Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Backers of Charter School Appeal to County : Education: District’s board has rejected plan to convert the Palmdale campus. But supporters may have waited too long.

Supporters of a proposal to convert Highland High into a charter school are trying to make an end run around the Antelope Valley Union High School district board, which has already rejected their plan.

The Highland Charter Committee sent an appeal Wednesday to the Los Angeles County Office of Education in hopes of getting the local board to reconsider.

“It is our belief that our charter was treated unfairly (by the school board),” said Glen Horst, head of the charter committee and a Highland High English teacher. “We want the county to order them to reconsider.”

But the committee may have waited too long to make its appeal. Procedures adopted by the county Board of Education call for appeals to be filed 30 days from the time the proposal is rejected by the local board. The Highland High charter was turned down by the school board six months ago.

Virginia Hoffman, assistant director for curriculum and instructional strategies with the county office, said the county’s 30-day appeal limit is being reviewed by legal staff.

A 1992 law allowed for the creation of 100 charter schools in California as a means of achieving the decade-long effort toward educational reform. To date, 53 charters, which are not bound by the requirements of the extensive state Education Code, have been granted.

In a 3-2 vote, the district board had rejected the charter plan for the Palmdale campus, saying it was too vague and failed to include financial information.

But charter committee members wrote in a 12-page letter to the county office that they believe the proposal was turned down because the board majority doesn’t understand school reform. Committee members also wrote that they would use the first year of the charter as a development period during which the plan could be more fully developed.

“It is a matter of court record that the board majority has acted in the recent past in an arbitrary and capricious manner,” Horst said in reference to the board’s recent refusal, until ordered by the courts, to administer the California Learning Assessment System test.

“We believe that type of behavior first manifested itself in the way they cavalierly dismissed a year and a half’s work” on the charter plan, he added.

Horst said the committee was frustrated even more when the board, shortly after rejecting the Highland High proposal, authorized a feasibility study on the possibility of the district establishing a charter school.

Board President Billy Pricer, who voted with members Sue Stokka and Tony Welch to deny the charter, said the plan was rejected because it lacked substance.

“We heard that thing to death,” Pricer said. “We gave them options and opportunities, and what we asked for--a detailed setup--never came to fruition.”