It was "for the kids."

The Sisters School District must repay $1.2 million received from the State of Oregon because the district claimed as its own 50 or more students actually educated at Sonrise Christian School for a number of years.

Effectively, the State of Oregon has found that the Sisters district was skimming. Sisters received in the neighborhood $5,000 per child per year from the state, gave Sonrise $1,500 by putting their teachers on Sisters payroll and used the rest to educate other students actually attending Sisters schools.

The problem was that the Sonrise students were never students of the Sisters School District. They attended a private, religious school and were not to be educated with state funds. Parents did not know of the arrangement. The school district did not fulfill its duty to oversee the program.

Steve Swisher, the Superintendent at the time who developed the policy, has said that Oregon Department of Education guidelines in place back then favored the "creative" practice. And the ODE has come in for criticism from the Secretary of State. But Sisters failed to meet minimum guidelines of supervision.

Certainly, no one was "stealing" for personal gain. Every year the district received more than it qualified for from the state. Children educated at the time benefited from lower class sizes, more and better materials.

But children educated now, while the district is paying back the money, will suffer. There will be less money available than in other districts, larger class sizes, fewer resources. Saying "it was for the kids" is not good enough.