2014-15 BCS Facilities Process

 I wrote recently about the activities of BCS, but I neglected to mention that we have received their facilities request for 2014-15.  Once again they have asked that the District close Covington as a district school and give that space to BCS.  We will be discussing their request at the Board meeting this Tuesday evening, Nov 12th.

I will be encouraging the board to continue to conduct very open, public discussions about the facilities options.  We need to have a robust debate, with all views represented.  We've heard from the BCS board what they want.  I'll be interested to hear from BCS parents (do they prefer that we close a district school, or do they think there is a better option?)  I'll also want to hear from LASD parents- are they willing to close a district school for the sake of peace in our community, or is that too high a price to pay?

This weekend someone said to me that their circle of friends felt like the trustees always "figure it out in the end", and that there won't be a school closure.  I want to emphasize to folks that every year is a new and distinct process.  Each year we start with a clean slate, and evaluate the request with an open view to how to address it.  We have already argued this in court- that the annual requests are distinct from one another, and that as facts change, we will need  to debate them anew.  And so, I look forward to hearing from people about how they think we should proceed.

The facilities timeline and docs are below:

Date	Action	Documents
Nov 1	BCS submits request for facilities, incl. enrollment forecast and preferred location.	BCS Facilities Request for 2014-15
Dec 1	LASD provides counter-projection to enrollment
Jan 1	BCS responds to counter-projection
Feb 1	LASD provides preliminary facilities offer (draft)
Mar 1	BCS responds to draft offer
April 1	LASD provides final facilities offer
July 1	LASD adjusts classroom space based on final district budget for upcoming school year (Note:  This is a negotiated step, not part of the Prop 39 process.)	(This agreement has expired, so I don’t anticipate making this adjustment this year.)

I look forward to hearing from you at the next Board meeting.

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

LASD provides responses to BCS questions

2013-14 Offer Process

On Feb 13, 2013, Tamara Logan and I met with BCS Board members Joe Hurd and Peter Evans to disucss the Preliminary Offer (PO).  As I noted in my Feb 11 email to Ken Moore , there were some practical limitations to that meeting.  For example, since District staff were already committed to a different meeting to review District finances, we wouldn't be able to provide answers to some of their questions.  During the meeting, we kept running notes of the question, which all parties reiviewed and accepted.  Since then, the District has pulled together responses to the questions.

Yesterday, I sent these responses to BCS.  I've also committed that we would make these responses public, in an effort to maintain transparency in the process.  I have attached the responses here.

Responses to BCS Prop 39 Questions
Transmittal Note to BCS

BCS Preliminary Facilities Offer Delivered

2013-14 Facilities Process

After a great deal of work and voluminous public input, we've presented the 2013-14 Preliminary Facilities Offer for Bullis Charter School.

This is part of the annual Prop 39 cycle, although this year we have made a conscious effort to ensure the process is as public as possible.  Including the meeting we added this past Wednesday, we took public input at 7 different meetings, including facilitated sessions and broad public commentary.  I am grateful to everyone who came out to share their thoughts with us.

Broadly speaking, BCS is split across 2 campuses: Egan and Blach.  At Egan, they have about 40% of the students on that site, and they have about 40% of the land also.  At Blach, they have 20% of the students and 20% of the land, but they also have further impact to Blach in the form of shared access to the specialized teaching space.

Given what this is, there's no way to please everyone.  Some will think we've offered too much, and others will say we haven't accommodated enough.  That's the job of the trustees- to weigh the input, and balance the needs of all students.  I believe we've done a good job of meeting that goal.

I look forward to receiving feedback from BCS, and to considering that feedback in the preparation of the final offer. 

Date	Action	Documents
Nov 1	BCS submits request for facilities, incl. enrollment forecast and preferred location.	BCS request
Dec 1	LASD provides counter-projection to enrollment	LASD response
Jan 1	BCS responds to counter-projection	BCS response
Feb 1	LASD provides preliminary facilities offer (draft)	Prelim Offer Exhib A-E Exhib F Exhib G
Mar 1	BCS responds to draft offer
April 1	LASD provides final facilities offer
July 1	LASD adjusts classroom space based on final district budget for upcoming school year (Note:  This is a negotiated step, not part of the Prop 39 process)

Note:  I'm note sure why, but Google Docs has trouble dealing with the latest Jan 1 letter from BCS.  It won't show it in preview mode, but it is possible to download the document locally and read it.

