on Twitter: @ChelseaLeeDavis.