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Cincinnati.com...
Ohio
court:
CPS unfair to charters
Written by
Jessica Brown
Jun. 6,
2012
The
Ohio
Supreme Court has sided against the Cincinnati Public School district
in a
precedent-setting case involving the sale of old school buildings to
charter
schools.
The
court
ruled 6-1 Wednesday that the district violated the law when it put a
deed
restriction on one of its old school buildings in 2009 to prevent the
new owner
from operating a school there. It ruled the restriction unenforceable.
The
new
owner, Roger Conners, sued. He claimed the district was violating Ohio
law. The
case, backed by a cadre of charter-school organizations, made it all
the way to
the Supreme Court.
Wednesday’s
ruling sets precedent in the world of charter schools because it paves
the way
for these public schools run by independent organizations to more
easily access
facilities for their schools.
“The
number
one challenge for a new charter school is acquisition of an appropriate
facility,” said Chad Readler, an attorney for Jones Day in Columbus and
counsel
for a number of charter school-related organizations in this case. “The
state
makes very limited if any (building) funds available to charter
schools. The
playing field isn’t especially level. I think the legislature saw this
as a
small step to help charter schools.
So
this is
a win for charter schools that the legislation means what it says.”
CPS,
a
district of 33,000 students, sold one of its old school building in
South
Fairmount at auction in 2009 to Roger Connors. The district included a
deed
restriction that forbid Connors from operating a school in the
building.
Connors opened one anyway, the Theodore Roosevelt Community School.
The
district sued. Conners filed a counter suit. Hamilton County Common
Pleas Court
and an appellate court sided with Conners. CPS appealed to the Supreme
Court.
Cincinnati
Public Schools has said the building was unsuitable for use as a
school. The
district and other large urban districts in Ohio are lobbying the state
for
more leeway to dispose of their old buildings as they choose rather
than giving
them away to charter schools. Traditional public districts often see
charter
schools as competition because they siphon students and state funding
from
traditional districts. While some are high-performing, as a whole
charter
schools perform worse academically than traditional schools.
Read
this
and other articles at Cincinnati.com
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