District confirms school administrators

The top two administrators at Sisters High School are no longer "acting." Superintendent Lynn Baker announced Monday, March 8, that he is making Bob Macauley principal and Jim Golden assistant principal on a permanent basis.

Both men have been serving on interim appointments, which they received after former Principal Boyd Keyser resigned and took a similar job in Washington state at the end of the last school year.

Baker announced his decision to move both men to permanent appointments at Monday night's school board meeting. He had conferred with the board about the decision in a pre-meeting executive session. A round of favorable comments in the public session made it clear that the decision had full board support.

This personnel action was the highlight of one of the shortest board meetings (90 minutes) in recent history, thanks in part to the deferral of several important fiscal issues that would have sparked more discussion.

Macauley had been assistant principal at Sisters High for six years before moving into Keyser's chair. He joined the staff as one of 12 new teachers hired in 1992, when the district resumed operating a high school. For financial reasons the district had shut down its previous high school operation in 1967.

Macauley's assignment included serving as head coach of the Outlaws football team, a job he continues to hold and plans to keep.

Baker praised the principal as someone who "(has promoted) a remarkable school culture that advocates for all students and hates to see any kid fall through the cracks." He also described him as "a collaborator and a person of integrity and fairness." He said Macauley and Golden "make an absolutely fine team."

Golden joined the high school staff as a special education instructor in 1996. He had been with Portland public schools for the previous two years and before that worked for 10 years with, Serendipity Center, a private school in Portland. He holds a bachelor's degree from Oregon State University and a master's from Portland State.

Golden has a split appointment as assistant principal and as director of special education for the high school.

Several topics on Monday's agenda were left in abeyance:

• Baker said he had not yet been able to pin down with certainty information received a week ago that the state might give the district an additional $520,000 this fiscal year based on an increased enrollment.

  Baker said it's not clear "where that (the enrollment estimate) comes from" and wants to confer further with the Oregon Department of Education. (See "School budget picture brightens," The Nugget, March 3.) If it materializes, the money could help offset state funding reductions caused by the defeat of Measure 30.

• Board Chairman Glen Lasken said the board was not quite ready to issue a letter to the public offering a "final" explanation of lower-than-expected interest earnings from bonds used to construct the district's new high school. A meeting will be held soon to complete the task, Lasken said.
• Board Member Eric Dolson said school and city officials are holding discussions to try to resolve the question of whether the school district owes the city $115,000 in system development charges for connecting the former high school building.