Education Legal Alliance opposes charter facility rules

Warning against unfair and illegal new burdens on school districts, representatives from CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance say they will sue the state Board of Education if necessary to overturn the panel’s approval last month of new rules for Proposition 39 charter school facilities requests.

The new regulations are the most recent in a series of changes undertaken to implement Proposition 39, which was approved by voters in 2000 to require school districts to provide facilities to charter schools within their attendance boundaries. Opponents of the new rules have repeatedly warned the state board that a number of the changes fall outside of the state board’s authority and so are not legally valid. They also create undue and illegal hardships for districts, critics argue.

Particularly onerous, public school proponents say, are the new regulations’ limited timeline for districts to review and process charter schools’ facilities requests. This will pose a hardship for districts with limited staff, especially those required to process multiple requests for facilities.

Concerns also focus on provisions limiting districts’ ability to move “conversion” charters (public schools that are transformed into charters) from one facility to another. These new rules will especially constrain districts that must close schools and reconfigure facilities to deal with declining enrollment.
The state board’s approval of the new regulations came despite months of extensive criticism of the proposals. CSBA and other public school advocacy groups, including the Association of California School Administrators, California Teachers Association and California Association of School Business Officials, warned of potential problems and proposed constructive alternatives.

“We have spent an inordinate amount of time on this issue with SBE and California Department of Education staff,” CSBA Senior Policy Analyst Stephanie Farland told the board May 10. “Even more importantly, districts are spending an inordinate amount of effort on these facilities requests already. Ninety-eight percent of public school students have chosen to stay in traditional public schools. With these new regulations, we are dangerously close to making regulations that favor the 2 percent over the 98 percent.”

The state board is expected to forward the new regulations to the Office of Administrative Law soon for further review, including an evaluation of their legal validity. The office has 30 days to act on them.

“If the OAL signs off on these regulations, the Education Legal Alliance is prepared to file suit,” said Alliance Director Richard Hamilton. “We are convinced that these new regulations include provisions that exceed the scope of the state board’s authority and conflict with statutory law.”

Villaraigosa ends legal battle over control of LAUSD
Declaring that “It’s time to get out of the courtroom and into the classroom,” Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last month ended his quest for a court decision that would give him partial control of the state’s largest school district.

Los Angeles Unified School District board members and district Superintendent David Brewer joined Villaraigosa at a May 18 press conference, where they urged the community to work together to deliver the best possible educational opportunities to the 708,000 students served by LAUSD.

The event signaled an end to a debate that began with the 2005 campaign for mayor and grew to encompass the state Legislature and the courts. Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly leader who won the mayoral contest, initially sought outright control of the district, which extends beyond the city line to take in some two dozen other municipalities. Villaraigosa turned to the Legislature last summer and eventually won passage of Assembly Bill 1381, a diminished version of his plan that was scaled back by intensive lobbying efforts led by Los Angeles parents, the school district, CSBA and other allies.

The law still would have given the mayor direct control over a cluster of K-12 schools, a role in selection of the district superintendent and other authority, so opponents sued to challenge the measure’s constitutionality. They prevailed in Los Angeles County Superior Court late last year and again in the state’s Second District Court of Appeal last month. Villaraigosa’s announcement ends any concern that the case would be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

“CSBA congratulates Mayor Villaraigosa for his decision to drop any further appeal of the court’s decision that AB 1381 is unconstitutional. We also applaud the mayor’s decision to work with the LAUSD board, superintendent, teachers and parents to further the district’s success in closing the achievement gap and meeting the educational needs and desires of all LAUSD students,” said CSBA President Kathy Kinley.

“During the debate on AB 1381, CSBA continually stressed that mayors and school boards can work together in many different ways to meet the needs of school children. We thank the mayor for recognizing that the best way to accomplish our mutual goals is to work with, rather than against, the governance team of LAUSD,” said CSBA Executive Director Scott P. Plotkin.