Teacher serves as principal at Sonrise Christian School

Peggy Miller did not expect to become the administrator (principal) of Sonrise Christian School in Sisters. For that matter, she never expected to teach there. She has learned that many good things “happen by accident.”

This arrangement will be expanded next year, when Miller will spend all of her time as administrator but at less than a full salary since she won’t yet have her administrative credential. If she receives a credential by the end of the year, she might become a Peggy Miller did not expect to become the administrator (principal) of Sonrise Christian School in Sisters. For that matter, she never expected to teach there. She has learned that many good things “happen by accident.”

Miller has been a fifth-grade teacher at Sonrise for the past four years. Early this year, the school and Sisters School District mutually decided to suspend a program under which the district had been paying parts of the salaries of several Sonrise teachers for instruction in secular subjects.

That put a $130,000 hole in the 2004-05 Sonrise budget, which forced several budget-cutting measures. Included was the dismissal of Administrator Buzzy Castonguay, who had just come aboard last September. Since Miller was already on the teaching staff and was part-way through an administrative licensure program at the University of Oregon, the school’s board asked her to take over on an interim basis. She was glad to do so, and now spends three-fourths of her time on administrative duties while still teaching two hours a day.

This arrangement will be expanded next year, when Miller will spend all of her time as administrator but at less than a full salary since she won’t yet have her administrative credential. If she receives a credential by the end of the year, she might become acandidate for the position on a permanent basis.

Looking ahead to next year, she said the school will probably have to “downsize our staff a little bit further, but I can’t give you specifics yet. Right now we know that we have to have a budget that’s in line with our enrollment. That’s the central issue.”

She is not counting on any resumption of the Sisters School District program that helped support Sonrise teaching costs.

“I doubt that it will come back,” she said, “and even if I thought it would we wouldn’t be proceeding as if it would.”

She volunteered a further thought: “As an outsider coming to this community the thing that was most astonishing to me was the spirit of camaraderie between the public schools and private schools as well as home schools.

“Even with the difficulty of the financial situation this year, that has just come out loud and clear and that’s a tribute to the community.”

The fiscal problem could be eased, of course, if Sonrise enrollment increased. One sign pointing in that direction is that the school has been attracting more students from Redmond in particular.

“I think last year we probably had three Redmond families,” Miller said. “This year we have probably eight or nine.”

She doesn’t attribute that to overcrowding in the Redmond public schools, which has caused some students to transfer to Sisters public schools. Rather, she thinks “a lot of it is word of mouth. People who know about us talk to their friends.”

Sonrise operates in buildings leased from Sisters Community Church off Highway 242. It has a current enrollment of 103 from preschool through eighth grade.