Public School Must Pay $3 Million For Denying Space To Charter

Los Angeles Unified School District students Alexandria Marek, 8, right, and Kerala Seth, 4, left, protested the district’s cuts to the high-profile Mandarin Immersion Program at Venice’s Broadway Elementary school in March. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles Unified School District students Alexandria Marek, 8, right, and Kerala Seth, 4, left, protested the district’s cuts to the high-profile Mandarin Immersion Program at Venice’s Broadway Elementary school in March. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles public schools have been ordered to pay $7.1 million to a San Fernando Valley charter school because the system failed to provide free classroom space, a violation of California law. As part of what amounts to one of the nation’s biggest charter school experiments, the Golden State requires public schools to help with charters, which are paid for with public funds but are managed independently. Litigation has been a byproduct.

The Los Angles Times reported that “… arbitrator John Zebrowski said that the district’s failure to comply with the law harmed children attending the charter during those [three] years because it forced the school to use some money intended for educational programs to lease a building. Zebrowski said students were further harmed because the building leased by the charter was inferior to what it would have received from L.A. Unified.”

Ivy Academia, with about 1,100 students, reportedly spent $3 million on rent and other costs from 2007-10, but the arbitrator said L.A. Unified should be on the hook for more money because he believed the property denied to the charter had a higher value. The LAT also noted that “the district must also pay the charter $650,000 in attorneys’ fees.”

Read the Times’ story here: Charter school awarded $7.1 million in case against LAUSD