LCSD superintendent recommending end of Siletz Valley School charter and starting over with new nonprofit

By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle

Siletz Valley School will likely lose its charter agreement with Lincoln County School District on Tuesday after years of noncompliance with the contract. Although students, staff, school leadership and the community have been bracing for a closure, there is a solution to keep the school open.

Superintendent Majalise Tolan is recommending that the board terminate Siletz’ charter and lease agreements and form a new one so that the school doesn’t have to close.

Since at least 2023, Siletz Valley School has been out of compliance with its charter agreement with Lincoln County School District, according to an analysis by the Oregon School Boards Association made public Friday by the district.

Siletz Valley School needs $15 million in building repairs, has an attendance rate below 40 percent, and no approved plan for English-language learners among a litany of other issues, according to the OSBA  and LCSD reports.

Over the past several years, the school has been through a lot – tumultuous leadership, budget cuts, and board turnover. In the months leading up to Tolan’s recommendation to terminate the charter, the Siletz board and administrators tried to address areas of concern, students protested the threat of closure, and the powerful Confederated Tribe of Siletz Indians made public a strongly worded letter asking that the school remain open.

Tuesday night the Lincoln County School District board will vote whether to terminate the charter and lease agreements when it meets at 6:30 p.m. at Oceanlake Elementary in Lincoln City.

There are several options available from closing the school to reopening it as a part of the district. But Tolan is recommending a different option – one that terminates the current contract and forms new agreements so that Siletz Valley School can still operate as a charter school while meeting its legal obligations with the district.

That path forward requires starting from scratch and creating a new nonprofit organization for the school.

There aren’t a lot of answers yet on what the process and requirements might be with a new charter, Tolan said in an interview with the Lincoln Chronicle on Monday, but those would be worked out in the coming weeks if the board decides to follow through with her recommendation.

“(Siletz Valley School’s) model is not working so we have to end their model,” she said.

How did we get here?

The district closed the high school in Siletz in the 1980s due to budget cuts. Then in 2003, the remaining k-8 school was shuttered and reopened as a k-12 charter that same year.

In order to operate, a charter agreement was established – a legally binding contract that holds requirements the school must meet from building maintenance to discipline plans. And for the past three years, the school has not followed many of the requirements.

For the most part, processes and plans are created by the charter and it is up to school administrators and its board to follow them, rather than the district creating plans for the semi-independent charter school to follow.

In the midst of turnover in Siletz leadership, Tolan sent a letter last July outlining several areas of concern ranging from violations of state public meetings law to how the school reports its finances.

The district did not see sufficient improvements, so on Jan. 30 Tolan issued a 60-day notice with the intent to terminate the contract when the LCSD board meets Tuesday.

In addition, Siletz superintendent Lenora Hall, who was hired last September, was placed on administrative leave last month to allow the district to investigate complaints against her. Principal Debra Barnes was named the interim superintendent.

Siletz Valley students, teachers, tribal members and community members have lobbied to keep the school open and show they are working towards meeting charter requirements. Some staff and board members placed blame on the school’s administration, which has seen frequent turnover and argued that concerns were not addressed because the school was unaware of ongoing issues as they continually lost leaders.

Now, the district is relying on an outside perspective – an audit from the Oregon School Boards Association to help the board make a decision Tuesday night.

What did the audit say?

The school boards association reviewed correspondence between the district and Siletz Valley School as well as planning documents, reports and data Siletz submitted to show they were working to address issues.

The audit found that the school had addressed issues around getting teacher licensing up to date and improved its financial reporting, but encouraged the district to keep track of those areas because of the history of noncompliance.

But the audit by and large found the school to be out of compliance with its charter.

“A comprehensive review of the evidence presented and the historical record since 2023 indicates a persistent pattern of noncompliance at Siletz Valley School,” the report stated. “While the school has recently submitted various documents following the Jan. 30 notice, these submissions do not appear to remediate long-standing deficiencies in critical areas.”

The school still is noncompliant in several areas, including:

• Cybersecurity;
• Facilities maintenance;
• Special education/discipline protocols;
• Services for English learners; and
• Oregon Public meetings law.

The audit also recommended that the district’s lawyer look over the specifics of some requirements. The district did and found that Siletz’s school board does not have legally compliant bylaws, that their discipline process falls below legal standards, and that the charter school has not properly corrected or documented its processes for special education students.

What are the options?

There are several options the LCSD board could take at its meeting Tuesday night.

It could vote to reopen the school as a district school, which would bring the school up to compliance with its issues. But it means Siletz staff and students would lose the freedoms of being a charter school and the district would have to take on the financial responsibilities for the building – including a whopping $15 million in estimated repairs and upgrades.

It could vote to close the school in June but that would leave 189 students to be absorbed into the district’s other schools.

It could also decide not to terminate the lease agreement and continue to give Siletz more time to work toward compliance. But the school has a history of not meeting requirements, so something has to change.

So instead, Tolan is recommending another option – reopen Siletz Valley School as a charter school with the Lincoln County School District.

The move requires the school to create a nonprofit – which the district would handle and a new charter agreement made. What those agreements, requirements and processes would be figured out in the coming weeks through meetings with attorneys, the OSBA and the Oregon Department of Education.

Certain funds would be available to the school because of their charter status to fix the building that may not be available to them as a part of the school district. The school may also be able to use the ending fund balance to make repairs.

The option requires a lot of work on the school district’s part to get things in place before the start of the 2026-27 school year in September – applying for a 180-day charter application waiver, collaborating with a committee to submit a charter proposal, planning and training for staff and getting a start on building maintenance.

But Tolan believes all the pieces can be put into place for the next school year, creating minimal upheaval for students.

“With confidence, we would be able to tell the public there you’re going to have a school next year,” Tolan said.

• Shayla Escudero covers Lincoln County government, education, Newport, housing and social services for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at [email protected]