Another Charter School Poised to Share an Elementary Campus

Another new charter school coming to in September could share a campus with an existing elementary school in Aliso Viejo.

If approved by the district's board of trustees Wednesday, Community Roots Academy would sign an 11-month lease to use four portable classrooms at  in Aliso Viejo, generating $52,800.

“Community Roots Academy and CUSD worked diligently to find available, unused space within the district that would best meet Community Roots Academy's needs and contribute to the district,” said Jeremy Cavallaro, co-founder of the new school.

At its last meeting,  at  in Mission Viejo,  to locate incoming at their school. Oxford did not sign a lease, since it asked for use of the district's facilities under California's Proposition 39.

“Nobody at Wood Canyon" knew about this new proposal, however, until it appeared on an agenda for Wednesday’s board of trustees meeting, said Wood Canyon mom Inez Smith.

According to the contract, the board will consider Wednesday, Community Roots will lease four 960-square-foot classrooms: Rooms 31, 34, 35 and 38. The charter school will pay $4,800 a month through June 30, 2012, for the rooms and access to shared facilities, such as a bathroom, play areas and a portion of a grassy area. It will also pay $503.49 a month for utilities.

The school plans to open with only kindergarten through second grade, for a total of 120 students. Cavallaro doesn’t foresee Wood Canyon as a permanent location. The charter school’s petition said it would eventually grow to serve 370 K-8 students with 15 teachers.

“Community Roots Academy does not anticipate expanding at Wood Canyon's campus, and it is continuing its search for permanent, private facilities,” he said.

Cavallaro and co-founder Eve Fein ran a Jewish school in Rancho Santa Margarita, called Morasha Jewish Day School, which closed in June 2009. As a public school, it is open to all Capo Unified students and will put an emphasis on project-based learning that will demonstrate real-world applications.

“Our educators collaborate with community-based organizations to create learning experiences to build efficacy, confidence, empathy, a sense of purpose and connections to the real world,” the school’s charter position states.

Capo “staff believes that placing Community Roots at the Wood Canyon site is the most feasible alternative,” said Marcus Walton, chief communications officer for the school district. “The four rooms staff proposes the charter use are separated from the Wood Canyon students. Any programs in those rooms will be relocated elsewhere on the Wood Canyon campus.”

Smith, who has an incoming first- and third-grader at Wood Canyon, said the portables currently house preschool students.

She doesn’t envision a lot of problems, since Journey School, another charter school in the district, once shared the Wood Canyon campus.

“It’s quite a bit of gap [between the portables and the main campus], and,  yes, they’ll use the same playground, just alternate play times," she said. "I think the biggest thing is nobody knew about it. We didn’t hear about it from our school.”

The board of trustees meets at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the school district's headquarters in San Juan Capistrano, 33122 Valle Rd.