Rowland Unified wins legal case against Walnut Valley in battle for students
Ben Baeder, Staff Writer San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Posted: 01/27/2011 06:09:00 PM PST
The Rowland Unified School District scored a major legal victory Thursday over Walnut Valley Unified in a case in which Rowland accused Walnut Valley of stealing students.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that Walnut Valley had already taken the maximum amount of students - 10 percent - from Rowland Unified's boundaries.
Under the state's District of Choice program, a district is allowed to enroll up to 10 percent of students from a nearby district.
Rowland argued that Walnut had already taken more than 10 percent of it students.
Walnut Valley's attorneys said the limit was a "rolling cap," arguing the district could enroll more Rowland students after the current class of District of Choice students graduated high school.
The authors of the most recent version of the District of Choice program, state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Walnut, and state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said the 10-percent figure was meant to be a rolling cap.
But the judges decided that the law did not spell that out.
"Walnut's argument flies in the face of the plain language of the statute," the three judges wrote in their decision.
School-choice advocates decried the decision.
"Instead of focusing on the need to secure the best education possible for all students, the ruling allows a school district to hold students hostage to a zip code or attendance zone area, and perhaps consign them permanently to a low performing school," wrote Susan Browne, principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed a brief in support of Walnut Valley.
"The effect is to arbitrarily and unreasonably limit the District of Choice law. The ruling does not do justice to the letter or spirit of this important law," she continued.
Huff said he and Romero borrowed the language from the previous version of District of Choice.
"I'm not a lawyer, but we ran this by lawyers, and I think their logic was, if it isn't broke, don't fix it," he said. "So we left the language the way it was."
The decision stated that Walnut Valley was to pay all of Rowland's legal fees.
That amount of legal fees was not included in the decision, and officials from either district could not be reached for comment.
Huff said he didn't know if Walnut Valley would appeal. He will continue to push for school choice and accountability, he said.
"Clearly, there's a national move for school choice," he said. "If we're ever going to fix schools, it has to be about outcomes."
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626-962-8811, ext. 2230
Ben Baeder, Staff Writer San Gabriel Valley Tribune
Posted: 01/27/2011 06:09:00 PM PST
The Rowland Unified School District scored a major legal victory Thursday over Walnut Valley Unified in a case in which Rowland accused Walnut Valley of stealing students.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that Walnut Valley had already taken the maximum amount of students - 10 percent - from Rowland Unified's boundaries.
Under the state's District of Choice program, a district is allowed to enroll up to 10 percent of students from a nearby district.
Rowland argued that Walnut had already taken more than 10 percent of it students.
Walnut Valley's attorneys said the limit was a "rolling cap," arguing the district could enroll more Rowland students after the current class of District of Choice students graduated high school.
The authors of the most recent version of the District of Choice program, state Sen. Bob Huff, R-Walnut, and state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, said the 10-percent figure was meant to be a rolling cap.
But the judges decided that the law did not spell that out.
"Walnut's argument flies in the face of the plain language of the statute," the three judges wrote in their decision.
School-choice advocates decried the decision.
"Instead of focusing on the need to secure the best education possible for all students, the ruling allows a school district to hold students hostage to a zip code or attendance zone area, and perhaps consign them permanently to a low performing school," wrote Susan Browne, principal attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which filed a brief in support of Walnut Valley.
"The effect is to arbitrarily and unreasonably limit the District of Choice law. The ruling does not do justice to the letter or spirit of this important law," she continued.
Huff said he and Romero borrowed the language from the previous version of District of Choice.
"I'm not a lawyer, but we ran this by lawyers, and I think their logic was, if it isn't broke, don't fix it," he said. "So we left the language the way it was."
The decision stated that Walnut Valley was to pay all of Rowland's legal fees.
That amount of legal fees was not included in the decision, and officials from either district could not be reached for comment.
Huff said he didn't know if Walnut Valley would appeal. He will continue to push for school choice and accountability, he said.
"Clearly, there's a national move for school choice," he said. "If we're ever going to fix schools, it has to be about outcomes."
[email protected]
626-962-8811, ext. 2230