Medford School District Bret Champion marked his final school board meeting on Thursday. Buffy Pollock / Rogue Valley Times

Board members also approved the $298M 2025-26 Medford School District budget

Medford School Board members held their final meeting of the school year on Thursday, approving the district’s 2025-26 budget and unanimously approving closure of the Medford Online Academy K-8 due to declining enrollment.

The online school, based at Oakdale Middle School and which will officially close June 30, opened during the 2019-20 school year as a virtual alternative for students in grades kindergarten through eight.

Declining enrollment prompted a shift in which the school only served grades 4-8, district officials said. 

In the first year, over 1,000 students were served in K-12 while, most recently, the district had 181 total students being served in full-time online learning with 94 in grades 4-8 and 87 in high school.

“Closing MOA allows us to reduce operating costs while still providing online learning options through students’ neighborhood schools, where they’ll stay more connected to peers, staff, and extracurricular activities,” district officials said in an email to the Rogue Valley Times.

District officials said online academy teachers had all worked remotely and had been offered other locations or roles and that the closure did not result in the loss of any teacher positions.

Board chair Cynthia Wright, who presided over her final meeting Thursday, said she was grateful for district staff who served at the online academy and “met the kids’ needs, where they were at.”

Approval of district budget

Final approval of the district’s $297.8 million budget, first presented in April, was granted by the board on Thursday. The new budget represents a 2% decline over 2024-25, when the amended budget was $303.9 million, according to board documents presented Thursday.

Interim Superintendent Jeanne Grazioli, tapped to replace Superintendent Bert Champion as he exits, noted in board documents that the 2025-26 budget “is a deficit budget that includes a spending down of $3.3 million of reserves to balance the budget.”

“This is due to proposed one-time spending of $3.3 million to replace the 15-year-old track and artificial turf field at South Medford High School that has been deemed to be unsafe for continued use,” she wrote. “The rest of the budget is largely status quo when compared to the current year, with a net reduction of 2.5 FTE to continue to align with lower enrollment. The reduction in FTE nets approximately $0.25 million in cost savings. All of the reductions will be done through attrition and/or by reassigning employees where possible.”

Grazioli continued, saying: “We have based our budget on an estimated $11.46 billion in state funding.”

District officials, grappling with declining enrollment and funding cuts, delayed final approval in recent months due to ongoing uncertainty with state funding. A page dubbed, “our fiscal reality,” posted to the district website details some of the ongoing uncertainties.

Thursday’s agenda includes updated information about funding variables related to state special education funding and juvenile detention funding. Recently updated information resulted in the district’s ability to create an additional 10 special education positions.

Champion, Wright, Kinsella, Messer say farewell

Thursday’s meeting marked the final board meeting for Champion, board chair Wright and board members Jeff Kinsella and Suzanne Messer. Wright was defeated during the May 20 special election while Kinsella and Messer opted not to seek reelection.

Newly appointed board member Sunny Spicer presided over her first board meeting on Thursday but recused herself from voting during budget approval, due to potential conflict of interest.

Spicer is the executive director of the Oregon Center for Creative Learning and the Children’s Museum of Southern Oregon. The organization collaborates with the district to facilitate early childhood learning — via preschool sites — for the district.

Recent school board special election candidate Taryne Saunders voiced ongoing distrust of the board and levied criticism for events over the past year, which has been marked by turmoil. 

Saunders told the board during the public comments portion of the meeting that she was glad to see the “corruption being weeded out” and that she was “looking forward to “no longer seeing many of your faces at these tables, especially you Bret.”

Champion erupted in loud laughter and yelled, as Saunders returned to her seat, “Thanks, Taryne!”

Champion, who resigned in February, will mark his final day with the district June 30. He was recently hired as the next chief schools officer for the Arlington Independent School District in Texas.

During Thursday’s meeting, Champion voiced frustration over the past year and a half, said treatment of Wright by community members had been “inexcusable” and said that he was “heartbroken to leave” the district but looked forward to his next chapter.

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or buffy.pollock@rv-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.