Military-style charter school moving to Goshen

SPRINGFIELD ? Goshen School, closed last year by a district facing severe financial constraints, will open to students again next fall.

The Springfield School Board voted this week to accept the Willamette Leadership Academy as a district charter school, citing its 10-year history, sound finances and success with educating otherwise struggling students.

The middle and high school academy is located southeast of Veneta and is under contract with the Fern Ridge School District. It serves almost 180 students.

Oregon?s charter school laws require such schools to affiliate with sponsoring districts, which receive a small percentage of state school funding for overseeing some aspects of charter school operations.

The Springfield board, which had earlier this year denied a charter school request from parents dismayed by the closure of Mohawk Valley Elementary School, was more enthusiastic about the long-established academy, which has a track record of educating students who are struggling in more traditional school settings.

The school?s financial house was also in order, with cash assets of $390,000, according to a Springfield review of the academy?s books.

Willamette uses a military model in educating its students, who wear uniforms, do military formation drills and who have a teacher and an aide in the classroom whose job is to maintain order.

During public hearings earlier this year, the Springfield board heard from several academy students who described in glowing terms how the more disciplined atmosphere at the school helped them build their self-esteem as well as their grade point averages.

The academy is housed in a former elementary school that it has outgrown, academy board Chairwoman Sandra Blain said. Moving to Goshen will allow the school to accept more students. It has a waiting list of 114, she said.

Going to Goshen will let the academy add 74 students and increase its employee count to about 36, from 30, Blain said.

The move will also allow the charter school to expand hands-on learning opportunities such as construction, small-engine repair and early childhood development classes. Goshen?s proximity to Lane Community College will make it easier for some students also to take LCC courses, she said.

The new location makes the school more accessible to its students living in Cottage Grove and Creswell, Blain said.

The school is in Goshen, at the community?s Interstate 5 interchange.

Almost 60 academy students live in Springfield.

In coming weeks, the academy and the district will hammer out the details of the new charter contract, which will then go to the state Department of Education for approval.

Blain said the academy has 180 days left in its charter contract with the Fern Ridge district, which will require the academy to pay rent on the building the school occupies.

No date has been set for moving to Goshen, she said.

Neither the district nor the academy would go into detail about their financial arrangements, which have yet to be hammered out, but at Thursday?s board meeting Springfield?s director of secondary instruction, Matt Coleman, noted that the academy may be in a position to buy the building.

At that same meeting, the Springfield board declared the Goshen School surplus property to be sold. It also named a real estate agent to do the deal.

The board hired Cushman & Wakefield of Oregon. Cushman & Wakefield is a global real estate firm with offices in Portland. Board members said the firm was chosen for its expertise in public buildings.

The county has pegged the property?s market value at $3 million.

The Goshen School, constructed in 1949, sits on an 8.32-acre site on B Street in Goshen. In 2003, fire destroyed the school gym and cafeteria, but they have since been rebuilt and are in beautiful condition, Blain said.

?The school is in quite good shape,? she said.

Among the first things the academy plans to do is reach out to people living in the Goshen area to introduce people to the school, Blain said.

The students have a record of volunteerism, from offering color guards at events to cleanup work after windstorms and floods, Blain said.

?We want to make ourselves acquainted and let people know we do community service,? she said.

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