"We WON!!!! Don't ever let anyone detour you from doing the right thing. KIPP has Money but we have the Power of the People!!!!" - Cudahy Alliance for Justice
In a case that provided an example of how the lack of charter school-industry oversight endangers the health and safety of children, KIPP charter schools planned to build on a plot of land that "has been used for approximately 90 years for manufacturing metal" and storing the resulting "hazardous materials". Despite the known presence of arsenic and toxic gasses on the site, the charter school chain successfully lobbied local politicians to allow them to bypass a complete environmental review of the project under California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). As a result, the community surrounding the project could not feel assured that they would not be harmed during construction. Nor could there be any assurance that children could safely attend the school when it opened.
Failed by politicians, the Cudahy community was forced to take matters into their own hands. The Cudahy Alliance for Justice filed suit against the city of Cudahy asking that it be forced to follow the law and require KIPP to conduct a full evaluation of the site before construction could begin. On January 13, a judge ruled in their favor and required that the city follow the law.
While this ruling is great news for the residents surrounding the site and the students that will attend the school, it does not solve the underlying problem. Through considerable political spending on elections at both the state and local level, the charter school industry has exerted pressure on politicians that make it less likely that their publicly funded private schools will be held accountable. This legalized bribery made it more likely that a full environmental review would not be conducted before a school is built on a site that "is not currently safe for construction of a school or housing."The complete disregard for the health and safety of children is not unique to the KIPP project in Cudahy. Granada Hills Charter High School embarked on a series of building projects that endangered "the health and safety of students, staff and other individuals". A former employee at the school also alleges that he was fired after advising the leadership of a potential asbestos hazard at its facilities. Parents at the North Valley Military Institute (NVMI) alleged that the school retaliated against them when they complained of possible sexual misconduct by an administrator.
Any attempt to ensure that charter schools follow the same rules as their public school counterparts has been met with fierce resistance from the charter school industry. The California Charter School Association (CCSA) made it a top legislative priority to ensure that its schools did not have to comply with the Field Act, which sets minimum earthquake standards for schools built in California. AB762 would have ensured that private schools were forced to follow the same environmental rules as public schools, but this was also blocked by the charter schools' trade association.Enforcing safety measures should not require the community to take up a collection so that they can hire representation against an industry's high-priced lawyers. Whatever one's views about charter schools and their role in the education system, there should be no disagreement that they have a responsibility to not endanger the lives of their students. Instead of lobbying politicians to carve them out exemptions from rules meant to keep children safe, the charter school industry should be ensuring that all of their schools meet the highest standards.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with special education needs and public education. He is an elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and serves as the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.