Despite a voter-approved law requiring school districts to share resources with charter campuses, LAUSD is withholding $85 million from the independent schools and has fulfilled only two requests for facilities since 2005, according to records and interviews.

The California Charter Schools Association plans to step up pressure on the Los Angeles Unified School District to comply with Proposition 39, which was passed in 2000 and requires school districts to provide sufficient facilities to accommodate every charter school's students. Association officials say the district is trying to stymie the growth of the booming program by unreasonably restricting access to cash and classrooms….

[T]he district is in the middle of a school construction boom, funded by $11 billion in bonds that voters have approved over the last five years…. The district has allocated $120 million of that bond revenue to charters, including $20 million to purchase land for campus construction, (Jim Cowell, director of construction at LAUSD) said. The district also has earmarked an additional $67.2 million for charters from funds to build traditional schools.

(Caprice Young, a former LAUSD board member who now heads the Charter Schools Association) complains the district has spent just $35 million of the $120 million to provide badly needed facilities for charter students. She questions why the district hasn't been more forthcoming - and more aggressive - with its plans for the remaining $85 million…."We've been more than patient. Over the last several years we have provided proposals over and over again on how to provide seats in overcrowded neighborhoods, and we've been consistently ignored…."

The district says the demand for independent campuses is growing so quickly - there are already 103 charters, more than any other district in the nation - it simply can't keep up…. But with an April 1 deadline looming for releasing a facilities plan under Proposition 39, district and charter officials both say they are looking at all alternatives…. The charter association may be weighing a lawsuit like one filed last year against San Diego Unified, which forced that district to significantly expand its facilities offerings. The number of charter schools that got "reasonable" offers of facilities subsequently jumped from 11 to 79 percent.

Naush Boghossian, Los Angeles Times, March 17.