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Thursday, May 25, 2017
OUSD Trustees ignore legal advice
SPECIAL REPORT
OUSD Board majority ignores legal advice
and approves legally
questionable
El Rancho Charter
The
Orange Unified School Board Trustees voted 4-3 to approve a version of the El Rancho Charter that the
district's legal counsel warned against.
Led
by Trustee Timothy Surridge who cited the threat of legal action from the El
Rancho Charter School, Trustees John Ortega, Dr. Alexia Deligianni-Brydges and Board
President Rick Ledesma voted to approve the El Rancho Charter submitted on
March 29th. Trustees Kathy Moffat,
Andrea Yamasaki and Brenda Lebsack voted against the motion after voting to re-approve
the original charter the school currently operates under.
The
Orange Unified Administration and legal counsel had tried to negotiate an addendum
called a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to clear-up areas that legal counsel had concerns over.
Legal
counsel addressed the OUSD Board and warned them that by approving the March
29th version (Option B on the Board Agenda) would give all the leverage to the
Charter Board which had refused for the last two weeks to consider modifying
their charter in ongoing negotiations.
Board
President Rick Ledesma had at one point suggested that the two Boards get
together and negotiate the legal terms of a MOU without lawyers.
The
three trustees who voted against Option B which gave the El Rancho Charter
Board no incentive to further negotiate with OUSD, had favored Option A which
would have re-approved the current charter and allowed further negotiations on future changes.
The
El Rancho Charter Board had put out numerous community alerts claiming that
OUSD was not going to approve a charter renewal. That however was never the case. While OUSD tried to negotiate, the Charter
Board refused to consider any changes using numerous legal maneuvers and threatening
legal action.
Board
President Rick Ledesma seemed not to
understand the complicated legal issues involved insisting that by approving
Option B that the two parties could then go back to the negotiating table and
work out all the issues-ignoring legal counsels warning that by approving
Option B the district would have no further opportunity to negotiate if the El Rancho Charter Board
continued to refuse.
