COTTAGE GROVE (AP) - A school board in Lane County has ended its contract with a charter school where there are no classes or grades, students decide how to spend their days, and teachers take a hand only if asked.

The decision threatens to cut off state aid to the Blue Mountain School, which has about 65 students in kindergarten through grade 12.

The South Lane School Board is “feeling the heat” of higher expectations from state and federal governments, said Chairman Jim Goes, and it voted 4-3 in July to end its nine-year relationship with the school.

“They have not made good on some promises they've made to document student learning, and at the end of the day that's what really made the difference for the board,” Goes said.

Officials also have cited concern from incidents such as an off-campus, school-day dirt bike accident in which a middle-school-age boy was seriously injured and students playing war-themed video games without permission.

Goes himself voted to keep the contract in hopes the school and board could “cobble together a compromise.”

“I still value the school as providing a choice to the students in the district,” he said.

The school has a hearing before the board Thursday. It can appeal an unfavorable decision to the State Board of Education. And one of the school's founders said it would go to court to keep its state funding.

“We're going to try to stay open no matter what,” said Lesley Stine, a teacher whose two children attend the school.

School is to resume Sept. 5 at the school on rural acreage southeast of Cottage Grove.

It initially operated as a private alternative education program under contract with the district. In 2004 it won approval as a charter school, allowing it to enroll students from any district.

The district provides oversight and passes along 80 percent of the per-pupil state allotment for grades kindergarten through eight, and 95 percent for grades nine through 12.

The self-directed learning philosophy follows a democratic model pioneered in the late 1960s by the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts, with students and staff members given equal votes on most decisions and the idea that the deepest and most enduring learning occurs when started and pursued by the learner.

“The whole thing has been just wonderful for our family,” said Therese Nguyen whose family moved from Southern California two years ago so that 6-year-old Deo and 8-year-old Maya could enroll.

“The kids that come out are self-directed, they know what they want, they understand that they can find the resources, that they have to persevere,” Nguyen said. “They have initiative and they end up being able to do whatever it is they want to do, because they're confident.”

---

Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com