Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News+ ICT
On April 14, the Lincoln County School Board in Newport, Oregon, will decide whether or not to remove Siletz Valley School’s charter agreement, thus shutting the school down at the end of this school year.
Dozens of students, administrators and supporters crammed into a small school district meeting room to share why Siletz Valley School is vital to the community last week.
For students, staff and community members, Siletz Valley School is so much more than a school. It’s a place of community with culture at its heart.
“We need this school because there’s not really any other schools that teach Indigenous,” said Audrina Payne, a 12-year-old citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, standing outside the Lincoln County School District Offices on March 31. “They [other schools] don’t bead, they don’t teach language, they don’t have a drum class. This is like our only school, and it just makes me feel more powerful.”
The school must prove that they have addressed 12 compliance concerns brought forth by the school board, which include accurately reporting its finances, increasing attendance and improving state test scores, among other things.
At a public hearing on March 31, 2026, Lincoln County School Board members heard from administrators, students and community members of Siletz Valley School about why it is vital to the community and what is being done to address the compliance concerns raised by the board. (Photo by Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News / ICT)
At the March 31 public hearing, administrators and board members said that they have met the charter agreement requirements and continue to commit to further improvement.
“Over the past eight months, we have taken important and necessary steps to address compliance findings identified by our state education partners and the Lincoln County School District,” Acting Superintendent Debra Barnes told the school board during the public hearing. “We want to be clear, this process has been taken seriously at every level of our organization. Our staff, board of directors and leadership team have worked diligently to not only correct identified concerns, but to strengthen the systems that support our school as a whole. We are pleased to share that those concerns have been addressed.”
Integrating culturally specific curriculum
At Siletz Valley School, many of the classes and programs focus directly on cultural learning and integration.
Theresa Smith, who teaches tribal language and culture, works with students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. She teaches a tribal culture of the Pacific Northwest class, where students learn about Native nations across Oregon, Washington, Idaho and up into Alaska and Canada. She teaches tribal language for middle and high school, working with a language teacher from Siletz.
She also teaches cultural arts, focusing on what students want to learn. They’ve made ribbon skirts and shirts, flat stitch bead work, dentalium necklaces and more. And in the process, they use a mixture of traditional and contemporary materials, learning about them along the way.
“You’re saying it’s not a tribal school, but it’s the closest we have to it in the school district for sure,” said Smith, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. “No other school in the school district offers language class, none of them offer drumming or cultural arts, or Native agricultural science, or Native first foods. None of them. You’re saying we’re not a tribal school, but we sure are functioning like one.”
Beyond teaching and being a Siletz community member invested in the school, all three of her kids attended Siletz Valley School.
Students from Siletz Valley School sat outside the Lincoln County School Board offices on March 31, 2026, drumming before the beginning of a public hearing in which the board would hear from community members about the impact of Siletz Valley School. Siletz Valley School is currently facing potential closure due to a list of compliance issues. (Photo by Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News / ICT)
She worries what it would mean for all of the students currently attending if Siletz Valley School has to close this June, and knows that some students would potentially drop out of school altogether.
“I can’t imagine this building being empty and busing kids to other schools, just like they did in boarding school days,” Smith said. “Why would we go back to that when we know how harmful that was, we know how harmful it is. Taking culture away from students, it’s not good. We know it doesn’t work.”
At Siletz Valley School, students also have the opportunity to join the Crooked River Drum group, a drumming class taught on campus, and have been asked to share songs at events across the state. Recently, they were asked to open the statewide track and field event hosted in Eugene, Oregon, at the end of the school year, according to Barnes.
The school has a culinary program run by Patrick Clarke. In the program, students get to learn about first foods and partner with Tel-tvm’, the farm run by the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, to use local produce. They’ve had the opportunity to go out and catch their own fish to use and learn about how to prepare elk using one caught and donated by a Siletz community member.
Nevaeh Jackson, a freshman at Oregon State University who graduated from Siletz Valley School in 2025, fondly remembers getting to cultivate her own garden plot as part of the agricultural science class at Siletz Valley School, growing ingredients that she used in the culinary class. She grew corn, garlic, mint, kale, strawberries and other ingredients. One of the dishes she remembers best was one she created using fish cheeks and maple blossoms.
Now in college, part of what was so important to her time at Siletz Valley School was the above and beyond support that Jackson received from teachers.
“I’m a first-generation [college student],” Jackson, a citizen of the Klamath Tribes, said. “[My teachers] recognized my capability in school really early on, so that was really nice. I kind of got a push from the school to actually go to college.”
Hearing about Siletz Valley School facing closure, Jackson said that she feels many of the issues at the school come from the lack of consistent leadership over the past few years.
She worries what it will mean for the future of students at Siletz Valley School if the Lincoln County School Board ultimately decides to close the school this June.
“It’s really unfortunate because I know a lot of kids feel seen there, and they don’t feel seen at our neighboring schools,” Jackson said.
Compliance concerns amidst leadership instability
Siletz Valley School is a charter school that opened in 2003 as a K-8 after the Lincoln County School District closed the building. In 2006, high school was added, turning the school into a K-12.
With 189 students currently enrolled, more than 65 percent of the school is Native, many of whom are citizens of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, according to Barnes.
