"You have a commitment to pay what we owe." - Citizens of the World Charter School
When the Citizens of the World nationwide chain of charter schools told the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that they would be taking classrooms from the students at Shirley Avenue Elementary School under PROP-39, they claimed that 156.31 students would be attending the East San Fernando Valley franchise. In reality, Citizens of the World 5 only had an Average Daily Attendance (ADA) of 128.65. Under California law, the charter school should have calculated that they owed the LAUSD a $34,625.44 Over-Allocated Space Fee and sent a check to cover their debt. However, given that there is a history of charter schools ignoring this obligation, Citizens of the World was sent a letter on August 13, 2021, reminding them of the amount due to the students of Los Angeles.
Approximately, 90% of the overallocation fee will be returned to the public school that was forced to host the charter school. For a school like Shirley, where 85% of the students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, $31,162 can make a significant difference as the school struggles to provide an education that can help end the cycle of poverty. Unfortunately, if history is any indication, it will be a long time before these students ever receive the money owed to them by Citizens of the World, if they see it at all.
When Citizens of the World's Hollywood franchise was up for renewal in 2019, Jackie Goldberg led an effort to withhold support unless the charter chain promised to pay the overallocation fees that were then due. While board members Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez said that they wanted the school to pay their debts to the district's students, they opposed Goldberg's effort. Monica Garcia's only comments during the discussion were to indicate that the issue was not worth the board's time.
By the end of the meeting, it appeared that Goldberg was successful in her efforts to ensure that the district's students were paid the money that was owed to them. Mark Kiegel-Heine, Citizens of the World Los Angeles' Executive Director, stepped up to the podium and assured the board that "you have a commitment to pay what we owe." Both Gonez and Melvoin reiterated their determination to ensure that these bills were paid. Superintendent Austin Beutner put his deputy, Megan Reilly, in charge of spearheading the collection efforts for PROP-39 overallocation fees. Los Angeles students who had lost essential space so that charter schools could have empty classroom space would finally be compensated financially.
Unfortunately, Citizens of the World's "commitment" was worthless. As of July 13, 2021, the Hollywood franchise still owed the LAUSD's students $141,195.35. The entire chain owed $974,629.67. When asked by the Northridge East Neighborhood Council's Education Committee for information about the steps the district has taken to collect this money, Board President Kelly Gonez forwarded the request to Jose' J. Cole-Gutie'rrez, Director of the Charter Schools Division and former employee of the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA). He declined "to provide further comment on these matters" due to "potential additional legal disputes and litigation." He did, however, state that "approximately every month, the District posts an updated over-allocation summary to its website, identifying the [annual] over-allocation reimbursement amounts owed by each charter school and... the amounts paid to date by each charter school, and the amounts that remain outstanding." This information has not been updated since July.
As Cole-Gutie'rrez detailed during his testimony at the September 24, 2019, board meeting, the LAUSD has tools available to collect the money owed to its students. This includes revoking the charter due to "fiscal mismanagement." But for this to happen the majority on the school board that is backed by the charter-school industry would have to allow it. While Melvoin says that he supports collecting this debt, he instead advocates on behalf of Citizens of the World including sending a letter on their behalf to Betsy DeVos when she was Trump's Secretary of Education.
Megan Reilly, who is now the acting Superintendent, has also abdicated her responsibilities to ensure that charter schools like Citizens of the World do not continue to harm public-school students. At the same time that the LAUSD was sending a bill to Citizens of the World for taking more space than they needed, the district was taking even more classrooms from the Shirley community because Citizens of the World schools said that they needed even more space. Is there anyone in the LAUSD who will use their authority and put #KidsFirst?
Mark Kiegel-Heine, Citizens of the World Los Angeles' Executive Director
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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.