The California Lease Schools Association Advocates paid for this anti-Measure H mailer, opposing West Contra Costa Unified'southward school construction bail. "The School Board is wasting our money and hurting our children. Information technology's time to say 'no more than,'" it said.

Before this month, and for the commencement time, the political arm of the California Charter Schools Association campaigned heavily against a proposed school construction bond in a district that hadn't agreed to share the proceeds with charter schools.

The $100,000 that information technology spent helped defeat the West Contra Costa Unified Schoolhouse District'southward $270 million Measure H. Information technology also sent a larger message to other districts with charter schools, said Jed Wallace, executive manager of the California Charter Schools Association, a nonprofit educational activity and advocacy arrangement representing nigh of the land's 1,130 charter schools.

"If districts include u.s.a. equitably, we will be partners with you," he said. "You lot are on observe if you don't. Nosotros will raise funds to defeat those measures that don't treat charters adequately."

Wallace likewise is a board fellow member of the California Lease Schools Association Advocates Bug Committee, an affiliated nonprofit with some overlap in board members thatfunds candidates and campaigns. CCSA Advocates raised $ane.7 million and spent near $one 1000000 in the June chief, according to the Secretarial assistant of State'southward Cal-Access website, leaving it enough of money to back upward its hope to lookout man other school districts putting bail measures on the Nov ballot.

The charter schools system has thrown coin behind bond measures and parcel taxes in the past decade: a facilities bond in Los Angeles Unified, a parcel tax in Oakland Unified and both a parcel taxation and a structure bail in San Diego Unified, said Wallace. In the June primary, CCSA Advocates gave $five,000 in support of a construction bail measure for the Sequoia Matrimony Loftier Schoolhouse District in San Mateo County and $ten,000 toward a bundle tax for the Livermore Unified School Commune. In both cases, the districts had promised to share proceeds proportionately with charter schools serving students from their districts, Wallace said. Both measures passed.

Nether Proposition 39, which voters passed in 2000, school districts must provide charter schools with facilities comparable to those used by traditional public schools when the charter schools request information technology. However, they are non required to share parcel taxes or employ construction bonds to renovate or build new facilities for lease schools.

There are 7 lease schools either operating or virtually to open this fall in 30,000-pupil West Contra Costa Unified, and not all of them liked the idea of having the state organization fight the local bond mensurate. Ii charters had benefited from previous commune bond measures. The district had spent $ii million renovating a edifice for Richmond College Prep Schools, and more $22 meg for Leadership Public Schools-Richmond'south new high school, due to open in the fall.

Leadership volition share a campus with Gompers Continuation High Schoolhouse, a district school, and share gym facilities and a wellness clinic. Leadership also benefited from millions of dollars more than in soft costs, such as builder'south fees it didn't need to pay. Leadership, which is used to modular construction for its new buildings, could not have afforded such a well-equipped, expansive facility on its own, said Louise Waters, Leadership's CEO and superintendent.

Waters said she wasn't aware of CCSA's decision to fight the bail and wouldn't accept signed on. "Local charters usually work with districts to build relationships," she said. "This puts us in a difficult position."

Jorge Lopez, the CEO of Richmond Lease Academy, a middle school in West Contra Costa Unified, agreed with Waters. The CCSA Advocates' campaign "was like throwing a nuclear bomb in an already hot surface area," he said, and will complicate building new inroads with the district. He, too, said he was in the nighttime about the opposition campaign until it began.

But Wallace and Diane Tavenner, CEO of Peak Public Schools and chairwoman of CCSA Advocates' board, said the campaign committee acted later reaching out to virtually charter schools in the district, though they wouldn't name them. Some chose not to speak out because they are worried the commune might concur it against them when they seek a lease renewal or a Prop. 39 edifice request, Wallace said. Acme operates a charter middle school in West Contra Costa Unified.

"The rationale is pretty straightforward," said Tavenner. "When districts go out for bonds, part of their due diligence is to be thoughtful about their legal obligation to provide facilities for charters; they should be serving all public school kids. Westward Contra Costa failed to do this."

The Sequoia Marriage High School Commune, past contrast, she said, was proactive. "I got a call from the superintendent and the board to come across with me before finalizing the bond measure language," she said.

It's not skillful plenty, Tavenner said, for a district to give one charter a beautiful facility while other charter students are not served. "At that place needs to be consistency in meeting their responsibility," she said.

Previous conflicts

The commune and lease schools have tussled over the years. Peak and several other charters received approvals to operate from the Contra Costa County Board of Education after the district rejected their requests. The California Lease Schools Association is suing West Contra Costa after the district declined to share a portion of its parcel tax with charter schools.

Charles Ramsey, chairman of the West Contra Costa Unified school lath, said no one from the charter schools organization contacted him to ask that the charters be included in the bonds. In an email, Superintendent Bruce Harter confirmed that as well. Wallace said the charter schools first heard about the bail proposal days before the lath voted on it, and by and then the language had been written.

CCSA Advocates donated through a nonprofit prepare up for the election, the Contra Costa Families for Better Schools. It wasn't the only group opposing the bond measure, but it was the best funded. The entrada capitalized on voter worry about college taxes and stories in the Contra Costa Times nigh the high cost to taxpayers of the previous six structure bond measures since 1998, which full $1.6 billion. Supporters of the bond, primarily construction companies and architects who benefited from past bonds, contributed more than than $400,000, co-ordinate to the Times.

CCSA Advocates spent nigh of the $100,000 on mailers. I quoted a Contra Costa Times analysis that the district'southward edifice costs "announced to far exceed the norm in other districts" and added, "The Schoolhouse Board is wasting our money and hurting our children. It's time to say 'no more.'" The mailer said information technology was paid for by the California Lease Schools Association Advocates.

Ramsey said he was angry that CCSA Advocates attacked the district'southward credibility in its campaign. "Nosotros felt blindsided that it would put that seed in the mind of voters," he said. "Information technology was odious and nefarious behavior."

West Contra Costa's Mensurate H was the largest by far of the nine school bail measures statewide that were defeated in the June 3 primary election. Only 45 per centum of voters backed it, far shy of the 55 percent threshold for passing construction bonds. Thirty-five California districts – nigh eighty percentage of the 44 districts with bonds on the ballot – passed them, according to the California Local Government Finance Annual.

With a $691,000 donation last yr from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and $550,000 from Doris Fisher, co-founder of the Gap wearable stores, the California Lease Schools Association Advocates is condign a entrada force, bankroll pro-charter candidates in local school lath, Senate and Assembly races. Other donors to the charter schools campaign committee include venture capitalist Arthur Stone ($350,000) and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan ($50,000).

Gary Borden, executive director of CCSA Advocates, said the campaign committee hasn't yet supported a candidate in the race for country superintendent of public teaching. He said the commission will decide this summer whether to back Marshall Tuck, the erstwhile charter schools executive who will face up incumbent Superintendent Tom Torlakson in the Nov runoff.

John Fensterwald covers education policy. Contact him  and follow him on Twitter @jfenster . Sign up hither  for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest education reporting team in California.

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