Split facilities for Navigator

If Navigator Schools wins the appeal of its petition before the state’s Board of Education, then the Gilroy-based charter management company may be forced to run its Morgan Hill school out of two different sites.
That’s what Superintendent Steve Betando and his staff are offering in their response to the Proposition 39 request submitted by Navigator back in October. Under the California education code, the Morgan Hill Unified School District must provide equal and adequate facilities to incoming charter schools.
Even though Navigator’s petition was denied on a 6-1 vote by the MHUSD Board in November, followed by the Santa Clara County Board in January – which denied the appeal in a close 4-3 vote – Betando explained the district must act on the possibility the state’s Board could overturn the ruling.
James Dent, co-founder of Navigator Schools, confirmed again Wednesday that Navigator still plans to appeal to the state and will submit its petition next week.
At Tuesday’s meeting, MHUSD’s Board of Education voted 6-1 (Trustee Rick Badillo casting the dissenting vote) to adopt a resolution for the preliminary proposal of facilities for Morgan Hill Prep. The district’s proposal offers four classrooms at El Toro Elementary School and two classrooms at P.A. Walsh Elementary School.
“In the event that Navigator does get its petition through the state, to split up a school would be counterproductive for Morgan Hill Prep,” said Badillo of why he voted against the proposal. “We’d only be compounding the disservice to the students in this district…They’re still our kids.”
Dent is also unsatisfied with the proposal.
“It’s not acceptable and it’s not what’s best for the students and collaboration between the two schools,” he said. “If we had a charter right now, we would fight that.”
Navigator, which shares the R.O. Harden Elementary School campus in the Hollister School District for its Hollister Prep Academy, requested its potential future Morgan Hill charter be housed at El Toro or P.A. Walsh – but not both.
“We were hoping to be at El Toro because there’s a significant achievement gap at that school,” Dent said.
However, Betando explained Tuesday neither campus has the capacity to free up six classrooms and still have enough space for their existing students. Navigator’s projected first-year enrollment for grades kindergarten through second is 168, with plans to tack on another grade every year through the eighth grade.
During the same meeting Tuesday, a demographic study conducted by SchoolWorks, Inc., showed that El Toro currently has 450 students and is projected to have 451 for the 2014-15 school year, with a total capacity for 690 students. At P.A. Walsh, where the total capacity is 886, there are currently 561 students with a projected increase to 587 next year.
Betando said there is a March 15 deadline for a charter to gain approval that would mandate the district provide existing facilities for the 2014-15 school year. The next scheduled state board meeting is March 13 and 14 in Sacramento. The State Department of Education has not yet received or agendized Navigator’s appeal but is looking out for it, according to Betando, who recently contacted the Board.
Dent anticipates Navigator’s appeal being heard by the State Board in May. If the petition is approved, he plans to open Morgan Hill Prep at a commercial location yet to be determined for its first year in 2014, then work out the Prop 39 facilities request for the following school year.
“That continues to be our hope that we can do that,” Dent said.
Local attorney Armando Benavides, an outspoken supporter of charter schools, asked the Board to consider other options for housing Morgan Hill Prep. He suggested the Loritta Bonfante Johnson Education Center, which is only being partially used for Central Continuation High School students, or the former and vacant Central site. Dent said that “either one of those sites would be fine.”
Betando, however, said MHUSD has other plans for both locations, although he did not specify what additional programs might be housed at each. Assistant Superintendent Kirsten Perez said the district tried to accommodate Navigator at the sites in the Prop 39 request. They even offered a 4 to 2 class split, instead of 3 to 3, in order to not divide one grade level at site.