State focus monitoring flags Philomath district as high risk on special-education indicators

District student-services staff told the Philomath School District Board that the Oregon Department of Education conducted on-site focus monitoring and assigned the district a 'high risk' status on several special-education indicators.

The report said ODE’s review looked at areas such as secondary transition planning, post-school outcomes (interviews and follow-up a year after students exit services), graduation rates for students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), and potential disproportionality in identification. The director emphasized that small cohort sizes can magnify percentage-based results and that some apparent disproportionality was affected by out-of-district charter enrollments.

District staff outlined corrective work already completed, including paperwork compliance fixes from prior cyclical monitoring, staff training and a new digital special-education manual for case managers. Staff also highlighted strengths: about 85% of students with disabilities are served in the least-restrictive environment and new transition-focused courses at the high school produced concrete post-school plans for a majority of graduates.

However, the director said graduation rates for students with disabilities averaged roughly 50–60% over the past decade, below the district target and an area requiring targeted improvements. The district plans to increase outreach for post-school outcome interviews, expand transition-aligned coursework and continue collaboration between special-education and RTI teams.

What’s next: ODE will finalize its monitoring report; district staff will continue implementing corrections and report progress to the board in follow-up updates.