Napa Valley Unified School District poised to sue over upcoming Mayacamas charter school decision

The Napa County Office of Education and the Napa Valley Unified School District have come to starkly different conclusions on a petition that would allow the Mayacamas Charter Middle School to restructure as a countywide school, a disagreement that may send the question of whether the school should exist to the courts for a second time.

County schools staff are recommending their board conditionally approve the petition at a meeting March 5. County staff have also recommended approval for two prior Mayacamas petitions, though the board has not yet voted to approve one.

But Napa district leadership presented a separate analysis of the petition during a special meeting Monday, expressing deep concern with both the petition and the county agency’s recommendation to approve on largely legal and fiscal grounds.

“NVUSD believes the potential approval would demonstrate a shocking abdication by the county superintendent and the county office of education of their fiduciary duties for fiscal oversight of all schools and districts in the county, and would demonstrate a clear abuse of discretion by our county board,” Superintendent Rosanna Mucetti told the board.

The board in closed session also voted unanimously to initiate litigation connected to the potential approval of the Mayacamas petition.

No specific details were shared about what a potential lawsuit would entail, but Mucetti said at the meeting the closed session item would involve the district’s legal counsel, Mary Hernandez, presenting legal analysis of the Mayacamas petition to the board, and the board then considering the implications of that analysis.

Josh Schultz, deputy superintendent for business services at the county schools agency, said that as of Tuesday, the agency had no comment on the Napa district’s analysis.

“We were not aware in advance of the special meeting,” Schultz wrote. “We only recently got access to the materials, and we have not yet had the chance to review them.”

Should a lawsuit move forward, it would mark the second time the district took legal action in opposition to a Mayacamas charter school approval.

The district previously sued the California State Board of Education in November 2022, arguing that the board hadn’t followed the law when it overturned the prior district and county board denials of the original Mayacamas Charter Middle School petition.

That argument was upheld last year by a Sacramento County Superior Court judge.

Still, the current Mayacamas school was allowed to open under the state authorization in August 2023, and has remained open while the Napa Foundation For Options in Education, which runs the school, appeals the legal decision.

The pending legal judgment could see the school shut down by unraveling the state board approval.

With that legal judgment looming, Mayacamas petitioners submitted their first countywide petition to the county schools office in August 2023 — a process that allows petitioners to seek approval directly from a county schools board, bypassing local district approval.

If the school were approved to operate under a countywide petition, it would come to exist because of a separate process. That potentially would allow the school to evade the prior legal decision.

The first countywide petition was withdrawn in October. But petitioners submitted a second petition to the county schools agency Jan. 16.

Rob Mangewala, assistant superintendent for business services, said there were a few reasons the district held a special board meeting to present its own analysis.

For one, district representatives won’t have a designated chance to speak at the March 5 meeting as the petitioners do. He said Napa County’s other districts should also have a chance to speak.

Mangewala also said the public comment period — when district representatives have spoken given the lack of designated time — was limited to an hour at a Feb. 13 hearing, and the county schools agency is planning to again limit public comment to an hour at the March 5 hearing. Public comment at an August 2023 meeting, where the previous petition was up for approval, lasted about seven hours.

But Mangewala largely spoke about the finances of the Mayacamas school, saying he expects enrollment — and enrollment-based funding — have been overstated in the new petition.

That’s because, according to Mangewala, the Mayacamas school “dramatically overstated” its enrollment in its original, currently approved petition — and thus its enrollment-based funding through average daily attendance — by initially projecting it to be at around 180 in its first year.

The school currently has around 70 to 75 students. Petitioners have said that the steep enrollment drop off was because of the legal conflict and uncertainty about the school being able to open, and their current budget was adjusted for a projected 75 students.

The school has remained fiscally afloat during its first year, though Mangewala said that wouldn’t be the case without outside donations and a loan. And he noted school leadership projected a need to borrow next year to stay afloat, reaching a projected positive balance in the third fiscal year of operation.

Mangewala argued that because previous enrollment projections have not come to pass, the same is likely true for the countywide petition.

“The budget for Mayacamas countywide charter school very likely overstates revenues due to unreasonable enrollment projections, and as a result they’re very unlikely to succeed in the program that they outlined,” Mangewala said.

However, the California Department of Education recently determined in that the current Mayacamas school is financially sustainable at current enrollment levels.

A Jan. 29 letter sent to petitioners by Susan Park, director of the education department charter schools division, noted that payments from a state start-up grant that had been awarded to the school were put on hold in November because the school didn’t meet a minimum enrollment standard.

The department, as a result, asked to examine multi-year budget assumptions and projections. And the letter noted that, upon review of the documents, the department decided to lift the payment hold on the grant after determining the school was in a sustainable position.

Stephanie Farland, a consultant with Capitol Advisors Group — and former director of the charter schools division at the state education department, who reviewed the original Mayacamas petition — presented the board with an analysis of the petition beyond the financials.

Farland said that she thought, at a baseline, the petition didn’t qualify for the standards of a countywide charter. That’s because it doesn’t offer services to a student population that, according to the California Education Code, “cannot be served as well by a charter school that operates in only one school district in the county.”

Farland said the Mayacamas school is currently operating as a single charter school in a school district. And she said that, according to the petition, there doesn’t appear to be any plans to set up other locations than the current school.

“Nothing proposed cannot be accomplished as a single charter located in one district,” Farland said. “They’ve not given us any legitimate reasons the school needs to be countywide.”

Farland also said the education code “prohibits an existing public school (including an active charter school) to convert to a countywide charter school.” The countywide petition lists the same petitioners, facility, teachers and staff as the currently approved petition, which she argued makes it a conversion.

Farland also went through county schools' conditions of approval, saying that many of them reflected “holes” in the petition that could serve as a basis of denial. They include, among others, conditions to add:

• A plan for reading instruction for students substantially under-achieving.

• Uniform complaint policy and procedures

• A school safety plan.

• Budget revisions, including adding on transportation expenses for a minimum of 12% of projected enrollment.

• A process for curriculum adoption.

On the transportation budget item, Farland said it indicates county schools staff recognized the Mayacamas petition doesn’t budget for transportation. But she said staff didn’t indicate how Mayacamas leadership would pay for that added transportation cost, given their budgetary difficulties.

“Any of these conditions that Napa County staff put into their recommendations and findings are a valid reason to deny a charter school,” Farland said. “Those are some big holes, those are some big red flags to see in a petition.

“If I was looking at a petition and it didn’t have a student safety plan, that would be a big red flag.”

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.