Topline:
The Los Angeles Unified School District may not categorically direct charter schools away from sharing particular school campuses, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled.
The backstory: California voters passed Proposition 39 in 2000, requiring school districts to provide “reasonably equivalent” facilities to charter school students. This has been one of the ongoing sources of tension between school districts and charter operators.
What was at issue in this case? In February 2024, the LAUSD board approved a policy that tells district administrators to “avoid” co-locating charters on certain campuses to the extent allowed by law, including its community schools; schools serving the Black Student Achievement Plan; and 100 schools targeted for academic improvement. The California Charter Schools Association challenged the policy in court, calling it “a sweeping ban [that limits] access and restricting educational opportunity for thousands of families.”
How did the court rule? Superior Court Judge Stephen Goorvitch agreed that the district has latitude to decide that a co-location could harm student safety or jeopardize its ability to serve neighborhood children. But he also wrote that a blanket avoidance of several hundred schools is an overreach. “Proposition 39 does not allow the District to categorically prioritize district schools over charter school facilities,” Goorvitch wrote in his decision. “However, as drafted, that is exactly what the policy instructs the District to do.”…