Two days after one charter school management company withdrew its petition, the Santa Clara County Office of Education staff has recommended denial of a second charter petition, still currently on appeal before its local Board of Education.
Both petitions sought to open elementary schools within the Morgan Hill Unified School District boundaries for the 2014-15 school year.
The County Board has the final say, however, and is still scheduled to vote on Gilroy-based Navigator Schools’ petition at its Jan. 15 meeting in San Jose.
“We’ve got one last chance to basically refute (the county staff’s recommendation) and let the public officials weigh the truth,” said Navigator co-founder James Dent, whose organization has successfully launched charter schools in Gilroy and Hollister.
However, county staff expressed concern with Navigators’ “rate of expansion” by hoping to open a third charter school in Morgan Hill – one year after launching Hollister Prep on the R.O. Harden Elementary School campus and three years after its flagship charter in Gilroy.
County staff was concerned with “the capacity of the leadership team to successfully oversee three new schools in four years, each in a distinctive community with unique needs and student populations.” Additionally, county staff was unsure if Navigator could establish the same “unique rapport” with MHUSD staff that it shares in Gilroy and Hollister.
“Although there is no one major deficiency in the Petition, the fact that there are weaknesses in multiple areas of the Petition, as stated above, is disconcerting,” reads the county staff recommendation. “Most notable is the lack of specificity in the areas of the education program and in finance.”
Dent was puzzled by the county’s conclusion in both areas since Gilroy Prep, in its first year, scored a 942 on the 2012-13 Academic Performance Index, which was the highest in the history of California. The API is the state’s yardstick for measuring academic achievement and the benchmark is 800. Dent also noted that Navigator Schools is in excellent financial footing with a reserve well above the state’s requirement of having a 3 to 5 percent operational reserve.
However, county staff concluded that Navigator was “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program…(and) does not provide a reasonably comprehensive description of several essential charter elements.”
The MHUSD Board of Education denied Navigator Schools petition by a 6-1 vote back in October. Dent then appealed to the County Board, which will vote Wednesday. Dent previously stated that Navigator is prepared to take the next step by appealing to the State’s Board of Education if necessary.
