UPDATED: Bullis Charter School Sues Over 2012-13 Sites

has filed court papers contesting the facilities offer from the for the 2012-2013 school year as a violation of Proposition 39.

There were high hopes for a long-term agreement between BCS and LASD in May, but the negotiations fell apart over the tentative agreeement. Now BCS is back to a familiar path to resolution: suing over facilities space.

“To me they are performing the same old shenanigans,” said Ken Moore, chairman of the BCS board.

The suit seeks to compel the school district to comply with the March 2012 order resulting from a state appeals court decision in which BCS prevailed. The new suit, which relies on the earlier decision, was received by the LASD board shortly before the July 4th holiday.

Mark Goines, president of the LASD board, wrote to Patch in an email, “It is sad that some of the wealthiest families in town who formed and fund BCS are asking LASD to close a neighborhood school for their benefit, and, an ironic twist, given why BCS organized in the first place.”

BCS also filed a proposed order, seeking Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas' order to compel LASD to provide one of the four schools identified in separate negotiations on month before the 2013-14 school year: Almond, Covington, Gardner Bullis, or Santa Rita. It further seeks the judge to order the district to make a good faith effort to provide more facilities on the Egan campus for the 2012-13 school year.

BCS requested a ten-acre campus to satisfy its facility needs. The LASD allocated 11 acres, but split between two campuses, Egan Jr. High School and Blach Intermediate School. This was the first year that Blach School was included in a facilities offer.

For the 2012-2013 year, BCS grades K-6 was offered the same temporary camp site at  where it has always been, with more space allocated on the campus than in the past. Additionally, Grades 7-8 were offered  on a 3.37-acre space.

Every year, BCS has accepted the proposed facilities offered by the LASD under protest.

For the 2012-2013 school year, LASD's offer is 7.45 acres at Egan Jr. High School for its projected 439 students in grades K-6. Last year the LASD allotted 6.2 acres of Egan’s campus to BCS.

Additionally, the LASD offers 3.37 acres at Blach Intermediate School for the 54 students in grades 7-8, according to the motion to compel filed on behalf of BCS. 

While the combined space on the two school campuses is equivalent to what BCS requested, board member the K-6 students need more of the space that has been given to the Grade 7-8 students because there are more students in the K-6 grades at the Egan site. 

And, the Egan site allocation was only 74 percent of the “reasonably equivalent” facility size of 8.37 acres required by Prop 39 (based on the then-projected enrollment of 345 students in 2009), the lawsuit quotes the Court of Appeal as stated in the motion to compel. The suit further complains that much of the additional acreage is not usable, consisting of strips of land bordering the track, areas that will be rendered muddy and difficult to pass in inclement weather.

“This is nothing more than making them follow the law,” Moore said of the lawsuit.

Goines said that the students at Egan Jr. High already have had to give up something for the 2012-13 offer, and would be affected by the carving out out of more space this year.

“For their junior high families, BCS will have nearly twice as much space as our Egan Jr. High families and more classroom space than our comparison schools,” Goines wrote in an email.

LASD trustees have said in the past that the rest of the district’s 5,000-student population needs to be balanced with BCS’ needs and trustees don’t want to break up a high-performing school in order to accommodate another school.

LASD trustee Doug Smith wrote in his personal blog LASD Observer, "I can't reconcile the idea that BCS, formed because the District closed a high performing school, now seeks to close another high performing school to further their own goals at the expense of other students."

LASD will respond to the filing on July 24, according to Goines.

—Los Altos Patch Editor L.A Chung contributed to this report