Motivated by layoffs in the Open Classroom magnet program at Conejo Elementary last year, a group of teachers and parents have banded together to create a proposal for a new charter school.

Two major forces behind Bridges Charter School are Lori Peters and Laura Erlig, both current Open Classroom teachers in the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

Last year, in the wake of major state budget cuts to education, the Conejo Unified school board approved the dismissal of four of the six teachers in the Open Classroom program, a districtwide, school-choice magnet. Three of the teachers were hired back but only one to the Open Classrooms program.

The other two were replaced in the program and assigned elsewhere.

“That was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said John Baker, a parent of two children in the program. Baker, Erlig and Peters are officially petitioning for the new school. “It wasn’t just that, though. The district just hasn’t let the program expand the way parents want to see it grow.”

Members of the Bridges board said they feel that the recently launched EARThS magnet school has garnered more attention from the district in the last year than the Open Classroom program—which was officially named a magnet last year—ever has.

“This has always been a parent-supported program,” Baker said.

“It grew through the grass-roots movement of parents. The district hasn’t let us expand the way we want,” he said. “We aren’t going to get that kind of respect because it wasn’t their idea—it’s not their baby.”

One idea the district didn’t buy into was expanding the kindergarten-through-sixth-grade program to include a middle school component.

Bridges Charter is being proposed as a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school.

Superintendent Mario Contini has received a letter from the Bridges board informing him that they intend to start a charter school and that they’d like to house it at the University Elementary School campus, which the district shuttered last year.

“This is real, real premature for us,” said Jeff Baarstad, deputy superintendent of business services.

“We haven’t seen the petition. They’ll need to give us an estimate on enrollment and how many of those will come from the district. That will trigger what our responsibilities are,” said Baarstad.

The law dictates that if the charter is approved, the district would need to provide Bridges with a facility that was “reasonably equivalent” to what they have at Conejo Elementary.

“It’s going to be an uphill battle,” Baker said. “The district is a formidable challenger. We’ve been working hard to try to figure out if anything has changed. Are they less averse to charters? We just hope we can deal with this in a professional, amicable manner.”

The Bridges board has already had to respond to some claims that Open Classroom parents have ulterior motives for wanting to move their kids.

“People are drawing the conclusion that this is ‘white flight’ and that we are a monolithic, white group of parents trying to get our white kids out of that school,” Baker said. “That could not be farther from the truth. The actual demographic of Open Classroom mirrors the demographic of the whole district.

“We’ve been at that school site for 15 years, and there are some innate limitations for the site. The district has just not allowed it to grow there.”

Bridges board members will have 10 minutes to address the school board at its next meeting Oct. 6. The school board is also hosting a parent information night from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tues., Sept. 29 at North Ranch Community Center, 1400 N. Westlake Blvd. in Westlake.

For more information, visit www.BRIDGEScharter.org.