The Cuyama Joint Unified School District voted not to adopt the Olive Grove Charter School petition on Feb. 19, putting 16 teachers and three classified staff one step closer to losing their jobs at the charter school come September. The group of Olive Grove staff sponsoring the petition has decided to appeal the decision to the Santa Barbara County Board of Education.
Los Olivos School District board members opted in June 2013 to dramatically downsize the district’s charter school program. Olive Grove has five sites and more than 300 students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The board’s decision will dramatically shrink the school to a single campus in Los Olivos serving 20 students in kindergarten through 8th grade. Campuses offering a blended program of independent study and classroom instruction in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc, and Morro Bay will close their doors. Some 280 students will need to find a new school to attend. Olive Grove staff are preparing to guide them through the process.
A committee that formed in the wake of that June decision attempted to save those campuses. Members drew up a new charter to govern the four campuses under threat of closure and sought adoption by another district. They petitioned the Cuyama Joint Unified School District to adopt the modified charter but were denied after Santa Barbara Unified School District threatened to sue Cuyama over a campus the district says would be illegally operating within its boundaries.
The Los Olivos School District founded Olive Grove Charter School in 2001. The school offers a blended program of independent study and in-class instruction. Like Trivium Charter School or Orcutt Academy, Olive Grove operates multiple campuses, many of which sit outside of the district’s geographical bounds. The satellite campuses generate revenue from students who would otherwise be enrolled in another district.
Olive Grove math teacher Joe McCollum believes the charter is being downsized so the district can increase its state funding by becoming a basic aid district. Funding from local property taxes, on a per-student basis, would be greater under basic aid than what the school receives from the state now. According to McCollum, the district would need to shed students to achieve basic aid status, which would happen with the closure of the satellite campuses and dramatic reduction of the scope of the charter.
None of the Los Olivos School District’s board members responded to the Sun’s request for comments on the decision. In an article published by the Santa Maria Times on Feb. 12, board member Julie Kennedy denied that funding considerations drove the board’s decision to downsize the charter program and said that the decision was made for multiple reasons and driven by public input.
* * *
The transition committee looking to save the bulk of the Olive Grove charter is headed by Brandon Perry, a social studies teacher and former site director. He was thrust into his position as the charter program’s interim director when Marsha Filibin, who was the district’s superintendent and the principal of Olive Grove, unexpectedly retired.
The group had a limited time to come up with the modified charter. Plans for special education and student discipline needed to meet rigorous state standards. Locations of specific facilities had to be determined quickly. And the transition group needed to find the money to fund the transition process.
“We didn’t think we would have been able to get it done in a year,” said registrar Maria Domingues. “Most charters that start out, it’s a couple-year process. If we had a little bit of time, we could have ironed out some of the stuff. Time really wasn’t on our side.”
Nobody in the committee had experience drawing up a charter. Together, members had a limited background in administration: Perry had just been named director, and Domingues had worked as the school’s registrar for four years. They contracted Suzanne Coie of the Charter School Development Center to guide them through the process.
The group also reached out to neighboring school districts to see if any of them would take the charter. Cuyama Unified, serving the Cuyama Valley in northwestern Santa Barbara County, was the only one to show interest.
The committee worked out a memorandum of understanding with Cuyama and scrambled to pull together a viable petition. Funds were running low, and members needed a decision from Cuyama in order to apply for a revolving charter school development loan from the California Department of Education before Feb. 24. Expecting that Cuyama Unified would approve the charter even while some of it was incomplete, they submitted their modified charter for review. The item was scheduled to be heard during the Cuyama School Board’s special meeting on Feb. 19.
* * *
Prior to the meeting on Feb. 19, Perry was confident that Cuyama would approve the petition.
“The whole feeling for this pending partnership is very positive,” he said before the meeting. “We’re very comfortable and confident that Cuyama is going to sponsor us.”
Superintendent Paul Chounet of Cuyama, however, recommended that his district not adopt the petition. The Cuyama Unified staff recommended a rejection as well.
The petition didn’t propose a school in New Cuyama and left the satellite campuses where they were already established.
One of the campuses covered by the petition sits within the geographical boundaries of the Santa Barbara Unified School District. On the day of the special hearing, SBUSD sent an email to Cuyama objecting to the adoption of the Santa Barbara campus.
“Good Morning,” reads the email from SBUSD Superintendent Dave Cash. “With only 48 hours to respond, I am left with only stating that we believe, based on legal counsel’s advice, that Cuyama can not authorize a charter school outside of your attendance area. If you do, we will be following up with legal action by our district.”
Cuyama, a small rural district with limited resources, wasn’t ready for a legal battle. So the board, going with the recommendation, voted no.
“It really was that someone was threatening legal action on it, and our legal counsel said that it’s a gray area in the law. It’s not specifically specified in the code, and they could take legal action,” Chounet explained to the Sun. “They’re a large district with a lot of resources, and we’re a small district with not a lot of resources. Even if I thought I was right, I can’t make the recommendation as a superintendent to put my district at that kind of risk. I don’t think that would be responsible for me to do that.”
