Charter Schools Face New Rules

California’s largely unregulated charter schools face a new set of financial and geographic restrictions under a bill that passed both houses of the Legislature this week.

The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes (D-Fresno), is among the first major reforms of charter schools since the state approved the concept of allowing private organizations to open, or “charter,” public schools a decade ago.

Though the legislation passed largely along party lines with Democrats in favor, Reyes’ bill merged several different bills in a compromise that won the grudging support of many of California’s charter schools. Davis administration officials said they expect the governor to sign the bill into law.

Charter schools are monitored by the individual school districts that approve them. But in California, several charter holders have used their grants to open up multiple campuses--sometimes across the state from the districts, making oversight difficult. Central to the reform is a requirement that charters be based in the same county as the school district that monitors them.

“Charters have spread across the state, but this will force them to be more accountable and local,” said Reyes. “By forcing them to locate closer to the district that charters them, there will be more oversight, more local scrutiny.”

Opponents of the legislation say that problems have been isolated and that new regulations represent an attack on an approach whose promise lies in its relative freedom from regulation.

“This restricts the opportunity of successful charters to spread their success to satellite campuses,” said Assemblywoman Lynne Leach (R-Walnut Creek), who voted against it.

The proposed law also sets up basic financial and curricular oversight. Charter schools will have to account annually for their receipts and expenditures, and perform special audits if they close. They will be required to tell parents whether the classes they offer correlate with state requirements for college entrance.

Gary Larson, a spokesman for the California Network of Educational Charters, which represents about 70% of the state’s charter schools, said that 50 schools--representing about 200 separate campuses--operate outside the counties where they are chartered. Under the bill, they will have until June 2005 to either relocate, shut down, or seek a new charter in the district where they are located.

That burden may fall heaviest on the California Charter Academy, which has used charters in a handful of small school districts to launch a statewide network of 60 schools serving 6,000 students. A spokesman for the California Charter Academy promised Friday to comply with the proposed law but declined to provide details.

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Times staff writers Jessica Garrison in Los Angeles and Miguel Bustillo in Sacramento contributed to this report.