News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Visitors to Sisters schools won't have direct access to students and will have to sign in with administrators under a new policy under consideration by the Sisters School Board.
The district has not had a formal visitation policy in the past.
"The district did not have a formal policy - though each (school) did have a fairly consistent attitude about visitors when you looked in the handbook," said board chair Heather Wester.
Wester acknowledged that the trial and conviction of Steven Gage on sex abuse charges spurred the school board to create clear, strict guidelines.
Gage ran a program for troubled girls near Sisters. The girls were educated at Sisters High School, where Gage was a constant presence, often popping in unannounced in classrooms to check on the so-called "Gage Girls."
When school resource deputy Scott Shelton and new principal Boyd Keyser came to Sisters High School, they restricted Gage's free access. Shortly after that, in December 1999, Gage shut down his program, and fell under investigation by state police. None of Gage's abuse of his charges took place at the school.
Wester indicated that the new policy, which is to be reviewed by the board at its Thursday, August 23, meeting, provides back-up for adminstrative practices that have been in place over the past couple of years. She said the visitor policy depends on administrators to be effective.
"We have to have - and do have - diligent administrators," she said.
She noted that all three school principals - Keyser, Lora Nordquist at Sisters Middle School and Tim Comfort at Sisters Elementary School, know all their students by name and maintain direct interaction with them.
"Those are the things that I expect out of our administrators, that they have contact and are diligent in making sure our children are safe," Wester said.
The district will separately consider requiring identification badges for teachers and background checks for volunteers. Wester said she has encountered little resistance among those who would be affected by such changes.
Still, she acknowledges that they mark a cultural change for Sisters.
However, she insisted, tighter security is just a fact of life.
"Sisters is not immune from crime and other things... we're getting bigger and we can't expect to be crime-free," she said.
Wester acknowledges that the tightening of policy is at least in part a response to fallout from the Gage scandal.
"I can't say it's not driven by that," she said. "The fact is, there wasn't a policy and we're the policy makers. There should be a policy."
Just having a strict policy on visitors won't prevent problems, Wester noted.
"It's a level of expectation of what should occur in our buildings," she said.
The school board will hold its first reading of the draft policy on Thursday, August 23. Adoption could occur in September.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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