The LA Unified school board is expected on Tuesday to deny more applications for new charter schools and charter renewals than they may approve. This is the first time the recommended denials exceed approvals since the new configuration of the school board was seated last July.

Already, the board has denied as many charters in the past half year than in the previous two school years combined.

On Tuesday’s agenda, three denials have been recommended by LA Unified’s Charter School Division and two approvals. The board is not bound to follow the recommendations but usually does.

Three additional charter proposals, from Magnolia Public Schools, were pulled in advance of the school board meeting because they had been recommended for denial. CEO and Superintendent Caprice Young said she withdrew the three new charter applications last week rather than face the likely rejection by the board. In 2014 LA Unified denied renewals for two of its charters based on what it said were questionable practices. A judge ordered the schools change some of its practices but allowed them to stay open. In May, the board voted to renew the charters and the district settled a lawsuit with Magnolia that the charter organization had filed.

Two of the three schools recommended for denial Tuesday are from the Partnership to Uplift Communities (PUC), which was co-founded by one of the newest school board members, Ref Rodriguez.

It would be the first time in 17 years of operating schools in the district that PUC would be denied, said Jacqueline Elliot, co-founder of PUC, which operates 14 schools in the district. “I haven’t experienced this level of challenge and scrutiny in my two decades as a charter leader in the city,” Elliot said in an email to LA School Report. “But I believe the school board will recognize the tremendous value PUC adds to the school district and will demonstrate leadership by continuing to support our program for the thousands of families hungry for excellent educational opportunities in these neighborhoods.”

Since July, six of 11 applications for new charters in LA Unified have been denied, according to an LA School Report analysis. This represents a 45 percent approval rate, compared with a 77 percent approval rate for the 2014-2015 school year, when 10 were approved and three denied. In 2013-2014, 17 were approved and three denied, for an approval rate of 85 percent.

The reasons for Tuesday’s three recommended denials include low test scores, which the staff report says is “well below the performance of the public schools that the charter school pupils would otherwise have been required to attend.”

The staff found that the charter schools present “an unsound educational program” and that PUC is “demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program.”

Recommended for denial is a renewal for PUC’s Excel Charter Academy and a new charter for PUC’s International Preparatory Academy as well as a new charter for WISH (Westside Innovative School House) Academy High School.

PUC’s 14 schools show mixed results when compared to LA Unified schools in performance on the recent Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced standardized tests. The number of PUC students on average who met or exceeded the standards in the English Language Arts test was 40 percent, compared to 33 percent for the district. However, on the math test, PUC students averaged 23.85 percent, compared to 25 percent for the district.

The staff recommended that the board on Tuesday approve new charters for Arts in Action Community Middle School and El Camino Real K-8 Charter School, but the latter is at the former Highlander campus which may have another public school planned for the site and therefore could be denied by the board. The board is also being asked to renew the charter for the Gifted Academy of Mathematics and Entrepreneurial Studies.

Meanwhile, also on the agenda for Tuesday are three violations at charter schools, for Clemente Charter School, Ingenium Charter Middle School and Ingenium Charter Elementary School. The violations include fiscal mismanagement, violations of law and other concerns that the LAUSD staff found.

Independent charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed schools. Most employ non-union teachers, and the school board’s oversight of them is limited. The board can approve or deny new charter applications, and every five years existing charters must be re-approved. The board’s decisions by state law are to be based essentially on if a charter school has a sound educational plan, sound management and its financial situation is in order.

Already, LA Unified has 221 independent charter schools, which is the most of any school district in the country. And many more may be on the way through a new private group, Greater Public Schools Now (GPS Now), which plans a major expansion of school funding.

The school board meeting has a closed session beginning at 10 a.m. Tuesday and a later meeting at 1 p.m.

* Updated to reflect that Magnolia now says it does not plan to resubmit its applications, and to include information about its settlement with LAUSD.

Craig Clough contributed to this story.

Applications for six new charter schools will come before the LA Unified school board at its meeting tomorrow, the biggest wave of requests since the Broad Foundation proposed a plan to expand the number of charter schools in LAUSD.

In addition, eight other charters are seeking renewals.

While the board will not vote on the new applications for at least another month, any public discussion on the requests could provide valuable insights into the board’s latest sentiments on charter expansion by an outside group and on more charters, in general. LA Unified is already home to more independent charter schools than any school district in the country.

The plan for rapid expansion in LA Unified is now in the hands of a Broad offshoot, Great Public Schools Now, which intends to raise $400 million to invest in new charters and high-performing public schools that serve low-income students.

The new charter requests come as opposition to the plan is building. The teacher’s union, UTLA, is asking members to protest at the meeting, and two anti-charter resolutions are under consideration, although in deference to the board’s need to spend more time on other issues while the superintendent search continues, they were postponed until the board’s January meeting. One seeks to oppose efforts to open charters at the expense of traditional district schools, an obvious response to GPSN; the other would create greater scrutiny of charters.

