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Charter School Needs State Approval to Relocate Outside District

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 April 2006, 18:00 CDT

By Maya Blackmun, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Apr. 12--Mitch Charter School of Tigard is seeking a waiver from the Oregon Board of Education so it can explore leasing space outside its sponsoring school district boundaries as the charter school searches for a permanent location.

"We just need options," said Debi Lorence, the charter school's director.

Last week, the Tigard-Tualatin School Board granted her plea and agreed to join in asking for the waiver from state law. The school operates on a contract with the Tigard-Tualatin School District that expires in 2009.

Since it opened in September 2002, the charter school has shifted locations several times as Mitch leaders have been unable to secure a permanent facility within the school district boundaries.

For the 2005-2006 school year, the school of 169 students in grades kindergarten through eight has been holding classes in a collection of portable classrooms on the edge of a parking lot next to Tigard High School.

Officials with Mitch, which stands for Multisensory Instruction Teaching Children Hands-on, continue to seek a long-term solution, Lorence said. They are looking at property off Southwest Prosperity Park Road in Clackamas County, just outside the district's southeastern boundary, and plan to present a proposal April 20 to the school board for land next to Fowler Middle School in Tigard, Lorence said.

Either option would require building a new school, and that would take years.

Lorence is asking the state education board for Mitch to be temporarily located -- for two to three years -- outside the school district's boundary so it can widen its site search to include Portland on the north, Beaverton on the west, and West Linn and Wilsonville on the south.

Mitch leaders are exploring leasing space in the Smith Elementary School in Southwest Portland that was closed last year by the Portland School District. Lorence said Mitch leaders have been told they would have to agree not to enroll any Portland schoolchildren, although state law gives families the right for their children to attend any charter school. Currently, about half of Mitch's students live in the Tigard-Tualatin School District and half come from surrounding districts.

Sarah Carlin Ames, a spokeswoman for Portland Public Schools, said the Smith school site has been toured by several groups interested in the facility as a school but no lease agreement has been signed.

Margaret Bates, an education specialist with the Oregon Department of Education who works with charter schools, said Monday that if Mitch's waiver was approved, it would be the first charter school to have a site outside its sponsoring school district.

Mark Chism, a Tigard-Tualatin School Board member, told Lorence on Thursday night that since the charter school's leaders are looking beyond the school district's boundaries, perhaps it would make sense for the state to become its sponsor.

Bates said that just two charter schools are sponsored by the state, and those were schools where school districts denied their charter requests.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

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Source: The Oregonian

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