West County Community High School Appeals to the County

West County Community High School (WCCHS) is appealing their closure to the Contra Costa County Board of Education (CCCOE) at a special hearing on August 8. The West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) voted to shutter their school for this coming school year at their June 13 board meeting.

WCCHS is a small, 123-student charter school based in Richmond that serves as an alternative for students who do not do well in large high schools and families that prefer smaller class sizes. The school has a supportive community environment and strong parent involvement, contributing to students' self-esteem and academic success. They have attracted a significant population of special education students that has ranged from 20 to 24 percent over the school’s five years of operation.

Building Student Success

WCCHS met the California Department of Education (CDE) mandated criteria for charter renewal, specifically Education Code Section 47607(b)(1): the school exceeded its Academic Performance Index (API) growth target in two of the last three years. WCCHS is also W.A.S.C. accredited, 85 percent of their classes meet the University of California A-G requirements, and over 90 percent of this year’s graduates are college bound.

At the June 13 school board meeting, a school board member suggested to the WCCHS families that if they want a small school they can send their children to Vista High School. Vista High's API score is 22 points lower than WCCHS and it is an independent studies school. These students would get less instructional support and, most likely, less community support.

"In public school, I saw daily fights and didn't get enough attention from teachers who didn't have enough time. Our school has different races and different people coming together in a peaceful environment.  ... Keep my school open, please."
 – plea to the WCCUSD school board by Alejandro Cruz, a 17-year-old senior who previously attended Kennedy High School in Richmond

Academic Denial

The WCCUSD relied heavily on the recommendation for non-renewal from a trade organization, the California Charter School Association (CCSA). The CCSA uses their own methodology for what would constitute a successful school, which has been disputed by the state’s oldest charter policy organization, the Charter School Development Center (CSDC) and a statistician. (See the attached Fact Sheet.)

Excerpt from CSDC:

"CCSA’s methodology relies exclusively on California’s unstable standardized testing data. California’s testing system suffers from many widely recognized flaws, including the inability to compare test scores across grades, thwarting the ability to gauge growth in student achievement over time. The SSM also relies heavily on very unstable, self-reported parent education data, variable free lunch eligibility data, and other volatile factors. As such, both the state’s and CCSA’s school performance metrics fail to measure growth and punish schools that serve transient populations and/or narrow grade spans that rapidly turn-over. The SSM methodology also punishes charter schools that reach out and serve substantial numbers of challenged students (e.g., adjudicated, truant, dropout, and other similarly-challenged students, etc.)..."

See the attached Fact Sheet or the CSDC Web site for the complete article.

Excerpt from statistician letter (in the Fact Sheet):

"… Aside from the paucity of their process, compared with those of W.A.S.C. or of the District itself, I have two concerns: (1) The procedure depends upon having first identified which attributes are salient. The CCSA’s list arguably fails in this respect, missing an item that in fact is a prime reason for the existence of this particular small, safe school. We note Richmond has distinguished itself for having one of the highest crime rates in the United States (with, not long ago, second highest per capita murder rate in the country). Prima facie evidence for the need for local factors to be included is the generally poor performance of District schools in the comparable similar-school measures applied statewide by the California Department of Education (CDE)."

West County Community High School serves a very definite educational need in our community. It provides a safe school setting where students can build self-confidence, achieve academically and lead successful fulfilling lives becoming contributing members of our communities.

The WCCHS charter appeal hearing is at a Special Meeting on August 8th at the Contra Costa County Board of Education (CCCOE). The action to approve or deny will be at the CCCOE regular board meeting on August 15.

The WCCHS Web site is here: www.wcchschool.org.

Click here for an EdSource article discussing CCSA recommending revocation of charters. 

Linda Ruiz-Lozita is a parent in the West Contra Costa Unified School District and former board chair of Manzanita Charter Middle School.

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