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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Cooking oil fire damages SOU-owned home, displaces two ... Rogue Valley pair hope supporters will breathe life into 'Don't Die' ... Mail Tribune 100: Oct. 19, 1915 ... Cooking oil fire damages SOU-owned home, displaces two ... Rogue Valley pair hope supporters will breathe life into 'Don't Die' ... Mail Tribune 100: Oct. 19, 1915 ... OTHER VIEWS Other Views: Don't kill fifth-year college tuition programs Comment By The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times MailTribune.com By The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times Posted Jul. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM By The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times Posted Jul. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News State Sen. Sara Gelser did good work in this legislative session in wrangling a one-year reprieve for mid-valley fifth-year college programs, but the truth is that it will be an uphill battle to preserve these worthy programs for the long run. These fifth-year programs give students who would otherwise be able to graduate from high school the option of putting their diploma on hold for a year and taking classes at local community colleges. These programs are particularly useful for minority students or those who are the first members of their families to attend college, because they give the students the support and direction they might otherwise miss. For all intents and purposes, these programs have been pioneered in the mid-valley: Corvallis, Albany, Central Linn, Lebanon, Scio and Sweet Home all have fifth-year programs in partnerships with Linn-Benton Community College. Philomath had just begun signing up students to start a program this fall. There's a financial catch, though, and that's why these programs were targeted this past session by some lawmakers: Districts with fifth-year programs use state K-12 funds for pay for books and tuition. Some lawmakers argued it's not fair to use money that had been allocated for K-12 schools to help pay for a 13th year of school for some students. In addition, they argued that there's not enough money available to expand the program statewide, especially in more populous areas. (There's a reason why much of the opposition to the programs came from legislators who represent the state's more urban areas: Hello, Portland!) Truthfully, though, the financial questions surrounding the programs need to be answered. Enter Gelser's Senate Bill 898, which holds all these programs at their current levels as of June 1 for one year. That gives time for a work group Gelser is convening to spend the next few months working with school districts on defining fifth-year programs, getting a definitive handle on what they cost and suggesting ways to fund them. School superintendents in Corvallis and Lebanon will be part of the group, which will present its findings to the February 2016 legislative session. If this legislative session is any judge, the work of Gelser's group will be greeted next year by a bevy of influential legislators who stand ready to kill the programs. In part, that may be because some of those legislators believe that mid-valley school administrators pulled a fast one in getting these programs off the ground in the first place, that schools found a loophole and slid right through it. That's not the case at all. What happened here is that school officials found a way to launch programs that they genuinely believed would benefit students. And the early results from the programs are promising, although members of the work group will have to be diligent in collecting additional data. Lawmakers need to find ways to finance exactly this type of experiment to make our underperforming schools work better for students. For starters, that means keeping their minds open about these fifth-year sessions when they gather in 2016. By The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times MailTribune.com By The (Corvallis) Gazette-Times Posted Jul. 18, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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