Board Changes Its Stance on School for Arts

A group of Santa Ana parents who want to resurrect plans for a charter elementary school steeped in the arts is being thwarted by school trustees who previously embraced the idea.

The Santa Ana Unified School District had agreed in 2002 to sponsor the school, but the proposal stalled for lack of funds. Now that parents say they are ready to open the Orange County Elementary Arts Academy in September, district trustees believe the school is financially doomed and question its leadership. Trustees last month voted unanimously to revoke the school’s charter.

“It’s unfortunate,” said board president Rob Richardson, “but this would have been much more difficult if the school was opened and the same decision had to be made.”

Charter schools, which seek to use innovative teaching methods, are financed by the state and local districts. Though they are largely independent, the schools must be approved by local school districts, which are financially liable for them.

Five of the county’s 10 charter schools are in Santa Ana and district officials said they firmly support giving parents alternative schooling options but could not ignore what they said were serious flaws in the school plan.

Boosters of the school dispute the district’s projections of budget shortfalls. They said the trustees’ vote to withdraw the charter threatens to derail the school’s mission to prepare underprivileged Santa Ana students for enrollment in another charter school, the acclaimed Orange County High School of the Arts.

Christopher Townsend, a consultant for both schools, said that since opening in 1987, the high school has never reached its goal of admitting 30% of its students from Santa Ana’s poor Latino community, who generally lack access to lessons in the visual and performing arts.

“The [elementary] school is supposed to help this,” Townsend said. “The best way to [reach the goal] is with a feeder school.”

Of the more than 500 students preregistered for the elementary academy, 80% are from Santa Ana, school officials said. Ralph Opacic, executive director of the arts high school, received approval from district trustees for the new charter school in January 2002, and developer Michael Harrah purchased a downtown building to lease to the elementary school.

But plans to open the campus were shelved after fundraising efforts stagnated.

Earlier this year, parents who were disgruntled with the financial woes of another Santa Ana charter school met with Opacic and Harrah to resurrect the school. In April, they announced plans to open in September.

District officials, who said they were surprised by the academy’s sudden revival, grew wary of the budget proposals submitted by school officials. Don Stabler, the district’s associate superintendent for business services, told trustees that school planners had underestimated the costs for basics such as computers, textbooks and furniture. He estimated that the school would end its first year $320,000 in debt.

Jane Ross Laguna, chairperson for the school, said trustees should have allowed school officials to respond to the budget criticisms before revoking the charter. She said the school could operate on less money than traditional public schools.

Trustees also expressed confusion over who was backing the project and changes that had been made to the original charter. The new plan, for instance, calls for students to be recruited countywide, unlike the original proposal to enroll only Santa Ana children.

Richardson said it remained unclear what role, if any, Opacic and the high school would have in the new school and questioned whether Harrah’s eagerness to rent the building was driving the plan.

“Is this a real estate deal or a school deal?” Richardson asked, pointing out that Townsend, the consultant, works for Harrah’s company as well as the two schools.

Opacic left the meeting before the vote and did not return calls asking for a comment, but Harrah dismissed the claim about his motive. “This is about kids and education,” he said. “This has nothing to do with rent. If it did ... I would have gone with clients I had lined up years ago.”

Ross Laguna said the school may seek a new charter from the Orange County Board of Education and is also considering suing Santa Ana Unified. Because of various deadlines, officials say, it is unlikely that the school could secure a new charter before the start of the school year, but Ross Laguna still expects the school to open in September.

“We have the kids, we have the teachers and we have the building,” she said. “And we’ll have the charter.”