District extends lease for charter school site
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

The Pleasant Valley school board tentatively renewed for five years the charter for University Preparation School at CSU Channel Islands last week.

Board President Ron Speakman at first said he would not approve the renewal until issues involving oversight and lease fees were resolved.

But district staff said they expected the matters would be resolved soon, and Speakman and the other trustees approved the application contingent on the issues being resolved by June 14.

Linda Ngarupe, University Prep principal and superintendent, said it's likely these "minor details" will be resolved within two weeks.

"We're actually working through everything we have right now," Ngarupe said.

Lawyers for the district and the charter school are negotiating the lease fee for the Temple Avenue facility that the charter school occupies. For the last four years, the charter school has paid Pleasant Valley $1 a year to lease the former site of El Rancho Structured School.

Ngarupe said she expects the fee to go up but didn't know what it would be.

The Pleasant Valley School District came under fire from parents recently for its lease agreement with University Prep. Parents were upset the district would consider closing schools to raise money to boost teachers' salaries before looking to other funding sources, such as charging a market lease rate to the charter school.

Ngarupe said Pleasant Valley agreed to the $1 lease fee in 2002 to ensure that neighborhood children had a school nearby when the district closed El Rancho that year.

The district and the charter school have to iron out other fees as well. The charter school has paid the district about $225,000 a year for certain services and to review that its program is financially sound, that students are learning and University Prep is meeting its other obligations.

Lawyers for both sides want to make sure the district is "charging a fair rate and we're paying our fair share," Ngarupe said.

Although trustee Sandra Berg approved University Prep's application, she urged proponents of a separate charter school proposal to reconsider. A group of parents from Los Senderos Open School submitted an application for Camarillo Academy for Progressive Education with the district at a March meeting, after the school board voted to close the school.

Berg said if the district offered no "viable alternative" to a charter school, she would champion their cause.

"In this case, it's turned out to be divisive and destructive to every child," she said. "All I ask the parents and teachers of Los Senderos is take a look and understand the chain of events you are setting in place."

The district plans to close Los Senderos and restructure other school programs at the end of the school year.

District staff has said Pleasant Valley could lose as much as $800,000 and close additional schools should the charter school open.

The school board is expected to vote on the application next week.