Decision expected soon on charter school

A Superior Court judge has heard the arguments surrounding the placement of Meadows Arts and Technology Elementary School and is expected to make a decision soon.

Attorneys for Conejo Valley Unified School District and the MATES board argued about whether the new charter school should be placed at Meadows Elementary, one of two CVUSD schools that are slated for closure next fall.

Meadows parents created the charter school after the CVUSD board voted to close Meadows and denied requests that MATES become a magnet within the district.

Renee Dake, a MATES board member, said they were "fairly pleased" with the hearing.

"We felt the judge was fair," Dake said. "And our attorneys did a fantastic job. They really pointed the judge in the right direction as far as where he needed to look within the (education) code."

Because the curriculum was largely in place at Meadows, MATES Attorney Paul Minney argued that under Proposition 39 the school is a "conversion charter" that would be entitled to stay at the campus where the program began.

CVUSD Attorney John Yeh, however, is claiming that when the Ventura County Office of Education (VCOE) approved the charter, they named it a "startup charter." A district is only required to offer a startup charter school a "comparable facility," which is why the board has offered to share the Glenwood Elementary campus with MATES.

"Frankly, we thought that was absolutely ridiculous," Dake said. "It is a conversion charter; it was written as conversion charter. That part of the argument doesn't hold a lot of salt. Sometimes attorneys tend to throw in everything but the kitchen sink if they don't have anything else."

During a VCOE hearing in October, Sandra Shackelford, associate superintendent of educational services, reported that staff considered the school a conversion charter.

"Staff understands that this is a snapshot of an existing program," read the minutes from the meeting. "Staff reviewed the charter petition as a conversion charter; it seemed clear to staff that MATES plans to continue the existing program and expand and enrich it further."

But Contini pointed out that the VCOE board stressed that MATES should expect to operate at any site.

"The site became the most important factor," Contini said. "We thought the program was the most important factor. There is nothing in the law that mandates that a charter has to be at a particular site. They made several statements about that.

"We can't have boards, elected by the community, not be able to manage their facilities and make prudent decisions," he added. "We can't have charter law undermine that."

Although the MATES board filed a lawsuit, both sides have been open about the possibility that the judgment could go either way.

The hearing was originally scheduled for March 27, but the judge needed more time to review the materials. It was rescheduled for April 24 at the East County Courthouse in Simi Valley.

Legally, Judge David R. Worley has 60 days to issue his judgment, but both sides expect a decision soon.