Charter School Bid Advances

A bill to make the Capistrano school system the first full-fledged charter district in the state unanimously passed a key Senate committee Wednesday.

“This is very encouraging,” Sen. Bill Morrow (R-Oceanside), author of Senate Bill 1705, said after the 7:30 p.m. vote. “I am pleased. It’s important to get a strong vote like this that builds momentum. It will make it more difficult to kill.”

The Senate Education Committee voted 13 to 0, with Sen. Terry Hughes (D-Los Angeles) absent. When the issue had come up for a vote earlier in the day, four members had supported it, five abstained and five others were absent. The committee put the vote on hold while Morrow did some last-minute lobbying.

“I was all over the Capitol trying to track down the senators,” he said after the second vote. “I talked with every member of the committee personally and was able to get the unanimous vote.”

The bill, which would grant 43,000-student Capistrano Unified freedom from a wide range of state regulations covering public schools, faced a rocky reception at the start. Committee members, including chairwoman Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), questioned what parents would do who don’t want a charter district and discussed the ramifications if every district statewide wanted such freedom from rules intended to set standards for public education. But by the end of the day, Alpert had decided to support the measure.

Three small districts in the Central Valley have converted all their campuses to individual charter schools, which have more autonomy in exchange for promises of better student performance. The Capistrano bill would create an actual charter district, with both individual schools and headquarters for the south Orange County school district freed from rules governing everything from how they must spend funds to which subjects must be taught in which grades and in what way.

“This is a test case,” Morrow said. “It’s a pilot program.”

Capistrano Unified trustees were pleased Wednesday night.

Board President Sheila Benecke called the committee’s approval the only logical choice.

“There is legislation to allow small school districts to be charter districts, so why shouldn’t large districts be allowed?” she asked.

Other trustees were more cautious, pointing out that the vote was just one step, albeit and important one, on the way to winning approval from both the full Senate and the Assembly.

“We’re still a very long way from getting the bill passed,” Trustee Crystal Kochendorfer said.

But Supt. James A. Fleming said clearing the Education Committee was the major hurdle. It is likely to receive less scrutiny in the Appropriations Committee and on the floors of the Senate and Assembly, he said.

No matter what ultimately happens in Sacramento, school district officials will need to study its implications, Trustee Shelia J. Henness said. “It’s not anything we want to rush into.”