BCS Preliminary Facilities Offer

(Note: This letter went to all LASD parents and those who subscribe to our email list.  It includes a letter I sent to Ken Moore regarding the facilities offer that the District will deliver this week.)

Dear Parents, Guardians, and Community Members-


Last night at a Special Board Meeting, the LASD Board of Trustees instructed staff to deliver a preliminary facilities offer to BCS for the 2013-14 school year. The Prop 39 process provides for the District to make the preliminary offer, for BCS to respond with objections by March 1, and for the District to provide a final offer by April 1. This is the same process we follow every year.

Prop 39 requires the District Trustees to balance the needs of all students. Our offer to BCS this year proposes that their K-5 students be located at Egan, and their 6-8 students would be at Blach. In practical terms BCS would have about 40% of the students on the Egan campus, and about 40% of the land. Similarly, they would have about 20% of the students at Blach, and 20% of the land. However, Blach will also be impacted further because we are required to provide specialized teaching space to Jr High students. Principal Sandra McGonagle and her staff have worked with the administration to rework the Blach schedule to ensure reasonably equivalent access to the Specialized Teaching Space for BCS students while trying to minimize the impact on our own students. We have asked Principal McGonagle to reach out to BCS Principal Wanny Hersey to have a tactical discussion to review the sharing arrangements as proposed in the offer. We will consider that feedback as part of the final offer we present on April 1.

BCS held a PR event last week where they announced their willingness to accept a split between Egan and Blach. We are pleased that they are demonstrating an understanding of the need to balance the needs of all students. They have also acknowledged our requirement that all board-level discussions of the facilities offer be held in public, so that the community can observe the process. The LASD Board remains committed to transparency of this process, as we have done throughout the year. They also requested a whole series of Board-level meetings to discuss the offer. At this time, the LASD Board is planning to hold a Special Meeting on Feb 25th, and we may consider a further meeting in March.

The District cannot afford to spend as much time as BCS requests in meetings since we already are spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with the multiple lawsuits brought by BCS. BCS continues to litigate every issue and sub-issue within the 2012-13 offer, despite having lost every action they've brought in the past year. The courts have consistently recognized that the LASD Board is properly balancing the needs of all students. There are only so many hours in the day. LASD runs one of the leanest administrations in California. We rightly focus our resources in the classroom where they belong. In order to prepare the Prop 39 offer, we already divert tremendous resources to analyze possible scenarios and weigh the impacts. Couple that with the need to perform basic functions to continue to run a district that educates 4,500 students, and there simply isn't any additional time in the week to add another series of meetings. Said another way, we are already meeting with BCS several times per week to discuss facilities issues. It is unfortunate that BCS has decided that those meetings should be managed by the attorneys and held within the framework of the judicial process. I continue to call upon BCS to put a freeze on the litigation so that the hundreds of hours we spend each week on BCS issues can be spent more constructively engaged in a more respectful, solutions based dialogue.

I look forward to your continued input at the Board meetings.

Best Wishes,

DJS    

(Link to the attached letter that I sent to Ken Moore)          

Update @ 10pm.  Someone contacted me and asked me to publish Ken's letter, to which this responds.  Here is the letter and here is the presentation they used at their PR event.

Next steps: BCS Offer Process

Last night the Board met in a regular meeting to discuss the BCS preliminary offer for 2013-14.  LASD Asst Supt. Randy Kenyon worked with a wide range of people within the district to evaluate 4 potential configurations for BCS.  That analysis can be found here: (link to presentation)

After Mr. Kenyon's presentation, we heard from the principals at Covington, Blach, and Egan.  Each of them expressed that they're willing to do whatever is necessary to accommodate BCS, but also expressed concern for their students and the impact that the BCS program continues to have on our own students.

We invited the BCS Board to participate, but they've chosen to wait until we have a preliminary offer to discuss in more detail.  We also invited the BCS PTA, and they did come and provide input.  We heard from the PTA presidents from Egan, Blach, and Covington, as well as ~50 community members. 

