Sisters parent files suit over tuition for son

Sisters area parent John Shepherd has filed suit in the small claims department of Deschutes County Circuit Court asking Sisters School District to pay $2,928 for tuition his son Jonathan will be charged as a full-time student at Central Oregon Community College this year.

But in doing so, Shepherd may have become vulnerable to a request for the return of money he has already received from the school district for tutoring Jonathan under the district’s former home school program.

These are the latest developments in a conflict that stems from Shepherd’s longstanding complaint that Sisters schools’ provisions for Talented and Gifted Students (TAG) fail to meet the requirements of state law. The dispute also involves the district’s efforts over several years, ending last fall, to provide tutoring services to home-schooled students in a way that earned the district state financial support.

In an interview last week, Shepherd said he had been a substitute teacher at Sisters High School for two years when he was asked by Principal Bob Macauley to “get the (home school) program off the ground. I said sure, I’ll give it a shot…and I put together a strong progam that had over 30 students. I ran that for three years.” During that time, he says, he was effectively a full-time Sisters teacher, “part of the union, paying dues and the whole nine yards.”

He quit that job when his family moved from Tumalo in the Redmond School District to the Cloverdale area east of Sisters. At that time he enrolled his oldest children, Jonathan and Thomas, in the Sisters home school program and “for two or three years” served as their tutor, receiving compensation under the district’s standard formula for that function.

But two years ago, Jonathan, who would have been a high school sophomore, “was starting to max out what I could teach him so we enrolled him part-time at the college (COCC). Then last year (2004-05) as a junior he started going full-time to COCC. So I’d use the $3,000 the district would pay me (for tutoring) to pay his tuition. So I’m essentially overseeing his home schooling” and using the Sisters money to pay COCC.

Did the school district know about that arrangement and approve it? “Actually, not that I did it in secret, but they weren’t aware of that…Of course, under the Expanded Options program (see related story, page 32) they’re going to be doing that exact thing. I was just ahead of my time. It didn’t violate any rules; it was a win-win for everyone,” Shepherd said.

Jonathan, who would be a high school senior now, is enrolled in COCC again this school year. But the previous year’s financing plan died when Sisters officials late last summer decide to drop all direct involvement in home schooling and contract with the High Desert Education Service District to provide home school services to students in the Sisters area.

Shepherd asked Sisters officials to pay Jonathan’s COCC tuition this academic year so he could continue his studies there. Shepherd asserted that Jonathan is so advanced that the public high school can’t provide him an education at his “rate and level,” in the language of the TAG law. Macauley and others at the high school disagreed and urged Shepherd to enroll his son there. He refused, and in turn the district refused to pay Jonathan’s COCC tuition.

“I said ‘I paid $14,600 in property taxes last year and I’m not also going to spend another $3,000 in college tuition when I think it’s the district’s obligation to teach him at his rate and level,’” Shepherd recalled. “So we went round and round on that.”

But Shepherd may be on the hook for the money he used to pay Jonathan’s tuition last year. Macauley told The Nugget last week that if Shepherd did not tutor his son and used his money from the district to pay tuition at COCC “then he’s really in violation of what he should have been doing. He turned in a time card every month stating that he was tutoring his son one hour a day and we paid him for tutoring his son and if he didn’t he owes us money.”

Shepherd won a partial victory in December when the Oregon Department of Education agreed with his claim that Sisters was out of compliance with the TAG law. But since then, Macauley and others have been working on changes that they believe will satisfy ODE overseers. At its last meeting, on February 13, the school board approved final actions in this regard and authorized Superintendent Ted Thonstad to send the packet of revised materials to Salem seeking ODE’s blessing.

Shepherd is scathing in his own assessment of the changes: “I think they’ve gone backwards and you can quote me on that…Between you and me they’re just doing a superficial job of meeting ODE requirements, doing just as little as they can legally to get out of the mess they’re in.”

For his part, Macauley expresses equal exasperation with Shepherd.

“I don’t know what he’s trying to do,” the principal said, “but I don’t agree with the way he’s gone about his business. But I’m not going to spend a lot of time with him. We’ve got 551 great kids here who need to be educated and I’ve spent more time with this one person than I have with any other person in my career in 24 years of education.”

In his small claims complaint, dated February 2, Shepherd argues that Thonstad “has refused to meet or talk with me to resolve this issue over the last 66 days.” Thonstad agrees that he has refused to talk with Shepherd on the advice of legal counsel.

He said attorney Nancy Hungerford advised him to cut off communications after the high school had sent a written reply covering Shepherd’s complaints and after Shepherd had verbally threatened a lawsuit. Shepherd says he only told Thonstad he would be forced to seek a resolution in court if they were unable to come up with a solution in face-to-face discussions.

Thonstad said he sees no merit in Shepherd’s small claims demand and the district will oppose it. The customary practice in Deschutes County is for the parties in small claims disputes to enter into mediation and if that fails to send their issue to a hearing before a judge.

Meanwhile, Shepherd’s younger son, Thomas, who has also been designated a TAG student, is attending Sisters High School as a 10th-grader. But Shepherd says Thomas will probably attend COCC at least part-time next year under the Expanded Options program.