Right before winter break, more than 100 people showed up at a meeting of the Monterey County Office of Education Board of Trustees on Wednesday, Dec. 17 for a hearing on a proposed countywide charter school.
Roughly three-quarters of the 40 people who spoke were opposed, including many who work in education. Opponents argued a countywide charter school would further segregate kids across the county. Others noted the proposal doesn’t bring innovative services and that it is already advertised as “coming soon” on its website before its approval.
“They really don’t have anything new to offer,” Oscar Ramos, a long-time elementary school teacher, told the MCOE board, adding the Salinas City Elementary School District (where he works) and other districts “already offer robust, innovative and successful programs.”
“Charter schools [are] trying to usurp the local control because they feel they have a better chance at going at the county rather than the local level,” says PK Diffenbaugh, superintendent of Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, noting the decision will be up to MCOE’s board, rather than MPUSD and others.
In October, the MCOE received an application from Navigator Charter Schools, a network of public charter schools based in Hollister, to create Monterey County Prep, which would have three TK-12 charter schools serving Salinas, Marina/Seaside and Soledad/Greenfield, starting in the 2026-27 school year. Navigator, which currently operates charter schools in cities including Hollister, Gilroy and Watsonville, reports it has $18 million in grants to launch locally. In a decade, its intent is to serve 3,300 students divided among the three campuses.
“Our goal is to provide a high-quality opportunity for all of those students to have an education that will allow them to go to college,” says Navigator Superintendent Caprice Young.
They selected the areas based on low test scores and that have a large population of low-income and English learners, Young says.
California’s funding for public schools is based on students’ attendance. Fewer pupils mean less money coming in, especially for those that are primarily funded by the state. (Seventy-four percent, or $131.2 million, of MPUSD’s budget and 71 percent, or $112.8 million of SCESD’s come from the Local Control Funding Formula or daily student attendance.)
If the Navigator petition is approved and moves forward, MPUSD and SCESD are projected to lose $12 million and $9 million, respectively.
“That would be devastating,” Diffenbaugh says. It could translate to losing 120 teacher positions at MPUSD.
SCESD Superintendent Rebeca Andrade says, “If that happens, that means that we will have to close programs. There will be less staff, there will be less opportunities than we already are providing.”
In a comment letter she submitted to the MCOE board, Andrade added, “This proposal is not a grassroots effort driven by local need; rather, it reflects the expansion efforts of a growing charter management organization seeking to extend its corporate footprint at the expense of existing public schools and the students we currently serve.”
The MCOE board will vote on the petition on Wednesday, Jan. 14.
(1) comment
If the respective districts had bee doing a good job of serving the students, there wouldn't be a demand for charter schools. Too many of our schools have become self serving instead of student serving. Unfortunately the teachers unions are largely responsible for the degradation of our educational system, which is indicated by the poor achievement results in many, but not all, schools. I'm certainly glad we don't have school age children today.
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