Teachers Say Yes to Charter School

While many public school educators feel threatened when a comes to town, on Friday  teachers put their stamp of approval on the idea.

A majority of Clayton Valley teachers have signed a petition in favor of turning the high school into a charter, and if that happens it would be the first public school in the Bay Area to do so.

The proposal needed an OK from a majority of the 72 teachers — 37 — and more than 40 have signed a petition in favor of the conversion. Charter advocates will be gathering more signatures in the coming week to garner as much faculty support as possible.

With the teachers' support, the proposal moves to the Mt. Diablo Unified School District board. 

If the Mt. Diablo Unified School District board, which says it stands to lose funding if it hands over the school, votes against the conversion, the decision could be appealed at the county and state level. Charter school advocates want to take over the school in the 2012-13 school year.

"We are very excited about gathering the signatures," said Clayton Valley Steering Committee Co-Coordinator Neil McChesney.

The process has gathered momentum quickly. The charter document, which ended up being about 150 pages, was started in April. McChesney, along with co-coordinator Pat Middendorf, spearheaded the effort to move fast, taking input from teachers, community members and looking at charters of other California public high schools which converted to charter schools.

"It was a Herculean effort," said McChesney, a teacher at Clayton Valley and a 1999 graduate of the school. "I'm not sure how we did it. I've been eating and breathing this for three months. I got married three weeks ago, and I was working on this the day before I was walking down the aisle."

The steering committee has refused to publicly release the charter document until all the signatures are gathered. McChesney said they will present the charter, including the signatures, to the MDUSD within the next two weeks. Upon receiving the charter, the school board has to hold a public hearing within 30 days.

MDUSD Superintendent Steven Lawrence, in a May 20 memo, said the district would lose about $1.6 million if Clayton Valley becomes a charter school. The steering committee has questioned this number, saying although the district will lose state funding that it gets for student enrollment, that will be offset by the fact it will no longer be operating the school.

"I think (getting approval from school district) is the big question right now," McChesney said. "I would love to see it approved and have an amicable and professional relationship with the district, but I honestly don't know."

Converting an existing school to a charter school has been a popular move in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where 23 schools have converted to charter status with two more in the process.