The Top 10 Reasons to Oppose Ross Valley Charter School
1. It will divide our community and our kids as never before. Fairfax/Manor kids (and teachers) deserve to have a community public school which is unified and positive!
2. RVSD will be required by state law to provide the charter “available and equivalent space.” Though the MAP community insists they (as RVC) can no longer “exist” at Manor, Manor will be the most “available equivalent space.”
3. If they locate at Red Hill, as they desire, entire RVSD boundaries will have to be redrawn, and SA children and teachers will be flowed to Manor, as San Anselmo will then have 4 elementary schools. The whole district will be impacted, to say nothing of the traffic issues.
4. We cannot afford it! Though they say they won’t take any funds under Prop. 39 now if given Red Hill, in 2 years, or 5 years, they could return and demand RVSD build them a library, a multi, better restrooms, or worse, they could demand one of the RVSD school sites. Again, RVSD will be legally required to provide "available equivalent space." The RVC will also take per-pupil funding with them, resulting in a loss of revenue to all of our kids.
5. The MAP program has a poor track record of discrimination against English Language Learners, Special Ed students, and Free and Reduced Lunch kids, as proven last year by an independent investigator. MAP has fought against RVSD at every turn as they have tried to fix these problems. Click here to read the Discrimination Report.
6. RVSD has spent over $100,000 on legal fees related to MAP and RVC in the last two years alone. That money could be better spent on teacher salaries, curriculum, more classroom aids, etc. RVSD has spent 20% of all Board meeting time on issues related to MAP during the last two years, when MAP makes up merely 5% of the students in RVSD.
7. Their budget projections are based on falsehoods about the demand and waitlist for MAP.
8. The program was, in one leader’s own words, “basically self-run” for most of its 19 years, yet was unable to comply with simple California Ed. Code requirements for “Alternative Programs of Choice.”
9. It offers nothing new. Our entire RVSD uses project-based learning & Common Core. This is simply the conversion of MAP into a charter.
10. It will remove RVSD oversight (whose trustees have unanimously denied the charter two years in a row) of the long-contentious MAP program, and place tax payer funds in the hands of their self-appointed (not elected by local taxpayers) leaders. Click here to read more about how the Washington State Supreme Court just ruled charter schools there, unconstitutional.
What can I do to stop this?
-Email your concerns to the Marin County Office of Education Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Mary Jane Burke at marincoe@marinschools.org
-Attend the public hearing (location below)
Date: Tuesday September 8, 2015 Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Marin County Office of Education Community Room
1111 Las Gallinas Avenue San Rafael, CA 94903
415-472-4110
-Stay informed, as the petitioners vow to take their petition on to the State Department of Education if denied at the County level. If approved by the county or state, the charter school aims to be open and running by next fall.