Public Records Show Charter School Administrator Not Licensed with State
By Larry Coonrod, Lebanon Express writer
Issues regarding paperwork continue to plague People Involved in Education (PIE), the nonprofit group that runs Sand Ridge Charter School.
The issues include proper registration of Sand Ridge Charter School teachers and school administrator Jay Jackson, as well as its annual financial reports. In addition, a former teacher alleges that Jackson, also president of PIE, prevented him from obtaining a Michigan teaching license by not returning forms.
State law requires all charter school teachers to be either licensed or registered with the Teachers Standards and Practices Commission. A new rule that went into effect at the beginning of the current school year now requires unlicensed charter school administrators to register with the TSPC.
Melody Hanson of the TSPC said last week that Jackson was notified on Sept. 27, 2007, of the requirement he register as the school's administrator, but she has not received any communication from him since.
After the Express submitted a public records request with the Oregon Department of Education in October for financial documents relating to the operation of Sand Ridge, the state discovered that PIE had not filed copies of Sand Ridge's annual financial audits, as required by law, since June 2003. Oregon Department of Education Communications Director Gene Evans notified the Express on Dec. 14 that the department had received copies of the missing Sand Ridge audits.
Lance Ferraro, a teacher at Sand Ridge last year, said Jackson has ignored his requests for forms required by the state of Michigan.
Ferraro returned to Michigan early this summer to care for his father who suffers from heart problems and mother who has lost both breasts to cancer.
Acting on a public records request, the LCSD provided the Lebanon Express a copy of a Nov. 24 letter from Ferraro to Robinson. In that letter Ferraro asked the superintendent for help in obtaining the necessary paperwork to obtain a Michigan teaching license after Jackson for several months allegedly ignored Ferraro's request that Jackson return a work experience report Michigan requires before issuing a license.
Ferraro included in his letter to Robinson copies of letters he said he sent Jackson and PIE starting last April.
"I am baffled, angry and hurt at this shabby treatment, this treatment has prevented me from getting a license and a full time job, costing me thousands of dollars in lost income," Ferraro wrote in one letter to Mary Northern, PIE business director.
Contacted at his home in Michigan, Ferraro said because he has been unable to obtain a teaching license his income is limited to the $65 a day he makes when substitute teaching positions are available and his Navy pension.
"All he (Jackson) had to do was check a box, sign it and mail it back," Ferraro said.
The Lebanon Community School District (LCSD) has had issues with PIE not ensuring Sand Ridge teachers are registered dating back at least to November 2006 when Assistant Superintendent Steve Kelley sent a letter to Jackson saying the district had become aware that a number of teachers were not registered or licensed. Kelley wrote Jackson "it is critical that the required paperwork be completed and sent to TSPC immediately."
Public documents show that between Nov. 14, 2006, and Jan. 12, 2007, the district communicated with Jackson at least six times about the need to comply with state law and complete the registration paperwork.
During that same time period, the district learned that Sidney Spears, a teacher at Sand Ridge during the 2005-06 school year, had also not been registered with the TSPC while employed at Sand Ridge.
In June 2006, Spears traded alcohol to a 17-year-old Sand Ridge student for Ritalin prescribed by the student's physician. Jackson has said that the incident was not reported to law enforcement officials after consultation with the boy's parents. Spears did not return to Sand Ridge this year.
