Parents in Laguna Niguel, California, need your help to save their school.
They are asking people to sign their petition against the closure of their school, Crown Valley Elementary, and replacement with a charter school (http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-crown-valley-elementary), to Like their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/savecrownvalley), and to provide other support to stop the closure of their school, which may be voted on as soon as Sept 9. Proposition 39 is the charter school law in California, passed during the administration of Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Proposition 39 is being abused in Orange County
Crown Valley Elementary in Laguna Niguel, CA is being targeted for closure to house a Community Roots Academy, a charter school currently sharing a campus in Aliso Viejo, CA.
Crown Valley is a unique and special school environment with a general enrollment of 385 students, including a large DHH and special education population of over 160. The integration of students, in addition to the wonderful and caring staff help make Crown Valley an ideal learning environment. Relocation will be very stressful for all students and families of Crown Valley, even more so for those that benefit from the DHH and special education programs.
Crown Valley Elementary was built in 1966, and was the first elementary school in Laguna Niguel; CA. Our school is worn, but is beautiful and well loved. Community Roots Academy would not only potentially take over our school site, but also demand improvements. If Capistrano Unified provides CRA with our facility AND improvement it will hit our community especially hard. Capistrano Unified has a school of choice policy and the age of our facilities have been a potential factor in enrollment. Some are not able to look past chipped paint and carpet wear and choose to go to elsewhere. Others realize that appearances are not important. What IS important are excellent teachers, compassionate students, caring staff, and families. THIS is what makes us special, and where we excel.
Community Roots serves students outside of the Capistrano Unified district. It is not ethical that students from outside of the district could potentially displace children within the district.
We do not want our community, or any other with our district to be torn apart. Capistrano Unified schools approved the charter and its expansion without a site. The district must find a solution that does not harm our children.
Access to education should not be dependent on a lottery!
Charter schools were designed to fill an educational gap in underserved areas and provide equal educational opportunities for all Californians
•Charter schools should not have the ability to create elite publically funded private schools in well-served suburban areas.
•Charter schools should NOT have the ability to take over a neighborhood school and deny local children access.
•Charter schools should NOT have the ability to pick and choose a site AND demand that the district make improvements on the site.
•Charter schools should NOT demand facilities that exceed what is provided to other students in the district citing “reasonably equivalent facilities” under prop 39.
•Charter schools should NOT screen or ask questions about special needs and IEP’s as part of their application process.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Years ago I lived only a mile from this good local public school. I signed the petition and added a note.
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This makes me sick. Charter students taking precedence over public school students, probably with no guilt from the parents at all. I just had a run in with a hideous woman loudly berating a public school teacher who was carrying her picket sign as she got on the bus, presumably to head downtown, or wherever Seattle teachers are picketing. This woman started in about how the union stole her child’s school, that now she was stuck with paying for private school because she wouldn’t send her child to a public school with union thugs and gang bangers, that it wasn’t fair that she didn’t get to have her charter school. I politely asked her if it was fair that a private organization got to take public dollars away from public schools and she yelled that she didn’t care, she wanted what was owed her, she deserved a choice and she didn’t give a #### about other kids.
And that, in a nutshell, pretty much sums up why I dislike like charter schools so intensely. Charter schools represent the “me & mine first, to hell with the rest of you” strata of our society, those that think they are owed something, and that as long as they get what they are entitled to, their “choice”, that’s all that matters. No consideration of others – kids being displaced when their neighborhood school is taken over, the schools that suffer when their top students are creamed off for charters, the budget gaps that punish poorer schools that have lost funding and students to charters. And while I know every parent wants the “best” for their child, at what cost? Do we really need to destroy public schools to give some kids the facade of the “best” while most of the others are left behind?
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Ouch…sorry this happened to you today, but you are brave to picket and I applaud you. Thanks for hanging in and doing this for all of us.
Yes, the attitude of me, me, me, permeates American culture.
