Charter School Legislation Archives

On April 8th the Assembly Education Committee voted to pass AB 787 on a party line vote.
Assemblywoman Shirley Weber was the only Democrat to vote against the bill.
The anti-charter bill requires the charter school authorizer to appoint a majority of the charter school’s board members. AB 787 would effectively gut the entire charter school law by removing any autonomy that the charter school has. Charter schools would all become dependent of their authorizer and would no longer be schools of choice.
A host of groups and individuals lined up to oppose the bill while the entire labor community supported it. Assemblywoman Weber made an impassioned speech against the bill and brought up several good points while describing her opposition to it.
The measure now moves forward to the Assembly Appropriations Committee where it faces an uncertain fate because of the costs to have authorizers implement the policy.
Last year AB 1531, a similar bill, was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee because of its costs.

In a big victory for California charter schools, the California Supreme Court ruled that the Los Angeles Unified School District was required to reevaluate the method with which they’re assigning facility space to charter schools.
According to the California Charter School Association (CCSA), who filed the initial lawsuit, “The Court’s decision affirms CCSA’s position that the district’s methodology was not legal or fair, and potentially denied classrooms to charter public school students. This ruling requires L.A. Unified to make changes to its Prop 39 process in order to ensure that its method of allocating classrooms to charter public schools is lawful.”
Legislative consultant Branche Jones said, “It’s great to see the court confirm that LAUSD has been out of compliance by not meeting its Prop 39 obligation and providing facilities for charter schools. Hopefully the district will now revise their policies.”
Read more about the ruling on the CCSA website or in this LA Times article.

Last Friday was the deadline for California charter school bills to be introduced in the legislature. With thousands of bills introduced, several bills were ‘put across the desk’ that will affect charter schools if they become law. Some of these measures are punitive and some of them will help charter schools. It remains to be seen how many of them will make it through the process and actually be signed into law by the Governor. Here is a brief recap of some the charter school bills:
Once again measures were introduced to impose conflict of interest standards on charter schools in California. This year two identical bills have surfaced to accomplish this; AB 709 by Assemblyman Gipson and AB 1057 by Assemblyman Median. Both bills impose the Brown Act, Political Reform Act, Public Records Act and portions of Government Code 1090 on charter schools. AB 787 by Assemblyman Hernandez is a ‘spot bill’ that deals with charter schools and their non-profit status. You will have to monitor this measure closely to see what amendments will be added to it. SB 211 by Senator Hancock adds more notification requirements for charter schools, SB 322 by Senator Leno requires charter schools to comply with suspension and expulsion requirements that currently apply to school districts, while SB 739 by Senator Pavley requires the Department of Education to produce a study on how many charter schools are located outside the boundaries of their authorizer’s districts.
There are also some positive pieces of legislation that have been introduced for charter schools. AB 207 by Assemblywoman Grove allows independent charter schools to claim ADA for students that are up to 125 miles away. Assemblyman Allen has introduced two measures on behalf of charter schools, AB 839 adds a charter school and parent representative to the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence and AB 943 would require that a contractor hired to work with charter schools by the Collaborative have prior experience working with charter schools. Other bills to watch are AB 734 by Assemblywoman Kim, AB 748 by Assemblyman Lackey, AB 803 by Assemblyman Hadley and AB 1379 by Assemblyman Nazarian. These bills have provisions that currently affect charter schools but they may be amended later so you should keep your eyes on them.
To view any of these bills go to www.leginfo.ca.gov and put in the bill number.