Charter school scorecard: How the board voted Tuesday night
LA School Report | October 18, 2016
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* UPDATED
Five independent public charter schools were denied Tuesday night by the LA Unified school board.
The board granted one petition of the nine schools on the special agenda that had been recommended for denial. Another school will likely keep its charter under a last-minute deal, and two were petitions withdrawn.
Here is the action Tuesday night. Come back to LA School Report on Wednesday for a full report.
• El Camino Real Charter High School — The charter will remain, as long as a last-minute deal is ratified next week by the charter’s board. In it, Executive Director David Fehte will resign and four members of the governing board will step down. This is after the district staff had recommended taking the second step toward revoking the school’s charter. The last-minute deal was worked out with the involvement of UTLA, the LA teachers union.
• WISH — The petition was withdrawn prior to the meeting after issues were “remedied” over the weekend, and the petition will instead come before the board in November.
• Citizens of the World — Citizens of the World 3’s petition was granted to expand the elementary school to serve grades 6-8. The organization withdrew its request to open a new school, Citizens of the World Westside, which would have served 740 students in grades TK-6. District staff recommended against both petitions.
• Celerity — Both petitions were denied based on concerns about transparency of governance. Celerity Dyad and Celerity Troika will lose their charters at the end of the school year unless they appeal to the county. This followed the staff recommendations, and the board and staff acknowledged that the schools had a strong academic record.
• Magnolia — The three schools were not renewed, for procedural and accountability issues that district staff deemed not yet cured. The schools can appeal to the county and then to the state. The schools can continue to operate through that process and remain on co-located campuses. The schools’ strong academic record was noted by the staff.
*This article has been updated to clarify the board’s action on Citizens of the World schools.