April 10, 2024

MEMO: Helpful tips for individuals wanting to make complaints about the Reedsport School District.

To help people get answers fast, the following steps should be followed.

STEPS

1. Talk directly to the staff person most closely involved with the matter; usually this is a teacher. They can give the quickest responses to the issues.
2. IF you do not feel that the matter has been treated correctly by that first staff member OR you feel that the matter is taking too long to get answered, then go speak with the principal in that building. If you are making a complaint, either write it down on the complaint form or the principal can write it on the complaint form for you.  Once the complaint form is filled out, the principal must respond to you IN WRITING within 10 working days.  This can be an email but the answer must be written out for you.
3. IF you still feel that the matter has not been dealt with correctly OR you feel that the matter is taking too long to get answered, then go speak with the district superintendent. Bring a copy of the complaint and the written response with you.  The superintendent will review the complaint with you and is also required to respond to you in writing in 10 business days or less.
4. IF after that, the issue is still not resolved to your expectation, the school board may address your complaint at their next regular meeting. The board has 20 business days to respond if it goes that far.

EXTRA THINGS TO KNOW

Reedsport School District does NOT monitor social media other than our school district Facebook page and that page is only monitored on occasion.  If you write a complaint in places we don’t monitor then we will not know and can not help.

You should trust your student when they bring matters to you but our experience has taught us that it is often helpful to verify any issues they bring to you.  STEP 1 allows this to happen.

Any patron always has the right to call Oregon Department of Education (ODE) if they wish to complain.  In fairness to you, the district is aware that this slows down the process of getting complaints answered quickly or effectively.  The reason this slows down the complaint process is because ODE calls us and notifies us about the complaint. They do not take action and the complaints still come back to the district to solve (and we have to begin at Step 1 of the above process).  ODE communication is usually delayed several days compared to speaking directly with the staff most closely involved in the matter.  After communicating with What’s Happening Reedsport site admin about this, we are sharing the above steps with you.  This information can be found in more detail at:

https://www.reedsport.k12.or.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/KL-Public-Complaints.pdf

In a few instances, some complaints are an issue of a person not being happy about a rule or law that the school must follow.  ODE does not make laws and doesn’t change laws.  If a complaint is because of something the school district is not allowed to change, then people should contact their local legislators.

For the Reedsport School District, the local legislators are:

House of Representatives Boomer Wright

900 Court St NE, H-476, Salem, OR, 97301

503-986-1409

Rep.BoomerWright@oregonlegislature.gov

Senator Dick Anderson

900 Court St NE, Room S-303, Salem, OR, 97301

503-986-1705

Sen.DickAnderson@oregonlegislature.gov

We hope that this information helps you get issues resolved as quickly and effectively as possible.

Respectfully,

Carey Jones,                                                    School Board Chairman     

Jon Zwemke, School District Superintendent