Blue Mountain School Charter Contract Dispute

This page is meant to serve as a reference place for information for those of us trying to tell people what is really going on with Blue Mountain. But everything here is public, and there is nothing that can't be shared with anyone who is interested.

We had been asking people to contact the South Lane School Board. It is not clear if there is any point to that at this stage. The school board heard our appeal to reverse their 4-3 decision to terminate Blue Mountain's contract on August 16th 2007.

In spite of the fact that I think we made a sound case that not only had we fulfilled our contract, but even the violations they allege don't justify termination, and in spite of the fact that Blue Mountain has had a huge outpouring of community support, and in spite of the fact that the chairman of the school board made a very fair motion addressed at both reinstating our contract, and resolving the conflict between the district and Blue Mountain, the school board voted exactly as before and rejected our appeal completely.

The next step, which Blue Mountain has now pursued, is an appeal to the state board of education. We were hopeful that if any fair minded person who hasn't been involved in the school board's decision looks at the evidence, they'll see that this contract termination is unjustifiable. This turned out to be true, but has taken a tremendous length of time, with a final decision only reaching us on July 15th 2008 after putting in our appeal in August of 2007. Of course we're happy with the content of the final decision (if not with the timing) as it finds no merit in the charges made in the district's termination decision.

During the 2007-08 school year, while the contract termination was under appeal, we made a determined effort to address the issues brought up by the school district (even though they were neither contractual obligations nor did they merit termination). In other words, we treated what had been brought up in the termination letter as areas we would like to address, even though they were not part of our contractual and legal obligations. At the end of the school year we were able to show substantial progress in all these areas. Nevertheless, on July 7, 2008 the South Lane School Board refused to renew our contract. We are currently responding to their refusal, and we hope to convince them in a meeting on August 18, 2008 of the merits of continuing to support Blue Mountain School.

Blue Mountain School has been following the law, and the terms of our contract. All parties acknowledge that Blue Mountain has done great things for our students. We hope that based on this we can reach a reasonable agreement with the school district this summer. The alternative, which is renewed legal appeals, is not one that we would look forward to.

We will be opening in September 2008 regardless. We hope to be opening in a contractual relationship with the district, and in a renewed spirit of cooperation. If we are unable to reach such agreement, we will be opening under appeal (once again) to the Oregon Department of Education.

The complete story

about our original contract termination is cataloged in wearisome detail here. If you are interested, everything you need to know is in the 8-13-07 BMS Lawyer to SLSD letter, and in the three parts of the evidence notebook.

Letters about Blue Mountain Termination

From Hal Sadofsky to South Lane Board members
From Hal Sadofsky to Sentinel
From Hal Sadofsky to Register Guard
From Lesley Stine to South Lane Board members.
From Faye Byrem to South Lane School Board
From Faye Byrem (parent) to the Sentinel
From Rodney Cimburke (parent) to opponents of Blue Mountain on the South Lane School Board
From Vesta Snyder (student) to the South Lane School Board
From Hal Sadofsky to Register Guard after July 14 article.
From Steven Byrem (student) to South Lane School Board.
From Holly Compton (parent) to South Lane School Board.
From Nicole Compton (student) to South Lane School Board. This letter also appeared in the Register Guard.
This is Therese Nguyen's (parent and board member) email that she used to ask her coworkers to consider Blue Mountain's petition. I think it is a nice model.
From Megan MacCullen (parent) to South Lane Board members who voted to continue working with Blue Mountain..
From Megan MacCullen (parent) to South Lane Board members who voted to terminate Blue Mountain's contract.
From LeBrie Rich (graduate) to South Lane Board members, and newspapers. Published in Cottage Grove Sentinel.
From Tara Jones to South Lane Board members voting to terminate Blue Mountain's contract.
From Sophia Jones (student) to South Lane Board members voting to terminate Blue Mountain's contract.
From Molly Flynn (Sudbury Valley graduate, aunt of BMS student, Brown University Ph.D. student) to South Lane Board members.
From Karen Rich (former Blue Mountain parent) to South Lane Board members.
From Maya Ahara (8 year old student) to South Lane Board members. Jpeg of card Maya made to accompany letter.
From Deo Sung (6 year old student) to South Lane Board members.
From Brian Santor (parent) to South Lane Board members.
From Therese Nguyen (parent and member of Blue Mountain's board of directors) to South Lane Board members.
From Faye Byrem (parent) to the Sentinel in response to letter of July 25 in Cottage Grove Sentinel.
From Tara Jones (parent) to the Sentinel and to South Lane School Board in response to letter of July 25 in Cottage Grove Sentinel.
From Hal Sadofsky to the Sentinel in response to letter of July 25 in Cottage Grove Sentinel.
From Jasmin Carmi (former student) to newspapers and the South Lane School Board.
From Cory Kirshner-Lira (graduate) to members of the South Lane School Board voting to continue a relationship with Blue Mountain.
From Cory Kirshner-Lira (graduate) to members of the South Lane School Board voting to terminate Blue Mountain's contract.
From Tara Jones (parent) to South Lane School Board about safety.
From Kiefer Peters (student) to South Lane School board members voting to terminate Blue Mountain's contract.
From Kiefer Peters (student) to South Lane School board members voting to continue working with Blue Mountain.
From Susan Armstrong (parent) to South Lane School School Board members.
From Demian Schwarz (community member, former staff memeber) to South Lane School School Board members.
From Aimee Anderson (parent) to Joe Raade (South Lane School Board).

