LEBANON - The Oregon Department of Education has more questions about Sand Ridge Charter School following a meeting with Superintendent Jim Robinson regarding complaints about People Involved in Education.

PIE is the nonprofit corporation that runs the charter school.

Ed Dennis, deputy superintendent of public instruction, met Tuesday with Robinson to discuss a presentation Robinson made last month to the Lebanon School Board.

The report outlined some two dozen concerns about PIE’s operation of the school, ranging from paperwork issues on policies and accounting procedures to disagreements over how, or whether, the school and its parent corporation should be allowed to expand.

“There was enough concern that I did assign staff to look more at the issues,” Dennis said this morning. “We’re not launching an investigation and we’re not opening a file. I just asked my staff to decide should we put any of our resources into this or not.”

The state will not get involved in contract disputes between charter schools and their parent districts, Dennis said. However, it is interested in seeing that laws on textbook adoptions, student services and teacher registration and training are being followed.

Among concerns cited in Robinson’s report were an apparent lack of a policy on textbook adoptions, no readily available evidence that teachers had been trained to administer medication, and no process for identifying and serving students with limited English proficiency.

Dennis said he plans “a courtesy call” to PIE Chairman Jay Jackson about the meeting, but that the Lebanon Community School District ultimately is responsible for compliance.

Robinson and other staff members gave the PIE report to the Lebanon School Board on Dec. 3. Board members voted 4-1 that night to renew PIE’s contract to run Sand Ridge, with new language to be worked out later.

The state received an anonymous e-mail and phone call shortly after the meeting complaining about the renewal in light of the report and asking the department to intervene.