Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Sweet Home Charter School is looking to its sister school in Lebanon, Sand Ridge Charter School, for ways to bring up test scores.
The Charter School contract requires a plan to address the areas where the school did not meet or exceed state test results at a comparison school, District 55 Supt. Larry Horton said. Hawthorne is the comparison school. Sweet Home Charter School did not do as well as Hawthorne in three of four areas tested.
Charter School Principal Scott Richards appeared before the District 55 School Board Monday night to deliver a plan to address those areas.
“We’re trying to achieve what Sand Ridge does,” Richards said. He said he relies on that school for ideas to help him and his teachers.
According to assessment testing data on the Oregon Department of Education Web site, Sand Ridge exceeded Hawthorne overall in reading and math while lagging slightly behind in writing, while Sweet Home Charter School was behind in all three of these areas.
To that end, Sweet Home Charter School will begin using “personalized education plans” with its students, Richards said. Using the plan, Charter School staff will try to find ways for students to improve personally.
The Charter School’s “Core Knowledge Curriculum” does not align completely with state curriculum, Richards said. The school has identified those areas and made adjustments where necessary.
Certain concepts in “Saxon Math” are introduced too late in the school year to be implemented in the state test, he said. Those concepts have been identified and will now be introduced earlier.
The state gives students three opportunities to meet the testing benchmarks, Richards said. The school will make sure in the future that each student is given all three of those opportunities, and the administrator will use those opportunities to identify areas of instruction that may be lacking.
The state also allows students access to certain resources during testing, he said. Students will be aware of those resources and how to use them.
Many students came to the Charter School struggling in reading and writing, he said. The school is placing emphasis on those elements across all subject matters to improve confidence and ability levels in its students.
Individualized education plans will be used for students who are on plans of assistance with the district or the state, he said. While some students may not qualify for an IEP, the school recognizes the benefit from the one-on-one aspects of IEP programs.
That’s where the personalized education plan will come in for students who struggle in one or more subjects, he said. If a student is struggling in one subject, reading for example, but enjoys another subject, like math, the school will try to create math projects for the student and slip in some reading.
The school communicates with parents every week, Richards said, and parents will be kept up to date on personalized plans as well each week.
Present at the meeting were board members Ken Roberts, Chanz Keeney, Jeff Lynn, Diane Gerson, Mike Reynolds, Leena Neuschwander, David VanDerlip, John Fassler and Jason Redick.
In other business, the board:
– Directed staff to move forward with the Husky Field bleacher project. Horton asked the board to reconsider its direction last month to return to the board with bids on the project and follow district policy on purchases of $75,000 or less.
Keeney and VanDerlip voted no on the request. Keeney wanted more information and long-term planning. VanDerlip was interested in the costs of using wood instead of concrete for the construction of a new landing.
– Agreed to sign a contract with the Sweet Home Economic Development Group detailing the agreement for removal of the high school tennis courts and the subsequent grant arrangement, which could provide up to $75,000 in SHEDG funds to the district to be used for any purpose.
The agreement corrected a misunderstanding with the board that suggested that the district could use budget dollars to match the grant. The contract stipulates that no taxpayer funds or money from the state school funds could be used for the match.