JUDGE CERTIFIES CLASS-ACTION SUIT CHALLENGING STATE FUNDING

Legal action was filed by three San Diego County charter school networks

A lawsuit by three San Diego County charter school networks that said they were wrongfully denied state funding now represents all 308 of California’s charter schools that provide online, home school and other nontraditional learning.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge James Arguelles granted the plaintiffs in Reyes v. State of California class-action status in a recent court order. Attorneys for the charter school plaintiffs say this is the first class-action lawsuit involving charter schools in California’s history.

The 308 charter schools are called non-classroom-based charter schools because at least 20 percent of the learning occurs off campus. The schools often provide a range of virtual, at-home and in-person instruction.

The schools enroll 195,000 students throughout the state and make up 29 percent of the state’s charter schools. About half their students are low-income, the schools’ attorneys said.

California funds district and charter schools based on their enrollment. Charter schools are public schools run independently of districts.

Last fall three charter school networks based in San Diego County — The Classical Academies, The Learning Choice Academy and Springs

Charter Schools — along with 13 charter school students sued the state for refusing to give the schools funding for new students they enrolled this school year.

As the pandemic forced many traditional schools to close and go online last year, thousands of families switched or tried to switch their students out of traditional public schools to these non-classroom-based charters, which have years of experience providing distance learning.

Meanwhile many school districts were struggling to adapt to distance learning and faced losing students.

The state decided to freeze school funding statewide, so districts and charter schools would keep the same funding they received the year before, regardless of whether they gained or lost students during the pandemic. The freeze was meant to protect schools from financial ruin during the pandemic.

Later the state passed a budget amendment that gave some funding to district schools and classroombased charter schools for their new students, but not to non-classroom-based charter schools.

The three San Diego-area charter networks argued the freeze illegally denied them fair and full funding for students and it denied students their right to a publiclyfunded education.

“Every child in California deserves to have their public education funded,” said Jerry Simmons, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “It is unacceptable, particularly during a pandemic, that the state’s leaders would pick winners and losers among children — that some children’s educations matter and some are worth exactly zero.”

The charter school networks said they were forced to turn away thousands of students because they could not afford to serve them, and some schools said they stretched their budgets thin by enrolling hundreds of new students they weren’t getting paid for.

The three San Diego charter networks together enrolled 2,000 new students but didn’t receive about $20.9 million in state funding for them, the schools said when they filed the lawsuit last year.

The lawsuit named as defendants Gov. Gavin Newsom, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, State Controller Betty Yee and the State of California.

Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The California Department of Education has said it does not comment on litigation.

California non-classroombased charter schools can choose to opt out of the classaction suit by April 16, Simmons said. A court hearing for the case is scheduled for July 2.