Charter School Offers Rejected by Nine Districts

A company hoping to operate charter schools in nine Orange County school districts has been rejected by all of them.

Applications from Opportunities for Learning, based in La Canada Flintridge, lacked sufficient information about its independent-study program and weren’t tailored to individual districts’ needs, school administrators said.

“We did not think that they had shown enough evidence of a sound educational program,” said Margaret LaRoe, the deputy superintendent at Capistrano Unified School District.

“If in fact they answered the questions . . . showing or demonstrating how they are going to meet the needs of kids, then I think they would be successful,” said Bill Manahan, an assistant superintendent at Saddleback Valley Unified School District.

Other districts denying the applications were Anaheim Union High School District, Garden Grove Unified, Huntington Beach Union High School District, Irvine Unified, Orange Unified, Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified and Santa Ana Unified, said Richard Garcia, an executive assistant to John and Joan Hall, who run Opportunities for Learning.

Joan Hall said Wednesday that she and her husband haven’t decided whether to appeal the school board decisions.

“We’re very interested in working with the districts,” she said.

Charter schools operate independent of state and local regulations, but are financed by the local school district where they are based. Supporters say they promote innovation among schools that will improve the overall system. But critics argue that charter schools siphon money from other campuses and are accountable to no one.

The blanket of applications stems from changes to a state law that took effect Jan. 1, which allows the number of charter schools to increase from 100 to 250.

Besides allowing charter schools to proliferate, the changes also make it tougher for local school districts to refuse charter proposals; the decision must be made on the proposal’s educational merits.

Some school officials say the law is meant to encourage charter proposals from grass-roots groups of parents and teachers. But Opportunities for Learning is an outside entity that sent nearly identical applications to various school districts across the state.

“We really believe that charter schools have a place here,” said Karen Bass, a spokeswoman at Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified, “but we really believe it should be coming from a local base, meeting the needs at a particular school.”

The Halls operate what they call “dropout recovery programs” for high school students. The students work independently but are required to complete several hours of homework a day and check in with a teacher a few times a week.

The Halls could revise their charter applications and re-submit them to the school boards, said Colin Miller, a consultant on charter schools with the state Department of Education.

They also have 180 days from the date of denial to appeal to the Orange County Board of Education or to the state board. If that fails, they could sue the districts, Miller said.

Orange County already has four charter schools: Santiago Middle School in Orange, Las Palmas Elementary in San Clemente, Gates Elementary in Lake Forest and the Orange County Community Home Education Program, run for home schoolers.