Re “In Rapping Supervisor, Zeidman Says Ridley-Thomas Is No Sen. Price”
President Scott Zeidman was perturbed at County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas two nights ago at the School Board meeting, he said, because, seemingly without inspection, the Supervisor approved a charter school application that the Board had resoundingly rejected months earlier.
But there was another dimension to the story: The turndown was lopsided. The applicants did not come close to qualifying, in the view of the School Board and their legal advisors, and that was another reason Mr. Zeidman was annoyed, along with the way Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s office treated the matter.
Leaving Culver City, the charter school investors sought relief from Mr. Ridley-Thomas, hoping his endorsement would sway the Los Angeles County Office of Education, ther next stop. The strategy failed when the County concurred with the School Board’s negative assessment.
A group of USC academics wants to place an innovative charter school, called Building Bridges International, on the old Linda Vista School site in Blair Hills, most recently occupied by Ohr Eliyahu yeshiva, which since has moved into the city.
“We found a number of things in Building Bridges’ application,” Mr. Zeidman said, “that were not satisfactory pursuant to the law for charter schools. A multitude of things were insufficient. Their budget, according to our consultants, was not sound. We explained to the applicants why it was not going to work. They did not account for all of the things they wanted to do. Their conjectures did not seem realistic.”
