The Oregon Department of Education has extended the timeline of the investigation into Springfield Public Schools’ elementary curriculum by another six months.
The department sent a letter Nov. 14 to teacher Mikell Harshbarger, who filed the initial complaint, and Springfield schools Superintendent Todd Hamilton, telling them that the state was extending its deadline for releasing the investigation results until May 15.
Stacey Guise, complaint and appeals resolution unit manager at Oregon Department of Education, cited the large size and scope of the investigation, “the complexity of legal issues before the department,” and the backlog of appeals and complaints that the department is working through. The reasons mirror the ones Guise gave in a previous letter to Harshbarger in May, in which she announced an extension of the investigation to Nov. 15…