Mandarin charter backers appeal to county board of education

Here's hoping Menlo Mandarin can redirect their energies to a nearby school district that would welcome those students...

"School Board Approves Mandarin Immersion Program at John Gill School
On Wednesday, October 22, the School Board approved establishing a Mandarin Two-way Immersion Program in the Redwood City School District to begin in the fall of 2015. The program will be at John Gill School with at least one kindergarten and one 1st grade; adding a grade level each year up to 5th grade. The admission criteria would give RCSD students priority. Students in kindergarten and first grade would be accepted from outside the district on interdistrict transfers as spaces are available. After second grade, English speakers would be admitted if they meet Mandarin language proficiency criteria."

The organizers of this petition continue to insist on their rights of self interest to bastardize the intent of the charter school legislation in order to get what they want for their small group of children. This initiative has been flawed from the start, has infinitesimal support in the community, and was rightly rejected by the MPCSD board unanimously. Hopefully the county board will see this for what it is and also reject it. Enough of this madness!. Members of the community have continued to reach out to this group as valued input into the districts world language program and plans, but their self centered actions will continue to waste time and resources and further isolate them from the community they claim to want to improve...

And if you are interested you can read the novel length filing made by MMIC to the county board here: Web Link

It was especially interesting to me that the Section 6, which was positioned as a response to the Boards findings, refuting them, was nothing but a bunch of emails and letters supporting the charter or damning the opposition. Labeling organized opposition as coercion is simply at best wrong and at worst an attempt to demonize opposition. The Section 6 does not refute ANY of the factual, data driven findings adopted by the board, and reads as a weak attempt at positioning a flawed product. The board provided data and pointed out many flaws around curriculum, assessment, ethic mix, safety and finances and flaunting support and damning opposition doesn't change these facts.

What a waste of time! When are these founders going to realize they have a losing hand? How much time, energy, and money is it going to take for them to move on? The fact that even more money and time is being spent on this is shameful. This is time and money being drained from the students in the district that could be better spent bringing foreign language instruction to all students. That is flat out wrong. When will this stop and at what cost? Is this going to be a push every single year? The district cannot afford such waste.

This is a prelude to the entitled attitude of the founders. I truly fear their future demands if the unanimous decision of our elected board is disregarded at the county or state levels. I further fear their obvious but unstated objective to serve a large number of out-of-district students at our expense and to the detriment of education quality in our community.

The denial by the school board was unanimous and well thought out. The fact that this wasn't enough is disturbing to me.

This is disturbing. A Small group of selfish parents seeks to effectively segregate menlo park schools under the guise of a language program using public tax dollars.

Unfortunately this attempt to circumvent the MPCSD school board and the vast, vast majority of citizens of Menlo Park and Atherton is not surprising.

Here's just a small sampling of the many reason's this petition should be resoundingly rejected:

*) They don't have the signature numbers required by state law: they only have 58 signatures, not enough to justify the petition. In order to inflate the petition signature list, the pro-petition folks lied to petition signees (see page 5 of the district's report).

*) The ethnic makeup of the projected student population is nowhere near representation of the district, which is another requirement of a charter. A taxpayer-funded pseudo-private boutique school dominated by 1 ethnicity that's several orders of magnitude non-representative of the district is not what the charter-school program had in mind when it was created. (pages 11 & 31).

*) the enrollments estimates do not factor in attrition (see page 11 & 34). So not only do they not have enough interest in the charter, based on signatures, their projected growth is highly questionable and not based on any historical data from other programs.

*) the members listed as the potential school board for the charter have no experience in public school administration in California. None. (page 19)

Like Ken, I did not see in the MMICS submission evidence of deliberate coercion on the part of the school board. I did think that there was a fair amount of incorrect information provided in soliciting signatures to the opposition petition, and for that reason I did not sign the petition.

Setting aside all other grounds for the board denying the charter, I found the MMICS argument at least somewhat persuasive as to why they should not be required to make an affirmative showing now that the future student population will be representative of the ethnic demographic. How are new charters supposed to do this without any children enrolled? Should being non-discriminatory and open be enough? For example, as a one-way immersion program, the MMICS admission requirements are arguably more equitable than the district's own SI program -- but that doesn't matter because the district is running it? I also am troubled by the implication that folks might think the proposed charter is to benefit one ethnicity ("Asian" being a term that could describe 60 percent of the world's population). Would the school board view it differently if I sign up my (Hispanic) child for the charter school?

I hope the school board and MMICS can come to some compromise so the focus and resources can go back to educating our children. Maybe the new RWC school is an option. As an aside, it will be interesting to see in 10-20 years how many local school districts offer MI and if MPCSD will be viewed as being behind the curve on that one.

The article says the petition cannot be changed but also that a 50-page amendment has been added to the appeal. Is that allowed?

Which is it?

From what I saw the petition is the petition and the 50-page document is a response by MMICS to school board's findings (why they think the board was wrong). I don't know why Ms. Thygesen and/or the Almanac called it an amendment.

From the pro-charter petition submitted to the County:

> "The Petitioners’ budgeted per square foot rate
> appears to be low to midrange for local market
> conditions."

> This finding is inaccurate and extends beyond
> the requirement of the law. The Petitioners
> have located facilities leasing between
> $1.60 - $1.65 per square foot in the Fair
> Oaks neighborhood of Menlo Park,
> so this reference point is reasonable.

There is no Menlo Park neighborhood called "Fair Oaks". Fair Oaks is in Unincorporated San Mateo County, making the comparison unreasonable. The Post Office does not set city boundaries.

That said, reading the petition, their citation of Uhl v. Connors looks like a valid point in their petition. It does look like once signatures are submitted, signers cannot withdraw their signatures, regardless how the signatures were obtained. (I also suspect that even if you do request a withdrawal before submission, they'd have little incentive to do so, as you'd have to prove you requested withdrawal before submission).

Despite the methods they've used to get this far, they may end up getting their charter.

One issue to be aware of - the county board can indeed make a decision, but the local school board and administration has to then implement for the most part.. The county board does not do the hard work once the decision is taken - that is why the appeal rate for inter-district transfers is much higher at the county level, and why the Mandarin folks will keep escalating. Same issue if this goes to the state level.

This petition feels wrong. Charters are about innovation and this proposal does not offer anything more innovative than what MPCSD offers. It is less so.

An updated version of this story has been posted with information from the 688-page appeal and the San Mateo County Board of Education.
Web Link