Charter school could close if it can’t expand to Paso Robles. Will SLO County let it move?
A North County charter school is asking the county Office of Education to approve its transfer to the Paso Robles Unified School District after that district rejected the request earlier this year.
Almond Acres Charter Academy, a 310-student public charter school currently operating within the San Miguel Joint Union School District, will hear from the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education on Thursday as to whether its petition to relocate will be allowed.
Almond Acres, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade, wants to expand and move from its current facilities to a new building in the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District.
Without approval, the charter school worries it may have to close, but Paso Robles school board members are leery about the impact the transfer would have on their district.
Almond Acres attempted to get the go-ahead on the move in April, when the Paso Robles school district board held a vote on the matter.
The charter school needed unanimous approval, but the district board voted 3-1 against the move, which was the equivalent of taking no action. The decision was then turned over to the county.
If the county chooses to deny Almond Acres’ petition, the charter school has the option of either appealing to the state board of education — which experts say has a very low probability of success — or reapplying for the petition. The charter school would have to do so before its authorization through the San Miguel Joint Union School District expires in June 2022.
Charter school needs new facility to expand
Almond Acres has been searching for a new facility inside and outside the San Miguel school district for the past five years, the school’s executive director, Bob Bourgault, told The Tribune.
“Where we are right now — we cannot expand at all, we have already added as many building as we have been able to,” he said. “We’ve run out of power. And we are not able to lease or purchase any of the (San Miguel Joint Union School District) property that is available.”
Bourgault said Almond Acres’ current facility is “essentially a dirt lot with bungalows” for which the charter school is “paying a pretty hefty rent.”
In August 2019, Almond Acres closed a deal with an investment company on a three-acre property off Niblick Road in Paso Robles, just about a minute down the road from Paso Robles High School.
If Almond Acres’ petition is approved, the property would be home to the charter school’s new facilities, which the investment company would be willing to help build. If not, the investment company would be forced to lease or sell the property.
“Obviously, we don’t want that to happen,” said Ed Surber, Almond Acres board member and parent. “We want it to turn into a school ... so we can continue to live out our vision and our mission.”
During a April board meeting in which the Paso Robles school district did not take action on Almond Acres’ petition, district Superintendent Curt Dubost and board members were largely against the charter school’s move into the district. One board member, Chris Arend, was in support of the charter’s petition.
Three members of the seven-person board had to abstain from voting due to potential conflicts. One board member has children who attend Almond Acres, while two others live close to the charter school’s new property, so their property values could be impacted if Almond Acres opened in their neighborhood.
During the board meeting, Dubost said that, due to the district’s financial issues and other factors, the charter’s petition comes “at the worse possible time imaginable.”
Paso Robles school district says move could hurt enrollment
The Paso Robles school district is still struggling to bring students back into classrooms after being slammed with a $3 million budget deficit resulting primarily from irresponsible spending by the former district administration.
Introducing Almond Acres Charter Academy into the Paso Robles school district could further drive its enrollment numbers down because students could transfer out of the district and into the charter school, said James Brescia, the county superintentent of schools.
Charter schools like Almond Acres are considered similar to public schools because they cannot charge tuition or turn students away from admission for any reason, and they receive state funding. Charters and public schools must adhere to state standards, but charter schools have more flexibility in terms of curriculum.
Charter schools in California must be approved by a local school board, county board of education or the state board of education to operate. Once approved, they operate independently of a school district.
However, when charter schools reside within a school district’s boundaries, they often compete with other campuses for students.
At the April board meeting, Brescia said that if Paso Robles Unified approved the Almond Acres petition, he would suspend the decision until the school district identified necessary budget cuts.
If it can move to Paso Robles, Almond Acre plans to grow its enrollment by 200 students to 500 total.
“If their campus grew, you would see a fiscal impact to your school district,” Brescia said. “I would intend to stay the decision until you have identified subsequent cuts in your budget that would mitigate the enrollment change impact on your district.”
Since about 60% of Almond Acres’ current students come from the Paso Robles school district area, Surber said, drawing down enrollment should not be a concern.
“They’re worried we’re going to somehow steal (students) from the Paso district,” Surber said. “But again, we’re providing choice.”
SLO County concerns about Almond Acres demographics, discipline
In a review of Almond Acres’ petition submitted to the county Board of Education before its Thursday vote, the county Office of Education raised several other concerns regarding Almond Acres’ student demographics, discipline and academic success.
In Almond Acres’ petition to move to Paso Robles, the charter school states that it is “committed to maintaining a racially and economically diverse student population reflective of the general population of the territorial jurisdiction of the district.”
However, its current demographics when compared to Winifred Pifer Elementary School, a Paso Robles school that has about 430 students and is close to the charter’s proposed location, don’t align with that statement.
About 70% of Almond Acres students are white and 25% Hispanic or Latino, while about 31% of Pifer Elementary School students are white and 63% are Hispanic or Latino, according to the California Department of Education.
Another neighboring Paso Robles elementary school, Pat Butler Elementary School, has a student body that is 51% white and 42% Hispanic or Latino, according to the state’s Department of Education.
“We don’t have the ability legally, to say yes or no to any student,” Bourgault said. “If we have space, they’re welcome. Whether they have special needs, whether they are socioeconomically disadvantaged, we embrace every student. And it just so happens that (our demographic makeup) doesn’t match certain schools.”
The review submitted to the county education board raised concerns regarding Almond Acres’ chronic absenteeism and suspension rates, which received an orange flag and red flag warning, respectively, from the California Department of Education for the 2018-2019 school year.
A school that receives a red flag warning on a state measure such as chronic absenteeism, means that the school did not perform to state standards. An orange flag warning is less severe, but still indicates that the school performed below state standards.
Surber argued that the charter school, after seeing the warnings, changed how students at the school “were receiving support and guidance.” As a result, he said, the school’s chronic absenteeism and suspension numbers drastically dropped.
“A positive thing in my opinion is that we, being a small school being a charter, we have the ability to improve things, quite frankly, overnight if we want to,” Surber said. “And, you know, not a lot of traditional public schools can say that.”
Surber and Bourgault said Almond Acres has prepared a rebuttal to “the many, many things that are just false, inaccurate or incomplete” in the report prepared for the county’s Board of Education prior to Thursday’s vote.
This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 2:47 PM.
