[KHTS] – With Santa Clarita Valley support split in the state Senate, Senate Bill 1263, a bill addressing state’s Education Code regarding charter schools passed Wednesday, officials said.
The bill, authored by state Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Calabasas, who represents a portion of the Santa Clarita Valley, makes it illegal for school districts to authorize a charter school outside of their boundaries.
“This bill closes a loophole that has been used by a school district to authorize numerous charter schools outside its boundaries in contradiction to the intent of the law,” Pavley said. “Abuse of this loophole hurts legitimate charter schools, and it hurts school districts that are trying to authorize charters within their boundaries and obey the law.”
The bill is now headed to the Assembly, where it could be amended.
State Sen. Steve Knight, R-Palmdale, voted against the bill because he didn’t see a problem with the current legislation, other than there was no mechanism to enforce the law as it stands.
Santa Clarita Valley school districts spearheaded the effort to have this legislation introduced in response to the Acton Agua Dulce Unified School District and its approval of 15 charter schools over the last three years. The bill passed with a vote of 21-12.
“We believe this gives validity to what we’ve been saying all along,” said Newhall School District Superintendent Marc Winger. “It immediately resonated with the Senate Education Committee when we presented our case.”
One of the concerns about the current law is it requires a charter school seeking approval to notify the district in which it intends to locate, if it’s not within the chartering district’s boundaries.
Santa Clarita Valley superintendents claimed Einstein Academy did not do this when it applied for a charter school location in the Castaic Union School District from AADUSD.
Winger was one of five superintendents leading the effort on the legislation, which addressed a “pay for play” problem allowed by the current law, he said.
A bill amending the current law would be preferable, Knight said, acknowledging there’s no mechanism to prompt enforcement if a charter school fails to notify a district.
“There’s some discussion of an amendment, and that’s fine, but I dont think (the bill) is going away,” Winger said. “As long as there’s something that deals with the (pay for play) problem.”
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6 Comments
Why does SCTV never comment on any positive things that Einstein Academy does? You have have some of the most biased reporting I’ve ever seen.
School choice is so threatening to the bureaucrats/school boards/superintendents of this valley…..take away the white picket fences and the over rated “blue ribbons” and you’ll see that these schools provide the bare minimum in education and the bare minimum in skill building. Families used to move here for the schools. Now look how many are fighting for charters, transferring to private or going into home schooling. Support school choice.
Gina Rospond
There are lots of families ready to give a fight to have the right to choose for better education for our kids it sad but I moved to canyon country trying to find better school for my kids but unfortunately i didn’t find it in our home schools .. AEA it’s a great and we r not going anywhere
My experience with AEA wasn’t great – in this, their first year, their learning stages, my five year old has been dropped out and there was so much confusion just making sure day to day operations worked, there was no support for children and their parents that struggled.
That being said – if the charter schools that the district is approving are focusing on the quality of education the kids are getting, I think they are a great idea.
Interesting how the redundant system of multiple elementary school districts is never discussed(with an overabundance of bureaucracy). Nor are the large number of inter-district transfers that Newhall and Saugus happily accept each year from Acton-Aqua Dulce.