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I wasn’t picketing. A woman getting on the bus was carrying a picket sign, and I assume she was headed to wherever Seattle teachers are picketing. Other districts already on strike (Pasco, South Whidbey) are too far away, so Seattle is the logical one.
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WA Teacher:
Well put. As I have written before on this blog, self-styled “education reform” is an increasingly open form of “educational triage” in which the many are sacrificed for the sake of the few. And unnecessarily so.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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That is exactly right – the wants of a few seem to outweigh the needs of the many, and they greedy ones just don’t care.
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It’s so sad. Thank you for your comment.
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We have that happening here in New York City as well. It’s amazing how quickly these charter cultists are quick to shout, “they love to hate us,” while not even considering how negatively charter schools affect less wealthy schools and the level of political corruption that has allowed these schools to proliferate. I can’t decided how much of their reponse is cluelessness, denial, and/or selfishness.
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This plead says volumes about why charters are wrong and unfair and not democratic.
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Anyone who lives in SoCal knows that Laguna Nigel is a very wealthy city that does not NEED charter schools, period. The Capistrano Unified School District is one of the THE wealthiest, next to Irvine. Why are they setting up charter schools at ALL? This district is probably one of the best in the state of California. This whole charter school thing is simply insane. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capistrano_Unified_School_District
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Here is a list of Capistrano Unified School District’s charter schools. Journey Charter School is a WALDORF PROGRAM! Do you know how much parents pay private schools for a Waldorf program? Want to know what this is? Rich parents who don’t want to pay for private schools. These schools are all the creme de la creme of charters. You will not see uniforms, stark classrooms, punitive teaching methods or anything else you see in charter schools in poor neighborhoods. These are all beautiful campuses, hands on programs, enrichment programs (that are denied to children in other districts which aren’t as wealthy) and other things you’d only find in pricey private schools. Those of us against “reform” KNEW this was going to happen. The wealthy were going to get these very elite, beautiful schools and the poor were going to get juvenile hall-styled schools. And the middle class weren’t going to get anything. http://capousd.ca.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1265672486053
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Diane Ravitch,
My school district in So. Cal has an almost 17% out of district student body. Who are those children? I’ve demanded that answer from our school board. Our district hit the tipping point and no longer needs to Fed funding to fill our schools. You need to have a million dollars to buy here yet plenty of property has turned hands so we no longer need to rely on Fed dollars to keep our schools full. We need public preschools which has been put on hold by the Neo Libs in power who favor the development of EXPENSIVE PRIVATE preschools – filled with lots of rich people from other districts. Our recent demographic study proved that we have a steep decline of local kids who are of kindergarten age – that’s due to the massive developing which created rents and homes no one but the affluent can afford.
What’s bad about the permitting is it has been used as a mask to hide the fact that our city, once had much more diversity of people of color and low income folks. Our neighbors are systematically pushed out in favor of the upwardly mobile low income -primarily students. Our ratio of people to affordable units is just 1.2, telling me there is no real support for families here. Its part of the smoke and mirrors.
Our district does not supply Opt-Out forms for the registry. Did OC?
Orange County has the Cradle to Career program in place. http://childrensnexus.weebly.com/cradle-to-career.html
OC school system participates in the EDI study conducted by UCLA’s TECCS department, right? Well, I question the security of that data and it’s REAL reason for being. It, along with student registry info, appears to be used to target people and socially engineer cities. The bonus of that is the sale and resale of all that data to anyone who wants to buy it.
Our kids are used as guinia pigs to bring common core knowledge to “stakeholders” (who have access to the testing results) like Gates and the Waltons. Common Core knowledge is the platform used to advance artificial intelligence. Once those robots are built, GMO’s, vaccines, floridated water, etc, will systematically segregate and target populations of people to promote Agend 21.
The problem I see is that we are stabbing at separate issues instead of uniting as holistic movement.
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Save our school system!
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Wow this is sad, this was my Elementary School
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