Charter schools sue district for space

"All these schools are asking for is that their students be treated the same as all other public school students, as the law requires,” said the association’s president and CEO, Caprice Young.

The suit by Fanno Academy and KIPP Adelante Preparatory Academy claims the San Diego Unified school board repeatedly ignored the schools’ requests to lease space, but continues to rent to wealthier private schools.

The school district hired a new superintendent in July and its administration plans to work cooperatively with the charter schools to find space by the next school year, said Tina Dyer, an attorney for the school district.

"The district does have some excess space and we’re in the process of identifying that space, identifying the requests from the charter schools,” she said.

If that happens, it would be a change in attitude from the stoic silence Fanno Academy co-director Tamika McGlawn said she has received from district officials. In a two-page letter in September 2004, the school officially requested operating space, but got no response until the following April, when the district sent a one-paragraph statement saying it didn’t have any space available, McGlawn said.

"We did not receive any correspondence from them, even though we continued to send them correspondence just to let them know we would be willing to take anything that they would give us,” including sharing a school with another charter or using part of an existing school, she said.

The lawsuit claims the district violated Proposition 39, a law passed in 2000 requiring school districts to share facilities fairly among all public school students, including those who attend charters.

The two charter schools serve mostly poor, minority students in areas where the district has seen significant declines in attendance in recent years, according to the lawsuit.

Fanno Academy opened this year in a Baptist church with 70 students in kindergarten through 6th grade — about 100 fewer than it had hoped to serve, because of the space constraints, McGlawn said.

KIPP, which is part of a national chain of college preparatory schools using the Knowledge is Power Program, is operating in a commercial building with 180 students in grades 5 through 7. Students attend classes from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and every other Saturday.

McGlawn said the district should be working with the schools, since they both share the same goal — improving achievement rates in poor, minority neighborhoods.

"We’re looking for a way to service all students and we believe we have the formula and the solution to do that,” she said.

The district has traditionally supported charter school startups, and 13 new schools opened in the city this fall alone.

Carl Cohn was hired as the district superintendent in July. He will recommend at the board’s Jan. 10 meeting that the board’s Proposition 39 policy be rescinded and that officials establish a more cooperative policy, Dyer said.

"There’s new leadership now and they want to work with the charter schools and satisfy the requirements,” she said.