ELA Update: Court rules on district responsibilities for charter school facilities 

A recent published court decision (Ridgecrest Charter School v. Sierra Sands Unified School District) has held that when considering a request for charter school facilities under Proposition 39, districts must to the maximum extent practicable consider the needs of charter students and district students equally, even if district students will suffer disruption as a result.

The stated intent of Proposition 39 (approved by voters in November 2000) is that “public school facilities should be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools.” Pursuant to Proposition 39, school district-provided facilities are to be reasonably equivalent to those of other public schools in the district and are to be contiguous. State Board of Education regulations define “contiguous” as on one school site or adjacent to a school site. If the charter school’s students cannot be accommodated on one site, contiguous can mean available facilities at more than one site, provided the district minimizes the number of sites and considers student safety.

Facts about the case

In accordance with Proposition 39 and its implementing regulations, the Ridgecrest Charter School submitted a written facilities request to the Sierra Sands Unified School District for classroom and non-teaching space to accommodate a projected 233 “in-district students” in grades K-8. “In-district students” are those students who would be eligible to attend district schools because they live within the district.

District staff analyzed the request by identifying a comparison group of K-8 district students and made an offer staff considered “reasonably equivalent” to facilities provided to other district students. The district’s offer included classrooms at four elementary schools and, for the middle school level, at a single middle school site.

The charter school objected, arguing that the offer violated Proposition 39 because the proffered classrooms were located at five different district school sites and, therefore, were not “contiguous” within the meaning of the Education Code. Ridgecrest argued that Title 5 regulations require the district to provide facilities at one school site unless there is no single site physically large enough to handle the charter’s student population.

Under this theory, the ability of the district to “accommodate” a charter school’s student relates only to the physical capacity of the site. The district focused on the term “accommodated” as used in the Title 5 regulations and argued that the district had discretion to determine whether it could “accommodate” the charter students on a single site by considering all of the circumstances and analyzing the impact of the request on the district’s educational program. If all of the charter students were to be housed on one school site, the district would be forced to dismantle its education programs, such as class size reduction, or to redraw attendance boundaries.

Court rulings

The trial court held that the charter school did not have a right to a single school site. The court also held that, although the district’s discretion to allocate facilities was not absolute, Ridgecrest did not demonstrate that the district abused its discretion to minimize sites.

The appellate court concurred with the trial court in its determination of school district discretionary authority and also rejected Ridgecrest’s “single school site mandate” theory (This holding accepted the position of the California School Boards Association’s Education Legal Alliance asserted in an amicus brief filed in this case in support of the district).

However, the appellate court overruled the trial court finding that the district’s exercise of its discretion in responding to the Proposition 39 facilities request did not agree with the Education Code’s intent to equalize the treatment of charter and district-run schools. The court interpreted the term “reasonably equivalent” to mean that, to the maximum extent practicable, the needs of the charter school must be given the same consideration as district-run schools balanced with the need for contiguous facilities.

Thus, districts must begin with the assumption that all charter students will be assigned to a single school site and then adjust other factors to accommodate this goal. How those factors will be weighed and whether those factors would make a single school site feasible will be a case-by-case determination. In this case, the court found that the district abused its discretion because it failed to demonstrate that it could not accommodate the charter at a single school site or that it had minimized the number of sites.

According to the court, the law requires such accommodation, even if it causes considerable disruption to district student and staff. The court also found that the district’s rationale of the board’s action was insufficient because the superintendent’s recommendation did not address the law’s requirement for contiguous facilities.

In this regard, the court noted that in order to carry out its review as to whether facilities are being “shared fairly,” a district “must offer some explanation for its decision regarding how the facilities will be allocated between the charter school and the district-run school. … While detailed findings are not necessarily required, the explanation should be thorough enough, and factual enough, to permit effective review by the courts.” The court ordered the district to issue a new facilities offer consistent with the court’s findings.

Why the case is important

As charter schools increase in number across the state, even those districts not currently sponsoring a charter school or not serving as chartering authority will be faced with requests to share facilities, said ELA Director Richard Hamilton.

This decision underscores the importance of making sure that a district’s facilities offer thoroughly complies with all legal requirements. Unfortunately, it appears that disruption to district students can only be one of many factors in a district’s decision, and not an overriding one.

Hamilton recommended that districts consult with district legal counsel as to whether future board decisions responding to charter school facilities requests comply with the directives of the court. Technically the holding of this case applies only to districts in the Fifth Appellate district (Central Valley counties), but nonetheless all school districts should take into consideration this court’s perspective of the requirements of Proposition 39, he said. It is not known at this time whether the district will seek review of this decision by the California Supreme Court.