Schools

A for-profit online charter school operator agreed to pay back about $160 million debt relief to its 14 affiliated nonprofit schools known as the California Virtual Academies over alleged violations of California’s false claims, false advertising and unfair competition laws, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Three seats on the Gavilan College Board of Trustees are up for grabs in the November election, and interested candidates can start submitting nomination paperwork July 18. The deadline to qualify for a spot on the ballot is Aug. 12.The Nov. 8 election will be the first since the Gavilan board voted to transition from at-large to district elections. As a result, only two of the seats up for election are currently occupied by an incumbent. “Area 2” incumbent Jonathan Brusco of Morgan Hill is eligible to run in the new district created by the board’s April 2015 action, and Trustee Mark Dover is eligible to run in “Area 4.”There is no incumbent for the “Area 6” seat which will appear on the November ballot, according to Gavilan College spokeswoman Jan Bernstein-Chargin. That seat will serve a newly created single-member trustee area, of which there are seven on the Gavilan board.At the April 14, 2015 meeting, the Gavilan Board of Trustees amended its “Board Elections” policy, stating the intention to transition to a system of by-district trustee area elections in time for the November 2016 election. Under the new process, trustees must reside in, and will be elected by the voters in each of seven single-member trustee areas.In previous elections, voters in all parts of the college district elected trustees at-large, even though trustees resided in three areas based on K-12 school district boundaries: two trustees each from Morgan Hill and Gilroy Unified School Districts, and three from San Benito High School District.With the change to by-district voting, Gavilan’s trustees be elected in each of seven single-member trustee areas, each with a Census 2010 total population of about 24,000, according to Bernstein-Chargin.Gavilan contracts with San Benito and Santa Clara County election offices to consolidate the trustees election with the general election, Bernstein-Chargin explained.Nomination paperwork for interested candidates can be processed by contacting the election office within a candidate’s county of residence starting July 18, with a deadline of Aug. 12. Contact information for both offices is as follows: Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters, Candidate Services, 1555 Berger Drive, San Jose, CA 95112, (408) 299-8639, sccvote.org; San Benito County Registrar of Voters, 440 Fifth Street, Second Floor, Room 206, Hollister, CA 95023, sbcvote.us, (831) 636-4016.

The Ann Sobrato High School band is throwing a “Totally 80s Dance Party” fundraiser from 6 to 10 p.m. Aug. 20 inside the school gymnasium, located on campus at 401 Burnett Ave.

The Mount Madonna YMCA of Silicon Valley was named a recipient of the Distinguished After School Health program certificate, which recognizes programs that excel in providing health education, nutrition and physical activities for their students.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced June 23 that the California Department of Education has contracted with the State Controller’s Office to conduct an audit of California Virtual Academies and related charter schools because of serious questions raised about a number of their practices.

The building of brand new $20 million elementary school on a donated 10-acre plot in a scenic, affluent northeast Morgan Hill neighborhood comes with one major concern for local officials: high concentrations of a harmful pesticide in the soil.

A school board trustee blocked local district leadership’s request to continue retaining a law firm that he says gave the district poor legal advice that led to a recent failed lawsuit.

Local residents may learn something new about the district’s plan to build a new $20 million elementary school on 10 acres of donated land in northeast Morgan Hill with a “comprehensive update on the Peet Road site progress” listed on the June 21 board of education docket.

Local school district leadership’s legal push to erase an authorized charter school from operating in town was thwarted late last month in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County.

The Board of Trustees of Gavilan Joint Community College District unanimously voted in Kathleen Rose as the next President/Superintendent of Gavilan College at their June 14 meeting.