The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Local charter school bond dead for now Parents to submit new proposal By JUSTIN BERTON Parents attempting to create the first charter school in Sunnyvale were stopped dead in their tracks when the district's Board of Education said at a Nov. 19 meeting that their proposal fell short of legal standards necessary to open the school. Superintendent Joseph Rudnicki said the application for the Sunnyvale Intensive Learning Center charter school did not include signatures from at least 10 percent of the district's teachers, or 50 percent at any one school, which are required by law. The proposal submitted did not include one teacher signature, board president Linda Kilian said. Jeff Richey, the parent of a student at Cherry Chase Elementary, and leader of the SILCN proposal, told the board he would meet with his staff within the next two weeks to create a new proposal--one that meets district, and legal standards. "The proposal is just incomplete," Kilian said. "It did not have enough in it to say to our community that the district could provide a quality education for our child." Kilian said Richey was considering withdrawing the proposal, knowing there is no chance the district can accept it. The failure to provide the required teacher signatures was not the only shortcoming in the charter proposal, school officials said. Rudnicki said if the charter were to open as it stands in the proposal, the district would need to provide $76,000 to help finance the publicly funded school. Rudnicki broke that down to a loss of $153 per child, per year--an amount that he said was too high to go along with supporting a charter. At the meeting, Richey maintained the charter school would make up for costs by drawing on students who have fled to private schools, cutting administrative costs through volunteers, and relying upon private and public grants. Richey estimated the charter school could secure $225,000 in corporate sponsorship each year--a premise boardmembers and some residents felt was unreasonable. "Nobody is guaranteed a grant every year," resident Kathleen Meadows said. "And what happens to these kids if the school they are attending can't secure funding?" The law requirement that teachers' signatures accompany a charter proposal expires Dec. 31. Richey requested that the board extend discussion on the matter until after the New Year. But the board, bound by the law, could only extend the discussion 30 days--which would have left a decision to be made on Dec. 30--48 hours shy of when the new law would take effect. Regardless, a meeting is still tentatively scheduled next month to make a decision on the SILCN proposal. Kilian said the board is awaiting written confirmation that the group will withdraw the proposal. If not, Kilian said, the board will use the opportunity to discuss the issues posed by creating a charter school within the district. "But the bottom line is," she said, "it [the proposal] is not a legal document, and we cannot accept it the way it is." Though this proposal cannot be accepted, both parties said they are committed to trying it again in the future. "The board really and truly encourages them to write a new proposal, and to work with us in the future," Kilian said. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 25, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.