Here is What ORCA's Board Just Published

Dear Parent, For the past several months, the virtual schooling community has been working tirelessly to defeat Senate Bill 767, which is clearly an attempt to shut down virtual schools and ORCA. The bill is sponsored by Senator DEVLIN, Representative BUCKLEY; Senators BONAMICI, DINGFELDER, Representatives DEMBROW, KAHL, WITT (at the request of Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers-Oregon, Oregon School Employees Association, and the Oregon Education Association). Unfortunately, the Senate recently passed SB767 on a 16-14 vote. Important: Legislators have repeatedly indicated that ORCA will remain open during the 2009-2010 school year. We believe that the only impact next year may be to cap our enrollment at the May 1, 2009 level of approximately 2,600 students. In this case, priority will go to currently enrolled students, siblings of students who are presently registered to return and were enrolled in the previous year at ORCA; and students from Scio, where the school is authorized. It is essential that if you are returning, you have all of your returning student tasks complete in order to preserve your place. You will receive more information about deadlines and lottery procedures before the end of June. We anticipate that due to our graduating seniors and students not returning, that there will be approximately 600 new openings for next year. Please advise anyone you have referred to ORCA to complete their enrollment process as soon as possible as a lottery is very likely based on current indications of interest for next year. As a reminder, SB767 stops all virtual charter schools that operate statewide from operating after June 30, 2010 and prevents any new ones from being approved. Its sponsors claim that they are just trying to create good virtual school rules and regulations, but already they have talked about limiting virtual schools to only grades 6 and above and they have not included any representatives in the work group they created from parents, existing virtual schools or any entity that actually has any virtual school experience! They have also created a number of onerous rules such as requiring that all school materials be provided in every single language of any student where English is a second language. There are not any traditional public schools that do this! The Oregon House of Representatives is now considering SB767. So now what? Call your State Representative today! Ask him/her to oppose SB 767 and its attempt to shut down virtual public schools! Explain that you have student(s) attending ORCA, a brief personal story about why you have chosen ORCA and then ask to keep virtual schools alive. To find your legislator, go to http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/. The ORCA Board, ORCA staff and Connections Academy are committed to ORCA. We have fought hard to this point and will not stop now. SB767 is likely to pass this session but we will then focus on the expected 2010 special legislative session next February. We will also be actively working to educate the virtual school work group on why ORCA has been so successful. Please take a look at ORCA’s recent press release to see how well ORCA is doing on the state’s standardized tests. We all must believe. If we stop believing we can do this, we seal our own fate. We must stay optimistic and continue to fight for ORCA. This is too important of an issue for the children of this state to give up now. They deserve much better. Meet with your legislators in your district. Ask them to meet you for coffee, go to Town Hall Meetings and have them meet your family. Share with them why you need ORCA. Tell them what would happen to your child(ren) if ORCA went away. Keep those relationships going even after SB767. Thank those legislators who opposed SB767 and make your voices heard to those that supported it. Join the ORCA Parent Association (ORCAPA). ORCAPA has been instrumental in keeping a human face on ORCA. Every parent is encouraged to join that organization (go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/orcaparents/). ORCAPA keeps parents up to date on State Board of Education activities, legislative issues and provides a forum for discussion within the ORCA community. Be assured the ORCA Board continues to work on this very important issue every day and appreciates that so many of you have raised your voices. You have and will continue to make a difference! We appreciate all of the support. We are not finished. We are making progress and we continue to need YOU! Thanks for your support, Representative Jeff Kropf (Ret) Board President Oregon Connections Academy