At your March meeting, you will hear the first appeal of a charter school denied by its local community and its elected representatives since the passage of Assembly Bill 1505. This decision has the potential to have lasting impacts across California and in diverse communities. We write to urge you to uphold democracy, honor AB 1505 and the Ross Valley School District’s denial of Ross Valley Charter.
AB 1505 was created to return control and power over local public education systems, to local elected leaders in those communities. After almost 30 years of unchecked spread and growth from the charter sector, which is rife with waste, fraud and abuse, AB 1505 returns power to local communities and our democratically-elected boards, where it belongs.
Why is this important?
This is bigger than the Ross Valley, this is about California communities having control over public education decisions, and ending the rubber-stamping of charters by Sacramento bureaucrats who have no connection to local communities impacted by charters.
If you vote to override the local district’s decision, you will be:
- Disenfranchising local people, whose democratically-elected trustees have twice voted to deny this charter;
- Overriding the Marin County Office of Education, whose local, democratically-elected board voted to deny the charter when the charter petition was last before it;
- Overturning the will of the voters of the State of California, whose local, democratically-elected leaders passed AB 1505;
- Overriding the Governor of California, who signed this bill into law.
We also believe in choice. We expressed our choice in our elections and we need you to respect that.
Don’t let pro-charter billionaires and charter enablers subvert the will of the people.
Respect AB 1505.
Respect local communities.
Respect our choice.
Vote ‘no’ on Ross Valley Charter.
How it will be delivered
Editing to add: Please continue to sign and share. We will continue to track and submit the signatures to Governor Newsom, Superintendent Thurmond, and the SBE.
We will email the petition and signatures at 11:00 on Friday, March 12th.
CC: Governor Gavin Newsom