“I have no idea how the board will act,” said Caprice Young, CEO of Magnolia Public Schools, which has eight schools already in the district and is having a public hearing tomorrow to open three more. “I have kept my head down during this Broad plan so we’re not really involved in that.”

Young, who served on the school board, noted that it’s part of the responsibilities of the elected officials to make sure that new schools proposed in the district meet educational requirements. It’s also important that the rules are met evenly.

“It’s a good thing that the board looks closely when they are creating a school, and that scrutiny should be the same for all schools,” Young said, adding, “I am hoping that it will not mean that these applications will take more time. It always costs the charter schools more money the more time it takes.”

By board rules, as many as 12 public speakers can address each of the new applications. That could make for a long afternoon. But it also could open the door to telling remarks — critical or otherwise — from board members who will be facing even more applications in the years ahead if GPSN fulfills its mission.

Magnolia’s requests for for schools in the East and West San Fernando Valley and the West Adams area near downtown to supplement existing schools they have nearby. the others for Arts in Action Community Middle School and Center for Advanced Learning Middle School in south Los Angeles, a PUC International Preparatory Academy in Northeast Los Angeles and a WISH Academy High School in Westchester.

Among the schools seeking new charter petitions are two from LA’s Promise that are recommended for denial: LA’s Promise Charter High School and LA’s Promise Charter Middle School. The district’s charter school division said the proposals for the new schools had “met the needs of all students.”

* Clarifies number of schools applying for new charters. Also adds that two resolutions regarding charters were postponed until January.

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Valley Prep Charter in Van Nuys is not overseen by LAUSD

A tiny, rural school district in northern Los Angeles County is under growing scrutiny over its approval of more than 20 new charter schools in the last few years, the majority of them serving students outside of its own district boundaries. At least three are within the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The small district, called Acton-Agua Dulce Unified (AADUSD), is home to just three traditional schools, 1,100 students and one site-based charter school that opened just this year. The district is teetering on the brink of insolvency: it has seen a sharp drop in enrollment in recent years and not enough revenue to meet its budget needs of $10 million – all of which have contributed to its unusual charter policy.

“I’m not denying there is a financial component,” says Acton-Agua Dulce superintendent Brent Woodard, referring to the charter approvals. “But bottom line is I’m an advocate for kids.” He says the district has little choice because of its dwindling resources.  Approving the slew of new charters is good for the charters and good for his district, he says, which has charged up to a 7 percent fee to manage.

“We’ve been called rogue,” he said. “I would disagree.”

Charter schools are independently run but publicly funded schools, typically authorized by local districts that are responsible for overseeing operations and performance. The vast majority of the 1,200 charter schools in California operate within the boundaries of the districts that authorize them.

The large-scale approval approach taken by Acton-Agua Dulce has raised the ire of neighboring school districts, including Los Angeles Unified — where three of those charter schools, Valley Prep Academy 9-12, K-5, and 6-8 opened in the valley at the start of this school year.

Both LAUSD and another neighbor, Newhall Unified, have filed lawsuits to stop the charter schools from operating. According to Sue Ann Salmon Evans, a lawyer representing both LAUSD and Newhall Unified, these out-of-district approvals are a misuse of the charter school act, which states a charter should be located within district boundaries unless it is unable to do so. Those cases are considered “exceptions.”

“Just because they don’t have a building, should they be allowed to pepper the state with charter schools? That’s inconsistent with the charter school act,” she said.

Last month LA Superior court Judge James Chalfont partially agreed, ruling that a newly opened school in Newhall Unified, Einstein Academy, did not have a valid charter and must return to AADUSD to be re-authorized by early next year. The reason: more evidence is needed to establish that the school could claim an exception. The ruling also forbids AADUSD from basing its charter approvals on whether they generate revenue. But the judge allowed the school to continue operating without interruption.

LAUSD is awaiting action by the same judge, perhaps as early as this month.

Part of the issue can be reduced to accountability: while charter schools operate under plenty of scrutiny, their authorizing bodies, primarily school districts, have limited oversight.

“There is very little commonality,” says Myrna Castrejón of the California Charter School Association (CCSA). “There are districts that overreach; there are others that do a very poor job authorizing. We think its time to take a close look at the quality of charter authorization oversight.”

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) is one entity that oversees school districts, but it does not have authority to tell a district what to do — and can only intervene if a district is financially unstable.

“We count the beans; we can’t tell them what to do with the beans” says Kostas Kalaitzidis, spokesman for the office.

In the case of Acton-Agua Dulce, an independent audit requested by LACOE found the district to be in near insolvency. Among other issues, the report questioned the high fee the district claimed to oversee the charters. In August it directed the district to cut that fee by $740,000, as well implement cost-saving measures such as layoffs.

But the county does not have the authority determine whether or not Acton-Agua Dulce’s proliferation of out-of-district approvals is a valid practice. That is up to the courts or the legislature.

In September, a bill intended to address the issue went to Governor Jerry Brown, but he vetoed it, saying that “while this bill attempts to solve a real problem,” it was written too broadly.