COURT: LEARN4LIFE DID NOT VIOLATE STATE LAW
Reverses 2019 order to close San Diego locations of schools
An appeals court has reversed judgments from two years ago that had ordered five Learn4Life charter school locations in San Diego County to close.
Learn4Life is a statewide charter school network of 47,000 students that focuses on serving atrisk students with personalized learning that blends in-person and online instruction. Charter schools are public schools run independently of school districts.
There are 1,100 students attending the five San Diego County Learn4Life locations in question, which are part of three Learn4Life schools called Diego Valley East, Diego Hills Central and San Diego Workforce Innovation High.
Most of the students attending those schools are students of color, and several students have disabilities, are English learners, are pregnant or have children, are 18 or older, or are homeless, Learn4Life noted.
The appeals court ruling, issued Feb. 19, means
those students will get to continue working toward their high school diplomas at their schools, Learn4Life said. Many of Learn4Life’s students have struggled in traditional schools or aged out of traditional school.
“We are so relieved that the court has sided with the students. This lawsuit by (Grossmont Union High) and (San Diego Unified) did not put students first,” said Lindsay Reese, San Diego area superintendent of Learn4Life schools, in a statement. “We take students who were not successful in their traditional school, especially those who are credit-deficient, former dropouts and those with learning disabilities.”
Yearslong battle
The Learn4Life schools have been part of a nearly six-year battle with Grossmont Union High and San Diego Unified school districts.
Both districts sued in 2015 because Learn4Life schools were operating at sites within their district boundaries, even though neither district had authorized them to operate in their territory.
State law says that charter schools must be authorized by the school district where they are located, but the law provides limited exceptions. For example, a charter school can locate outside of its authorizing district if it proves it could not find a place to locate within that district.
Grossmont and San Diego Unified have said it’s important for charter schools to operate in the districts that authorized them, not just because it’s state law but for accountability’s sake. Districts are more likely and better able to hold charter schools accountable if it’s their own students who are being served by the charter school, attorneys have argued.
In 2017, Grossmont Union High and San Diego Unified won a court judgment that said two Learn4Life schools, called Diego Valley and Diego Hills, were operating illegally within the districts’ boundaries. Julian Union Elementary School District authorized Diego Valley and Dehesa Elementary School District authorized Diego Hills.
In response to the judgment, Diego Valley and Diego Hills closed, and a Learn4Life corporation created two new schools, called Diego Valley East and Diego Hills Central. The corporation argued that Diego Valley East and Diego Hills Central complied with state law because they could not find a place to locate within their authorizing districts.
The two new schools operated at the same sites within Grossmont and San Diego Unified that the two previous schools did.
Grossmont and San Diego Unified brought the
Learn4Life corporation to court again, arguing that it was attempting to continue operating illegally within their boundaries by essentially just changing the names of the two original schools. The districts argued that the new schools were the same as the ones that had been deemed illegal in 2017.
A trial court sided with Grossmont and San Diego Unified in 2019, and Learn4Life appealed. The Learn4Life locations stayed open during the appeal.
This month, an appeals court reversed the 2019 judgments, saying that there was nothing in the 2017 judgments that said the schools could not close then reopen under new charters in order to become compliant with state law. The appeals court said the Learn4Life schools do qualify for the state law exemption about being unable to locate within their authorizing district.
The appeals court said that the new Learn4Life schools, Diego Valley East and Diego Hills Central, are different from their predecessors with similar names, because they have different charters, curriculum and staffing, among other things.
The appeals court also reversed a judgment that would have permanently prevented Learn4Life from operating any sites within Grossmont’s and San Diego Unified’s boundaries.
San Diego Unified said in a statement that it is disappointed by the appeal court’s ruling and is “reevaluating options to challenge what we continue to believe are illegal operations.”
“Our public school system is based on local control, and we continue to believe students receive the best education and parents have the greatest opportunity for involvement when school leadership is closest to the classroom,” the district said in its statement. “That is really what’s at stake, and why we are confident our position will ultimately prevail in our efforts to pursue local control.”
An attorney for Grossmont Union High could not be reached for comment.