Site for T.O. Charter School Still Unsettled

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March 18, 2010 - Ventura County Star by Marjorie HernandezSupporters of the Bridges Charter School urged Conejo Valley Unified School District trustees Tuesday night to place their program at a campus that has enough room for their students.

District officials, however, said Bridges parents have used erroneous information and scare tactics to bolster community support for their charter program.

Deputy Superintendent Jeffrey Baarstad presented campus options for Bridges at Tuesday’s board meeting. Although trustees in January offered to place the charter at the Horizon Hills School site in Thousand Oaks, officials later determined it would not provide “reasonably equivalent” facilities for the charter, Baarstad said. Under Proposition 39, a school district is required to provide facilities for a charter school if a certain number of district students plan to attend it.

The board did not vote Tuesday on a final site for Bridges but could do so at its next meeting March 30.

“We are required to analyze who signed the charter petition,” Baarstad said, adding that most of the parents lived in Thousand Oaks and are closest to three schools: Glenwood, Park Oaks and University.

Bridges parents have been fighting to open their charter at University,

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