Conejo district leases Meadows to private entity

The site of Meadows Elementary, one of two schools scheduled for closure this fall, has been leased to the Conejo Jewish Day School.

The Conejo Valley Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously to accept the lease proposal.

However, Meadows Arts and Technology Elementary School (MATES), a charter school approved by the county, is suing the district for use of the campus.

University Elementary, the other shuttered school, is slated to be turned into a child development center. The school board rejected lease proposals from the private Stratford School and a private all-boys high school, which had garnered concern from neighborhood parents.

Conejo Jewish Day School, a private school for prekindergartners through eighth-graders, plans to move from its Agoura Hills campus. According to the proposal, the lease agreement will bring in $226,800 to the district in its first year of operation.

The MATES board, which was formed shortly after Meadows was named for closure, has spent months fighting for first a magnet and then a charter school. After CVUSD rejected its proposals, the Ventura County Board of Education approved the charter.

The MATES board has been adamant that the law—particularly Proposition 39—requires the district to allow them to stay at Meadows because they're a "conversion charter."

"A conversion charter can be distinguished from a startup charter school primarily based on its facility," said MATES board president Marlo Hartsuyker. "A conversion charter school, as its name suggests, converts a traditional public school site to a charter school, unlike a startup charter, which is not tied to any previous facility. The CVUSD is violating the law and acting as if MATES is a startup charter that can be placed at any campus. We are not. We believe the law is quite clear on this matter."

The district staff and school board believe they're required only to make a site available for the charter school.

Last month, the CVUSD board voted against reopening Meadows and instead decided to place MATES at Glenwood.

The MATES board served CVUSD and Superintendent Mario Contini with a summons and petition for a writ of mandate Jan. 30, demanding that CVUSD allocate the Meadows site to MATES.