Charter School Petition Appeals

California School Boards Association’s Education Legal Alliance v. California State Board of Education – California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District (C099068/C099069 (Consolidated))

MEMBER(S) INVOLVED: Napa Valley Unified School District

IMPORTANCE OF STATEWIDE ISSUE:

The reform of the appeals process for charter school petitions that have been denied by school district and county office governing boards to the State Board of Education (SBE) was a key part of Assembly Bill 1505 (O’Donnell, D-Long Beach) that was signed into law in 2019. In this case, the SBE failed to comply with several of the AB 1505 reforms when it reversed the denials of the Mayacamas Charter Middle School (MCMS) petition by the Napa Valley Unified School District (NVUSD) and the Napa County Board of Education (NCBOE) in September 2022. As background, the Napa Foundation for Options in Education’s (NFOE) submitted a charter school petition for the MCMS to first the NVUSD and, after denial by NVUSD, to NCBOE. Both the NVUSD and NCBOE denied the Mayacamas Charter Petition, and NFOE appealed to the SBE. Despite the fact that Department of Education staff recommended that the SBE affirm the denial of the petition, the SBE sided with the NFOE, finding by a 6-to-5 vote that both NVUSD and NCBOE abused their discretion when denying the petition. The SBE found that NVUSD “abused its discretion” because it “did not provide a fair and impartial hearing process” and the NCBOE did not satisfy statutory requirements for the denial of the petition and did not provide evidence in the documentary record to support its determination that the proposed charter would substantially undermine existing services, offerings or programs. The SBE’s decision meant that local governing boards that are charged with the authority to approve or deny charter school petitions, and oversee those that are approved, would find it difficult to follow the reforms in AB 1505 unless the SBE’s action that misinterpreted and misapplied those reforms were reversed by the court.

Summary of the case and action taken by ELA:

In January 2023, in support of its member and to obtain a ruling on AB 1505, a bill that CSBA successfully advocated for, the ELA filed a writ of mandate against the State Board to overturn its decision alongside the district’s lawsuit. The ELA argued, in part, that AB 1505 specifically limited the State Board’s review so that it could not as easily overturn local decisions on charter school petitions. This was the first litigation regarding SBE’s limited authority to review charter school appeals under AB 1505. In July 2023, after consolidating the cases, the Sacramento Superior Court found in the ELA’s favor, determining that SBE utilized the wrong standard to overturn NVUSD’s and NCBOE’s denials of the petition and finding that both acted appropriately when denying the petition. NFOE, but not the SBE, appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal. In an opinion issued March 16, 2025, the Third District Court of Appeal upheld the Superior Court decision in the ELA’s favor, finding that the SBE erred when it found that the NVUSD and NCBOE abused their discretion when they denied the MCMS petition. This was a substantial win for charter authorizers in California.

Finding in favor of the ELA and the district, the Court of Appeal held: “[t]he State Board’s determination was not supported by substantial evidence in light of the whole record and was arbitrary, capricious, and entirely lacking in evidentiary support.” Further, “[t]he State Board failed to properly apply the abuse of discretion standard of review as it was statutorily required to do.” As to the SBE’s finding that the district did not provide a fair and impartial hearing process, the court went to great lengths to analyze the appellant charter school’s claim that the district’s process for denying the petition suffered from bias because certain board members read from prepared remarks at the charter school hearing. The court found no evidence to support this claim and held that the mere fact that “District Board members developed opinions about the petition after having the opportunity to review it, but before voting, is not evidence of unfairness.” Further, the court held that the district’s consideration of the petitioner’s lack of experience in school finance was not evidence of unfairness but was, instead, consideration of a statutory ground for denial (whether the petitioners are “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition”). According to the court, “[c]onsideration of circumstances relevant to the presence or absence of a statutory ground for denial cannot be deemed evidence of unfairness.”

As to the county board, the court declined to adopt the Foundation’s argument that the NCBOE did not meet statutory deadlines to provide written findings to the NFOE or to issue its written findings. The court adopted the ELA’s argument as to the latter, determining that a county board’s 90-day timeline to issue findings on a denial does not begin to run until a charter school petitioner submits the appeal to the county board and also submits its appeal materials to the district that originally denied the petition. Here, the petitioner did not do so until Jan. 5, 2022, so the county’s April 5, 2022, issuance of written findings was timely. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the NCBOE’s denial of the petition, holding “the County Board’s factual findings plainly demonstrate a substantial negative fiscal impact on the community that would be attributable to the Mayacamas Charter School itself.”

The Court of Appeal did not reach two procedural issues raised in the appeal: (1) whether the State Board’s administrative review on appeal of charter petition denials is quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial, which impacts the standard of review by a court; and (2) whether the State Board was required to demonstrate abuse of discretion by both or either the NVUSD and NCBOE. The Court of Appeal did not reach these issues because it concluded that the district and ELA prevailed under either standard of review and because the State Board failed to demonstrate abuse of discretion by either the district or the county board. (It is important to note that, during the litigation, the Legislature amended the statute to require that the State Board find that both the district and county board abused their discretion in denying a charter petition in order to overturn a denial, thus mooting the court’s need to rule on that issue.)

This decision demonstrates CSBA’s and the ELA’s long-standing commitment to protecting local control for charter authorizers, and ensures that the reforms of AB 1505 will be appropriately followed by the State Board. The opinion was originally issued as “unpublished” and, therefore, non-citable. However, the ELA and NVUSD (along with non-party Oakland USD) requested publication. The California Supreme Court granted the request, so the decision is now published and citable.

CURRENT STATUS AND/OR OUTCOME:

In a final victory for the ELA, NFOE petitioned the California Supreme Court for review of the Third District Court of Appeals’ decision but, after the ELA and NVUSD filed their answers, the Supreme Court denied the request, and this case is concluded.

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