(The Center Square) — A California judge ruled that the Los Angeles Unified School District violated state law for failing to share its facilities with charter schools.

Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Stephen Goorvitch, at the end of June, ruled that LAUSD broke state law when it denied charter schools access to its campuses. 

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The LAUSD board in February 2024 approved a policy that told district administrators to “avoid” sharing with charter schools on certain campuses.

The California Charter School Association filed a lawsuit against the school district in April 2024. 

Goorvitch wrote that LAUSD’s policy prevented the goals of Proposition 39, “to treat District and charter schools equally with respect to the allocation of space.”

The lawsuit claims that LAUSD policy discriminated against roughly 11,000 charter school students. 

“This is a victory for all public school families and a critical affirmation of the rights of charter public school students across Los Angeles,” said Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of CCSA. “We’re grateful the court recognized that LAUSD’s blatant attempt to exclude charter public school students from learning alongside traditional district school students in the communities they share violates California law.”

A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told The Center Square that by carefully reviewing the court’s ruling, it denied all of the CCSA’s contentions, apart from two lines in the policy. 

“CCSA significantly mischaracterizes the plain language of both the policy and last month’s ruling. We remain firmly committed to serving the best interests of all students in our school communities while continuing to meet our legal obligations,” a Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told The Center Square. 

Yet Eric Premack, the executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center, an organization that advises charter schools, said the ruling was indisputable. 

“The district’s policy favoring district-run schools over charter schools clearly violated the letter and intent of the law,” Premack said in a statement to EdSource. “This situation is one in a long string of the district’s efforts to evade this law.”

Because LAUSD student enrollment has significantly decreased over the past two decades — 747,009 in 2003-04 to 387,152 students this year — CCSA emphasized there is more than enough space to serve all public school students. 

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“Our legal challenge clearly demonstrated how the policy violated state law,” said Julie Umansky, CCSA general counsel and executive director of the Charter Schools Legal Defense Fund. “The judge’s decision confirms what we knew to be true: The district must treat District and charter schools equally when it comes to facilities — facilities paid for by all families, regardless of which public school they choose.”