MHUSD Supe recommends denial of Navigator’s charter petition

Interim Superintendent Steve Betando’s recommendation to the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s Board of Education is to deny Navigator Schools’ charter petition to open an elementary school within district boundaries for the fall of 2014, according to the Board’s meeting agenda for next week. The agenda was posted online Friday afternoon. 
“Based on the careful and thorough review given to the petition, as presented here, the Superintendent respectfully recommends to the Board of Education that: The Navigator, Morgan Hill Prep, charter petition be denied; and the Board adopt the proposed written findings consistent with the findings presented,” concludes the presentation that Betando is scheduled to give, prior to the Board’s vote at the Oct. 8 Board of Ed. meeting that will be held inside the Britton Middle School gymnasium at 6 p.m.
In Betando’s recommendation for denial of Navigator’s petition, he reasons that the charter management organization – which opened its first school in Gilroy in 2011 and a second this year in Hollister – “presents an unsound educational program” and is “unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition.” Additionally, it claims Navigator’s petition violates sections of the state’s Education Code, including one for not acquiring enough signatures for the petition.
“(T)he Superintendent and his administrative team have identified significant deficiencies in the Petition, as well as related educational, administrative and fiscal concerns,” the resolution for denial reads.
If the seven-member School Board votes to deny the petition, Navigator Schools co-founder James Dent has already acknowledged that he will file the petition with the Santa Clara County Office of Education and seek approval through its board. The County Board’s ruling would supersede that of the MHUSD board.
If a majority of School Board members approve the petition, a resolution for that scenario has also been drafted.
It “authorizes Morgan Hill Prep, a Navigator School to operate within the District beginning in the 2014-15 school year for a period of” and then lists a number of years ranging from one to five years. 
However, the approval document states that a “Memorandum of Understanding” must be agreed upon by both parties – the charter organization and the district – prior to May 1, 2014 or the petition can be denied “on the basis that Petitioners are demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program, pursuant to Education code section 47605(b)(4).”