Glendale school board denies charter school’s request to use district’s facilities

Organizers who plan to open a new charter school this fall in Glendale must look elsewhere in the Jewel City for their location following the Glendale school board’s 5-0 vote Tuesday to deny the charter school’s application to use a Glendale Unified facility.

District staff said they recommended the denial after finding several shortcomings in the application submitted by the International Studies Language Academy, known as ISLA.

ISLA’s organizers applied to use the district’s facilities in late October as part of Proposition 39, in which school districts may share their facilities with charter schools.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

ISLA plans to provide dual-language immersion courses in German, Spanish, Italian and French starting this fall, but Glendale school officials opted to deny the charter any use of their facilities, citing ISLA’s “faulty” application.

“We looked at that request and laid it up to the criteria for actually accepting it, and we found it faulty on several grounds,” said Glendale Unified Supt. Winfred Roberson Jr. during the board meeting.

In order to become eligible to use Glendale Unified’s facilities, the charter school needed to project that at least 80 students who reside within the district’s boundaries would make up ISLA’s average daily attendance, and ISLA needed to provide at least 80 signatures from parents who intend to enroll their children in the school, according to Glendale school officials.

“If they do provide that, then we are compelled to provide sufficient in-district facilities because, without the charter school, we would have to provide that for our in-district kids anyway,” said Kelly King, assistant superintendent of Glendale Unified.

Instead of submitting at least 80 signatures, ISLA officials provided 34 in their request for a facility that would house more than 300 students, King said.

“Even if you take all 34 in its entirety, that is far less than the 80 necessary to meet the statute requirements,” King added.

Glendale school officials had until Dec. 31 to respond to ISLA with concerns about the application, and they did, King said.

Among those concerns was a “heavily redacted” document in the application that only offered the students’ grade level and city, not giving Glendale Unified the ability to confirm information, King said.

In response to the district’s concerns, ISLA submitted a subsequent application with 49 signatures from parents with information Glendale Unified could confirm.

Ultimately, 15 signatures did not meet the original Nov. 1 Prop. 39 deadline, so they were removed from consideration, King said, while four more signatures were tied to students who do not live within Glendale Unified’s boundaries.

King said ISLA did not justify in the application how its enrollment would grow from 30 students to more than 300.

Instead of approving the request and potentially handing over a facility to ISLA, which, in turn, may not enroll as many students as the facility could house, staff recommended that the school board deny the application.

Glendale school officials said they confirmed with their attorneys that the district had good standing to deny the application because it did not support legal requirements.

For its part, ISLA’s development team does not think Glendale Unified’s objections are “reasonable or consistent with the purpose and intent of Prop. 39,” said Guendalina Ajello Mahler, a member of the charter school’s founding board, in an email.

“Prop. 39 requires a projected enrollment be provided. The process also allows for the natural progression of a recruitment plan to be put into effect subsequent to the application submission,” she added.

Mahler said families who want to enroll their children in the charter school “deserve to fairly share in public school facilities, which the district is holding in trust for the benefit of all families in the district. It is unfortunate that [the] Glendale Unified School District has denied this request, despite scores of student interest for impacted immersion programs.”

In late 2015, the Glendale Unified School Board denied ISLA’s petition to operate the school, finding fault in its proposed educational, staffing and financial plans.

Supporters of the charter school said it would help meet the demand for Glendale Unified’s seven dual-language programs, which often have long waiting lists.

The petitioners filed an appeal with the Los Angeles County Office of Education last year, which struck it down with a 5-1 vote.

In a subsequent appeal last April, the state’s Advisory Commission on Charter Schools voted 6-0 to recommend that the State Board of Education approve the charter petition, which it did last May with a 7-2 vote.

The school’s initial five-year term, which will fall under state oversight, was approved on the condition that it open within Glendale Unified’s boundaries.

--

Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com

Twitter: @kellymcorrigan