Judge Says Two Sites OK For Bullis Charter School

Written by L.A. Chung

The Los Altos School District did not abuse its discretion in offering the Bullis Charter School facilities at Egan Jr. High School and Blach Intermediate School, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge has ruled.

The two-page ruling by Judge Mark H. Pierce, received by the parties Wednesday, was closely watched, as it would have affected plans for the 2013-14 school year, had the judge ordered the district to provide a single site for Bullis Charter School (BCS), or a different configuration.

The Los Altos School District's final offer to Bullis Charter School (BCS) was to provide facilities to Grades K to 5 at Egan Jr. High School, and Grades 6 to 8 at Blach Intermediate School. 

"Prop. 39 regulations do not require that a district reconfigure existing facilities simply because a charter school has a configuration not found at the district's existing schools," Judge Pierce wrote. BCS operates a single K-8 school, while the district operates K-6 and Grades 7-8 in an elementary school-junior high school configuration. 

BCS has contended that Prop. 39 requires contiguous sites, and has often cited a 2005 appellate court decision, Ridgecrest v. Sierra Sands Unified School District.

Pierce did not see the same ironclad requirement, citing Cal. Admin. Code title 5, section 11969.2(d) in the code.

"The Court finds that there is no requirement that a district provide an offer of facilities only at contiguous sites," Pierce wrote.

"Rather, a school district may determine that more than one facility may be included in the offer as long as there are no facilities available within the district."

The district did not abuse its discretion in coming to this determination, the judge wrote, and therefore denied BCS' petition.

BCS had also presented new evidence in reply papers in the case, which LASD had objected to because the evidence had not been presented the first time. The judge agreed with the objection, but added that he did review the new evidence and would have come to the same conclusions and ruled in favor of the district, anyway.

The decision can be found here. 

The two sides agreed on one thing in responding to the judge's decision: the amount of litigation.

LASD President Doug Smith noted that there were still several other matters pertaining to the dispute still pending before the courts.

"During the hearing, Judge Pierce expressed his dismay that so much money and time is being spent on litigation. We couldn’t agree more. We urge BCS to abandon this path of expensive and ultimately fruitless litigation and work with the District and community to find a long term facilities solution to our growing population of public school students."

Jay Reed, who is the media contact for Bullis Charter School, transmitted the following statement on behalf of the Joe Hurd, who is the spokesman for the BCS board: 

"Engaging in legal battles with LASD has never been our first choice, but when we have repeatedly seen LASD act in a manner that is incongruent with the best interests of our students and refuse to engage in meaningful negotiations to remedy such mistreatment, our only option is to use litigation to prevent further manipulation and infringement.  

"We agree with the Court’s position that the parties should work to find a way to more fairly share public facilities through mediation and negotiation, which is why BCS proposed the 2012 mediation and worked hard to support the framework agreement the parties reached at that time."