SACRAMENTO – A coalition of parents, students, elected leaders, education leaders and community groups joined Sen. Jim Beall to urge the State Board of Education (SBE) to deny the appeal of a KIPP charter school. This charter school was denied by the East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) because the community didn’t want the school, but current law allows the SBE in Sacramento to overrule the local decisions that were made by local elected officials. In a news conference, the concerned group urged support for SB 1362—a bill that requires charter school petitions to describe how they will serve special education students at the same level as neighborhood public schools. It also adds having a negative fiscal impact on the school district as a key finding sufficient to deny a charter school petition.

“SB 1362 enables us to understand the fiscal impact the proliferation of charter schools has on the budgets of school districts and the districts’ ability to provide adequate resources for special education students. This bill gives local school boards the discretion they require to make the best decision for their students,” said Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose). “Are we prioritizing the growth opportunities for charter school operators over the educational needs of all students? SB 1362 will answer that question.’’

Students in the East Side Union High School District have felt the impact of the flawed current law that allows the State Board of Education in Sacramento to overrule decisions made by local school boards. They’ve lost counselors, key programs like Career and Technical Education, have only four nurses and librarians for the district’s 18 high schools and class sizes have increased.

“The reality is this: the charter school law is broken. School districts must now approve new charter schools even if they do not need or want a new charter school. Worse, approval of new charter schools can sometimes have a devastating impact on our neighborhood public schools,” said Marisa Hanson, math teacher at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose who also serves as President of the East Side Teachers Association. “As enrollment has been declining and continues to decline in our district, we have watched new schools get approved and we shake our heads. This path leads to fiscal insolvency. You cannot lose children and add schools. The law as written requires these new schools to be approved. The law is broken, and SB 1362 will help us end this nonsense.”

Alida Fisher, mother of a special education student in the San Francisco Unified School District, is concerned for students in charter schools who don’t have access to the services her sixth-grade son Damiane has been able to access since he was in Kindergarten—services that have led him to be fully included in a middle school and helped instill the love of learning.

“The fact that an appointed commission can overturn the will of our city and county flies in the face of everything the governor has done with local control of school districts,” said SFUSD parent Alida Fisher. “Personally, local control and accountability has been critically important to the success of my 12-year-old son Damiane. He has many disabilities: ADHD, sensory processing disorder, auditory processing disorder, to name a few. There have been many times where the professionals at my local school have had to work in conjunction with our district Special Education leaders to get extra support, services, and training to make sure that my son is accessing his education. All families deserve the opportunity to have their children supported in their school and provided every resource they need to reach their potential.”

East Side Union High School District has had to make many adjustments to its budget and Superintendent Chris Funk says approving yet one more charter school would be detrimental to the students in their district.

“We have met every aspect of the charter school law; however, enough is enough. We have reached our tipping point,” said ESUHSD Superintendent Chris Funk. “At the time of the decision to deny the KIPP East San Jose Charter, the District was facing a $27 million deficit. On June 22, 2017, ESUHSD Board of Trustees passed Resolution #2016/2017-36 to confirm ESUHSD’s Commitment to Fiscal Solvency, a layoff of 140 employees over the next two years. With the governor’s proposed budget, we have adjusted our current three-year budget to require a layoff of 44 employees. If we do not pass a parcel tax on June 5, 2018, then in our third year, the layoffs jump to 304. We are in declining enrollment. Approving another charter will have a negative impact on our overall budget and further erode vital support services for the remaining 23,000 students attending ESUHSD schools.”

In the Public Interest (ITPI), a nonprofit organization that studies public goods and services, is currently directly measuring, for the first time, how much charter schools cost public school students. In preparation for a forthcoming report, In the Public Interest compiled studies by a variety of institutions and authors nationwide, all which share a similar finding: public school districts and the students they serve are undermined by laws and practices that prioritize charter school growth over educational opportunities for all students.

“California’s charter approval process is broken. Democratically elected officials who make decisions in the interest of their communities are being routinely ignored. This leaves Sacramento saddled with oversight responsibilities for charter schools strewn about statewide, which clearly isn’t working: a third of the charter schools approved by the state board are no longer in operation,” said Clare Crawford, ITPI Senior Policy Advisor. “State law must be reformed to return authority to local decision makers. There are a number of reforms being proposed that could help, including SB 1362 proposed by Sen. Jim Beall, which would promote local control of charter schools. Parents, teachers, and democratically elected school boards should be able to decide what’s best for their students and communities.”

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The 325,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.