Two-dozen local teachers, administrators, and advocates travelled to Sacramento on June 10 to make their case on behalf of the beleaguered Olive Grove Charter School before the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools (ACCS).
The meeting before the ACCS was an important prelude to their petition appeal hearing before the California Board of Education on July 8 or 9.
“We had to present a Powerpoint, our people spoke, and then [the advisory commission] voted to go ahead and recommend authorization by the state Board of Education,” said Olive Grove teacher Laura Mudge.
The recommendation comes after Olive Grove’s efforts to stay open through a modified charter petition met threats of litigation from the Santa Barbara Unified School District and subsequent rejections by the Cuyama Unified School District and the Santa Barbara County Board of Education.
The Olive Grove delegation included two families, the board president, teachers, and representatives from the Charter School Development Centers.
Brian Bauer with the ACCS said that the previous denials of Olive Grove’s charter petition “appear to be for reasons that may not have as much to do with the program as with the solvency of the district.”
Eric Freemac, who represented the Charter School Development Center, reiterated his organization’s support for Olive Grove.
“We think the legal issue is relatively straightforward,” he said. “The law requires a school, not a location, but a school that will operate within the boundaries of the district. In this case, they clearly identified a school that will operate within Cuyama. It doesn’t require that you have a facility. We have never required here that you identify a particular facility or address in a charter petition in advance.”
The ACCS ultimately voted unanimously to approve the petition without conditions.
Mudge, speaking with the Sun after the meeting, was ecstatic that the Olive Grove team had finally found a deliberative body ready to vote in favor of her school.
“The whole reason that we’ve worked so hard for this is for our students and families,” she said. “It makes us really happy that we get to continue providing such a need for the students in our county who those traditional schools are not working for. Our students have needs that are not being met, and we’re really excited to help them with those needs.”
The Olive Grove team is currently in the process of reaching out to students waiting to hear the results of the Sacramento meeting. Many of those students, according to Mudge, are prepared to transfer to other schools in the event that Olive Grove’s petition is denied at the state level.
“A lot of our students were waiting anyways to see what would happen in Sacramento,” Mudge said.
The leases on Olive Grove’s campuses expire at the end of June, so team members will be packing up the materials and moving them to storage while they await the final decision Sacramento.
“Traditionally, the state Board of Education goes with the recommendation of the ACCS. Because the ACCS has recommended our authorization, we’re confident that they’re going to vote along those lines,” Mudge said.
This article appears in Jun 18-25, 2015.