Art school faces bankruptcy amid dispute with Santa Ana Unified
Singers, dancers, and other performing arts students from the Orange County School of the Arts will appeal to Santa Ana Unified board members to resolve a bitter financial dispute involving millions of dollars.
"SAUSD claims that OCSA owes them $19 million," OCSA president and CEO Teren Shaffer said. "They presented to us in a surprise invoice after they'd promised, for 9 years, that they wouldn't do that without adequate notice. That surprise invoice would put OCSA into bankruptcy within a matter of months if we didn't fight it."
A Los Angeles judge ruled that OCSA owes $16 million to the school district for special education costs.
"Tonight, we're going to have hundreds from the OCSA community attending the SAUSD meeting," Shaffer said. "Hopefully, to motivate the board to consider going back to mediation with OCSA to resolve this case in a way that will benefit their students and ours."
In a statement, the Santa Ana Unified School District said it believes it has an obligation to make sure charter schools pay a fair share for district-wide special education.
"The district believes it has a statutory obligation to ensure that the charter schools it authorized contribute an equitable share of their general fund dollars toward district-wide special education expenses," district officials said.
However, the district received more than $11 million from the federal government, according to OCSA. The art school administration claims the money was earmarked for OCSA's special education program. School leaders said that nearly $20 million debt would force them into bankruptcy.
"If OCSA has to settle a massive judgment against the school ... the programs might look different," Shaffer said. "They might look smaller. We might not be able to serve the same number of students. Things might not be as robust as they are today. We're committed to preventing that at all costs."
