In the first litigation regarding Assembly Bill 1505, a sweeping charter school reform bill, CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance (ELA) secured a victory from the Court of Appeal in ELA v. State Board of Education and Napa Foundation for Options in Education. In an opinion issued March 14, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld the Superior Court decision in the ELA’s favor, finding that the State Board of Education erred when it found that the Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD) and the NVUSD Board of Education abused their discretion when they denied the Mayacamas Charter School petition. This is a substantial win for charter authorizers in California.
Both the district and county board denied the Mayacamas Charter Petition presented by Napa Foundation for Options in Education (Foundation). In 2022, the Foundation appealed the denial to the State Board. Despite the fact that state Department of Education staff recommended that the State Board affirm the denial of the petition, the State Board agreed with the Foundation, finding by a six-to-five vote that both the district and county board abused their discretion when denying the petition. The State Board found that the district “abused its discretion” because it “did not provide a fair and impartial hearing process,” and the county board did not satisfy statutory requirements for the denial of the petition and did not provide evidence in the documentary record to support its determination that the proposed charter would substantially undermine existing services, offerings or programs.
In January 2023, in support of its member and to obtain a ruling on CSBA-supported AB 1505, the ELA filed a writ of mandate against the State Board to overturn its decision alongside the district’s lawsuit. The ELA argued, in part, that AB 1505 specifically limited the State Board’s review so that it could not as easily overturn local decisions on charter school petitions. The Superior Court ruled in the ELA’s favor and the Foundation, but not the State Board, appealed. Finding in favor of the ELA and the district, the Court of Appeal held: “The State Board’s determination was not supported by substantial evidence in light of the whole record and was arbitrary, capricious, and entirely lacking in evidentiary support.” Further, “the State Board failed to properly apply the abuse of discretion standard of review as it was statutorily required to do.”
As to the State Board’s finding that the district did not provide a fair and impartial hearing process, the court went to great lengths to analyze the appellant charter school’s claim that the district’s process for denying the petition suffered from bias because certain board members read from prepared remarks at the charter school hearing. The court found no evidence to support this claim and held that the mere fact that “district board members developed opinions about the petition after having the opportunity to review it, but before voting, is not evidence of unfairness.” Further, the court held that the district’s consideration of the petitioner’s lack of experience in school finance was not evidence of unfairness but was, instead, consideration of a statutory ground for denial (whether the petitioners are “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition”). According to the court, “Consideration of circumstances relevant to the presence or absence of a statutory ground for denial cannot be deemed evidence of unfairness.”
As to the county board, the court declined to adopt the Foundation’s argument that the county board did not meet statutory deadlines to provide written findings to the Foundation or to issue its written findings. The court adopted the ELA’s argument as to the latter, determining that a county board’s 90-day timeline to issue findings on a denial does not begin to run until a charter school petitioner submits the appeal to the county board and also submits its appeal materials to the district that originally denied the petition. Here, the petitioner did not do so until Jan. 5, 2022; so the county’s April 5, 2022, issuance of written findings was timely. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the county board’s denial of the petition, holding “the county board’s factual findings plainly demonstrate a substantial negative fiscal impact on the community that would be attributable to the Mayacamas Charter School itself.”
The Court of Appeal did not reach two procedural issues raised in the appeal: (1) whether the State Board’s administrative review on appeal of charter petition denials is quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial, which impacts the standard of review by a court; and (2) whether the State Board was required to demonstrate abuse of discretion by both or either the district and county board. The Court of Appeal did not reach these issues because it concluded that the district and ELA prevailed under either standard of review and because the State Board failed to demonstrate abuse of discretion by either the district or the county board. (It is important to note that, during the litigation, the Legislature amended the statute to require that the State Board find that both the district and county board abused their discretion in denying a charter petition in order to overturn a denial, thus mooting the court’s need to rule on that issue.)
This decision demonstrates CSBA’s and the ELA’s long-standing commitment to protecting local control for charter authorizers, and ensures that the reforms of AB 1505 will be appropriately followed by the State Board. At this time, the opinion is “unpublished” and, therefore, non-citable. The ELA is considering whether to petition the California Supreme Court to deem the opinion published.
