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By Sandy Banks

What if you could create your dream school for your kids, one that’s high-tech and hands-on; diverse and genteel; an urban beehive of creativity with a suburban sense of security?

That’s what a group of young upscale parents in South Park set out to do three years ago. They loved their neighborhood’s edgy feel, but wanted something for their children less gritty and more academically challenging than the local skid row-adjacent elementary school.

On park outings, during play dates and at dinner parties they drafted a 150-page charter school proposal, which was approved by the Los Angeles school board in 2013.

Their move to bypass local schools didn’t sit well with some. Los Angeles has 264 publicly funded charter schools, more than any district in the country; their proliferation and loose oversight have been sore points.

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