"Across Los Angeles Unified, we all want: Students who are safe""Even more important than providing students with a quality education, the LAUSD is responsible for ensuring the students attending schools within its borders are safe. This includes the public schools under the District and the charter schools it oversees. My concerns about the LAUSD's failures in this area were expressed during the public comment period of the School Safety and Climate Committee's meeting on May 22, 2025:
- LAUSD's Strategic Plan
The LAUSD has the highest number of charter schools in the nation. Unfortunately, it often seems these schools are approved without a clear plan for how the District will provide meaningful oversight. This lack of accountability puts students at risk and undermines the principle of putting kids first."ï ? ? € ï ? ?
A troubling example of this failure occurred during the charter renewal process for Crete Academy. During that hearing, the school's cofounder, Dr. Hattie Mitchell, proudly recounted an incident in which she chose not to notify the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) after observing children living in conditions she described as clearly unsafe. This appears to be a direct violation of California's mandatory reporting laws - laws designed to protect the very students we are all here to serve.
Rather than involving trained professionals, Dr. Mitchell claimed that her school could handle the situation internally. Yet, according to the school's own School Accountability Report Card (SARC), Crete Academy employs neither a psychologist nor a social worker. That's a serious gap for any school-- but especially one that reports 21.1% of its students are unhoused. How can a school claim to support vulnerable students without the professional resources required to do so safely?
Even more alarming is that this incident was not included in the Charter School Division's official recommendation to deny Crete's renewal. Though the Board ultimately voted 6-1 to deny the renewal, this critical information was absent from the public record when LACOE considered the school's appeal. Given that their vote to deny the appeal was close, this omission may have affected the outcome.
Now that LACOE has returned the charter to you for reconsideration, the stakes could not be higher. If LAUSD is serious about protecting student safety and holding charter schools to the same standards as public schools, then you must make sure that this failure to protect vulnerable students is made part of the record for denial.
Anything less sends a dangerous message - that some schools are above accountability, even when children's well-being is at stake.
With only two minutes allotted to each speaker, I only had time to provide the committee with details about Crete, but they are not the only charter school that is apparently ignoring mandatory reporting laws.
At El Camino Real Charter High School, the school's administration felt it had enough evidence to fire a teacher for allegedly having inappropriate relationships with female students but apparently did not bother to notify the proper authorities that children may have been victimized. Perhaps the school feared third-party investigators would have questioned why another employee, Mr. Vazquez, was taking unauthorized pictures of female students on campus. It may have also feared an investigation into why the president of its Governing Board had been given "access to the school security cameras and microphones so he could observe from his home." This is said to have included cameras in a room where the cheerleaders sometimes changed their clothing.
El Camino's cross-town rival, Granada Hills Charter School, provides an example of the lack of accountability for other types of safety issues. Granada altered its LAUSD-owned campus in ways that endangered the "health and safety of students" and was issued a Notice of Violation. This included a lack of "fire alarm devices in"open area rooms" and installation of HVAC supply and return ductwork without "fire dampers to maintain 1-hour fire rated separation." Further violating LAUSD rules for charter schools, Granada did not inform parents that these violations had occurred and was never held accountable for this.
The Citizens of the World chain of charter schools used the limited resources of the Los Angeles School Police to harass parents and other community members peacefully protesting against one of its campuses taking space away from children with special education needs at Shirley Avenue Elementary School. Instead of spending their time ensuring student safety, these officers were used to serve one of the protestors with a restraining order meant to intimidate the community from rallying in defense of the neighborhood school.
With the School Safety and Climate Committee chaired by a School Board Member elected with the financial support of the charter school industry, it would be surprising if any action is taken to ensure that Jose Cole-Guitierez and the Charter School Division start to take their responsibilities seriously. Supporters of these publicly funded private schools are not spending millions on school board elections to increase accountability; they require the industry's regulators to look the other way, allowing them to continue profiting from public education funding.
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, and serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.
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