Win at the Court of Appeals

Last fall, the lead attorney for BCS mocked the Superior Court judges, saying that they just don't have the time to study complex issues and that they generally don't understand cases like the ones we are involved in.  Given the BCS willingness to run to the appellate courts, it seems that they've viewed the 2009-10 case as the sign that teh appellate courts are "in the BCS camp".

Back in December 2012, the Appellate court took just days to rule against BCS on one of their appeals. (link)

More recently, (this past week), the District was pleased to have the Appellate Courts dismiss the BCS appeal in the Anti-SLAPP case.  Recall that BCS brought an anti-SLAPP motion against LASD in an attempt to kill the District's cross-complaint.  By filing the anti-SLAPP, and by appealing when they lost at the trial court, BCS was holding at bay any legal discovery activities that might otherwise proceed.  Now that BCS has lost their appeal, LASD will be able to move forward with discovery.

The Cross Complaint is an important action because it asks the courts to examine BCS admissions practices and their treatment of certain student groups, and asks the court to then determine whether those actions should impact LASD facilities allocation to BCS.  Now that the roadblocks are cleared, we'll begin the important excavation work that is necessary to pull together the information we need to put before the court. 

I have no illusions that the Cross-Complaint is moving swiftly to trial.  BCS has, in the recent past, defied Discovery, and has been sanctioned by the courts for their behavior.  (They've appealed those sanctions too, so we'll have to wait and see what happens there.)  However, clearing these roadblocks is important- we need to move forward and get clarity from the court on the questions we've raised.

Regardless of what BCS attorneys seem to think of the trial courts, the Appellate Courts seem to think they've been "getting it right", because they have affirmed their decisions.

LASD Brief - 2013-14 Suit

2013-14 Facilities Lawsuit

Yes, I understand the frustration- we're not even done with 2012-13, and we're already talking about the 2013-14 lawsuit.  Not much I can do about that...

LASD has filed our reply brief in the 2013-14 facilities dispute.  After LASD delivered our Final Offer for 2013-14, BCS accepted the offer and promptly turned around and filed a suit to challenge the offer.  They highlighted two lines of attack-
1) They've challenged the District's ability to split the BCS program across Egan and Blach
2) They've also challenged the CEQA process under which we have allocated space to their program

After some legal wrangling, we've agreed that the case will be heard on a somewhat expedited calendar.  The District remains very confident of the offer we've delivered, and the sooner the courts rule on this the better.  Part of the process to expedite is that BCS will argue their key area of concern (the split across two sites) now, and will hold back the CEQA argument for later.

As BCS has been compelled by the courts to provide documents in the litigation, they've asserted that much of it is "confidential" and cannot be shared with the public.  I'm not clear on the legal reasoning of positioning one's self as a public school but maintaining that much of your documentation is private.  However, rather than add yet another that legal battle to the docket, we've submitted the documents under seal.  If a member of the public comes forward to challenge the confidentiality of those documents, the court will rule on whether the docs should be released or not.

This hearing will take place on June 20 in Superior Court.  The public is always welcome to attend these hearings.


LASD Opposition to BCS Motion for Judgement
Cardozo Declaration (part 1 of 3)
Cardozo Declaration (part 2 of 3)
Sorry, Part 3 is under seal for the moment

Hearing Dates (tentative)

Today our attorneys informed us that we have some tentative dates for hearings in the various litigation threads going on.  I like to think that these dates are "committed", but in the past these have moved at the last minute.  Still, I'll share what we know.

2013-14 BCS Prop 39 Case
We have tentatively agreed to a hearing date on June 20th, 2013.  This will focus only on the first of the two issues, the legality of providing non-contiguous facilities to BCS.  (See my earlier blog posts that detail this thread).  This would be for oral arguments in that case.

Raynor Case (LASD motion, + separate BCS complaint)
In the District's efforts to acquire a site for BCS, we also have a thread of litigation.  Today, our attorneys successfully argued to the judge that the BCS case needs to be consolidated and heard at the same time as our request for declaratory relief.  (BCS opposed the consolidation, but the judge agreed that these cases deal with the same facts, and can be consolidated.)  That case will take a bit more work to prepare, so that hearing is currently set for July 22, 2013.  Again older blog posts contain the details as well as the court filings so far.

I look forward to having these cases heard.  Hopefully we can focus on the core issues, and avoid some of the iterations that have plagued the 2012-13 cases.

Community Discussion at Blach

This evening we held a community discussion at Blach.  The goal of the meeting was to have a forum where parents of both BCS and Blach could come forward and ask questions related to the logistics of sharing the site.  I'm pleased to say that the event was well attended by parents from both schools.  We also had a couple of BCS Board Members join us, at least one of their teachers, and of course their principal.   We even had a member of the Los Altos City Council come join us. 

Many of the questions ocvered things we'd considered in the final offer, but there were also questions raised that we know we still need to hash out.  The "Final Offer" is a document that sapecifies the space BCS can use, but it doesn't address the practical realities of life on the ground.  Blach Principal Sandra McGonacle will be discussing many of those issue with BCS Principal Wanny Hersey this summer.

I believe that the discussion was productive- parents raised questions about the sharing of facilities, and how that all will work.  We continued a dialogue, and are working to establish a cooperative culture between the schools.  That's a win in my book.

Scheduling a community meeting

Updated 5/20:  Due to a scheduling conflict (mentioned below), we've moved up the meeting by a day.  It will be held on May 22 @ 7pm at Blach.
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Some folks may be aware, LASD has tried to schedule a comunity meeting to discuss the sharing arrangements at Blach for next year.  The sharing arrangements are new at Blach, and we were concernd that there might be questions or confusion.  Attendees of the Board meetings in March and April probably recall a discussion amonngst the Board and administration about the clear value of having this type of discussion. 

This week we sent out notices for a proposed meeting on May 23rd.  However, BCS replied and let us know that May 23rd is also the night of the BCS Open House.  As soon as we became aware, we reached out to reschedule.  We hope to have that worked out quickly, and to hold this meeting before the end of school.  Ms. McGonagle will send an updated notice when we fix a date. 

The meeting is primarily directed towards parents who have students on this campus next year, but of course anyone will be welcome.  This will not be a "legal" discussion- we're not aiming to talk about how the offer was constructed, or why we did "this" or "that" in the Final Offer.  Rather, the focus will be on logistics and getting along.  I hope that we will have a constructive discussion.