ELA prepared to sue over new charter facilities 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 May 10 approval 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 in violation of state law, 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 the 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.”