Following the passage by the Los Angeles schoolboard of a request for a charter moratorium, other counties in California are taking a look at doing the same.

 

 

Charter Moratorium to go Before School Board

WCCUSD Trustee Consuelo Lara is bringing a resolution supporting a Statewide Moratorium on the Growth of Charter Schools and strengthening oversight and transparency of current charter schools.

The resolution puts the WCCUSD in step with the recent resolution passed by the Los Angeles School Board joining with the NAACP, the Journey for Justice Alliance, Black Lives Matters and many other organizations and governmental bodies which have demanded a stop to the expansion of Charters at the expense of publicly run schools.

The meeting will be Wednesday 2/6

Lovonya DeJean Middle School
Multipurpose Room
3400 Macdonald Avenue

It is expected that the Charter Schools will use their money and buses to turn out in force to oppose this resolution. Supporters of public schools must be heard.

“Co-location” Means Closing Neighborhood Public Schools

For three years, PublicCore has been warning that continued WCCUSD approval of charter schools will lead to the closure of neighborhood schools. Now that chicken is coming home to roost. Unless neighbors and concerned community members rise up and say “NO!” El Sobrante will lose its middle school.

Pinole Middle School has already been forced to share its site with Voices Charter School as part of a practice known as “co-location.” Across the freeway in El Sobrante, Crespi Middle School has been forced to share its facility with Invictus Middle School. According to Prop 39 (aka “the charter school law”), each February, charter schools must make their anticipated facility needs request to the school district in which they are located. WCCUSD superintendent Matt Duffy has announced that both Voices andInvictus will be asking the district for more space in the 2019 – 2020 school year.

One of the options the district is considering is to close Crespi Middle School, move those students to Pinole Middle School, and allow Voices and Invictus to take over the Crespi site.

PublicCore is vehemently opposed to this option, as it gives public school students and their families fewer choices and takes away El Sobrante’s only middle school.

What you can do:
—Read the concerns of Joseph Glatzer, 7th grade history teacher at Pinole Middle School (see below)


—Contact the WCCUSD Board of Education [tom.panas@wccusd.net, stephanie.hernandez-jarvis@wccusd.net, valerie.cuevas@wccusd.net, clara@wccusd.net, mister.phillips@wccusd.net]


—Attend the WCCUSD Board of Education meeting on Feb. 6 at LaVonya DeJean Middle School


—Attend “Closing Crespi: a Town Hall with Trustee Phillips” at 6 pm onMarch 14 at Hilltop Church of Christ, El Sobrante

Letter from Jospeph Glatzer:

I’m Joseph Glatzer, 7th grade history teacher at Pinole Middle School. I’m here to oppose Voices getting any more of our classrooms and deepening their occupation of our campus. My criticism is with the charter system, not individual families.

I noticed in reading Mr. Duffy’s report that it says our enrollment at Pinole Middle is down. It had been down the past few years due to charter encroachment, but because of the amazing job our staff has done, our enrollment is up pretty significantly this year. Is the board aware of that? Parents are fed up with the lack of actual teaching at Summit, and we get kids coming back from them nearly every week.

Also, we know you’re not trying to close Crespi until 2 years from now, but that doesn’t make it any better.

How much smaller could our classrooms be if we weren’t hemorrhaging money to charter schools for their own profit?

Hiding behind the law and saying you have no choice doesn’t make any sense. Voices is not holding board meetings in Contra Costa County. They’re in violation of their charter and it should be revoked. The dangerous driving, traffic and noise is out of control. Our students are being hurt by a de facto private elementary being artificially wedged into their school.

It’s time for the school board to adopt the NAACP resolution for a moratorium on charter schools, which was just endorsed by UTR. Are you going to be on the side of the NAACP or on the side of a deeply segregated de facto private school which is taking our desperately needed public funds?

The argument has been that if you don’t approve these collocations then we’ll get sued and that’ll cost the district a lot of money. But we’re already losing tens of millions of dollars from approving all these charters and co-locations. We’re going to have severe financial challenges, like we see in Oakland, if something doesn’t change. So we might as well unite with other districts and fight for what’s right.

Prop 39 can be challenged as unconstitutional under the California state constitution, because it guarantees children the right to an education, which charters are endangering.

This is a civil rights issue and a human rights issue. We learned from Gandhi and Martin Luther King that respecting unjust laws is an immoral act.

Don’t take away any more of our classrooms at Pinole Middle. Thank you.