Springfield shutting down school for troubled teens.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - After two years on borrowed time, the Turnaround School for teens in trouble will shut down at the end of the school year, Springfield School District officials said this week.

With probable budget cuts ahead and an expected dip in enrollment next year, the district can no longer afford to keep the school running now that start-up grant funds have been spent, Superintendent Nancy Golden said this week.

In addition, she said, the Turnaround building's landlords have said they want the space for other uses next year, and the district has been unable to find a suitable, affordable alternative.

`At some point you just have to say, we've been struggling to find space, we've been struggling to find alternative funding sources and things are pretty tight, so maybe the best thing to do is step back and say, `What other options are available to serve these students,' ' Golden said.

The school's current enrollment is 70, although 102 have been in the program at some point during the school year. Hailing primarily from the Springfield, Eugene and Bethel districts, the students are among the area's most difficult and expensive to serve. Most have been expelled from their middle or high schools or suspended time and time again. Some are re-entering the school system after dropping out or spending time in juvenile detention or drug treatment centers. The school aims to "turn them around" to the point where they're able to return to and succeed in their previous school or another school.

Golden and Sheryl Ott, the district's head of alternative education, met with the school's staff of 12 late Wednesday afternoon to break the news. They had been kept aware of the worrisome trends, she said, but that didn't make it any less painful.

"Of course, it was a hard conversation to have," Ott said. "But they are professional and they will continue to serve the kids right up to the last day of school."

While the district probably will be able to place most employees in other jobs next year thanks to vacancies created by retirements or resignations, there's a chance of layoffs, Golden said.

Staff members planned to tell students today, Ott added. "This staff's first concern is always for the students in front of them," she said.

A top priority will be to find appropriate placement for the students, Golden said. Of the 20 Springfield students who were expected to enroll next year, as many as half can most likely be placed at Gateways Learning Center, which serves about 120 students who, for a variety of reasons ranging from academic failure to social issues, have struggled in regular high schools.

Others may be referred to any one of Lane County's many private alternative programs geared to troubled youth, including several run by Looking Glass.

The school opened in the winter of 2001 under a $2.4 million Safe Schools, Healthy Students grant. With a $750,000 annual price tag, its future was clouded from the get-go, and for the past two years the school has found itself on very shaky ground come budget time. Both years, the district has scraped together enough money by carrying over funding from the original grant, general-fund dollars and per-pupil state funds from other districts using the program.

"It's been a very up-and-down process," Ott said. "A couple of years ago we were packed up, ready to shut down. And then we were resurrected."

Had the program kept going another year, Springfield would have had to charge other districts more than $16,000 per pupil - close to three times what they now pay, Finance Director Brett Yancey said. That's one reason enrollment projections for next year were down to 35.

While Golden has confidence in the other programs available to Turnaround students, she said it will still be a big loss to the community.

"This is a program that fundamentally said we're committed to all students and we're willing to take the ones that are least on track and get them back on track," she said. "These are kids that don't have a lot of stability, and now they're not going to have this option."