Information and addresses

South Lane School Board members.
The South Lane School Board is meeting on August 13, 3-7, and then September 10, at 6pm. Anyone can sign up for a three minute public comment session by arriving by the beginning of the meeting and signing up on the sheet outside the meeting room. The meetings are at the district office, 455 Adams St.
Letters to editor at Cottage Grove Sentinel: to submit a letter to the editor electronically, you have to register at their website. You can do that by clicking on the "Contact" puzzle piece on the left hand column, and then if you click on the "Letter to the editor" link you'll get instructions on how to register and log into the site.
I assume you can submit a letter to the editor by mail by sending it to Cottage Grove Sentinel, Letter to editor, PO Box 3, Cottage Grove, Oregon, 97424.
Letters to editor at Register Guard: electronically to rgletters@guardnet.com. They must be 250 words or less. By mail to Mailbag, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR, 97440-2188, or by fax to 338-2828.
Joe Hansen's email (he is the Sentinel reporter who seems to write about education stuff): joe@cgsentinel.com.
Again, it would be great for Blue Mountain to have copies. So if you are willing, email me sadofsky@gmail.com anything you send by email, and mail to the school a copy of anything you send by ordinary mail!

Petition

Parents and students have been gathering signatures in Cottage Grove on a petition to keep Blue Mountain open. If you _aren't_ in Cottage Grove, we have an electronic version of the petition you can sign if you are interested. It is an easier thing to do than writing a letter, and there is space on the petition for a brief comment.

Petition to support continued existence of Blue Mountain Charter School.

Talking points and summaries

Lesley Stine's talking points.
Laura Stine adds: "Members of the School Board and District Administration want to impose a 19th Century educational model on an innovative democratic school meeting the needs of students living in the 21st Century."
Hal Sadofsky's short fairness summary.
Quick response to the article in the Sentinel on July 12.
Hal's opinion summarizing where we are now.
Quick response to the Article in the Register-Guard, July 15, 2007

For more information, feel free to contact me by email (sadofsky@gmail.com) or by phone.

In the media

Local TV news (KVAL) July 16, 2007.
Register Guard (Eugene's local paper) article from July 14, 2007.
Cottage Grove Sentinel article from July 11, 2007
Register Guard article from August 9, 2007.
Statesman Journal (Salem, OR) article from August 11, 2007
Opinion piece by Karen Dickson in the Register Guard
Register Guard August 17, 2007
Register Guard July 3, 2008
Register Guard July 8, 2008
Register Guard July 16, 2008

Press Releases/Information sheets

Proposed Final Order

The hearing officer's Proposed Final Order
Blue Mountain's Exception Brief
The second (April 30, 2008) Proposed Final Order. This has essentially the same findings of fact as the first one, but the first Proposed Final Order found that Blue Mountain had not substantially violated its contract, and yet upheld the termination in spite of that! This Proposed Final Order reverses the termination.