School space battle flares
L.A. Daily News 4/5/07
L.A. Unified School District officials responded this week to 35 requests from charter schools for space on district campuses, putting two on a waiting list.
But more than 20 of the sites tentatively offered to charter schools are on campuses that could get state funds to reduce class size. If they get the money - officials are waiting to hear next month - the campuses would need to keep the classroom space for their own students, and the offers to charters would be rescinded.
The situation has left charter schools scrambling for places to house their students next year and wondering if they will even be able to exist, said Caprice Young, head of the California Charter Schools Association.
"It's not the best they can do because we know of space on their campuses that they didn't offer and they should and could have offered," Young said. "They really have to comply with the law, and it may come down to a judge determining what compliance is about."
Young said district officials are not complying with Proposition 39, which requires school districts to treat all public school students - including those in charters - fairly.
Also, Young said district officials offered the same space at Van Nuys High to two charters in a clear example of double- booking. And she said the law makes it clear that offers must be final, not conditional, with clear descriptions of how many classrooms are available.
"It doesn't count as an offer if they're saying we might have the space for you, but we won't know for a while," she said.
LAUSD general counsel Kevin Reed said the offers comply with the law because they are the best the district has at a time when facilities are limited.
"For them to litigate ... is a complete waste of time because we can't create facilities out of no facilities," he said. "What they're asking us to do is give preferential treatment to charter school students. That would be unfair to district students."
The issue has escalated a battle between charter officials, who say their schools are being marginalized, and district officials.
Just last week, the district board unexpectedly rejected five petitions submitted by Steve Barr, the founder of the successful Green Dot Public Schools, to create schools in the underserved community of Watts.
"Like the vote last week, it's the arrogance of power. They're breaking the law," Barr said, adding that school districts can only reject charters if their plans are deemed to be financially or academically unsound.
Barr regards the five responses he got as denials, leaving him in the lurch when he has to conduct a lottery in two weeks for 700 students around Jefferson High School. He is considering legal action.
Meanwhile, a 17-acre district lot sits vacant nearby until LAUSD puts up bungalows to house administrators, Barr said.
"I think it's criminal. I'm struggling to convert dingy churches, and I'm educating kids without fields and proper facilities," Barr said. "There are 17 open acres nearby, and they're saying they don't have room."
Reed said the district moved administrators to the property near Jefferson to give another charter school a campus.
If the district gave that lot to a charter school, it would be forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to lease space for administrators - taking money away from classrooms and students, Reed said.
"Our first priority are students. Period. To serve those students, we need to make sure the maximum amounts of dollars are going to classrooms and not to leases," Reed said.
A shortage of facilities is currently the biggest impediment to the growth of the popular charter movement, Young said.
As charters operate schools in churches and warehouses, they are spending about 15 percent of their budget on facilities - money that could be going to student services, she said.
The charter association said that so far, LAUSD's location offers to charters have typically been either too far from the community the charter serves or not large enough.
In the latest round of offers, Los Angeles International Charter High School in the northeast San Fernando Valley was offered classrooms on a campus in Westchester, near Los Angeles International Airport.
Reed said the district evaluates available space by scrutinizing enrollment and capacity data for each campus. There currently are a dozen charter schools operating on district-owned sites.
Barr, however, said he has begun reaching out to parents to petition the district. He also said he's optimistic a new school board will collaborate with the charter movement.
"Nothing's going to change if we don't organize as parents and taxpayers to stand up to this," Barr said. "The board's going to change in July, and maybe then we can have a reasonable conversation about how to serve kids instead of adults sniping."