Students in several Oregon school districts, including Coos Bay, have been denied permission to enroll in an online charter school sponsored by the North Bend district.

Among them are Angie Armstrong’s three children.

A Coos Bay resident and stay-at-home-mom, who moved from North Bend in 2006, Armstrong said she’s been unable to enroll her kids in the Oregon Virtual Academy because the Coos Bay School District won’t let them go.

ORVA is a K-8 public charter school that will open its virtual doors to students on Sept. 3.

“I think we’re a special case, because my kids have never been in the Coos Bay School District,” Armstrong said. Her children attended North Bend schools last year after receiving approval from Coos Bay.

On Aug. 14, she requested that her children — in first, fourth and eighth grade — be allowed to attend the online school. By Aug. 20, she was notified by ORVA staff that it had been turned down.

“I was kind of mad. I was a little bit angry and I wanted to know why,” Armstrong said Friday morning.

With the first day of school just days away, Armstrong’s children aren’t enrolled anywhere.

“What I’m going to do is home school them. I don’t have a choice. I’ll pay for it myself, do it at my own cost and use my own curriculum instead of getting everything free through ORVA,” Armstrong said. 

Like any other public school, ORVA provides educational tools for students to use on loan, including computers, textbooks and microscopes for science projects.

“I think the parents should be allowed to decide what is the best education for their kids. I don’t think one person, which in this case is the superintendent, should be allowed to override that.”

Coos Bay Superintendent Bob De La Vergne said he isn’t against some form of online school, but he thinks the existing format is wrong.

Rather than allow one school district to charter a virtual school, he wants the state to provide the software to all school districts so there is a level playing field. He estimated that every student who is allowed to leave the district means about $5,000 less for Coos Bay schools. Allowing this money to leave with the student is not something he wants to do, though he suggested unhappy parents could take their concerns to the school board.

“I’m not going to do that, not unless I’m ordered to by the board,” he said. “I have to be a good steward of district funds.”

De La Vergne said he has denied about 10 requests, but with registration in full swing, he isn’t sure of the exact number.

He said Coos Bay School board members know he has been denying students’ requests to transfer to the virtual academy. He said he approved two students’ requests, but they were special situations. He declined to explain further.

“I will not allow any more. I’m done,” De La Vergne said. “We have a good school system with great teachers, so I want to keep our students in our classrooms.”

B.J. Hollensteiner, North Bend’s superintendent, said it’s De La Vergne’s choice whether to allow students to leave his district.

“Every student that enters the ORVA school has to have a release from their district,” Hollensteiner said. That’s a condition of the academy’s approval by the State Board of Education.

Hollensteiner said her own district works to maintain full-time equivalent student numbers, which determine how much money districts get from the state to provide programs. But if she were in De La Vergne’s shoes, Hollensteiner said, she would support students if they chose to attend a virtual academy.

“I think it’s important for kids to have choices,” she said.

The vice president of a curriculum provider for ORVA, K12 Inc., is trying to help.

Randall Greenway said ORVA officials are working with other school districts to ensure they understand what ORVA is — a public school approved by the State Board of Education — and to advise parents and superintendents on how to deal with requests.

Greenway said the academy has about 300 applicants. Of those, 124 have been approved to attend. They come from 62 different school districts within the state. He said he is aware of four districts that have denied a total of 22 students.

“It’s fully anticipated that some districts would say no,” Greenway said. “A parent has the best interest of their child in mind. I find it surprising that any government official or school official would deny a child access to the educational program of their choice.”

— Staff writer Alexander Rich contributed to this story.