UPDATED: Bullis, Los Altos School District Back in Court

Update #2: Los Altos Patch has now posted Bullis Charter School's June 8, 2012 request to the court to set hearing dates on the district's compliance to the court's March 2012 order, the district's response, the court's June 8, 2012 order for hearings. It has also posted a stipulation and order to extend the deadline for filing of any attorneys' fees.

Editor's note (Update #1): Los Altos Patch has now posted a letter from Bullis Charter School Chairman Ken Moore to BCS parents, and a copy of the BCS request for declaratory relief from the court. We will continue to update this article throughout the weekend with commentary from involved parties.

After a season of hope, one that included an announcement of a tentative agreement, Bullis Charter School and the Los Altos School District are headed back to court.

"I am sorry to have to inform you that the Bullis Charter School has decided not to accept our interim offer to keep their K-8 program at Egan for the next two years while we work out a long-term agreement and have instead chosen to return to court," wrote Los Altos School Board President Mark Goines in an email to district parents Friday.

With a breakdown in negotiations, Bullis asked Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Patricia Lucas on Friday to hold hearings on the district's compliance with the court's order to comply with Prop. 39, the state law that requires districts to provide "reasonably equivalent" facilities to charter schools in their boundaries.

"I'm totally disappointed that the district backed away from the tentative mediated agreement," said Bullis board Chairman Ken Moore. "That was months in the making, and it had extracted large compromise from both sides." 

The Los Altos School District responded during a hearing Friday, and took a new tack: It has raised the question of whether BCS is a semi-private school, and asked the court whether such a school is entitled to public school facilities under Prop. 39. It also asked whether a district's offer is compliant, when combined with a  charter school's private resources that provide equal or greater student resources than those afforded in-district students. 

"It is not the desire by LASD board to make this more difficult than it has to be," said district Trustee Doug Smith who has been a member of the ad-hoc  negotiating team. He noted that district school parents have been raising that question for months, but "we have been holding back."

Things had looked more hopeful on May 7, when a tentative agreement, one Smith called a framework for a solution that would last a decade or more, was announced by both boards.

Negotiations over a long-term agreement foundered last week, however, as both sides labored to hammer out a host of details in just a month, and anxious district parents had raised a series of concerns. Four schools—Almond, Santa Rita, part of Covington, and Gardner Bullis—had been identified as possible sites for Bullis Charter School. Part of the solution, too, hinged on finding a 10th site, ostensibly to place a displaced school.

Last week, unable identify a possible 10th school site in a three-week timeframe, the district offered an interim agreement, initially presented as a term sheet, that the board thought would provide a little breathing room while trying find a campus.

Bullis had objected to the interim agreement proposal because members felt the district had reneged on key features of the agreed-upon framework, said charter school Chairman Ken Moore Friday.

"The term sheet took all of the concessions BCS made during the mediation, but none of the benefits," Moore told Patch Friday afternoon. "In my opinion they backtracked away.

"We reached a point that we're going to have to go into court and set up dates so that the judge could hear our case."

Los Altos Patch has posted a copy of LASD's response, and will post a copy of BCS' brief when the board makes it available later.

Watch for more updates over the weekend, as Patch further analyzes the action, and provides more information from interviews conducted Friday.