February 2026 ACCS - Item 3 Public Comment 10

January 30, 2026

Chair Mike Walsh and Commissioners
Advisory Commission on Charter Schools
California Department of Education
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814

RE: February 2026 ACCS Meeting / Item 03 / Olive Grove Charter School—Santa Barbara

Dear Chair Walsh and ACCS Commissioners,

On behalf of the California Charter Schools Association (“CCSA”), I am writing in support of the California Department of Education (“CDE”) recommendation that the State Board of Education (SBE) approve the renewal of Olive Grove Charter School—Santa Barbara (“Olive Grove”) for a term of five years.

Olive Grove is a middle-performing charter school by law, and as confirmed by the CDE’s analysis which placed the school in the middle tier for renewals. Under state law, middle-performing charter schools are eligible for five-year renewals, and may only be lawfully denied renewal by the chartering authority under two scenarios. Education Code Section 47607(e) states that the chartering authority may deny renewal of a charter school upon a finding that the school is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the program set forth in the petition due to substantial fiscal or governance factors, or that the charter is not serving all pupils who wish to attend the school. The chartering authority may deny renewal of a charter school under this subdivision only after it has provided at least 30 days' notice to the charter school of the alleged violation and provided the charter school with a reasonable opportunity to cure the violation, including a corrective action plan proposed by the charter school. The chartering authority may deny renewal only by making the finding that the corrective action proposed by the charter school has been unsuccessful or that the violations are sufficiently severe and pervasive as to render a corrective action plan unviable. The Santa Barbara Unified School District (“District”) did not provide the legally mandated 30 days' notice to Olive Grove of any alleged violation or provide the charter school with a reasonable opportunity to cure the violation, therefore non-renewal is not allowed under Section 47607(e).

The other lawful grounds for denial is found in Education Code Section 47607.2(b)(6). Section 47607.2(b)(6) permits denial of a charter renewal only after specific factual findings are made. It states: The chartering authority may deny a charter renewal pursuant to this subdivision only upon making written findings, setting forth specific facts to support the findings, that the charter school has failed to meet or make sufficient progress toward meeting standards that provide a benefit to the pupils of the school, and that closure of the charter school is in the best interest of its pupils. The District did not adopt written findings, setting forth specific facts to support the findings that Olive Grove has failed to meet or make sufficient progress as required by this section of the Code.

We appreciate CDE staff’s thorough review and consideration of this renewal under a de novo standard as is required for SBE authorized charter schools, and we agree with CDE’s conclusion that neither of the two statutory justifications for non-renewal of a middle track school are applicable to Olive Grove. CDE staff also correctly states that the Education Code requires authorizers to consider a charter school’s Verified Data and notes that the authorizer in this case failed to do so.

CDE’s analysis of Olive Grove’s Verified Data confirms that a strong majority of the school’s students met or exceeded growth targets in both English language arts and math in both 2023-24 and 2024-25. It is also well documented in the Olive Grove appeal submission that Olive Grove is greatly outperforming the district school that Olive Grove students would otherwise attend if Olive Grove was denied renewal. Taken together these academic performance measures provide ample support for CDE’s conclusion that the renewal of Olive Grove is in the best interest of its pupils.

We respectfully request that you vote in favor of the CDE staff recommendation for this item. Thank you for your consideration of our views on this matter. If you have any questions regarding our position on this item or would like to discuss it further, please feel free to contact me at (nwatson@ccsa.org).

Best Regards

Nicolas Watson
Managing Director of Regulatory Affairs
California Charter Schools Association