Olive Grove math teacher McCollum believes that the threat of litigation was the deciding factor. Another staff member at Los Olivos also said that the threat sealed Cuyama’s petition denial.
“The main reason was that the superintendent of Santa Barbara city schools threatened a lawsuit, that if you authorize this school we will sue you,” McCollum said. “The reason was that Cuyama was not going to have a site at their school in Cuyama. If they don’t have a site, it is a valid point, but Cuyama did not have the funds to feel like they could fight that.”
Santa Maria Joint Union High School District Superintendent Mark Richardson attended the Feb. 19 meeting as well. Richardson couldn’t be reached for comment, but district spokesman Kenny Klein provided the Sun with the text of Richardson’s notes for the meeting.
“We have nothing against charter schools and believe charter schools can provide a beneficial educational option for students in local communities, but charter schools must be authorized and operate in compliance with the law,” the document reads. “Recently, San Diego County Superior Court judge confirmed that all charters [sic] schools, whether non-classroom based, blended, or other, must comply with the geographic location limitations of the Education Code.”
Olive Grove’s proposal to continue operating a site in Santa Maria, the notes say, “runs contrary the Education Code geographic limitations.”
“You can’t deny charters based on loss of revenue, loss of students,” Chounet told the Sun. “But if by chartering this you put yourself at risk of litigation, that’s a whole different story.”
The Superior Court case referred to in Richardson’s document was San Diego v. Alpine. On Jan. 28, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey L. Gunther ordered Alpine Unified School District to revoke the charter of Endeavour Academy, based in a Clairemont church some 30 miles outside the boundaries of their district. Geographically, the charter was in San Diego Unified’s turf.
The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Alpine had set up the charter school without notifying San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) it would be doing so. SDUSD sued to revoke the charter, which would compete with the district’s schools for students and revenue, and won.
“I know Mark Richardson,” Chounet said, “He’s a really good person. I think he’s not really anti-charter, he’s just questioning whether or not it was the intent of the law.”
Paul Nicholas Boylen, a lawyer and lecturer from Davis specializing in education law issues, said that the underlying legal issue in the Cuyama/Olive Grove case isn’t settled, but he expects an eventual ruling in favor of charter schools.
“The reason why they denied the application is not settled. I really hope that the teachers in the district appeal this, because it’s an opportunity to get some certainty from the California Supreme Court,” Boylen said. “However, my best guess is that when the Supreme Court has a chance to review this, they’re going to decide that it doesn’t matter how far an actual school is from the chartering authority. The reason? It’s very clear under the law that there is a public policy favoring charter schools. The interpretation that the district is relying on violates that policy.”
* * *
Downsizing Olive Grove will force students to move into other schools. However, not every student enrolled at the campuses slated for closure may be able to adapt to another learning environment.
Olive Grove Registrar Domingues said that charter schools are an important option for students in unique situations.
“A couple years ago we had a student who was paralyzed on the right side,” she recalled. “Her goal was to take the entire math series at [Santa Barbara City College]. Her problem was that because she was partially paralyzed she wasn’t as mobile. If she stayed at a traditional school, she wouldn’t have that flexibility with her schedule.”
Students attend Olive Grove for a reason, she said. Sometimes, they aren’t good fits for the public school system: “You have students who just cannot adapt for whatever reason.”
Becky Reid, a science teacher with Olive Grove who was also on the transition committee, expressed sadness that those students would lose their spots in the classroom.
“I’m upset that our students are getting the rug pulled out from under them, so to speak,” she said. “Many of our students are kids that do not succeed in the traditional classroom, for one reason or another. We were able to offer them an alternative that met their needs, and many of them are doing so much better in our program than they did in ‘regular’ public school.”
Mark Palmerston, executive director of Santa Ynez Valley Charter School, said that the educational options created by charter programs are essential to healthy communities.
“I really believe that high quality options for choice within education are an excellent benefit to everyone,” he said. “When parents and families can choose the best educational option for their family, our schools and our communities are healthier.”
* * *
Right now, the plan is to help students make a decision as to where they can enroll if their Olive Grove campus isn’t open during the coming year, according to Interim Director Perry. The committee has appealed Cuyama’s decision to the Santa Barbara County Board of Education as well.
“The plan right now is to do our best to find appropriate and suitable alternatives for our kids who are transitioning out of this program,” Perry said. “Students who need a strong educational alternative will continue to be provided with that, whether it be in the districts where they reside or other educational settings. We’re very concerned about our students, and our work right now is geared toward helping them with that transition.”
“What we’re hoping we can do is start working on placement,” Domingues added. “We have a really great relationship with Santa Maria Joint. Those guys are very accommodating as far as what are we going to do. They have every program. We should be able to work with these districts.”
Reid—the science teacher—said that the transition committee isn’t ready to roll over yet.
“We are looking into all of our remaining options, including approaching other districts, talking with other independent study programs, and appealing our charter petition to the Santa Barbara County Office of Education,” she said. “If nothing else, we want to help our students find the best available alternative to Olive Grove. A door has been closed, but some of us are still hoping for windows to open.”
Contact Staff Writer Sean McNulty at smcnulty@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2015.