After the California Supreme Court last week declined to hear the Los Altos School District’s appeal, district officials are moving ahead with set guidelines for drafting an initial facilities offer for Bullis Charter School.
The state Supreme Court upheld the Sixth District Court of Appeal’s decision in favor of the charter school Jan. 18. The Court of Appeal last October ruled that the school district, per Proposition 39, did not provide “reasonably equivalent” space for the charter school and questioned the methods the school district employed to provide comparison data.
The district plans within the week to complete its initial facilities offer to Bullis Charter School, due by Feb. 1. The charter school submitted a facilities request based on the clarification of Proposition 39 published by the Court of Appeal.
The charter school, scheduled to enroll 515 students next year, plans to add one fifth-grade class and one seventh-grade class. By law, the school district must provide facilities for 493 of those students, reported as residents of the district by the charter school.
The charter school’s facilities request claims that the school needs a 10-acre or larger site that feeds into Los Altos High School. It is currently located on a 6-acre site on the corner of the Egan Junior High School campus. The request suggests that the Gardner Bullis School site in Los Altos Hills would best serve the needs of its students, because most charter school students reside within the Gardner attendance area.
The request also stated, “It is in the best interests of the in-district students attending BCS, that the entire BCS K-8 program be located on a single, contiguous site. Proposition 39 also states that charter school facilities should be contiguous.”
The meaning of the word contiguous has been up for debate in the state. In the 2005 Fifth District Court of Appeal case Ridgecrest Charter School vs. Sierra Sands Unified School District, the court ruled that “the facilities must also be ‘contiguous,’ meaning they must be on or adjacent to a school site. However, if the charter school’s students cannot be accommodated at a single site, ‘contiguous facilities’ may include those ‘located at more than one site, provided that the school district shall minimize the number of sites assigned and shall consider student safety.’”
The charter school’s request declares that operating on a shared site is no longer “feasible.”
The Los Altos School District Board of Trustees is scheduled to review and vote on its initial offer to Bullis Charter School at a board meeting before Feb. 1. The item was not included on the agenda for Monday’s meeting, held after the Town Crier’s press deadline. Once the offer is presented to the charter school, charter-school officials have until March 1 to respond. The district then must provide a final offer by April 1.
Los Altos School District Superintendent Jeff Baier said the district was disappointed that the state Supreme Court chose not to hear their appeal, but now the district has direction on measuring facilities.
“We now have a more clearly defined methodology,” Baier said, “so we will incorporate that into the development of the facilities offer while balancing the needs of all the students that live within the district boundaries, including the charter school students.”
Board President Mark Goines agreed.
“We can now move forward with a court-defined methodology for allocating facilities and focus our efforts on LASD’s continued commitment to maintaining the excellence of all of our high-performing schools, while balancing the needs of all students residing within our boundaries,” he said.
Charter school officials are also eyeing the future.
“Now that the highest court in California has upheld this landmark decision, it is time that all public school students are given access to equivalent facilities,” said Ken Moore, Bullis Charter School board chairman. “With this facilities decision final, it is our desire to work in partnership with the district to ensure that all students are treated fairly. This is the second message sent by our judicial system to the district that it is time to find solutions that comply with the law.”
“This ruling should end this litigation,” said attorney Arturo Gonzalez, who tried the case on behalf of Bullis Charter School. “School districts in California do not have the right to ignore the law with unfair allocations of space and facilities. We are hopeful that the district will finally share facilities fairly with Bullis students.”
For updates, visit losaltosonline.com.
