After recently announcing its plans to vacate the 881 Alma Real building in June, Renaissance Academy is now vocalizing possible alternative school locations for the 2005-06 academic year. ‘Frankly, Alma Real is an unlikely option for the school’s future,’ the Renaissance board of directors told parents in a letter posted on the school’s Web site January 26. Landlord Greg Schem gave Renaissance a notice of termination (effective June 2005) last September, after only three days of classes. ‘For several months, we have been in discussion with the owners of the Glabman’s furniture building on Barrington and Olympic. We are also considering another building on Armacost, near Bundy, as a backup. We are also investigating another property in Santa Monica which must remain confidential at this time,’ the school board said. However, it’s clear from the Web letter that Renaissance’s first choice for an alternative location is on the Palisades Charter High School campus, which is the subject of a lawsuit between Renaissance and Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD owns the land). Asked what potential sites they could relocate to, Scott Adler, RA contractor and board member, mentioned the space around the journalism building and near Temescal Canyon High School. Then he added, ‘I don’t think there’s any specifically designated space at this time.’ Renaissance, which has an enrollment of 320 students in grades 9 through 12, filed a petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court last June when the District refused its request for space; the case was transferred to San Diego and a hearing is scheduled for March 4. ‘That we have had to absorb these costs [rental, tenant improvement, busing and other infrastructure costs] is a significant misfortune, all due to the fact that LAUSD has not complied with the state legislature’s Charter School Act and the Proposition 39 law passed in November 2000,’ the board of directors explained in their letter. ‘These laws obligate school districts to provide public school facilities to charter schools.’ Prop 39, approved by California voters, amended Education Code section 47614, governing allocation of public school district facilities to charter schools. According to a LAUSD Board of Education report, ‘Under section 47614 the District must annually identify ‘reasonably equivalent’ facilities that are under-utilized, contiguous and can be made available for charter school students.’ However, Greg McNair, who’s the associate general counsel for LAUSD, told the Post Tuesday: ‘At this point, the District does not have any high school space available on which to place a charter school.’ LAUSD filed an answer to Renaissance’s petition last August, ‘denying that what Renaissance was requesting was appropriate,’ McNair said. ‘In essence, the school alleged that the District’s policy regarding Prop 39 was not consistent with the law and that the District failed to appropriately respond to a public record act request made by Renaissance [last April].’ McNair said that LAUSD had responded to the public record act request by providing Renaissance with documents that included ‘letters sent to other charter schools concerning their requests for facilities under Prop 39, and the policy that the District has regarding Prop 39.’ McNair explained that this type of case may be the first in the state of California that addresses the particular issue of what happens when a charter school asks for space from a school district that has none available. The District’s responsibilities under amended section 47614 only became effective July 1, 2003, following the passage of local bond Measure K which authorized the sale of bonds to fund LAUSD construction and modernization efforts. However, the Renaissance board of directors noted in their letter to parents that ‘A Northern California Superior Court has recently ruled that a school district (Ridgecrest) which split-up a charter school among several public campuses, violated state law. Conclusively, therefore, if LAUSD provided no accessibility whatsoever, then they clearly would be in violation of state law.’ The board members said they expect settlement discussions with the District to ‘rapidly escalate because it is extremely doubtful that LAUSD will want to litigate this case.’ McNair said that LAUSD believes the case ‘needs to be fully vetted on both sides; the court should provide time for both sides to investigate the case thoroughly.’ According to Renaissance, a space on the PaliHi campus would not only ‘save the school hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in rental fees’ but ‘Renaissance [would] be able to amortize the costs of any facilities it may construct on such sites over a much longer period of time, including the possibility of obtaining bond revenues for such costs.’ ‘Ironically, none of this would have been possible had the landlord [of the Alma Real building] not terminated our lease because we would have been stuck for five years at a prohibitive rental rate, particularly with Alma Real’s restrictions on our use.’ Renaissance is currently engaged in settlement talks with landlord Schem, who leases the school about 13,600 sq. ft. of space spread over two floors. The school is seeking to increase the use of its space in the Alma Real building for the remainder of the school year and to recoup most of the nearly $500,000 it spent on renovations. ‘Whereas our claims may be meritorious with regard to monetary damages, it is highly unlikely, however, that a judge will require that the landlord keep us as tenants beyond the one year term,’ the board stated in the Web letter. Meanwhile, Renaissance, which receives an allocation of approximately $6,000 per year per student (like other LAUSD schools), is asking the school’s families to donate to its Fund Drive with the goal of raising $2,500 per student (on average). Last year, Renaissance raised more than $40,000.
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