Monday, January 5, 2013
Page 3
Court of Appeal Publishes Opinion on Charter Schools
By a MetNews Staff Writer
This district’s Court of Appeal Friday certified for publication its opinion in California Charter Schools Association v. Los Angeles Unified School District.
In that opinion, written by assigned Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Edward Ferns and filed on Dec. 5, a unanimous Div. Five upheld Los Angeles Unified School District’s method of assigning classroom space to charter schools, saying the district’s use of “norming ratios” was consistent with the intent of Proposition 39.
That proposition, approved by California voters in 2000, required public school districts to share their facilities fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools.
The California Charter Schools Association had sued the district, challenging its method of counting classrooms the school district was required to take into account.
The panel reversed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green’s ruling in favor of the association, saying that under its analysis the school district would have to count classrooms that had been contracted for but not yet built and classrooms at closed school sites.
Presiding Justice Paul Turner and Justice Sandy Kriegler concurred in the opinion.
The case is California Charter Schools Association v. Los Angeles Unified School District, B242601.
Copyright 2013, Metropolitan News Company