Charter proposal fails to draw trustee interest
Organizers of the first—and so far only—petition for a charter school in the Placentia-Yorba Linda school district haven’t been active since trustees denied their request in a 5-0 vote that went unreported by the media and local blogs late last year.
The charter movement is useful, especially for underperforming schools and specialized programs, such as the Orange County High School of the Arts, but creating an “on-line” charter school for “independent study” here lacks merit.
And the petitioners, none of whom reside in the district, might have realized the proposal was without educational value for this community, since they didn’t show up for a public hearing on their petition. No one, local or non-local, spoke on the charter submission.
The PYLUSD already provides plenty of opportunities for independent study. La Entrada has about 100 students (60 from Yorba Linda) in a 9-12 program, and Parkview, with 225 students (90 from Yorba Linda), has a K-12 program popular with home-schoolers.
The petition was sponsored by Newport Beach-based Charter School Development Systems, associated with Ed Futures, which claims to have developed more than 70 charter schools since 1995 and to now run five nationwide, one in California.
At least, petitioners were upfront about their tactics. They submitted identical proposals to 91 school districts in California, hoping for acceptance in 14 counties sharing borders with the state’s other 44 counties, which would allow them to operate statewide.
The petition was deficient in three areas, noted PYLUSD trustees: it lacked proper signatures, didn’t describe all required elements and, importantly, the “petitioner is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition.”
Petitioners wanted to begin operations in January with about 100 students, adding 100 in each of the next three years. But, trustees said, the charter’s budget assumed 100 percent attendance and an 82:1 pupil/teacher ratio, exceeding state requirements.
An internet search failed to discover a district that accepted the petition, so PYLUSD trustees who found the petition “not to be consistent with sound educational practice” wisely joined good company. Too bad limited funding had to be used in the process.
In more recent school board action, trustees accepted performance audits for 2008-09 fiscal year spending under bond measures approved by voters in 2002 and 2008. The audits previously were approved by a citizens oversight committee.
The audits, required because the bonds were approved under rules allowing passage by a 55 percent vote instead of a two-thirds majority, reassure residents that money was spent for purposes outlined in the measures and not on salaries or operations.
The 2002 Measure Y $102 million bond and the 2008 Measure A $200 million bond cost property owners $61.65 for each $100,000 of assessed value on 2009-10 tax billings.
The charter movement is useful, especially for underperforming schools and specialized programs, such as the Orange County High School of the Arts, but creating an “on-line” charter school for “independent study” here lacks merit.
And the petitioners, none of whom reside in the district, might have realized the proposal was without educational value for this community, since they didn’t show up for a public hearing on their petition. No one, local or non-local, spoke on the charter submission.
The PYLUSD already provides plenty of opportunities for independent study. La Entrada has about 100 students (60 from Yorba Linda) in a 9-12 program, and Parkview, with 225 students (90 from Yorba Linda), has a K-12 program popular with home-schoolers.
The petition was sponsored by Newport Beach-based Charter School Development Systems, associated with Ed Futures, which claims to have developed more than 70 charter schools since 1995 and to now run five nationwide, one in California.
At least, petitioners were upfront about their tactics. They submitted identical proposals to 91 school districts in California, hoping for acceptance in 14 counties sharing borders with the state’s other 44 counties, which would allow them to operate statewide.
The petition was deficient in three areas, noted PYLUSD trustees: it lacked proper signatures, didn’t describe all required elements and, importantly, the “petitioner is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition.”
Petitioners wanted to begin operations in January with about 100 students, adding 100 in each of the next three years. But, trustees said, the charter’s budget assumed 100 percent attendance and an 82:1 pupil/teacher ratio, exceeding state requirements.
An internet search failed to discover a district that accepted the petition, so PYLUSD trustees who found the petition “not to be consistent with sound educational practice” wisely joined good company. Too bad limited funding had to be used in the process.
In more recent school board action, trustees accepted performance audits for 2008-09 fiscal year spending under bond measures approved by voters in 2002 and 2008. The audits previously were approved by a citizens oversight committee.
The audits, required because the bonds were approved under rules allowing passage by a 55 percent vote instead of a two-thirds majority, reassure residents that money was spent for purposes outlined in the measures and not on salaries or operations.
The 2002 Measure Y $102 million bond and the 2008 Measure A $200 million bond cost property owners $61.65 for each $100,000 of assessed value on 2009-10 tax billings.
posted by Jim Drummond at 12:00 AM
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