Over the past few years, the school has faced instability in leadership.
In 2023, superintendent Casey Jackson was fired following an investigation into more than half a dozen complaints and her treatment of Indigenous students who led a walk-out at the school since it did not observe Indigenous Peoples’ Day as a holiday.
In 2025, at the end of the school year, Superintendent/Principal Ginger Redlinger stepped down, followed by four board members resigning. Barnes stepped in as interim superintendent over the summer before Lenora Hall began in September 2025.
Students hold signs advocating for their education at Siletz Valley School during a public hearing at the Lincoln County School Board offices on March 31, 2026. At the hearing, teachers, students, and community members shared what Siletz Valley School means to them. (Photo by Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore Native News / ICT)
Hall was put on leave after just six months, and Barnes is now acting superintendent.
The compliance issues outlined by the school board came about amidst the instability in leadership that the school has faced.
At the same time, Lincoln County School District is facing an expected $5 million deficit for the 2026-27 school year.
The first letter came on July 21, 2025, from Dr. Majalise Tolan, superintendent for the Lincoln County School District, notifying the school that it was out of compliance under its lease agreement, state charter laws and that it would need to fulfill a list of 10 requirements by the first week of the school year.
The second letter, with an additional two compliance concerns, was submitted to then superintendent Hall and board chair Jennifer Metcalf on January 30, 2026.
The issues outlined in the letter for Siletz Valley School to address in order to get in compliance with its charter are:
- Create an English Learners Program
- Ensure all teacher’s licenses are up to date
- Update board bylaws and make them publicly available
- Address facility concerns and create a facility maintenance plan
- Submit deliverables and required reporting to the Lincoln County School District on time
- Demonstrate improvement on state tests by reviewing benchmarks with the school district quarterly
- Implement a plan to increase attendance
- Monitor and document graduation rates
- Ensure timely financial reporting
- Follow Oregon Public Meeting Laws which includes publishing timely meeting notices and post minutes and recordings of each meeting publicly
- Submit monthly discipline data and investigation notes for review to the district
- Require all administrators to attend special education trainings
Barnes explained how each area of concern is being addressed, including providing documentation for each point, at the March hearing.
One of the compliance issues that has stood out for teachers and other community members is the state testing requirements.
In Oregon, following federal guidelines, public schools test students in English and math in third through eighth grade and their junior year of high school. Schools also issue tests in science in fifth grade, eighth grade and junior year.
Standardized testing has faced growing concern as a benchmark for success, as decades of research show that students of color experience bias in the tests that are given from childhood throughout college.
While state testing is mandatory, teachers and community members of Siletz Valley School are calling for a more well-rounded approach to measures of educational success, and are urging the school board to consider this when deciding the fate of Siletz Valley School.
“I’m hoping that they don’t just pin everything on these test scores. Those tests aren’t made for us,” Smith said. “If you look at the history of who’s meant to succeed from [standardized tests], it’s White males. Our percentage of White males here is pretty darn small. So if the tests aren’t made for our people, they’re not an accurate reflection of what happens at our school.”
According to Smith, she believes one of the reasons state testing scores are so low is because students have heard that because the scores don’t impact their grades, that the tests ultimately do not matter.
However, that’s a line of thinking the school has been working to address in its plans to raise those scores, including having conversations with students about why it is important to try on the tests, she said.
AJ Mallozzi, who works at Oregon State University in the pre-college department, works with students from over 15 districts across the state. She is also a PhD candidate and, in her research, has focused on her time working with and learning from students at Siletz Valley School.
“They’re working, frankly, in my opinion, and I’m biased, they’re working at a college level, if not beyond,” Mallozzi said. “The type of work that I’ve seen them be capable of is excellent, and not at all reflected in the test scores that apparently are the lowest in the state.”
She attributes so much of the students’ success in programs — like the one at the university where they partner to do research with undergraduate students — to teachers at Siletz Valley School who work to support students both culturally and academically.
Siletz Tribe responds to threat of closure
In response to the potential closure Siletz Valley School faces, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians shared a press release strongly urging the Lincoln County School District to keep the school open.
“Not only does a substantial proportion of the student population include Siletz Tribal Members, but having a K-12 program in Siletz itself fosters the overall social, economic, and cultural growth of the local community,” the news release states. “Removing critical educational resources from the Siletz community and forcing students to access those resources elsewhere is not a viable path forward from the tribe’s perspective.”
The tribe said that Siletz Valley School has not received the same support as other schools within the school district. Since the charter school opened in 2003, the Siletz Tribe has supported the school, including through $7.06 million in donations and helping provide cultural programming.
“Along with its financial woes, forcing Siletz schoolchildren to leave their local culture and community to attend school elsewhere sets them up for failure. Significant progress has been made in integrating local Siletz culture into the education and programming for these students, but that work is not yet complete. This progress should not be halted, and instead, the district should continue to invest in expanding quality opportunities for the Siletz community, like the efforts made in other district institutions. Bussing our schoolchildren out of the community is not the option,” the release reads.
The fate of Siletz Valley School will be decided at the next Lincoln County School Board meeting on April 14.
This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
The post Community calls for Siletz Valley School to remain open amid compliance concerns appeared first on ICT.
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