CSArts-SGV Charter Petition Approval Process

The Duarte Unified School District (DUSD) Board of Education approved the charter petition for the California School of the Arts-San Gabriel Valley (CSArts-SGV) at the meeting held on June 30, 2016. The charter petition and related agreements were board approved by a unanimous 5-0 vote by the Duarte school board members. The sitting board members at this time were Ken Bell, Reyna Diaz, Doug Edwards, Tom Reyes, and Cheryl Taylor.

This vote also included approval of the related agreements listed below:

Charter Facilities Agreement and Ground Lease 

CSArts-SGV Charter Petition 2017-2022

DUSD-CSArts-SGV Special Ed MOU

This decision was reached following a 9 month process that included a series of public meetings, over 50 focus group sessions, and a survey of the entire Duarte community that returned over 4,200 responses to gather stakeholder input. It also included a visit conducted by Duarte school board members with teacher, parent, and partner representatives to engage with the OCSA leadership and view the Orange County campus in action to visualize what the CSArts-SGV programming would offer. 

This partnership also became a strategy contained within the five-year plan known as the Competitive Advantage Plan which our district adopted with approval by the DUSD school board at the meeting held on July 21, 2016, with a 5-0 unanimous vote by the sitting members who at the time who were Ken Bell, Reyna Diaz, Doug Edwards, Tom Reyes, and Cheryl Taylor. The exact wording of the approved strategy was:

“Partner with California School of the Arts, to be known as CSArts San Gabriel Valley, to create a landmark and replicable compact between a school district and a public charter school.”

View an overview of this comprehensive process below.

This unprecedented partnership has since been reviewed by two separate law firms who both found it to be a model for other districts to follow on how to create innovative partnerships between charters and public school districts.