As school districts around Oregon deal with shrinking enrollment, a district in rural Lane County is making a switch it thinks will allow it to bring in more students.
The Mapleton School Board has voted to transition from a standard district to a single charter school, which will require the consolidation of its elementary and middle/high schools into a single K-12 school.
The change is intended to help the district bring in more students, according to Superintendent Sue Wilson.
“We’re looking for opportunities to engage students and families who are not currently enrolled who are in our region,” she told KLCC when asked if homeschooled students are part of the group they are hoping to attract. “And we also have a number of students from beyond our district boundaries who attend. And I’ve heard from other students who are interested but unable to transport to our district, and the charter status affords us to transport beyond our boundaries."
The district has a total of 139 students, according to the latest state data, and the district’s website shows it utilizes blended classrooms at the elementary level, combining two grades into one classroom.
That state data shows that the district hit its recent peak for enrollment in the 2009-10 school year with 176 students before declining to its current levels.
Wilson said the district often sees new kindergarten enrollment each year of fewer than ten students, and sometimes as low as five to six students.
The move will also help students who are already attending but are at risk of leaving because their family could not find housing within district boundaries.
Charter schools in Oregon have other differences, including the ability to have up to half of their faculty be non-licensed teachers, though they still have to be registered with the state.
Wilson said Mapleton intends to keep its faculty staffed with 100% licensed teachers.
The move could also have a hidden benefit to a project that the district has taken on that falls outside of the bounds of K-12 education.
As part of the move, the school will be forced to create a nonprofit entity. That entity could help with the district's ongoing effort to transform its former middle school into a community center.
“We have a new teen center, and in July we’ll have a community health room with confidential pods for telehealth appointments and small group counseling,” said Wilson. “We’re putting in a maker space and we’re raising money to put in a commercial community kitchen that will be available to culinary students and for rent by folks in the community as like an incubator kitchen.”
Because it will maintain its status as a district, the change will not inhibit the district’s ability to seek voter approval for items such as levies, and its board will continue to be elected.
State data from the 2024-25 school year show that there are 25 other schools operating on the same model that Mapleton intends to switch to, including Blachly School District, which neighbors Mapleton to its northeast.