There appears to be wide support for a 10th site, but also an acknowledgement that it would be difficult to get a 10th site live by the end of this school year.  In the end, the Trustees decided that we don't believe there will be a 10th site in time for the start of school this fall, so that's not a viable option for this year.  However, we reaffirmed our desire to find a 10th site.

We also had considerable discussion about Covington.  That site has a thriving school community, and it simply isn't rational to close a high performing neighborhood school to accommodate BCS if there are other options available to us.  Additionally, it would cost in the neighborhood of $1m to relocate portables to redistribute those pupils to other parts of the district, so it's not exactly an economical option.  Perhaps most important, it would have a huge negative impact on the special needs students that come from all over the district to attend classes at Covington.  Those pupils are among our most vulnerable.  Asking them to change schools and to uproot their program and impact all of the progress they've made does not make sense.

We considered whether we would need to spread BCS across three sites instead of just two sites.  While this option does "share the pain", it creates additional issues for BCS and for LASD students.  So far we haven't been very successful in "getting along" at our shared facilities.  There have been a number of concerns and issues that keep cropping up.  Trying to make that work at a third site isn't attractive. It is worth noting that this was the least supported option during the community input throughout our process, including both last night and during the facilitated discussions in December.

That left the Board with the Egan/Blach split.  We have asked Staff to consider three possible scenarios: 

Egan: K-3, Blach 4-8
Egan K-4, Blach 5-8
Egan K-5, Blach 6-8

We are quite concerned about the total number of students BCS is projecting, and we're looking to balance the impact across the two campuses.  Part of that depends on the numbers of students, and part of the facilities they require.  We'll have to see what staff brings back to the Board at the end of the month.

Based on the discussion, I expect that we'll invite BCS to participate in some sort of study session in February.  Historically meetings between our respective Prop 39 teams have been relatively low key, and they were not publicly noticed meetings.  This year, I believe we will hold a formal study session, and the meeting will be open to the public to attend.  I feel very strongly that we need to be completely transparent with our process.  If we do hold this meeting as a study session, we will not accept public input during that portion of the meeting.  However, rest assured that we will continue to seek public input throughout the facilities process.

It's worth reminding folks that the study session will likely go through a litany of "wants" from BCS.  They'll raise concerns about various aspects of the offer.  For example, I heard from a reporter today who'd spoken with BCS about the current facilities offer (2012-13).  BCS apparently complained to her that the restrooms at Blach are too far away from their classrooms.  While we will carefully consider each issue BCS raises, it still is up to the discretion of the Board as to how to craft the final offer.  We will weigh the totality of the offer, not just look at each individual part.  The restrooms might not be exactly where they want, but they may have more classroom space than their peers at LASD.  They might not have first pick of when they get access to the science lab, but we might allow them to include their 6th graders in the PE space.  The standard used to evalute the offer is "reasonably equivalent", not "exactly as requested".  The LASD Board will be balancing the impact of the BCS request against the needs of the LASD students who attend our own schools.  BCS students represent about 10% of all students within our boundaries (not 20% as stated last night).  The needs of all 5000 students need to be balanced as we consider how we will meet our facilities obligations.

I would encourage the public to remain engaged in this discussion as we move forward.  At the Board meetings, we tend to see a large number of parents from a specific site.  One week it's Egan, the next week it's BCS, and then it's Covington or Santa Rita.  Maybe we've hit the right balance when we have an equal number of parents from all 10 schools showing up at the Board meetings?  Seems unlikely, but one can hope.  Until then, though, I appreciate those who came out, those who spoke, and particularly those who added to the discussion with positive suggestions. 


One final point:  Last night I talked about the need for BCS to step back from the litigation.  I believe it will be hard for the community to support a 10th site until we are able to work together.  The District Board is elected by the people of our community to oversee the schools and facilities.  If BCS would like to have more input to the process, and perhaps seek a solution other than those that are on the table right now, I'm open to that dialogue.  However, given the pace of the litigation, it seems impossible to contemplate slowing down on any viable option for a BCS location.  If that means we end up "solving" this with a site that BCS isn't thrilled with, it will be a direct result of their Board using the courts to drive home the urgency of solving the issue.  I'm willing to consider other options, but the message they are sending today is "close a school, and do it now", and that's not something I'm willing to do.  I look forward to working with BCS, including their new board member Joe Hurd, to address the needs of all students in our community.