Promise Academy sues district again

Proposed charter school in downtown San Jose says some forms for potential students were unfairly invalidated

In a protracted dispute, a proposed charter school is suing the San Jose Unified School District over disagreements about how many students are committed to attending the new school if it opens later this year.

This is the second lawsuit Promise Academy has filed against the district as it attempts to open a transition kindergarten through eighth grade charter school in downtown San Jose. In the new lawsuit, filed in December, Promise says the district unfairly invalidated the forms for more than a hundred students whose parents’ planned to enroll them at the new charter school once it opens.

The number of students expected to enroll is used to determine whether a school district is required to allocate classroom space to a charter school attempting to open within its boundaries.

According to the lawsuit, Promise had submitted forms including the name, address and upcoming school grade of 158 students who intended to enroll at the school. Of those, San Jose Unified rejected 115, leaving just 72 valid students. School districts in California are only required to provide classroom space to charter schools with an anticipated daily attendance of at least 80 students.

San Jose Unified informed Promise Academy’s CEO Anthony Johnson of the district’s lower student count in a letter dated Nov. 30. A district official said many of the forms didn’t include students’ dates of birth, which they said were required to verify eligibility, while other forms had addresses that were outside the district or couldn’t be verified using a California student database.

“It’s devastating to families because they worked so hard to launch this school, to get it ap-

proved and this is their choice for their students,” Johnson said. “It seems like their voices continue to be stamped out.”

Johnson said the categories under which some students weren’t counted were too vague and that he’s not received enough clarification about what the district is missing. The district should only require students’ name, address and grade, Johnson said. The lawsuit highlights one case where they claim a student’s form was disqualified because of a missing cell phone number.

During Promise’s first bid for classroom space, San Jose Unified called parents who said they intended to enroll at the academy to gauge their interest, a practice that supporters of the academy criticized.

Stephen McMahon, San Jose Unified’s assistant superintendent, disputed the idea that the district was asking for too much information about students, and said that at a December meeting with Johnson the district requested additional information for some of the invalidated students.

“I don’t think the burden is high. They want to run a school? This is basic paperwork,” McMahon said.

McMahon said the district needs birth dates to ensure students are eligible for transitional kindergarten, one of the grades the academy intends to offer. Promise included birth dates in its first application.

Promise, which first applied to be a charter in 2017, plans to partner with the Tech Museum of Innovation to serve primarily low-income students in downtown San Jose. Promise’s first bid to open was rejected by San Jose Unified, which eventually resulted in a June court ruling directing the district to offer “reasonably equivalent” facilities to the charter, a requirement under Proposition 39.

Promise requested space at one of six elementary schools near downtown. However, the district offered room at Allen at Steinbeck, a K- 8 campus in south San Jose near the Westfield Oakridge Mall. That prompted Promise to delay its opening, with Johnson saying the July offer was too close to the start of the school year to arrange transportation for students or recruit new ones from the surrounding area.

In an interview Thursday, McMahon said he hadn’t yet seen Promise’s lawsuit but that the district had been planning to again offer the academy use of Allen at Steinbeck.

“We’ve made it clear they’re going to get a facility offer this year, we just want to make an accurate count and they’ve created incredible challenges to doing that,” he said.

Johnson said the academy would consider any facility the district presented. He said he’s hopeful a judge will weigh in on the student enrollment projection because there are no guarantees if they have fewer than 80 potential students.

“If they don’t change the projection, they don’t have an obligation to make an offer,” he said.

Johnson and McMa- hon both said they understand the back and forth has left parents hoping to enroll at Promise feeling frustrated. Among them is Yolanda Bernal- Samano, who grew up in downtown San Jose and wanted her son to go to school there, within walking distance of the street where she grew up and where her mother still lives.

Bernal-Samano said that when she looked into her neighborhood schools she wasn’t happy with their academic level. She was left scrambling when Promise delayed its opening, eventually enrolling her son at another charter school about two miles east of downtown.

“We can’t walk him to school, we have to drive him there,” she said. “Even though they’re really good at building community, it doesn’t feel like community because we don’t live in that area.”

For Susan Frey, the small school size — Promise asked San Jose Unified for space for 210 students — made the school attractive for her grandson, who has had hearing problems and has special learning needs.