California's largest charter school operator has shut down at least 60 campuses amid new state restrictions and an investigation into financial and academic practices -- leaving nearly 10,000 students to find new schools just a few weeks before the new semester begins.
Many campus officials and parents learned over the weekend that their schools had been closed.
Facing mounting financial uncertainty -- with pressure from state laws banning long-distance oversight of campuses and restrictions on state funding to schools for adult students -- the Victorville-based California Charter Academy announced the closure of 38 campuses several weeks ago. Last week, the remaining campuses found out that they, too, would not reopen this fall.
"I don't know what happened," said Angie Garcia, a parent of three children who attended The Village Elementary School in Inglewood, where she also worked full time as a teachers' assistant. She had planned to enroll her fourth child there next year. She and her husband were notified of the closure by school officials over the weekend. "It's devastating. It's a good school; they like it."
The 450-student K-8 campus was located in a church with 16 classrooms. Its on-site administrators ran the campus with a private school feel, requiring students to wear uniforms.
A message on the school's answering machine over the weekend announced: "It is with great regret at this time that we must inform you of our school's closure. If you are a family currently enrolled, we are here to assist you through this process.... We must advise parents to seek enrollment elsewhere."
School director Trina Muhammad said the closure was a tragedy.
"With public schools going the way they are going, we need opportunities, and good opportunities," she said. "Parents will have to put their children in schools they had chosen not to put them in before."
Charter schools are financed by state taxes but are exempt from numerous state education regulations.
State officials and charter experts said some good schools got caught in California Charter Academy's complicated operations problems, while others were flawed and needed to be closed.
The academy ran its campuses -- from San Diego to Northern California -- under the auspices of four charter schools sanctioned by three California school districts: Oro Grande Elementary in Victorville, Orange Unified in Orange County and Snowline Joint Unified in San Bernardino County.
