EdSource: In a test case, Oakland charter school asks State Board to prevent its closure

Original article found here.
By John Fensterwald
July 7, 2026

In a final attempt to avert closing, a nearly two-decade-old Oakland charter school will ask the State Board of Education on Wednesday to overturn two levels of denial of its charter renewal.  In the process, Aspire Golden State College Preparatory Academy hopes the state board will answer a central question: When is closing a charter school in students’ best interest?

The 400-student charter school wants the state board to reexamine the criteria for renewing the majority of charter schools with a record of mixed performance — those that are neither high performers worthy of a certain long-term renewal nor undebatably bad charter schools that should be shut down. Aspire Golden State Prep is in the large middle tier, where the criteria are more ambiguous and subjective.

The board’s action could provide timely guidance, with dozens of charter schools facing renewal decisions in the next several years that were postponed in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic. The renewals also coincide with increased financial pressures from declining enrollment facing districts like Oakland Unified and Los Angeles Unified, which have authorized dozens of charter schools.

Charter advocates and operators say they suspect that districts worried about declining enrollment’s impact on their budgets may be looking for reasons to justify closing charters like Aspire Golden State Prep. Under state law, school boards can weigh the impact of proposed new charter schools on a district’s financial condition. They can also examine a charter school’s own financial condition.

But school boards are precluded from considering the impact on a district’s bottom line for an existing charter school’s renewal.

Still, the balance of power, through the 2019 law, is more in the districts’ favor, and that leaves charter school advocates apprehensive that there will be more denials of renewals.

“In a scenario where a district wants to close charter schools because it’s worried about its own finances, the statute gives that district a lot of leeway to do so with impunity,” said Daniel Soleimani, general counsel for Aspire Public Schools.

No Oakland Unified board member mentioned the district’s financial challenges or its declining enrollment during the hearing on the charter school renewal in October 2025. The only board member favoring the denial who commented said the district’s report on Aspire Golden State Prep pointed to “some challenges which have some concerns.”

“I think that our kids will be best served elsewhere,” said Oakland Unified board member VanCedric Williams.

Aspire Golden State Prep is one of three dozen charter schools statewide, including five in Oakland, that are part of Aspire, the state’s first charter network.

On the California School Dashboard, Aspire Golden State Prep, founded in 2008, has mixed results. The grade 6-through-12 school rated blue, the top of five categories, on the college and career readiness metric, and on the progress of English learners, who comprise 31% of enrollment, in 2024. Its 100% high school graduation rate, the highest in Oakland Unified, was also rated blue in 2024, although there was a decline in 2025.

But for the past several years, the school was rated red, the lowest dashboard rating, in math, with scores on state tests far below the statewide average. Like most low-income schools statewide and in the East Oakland neighborhood where it’s located, Aspire Golden State Prep’s test scores plummeted during the pandemic and then continued to drop in math. Its enrollment, with 95% Black and Latino students, has fallen, too, from more than 600 pre-Covid, to about 400 this year.

In 2025, the school had to replace its principal, and post-Covid, has had difficulty hiring math teachers, acknowledged current Principal Stacy Thomas.

The staff of Oakland Unified had recommended Aspire Golden State Prep’s renewal, while also acknowledging there was evidence the board could cite for denial. Last October, the board voted 4 to 3 to deny renewal. The school appealed to the school board of Alameda County, which, at its staff’s recommendation, also voted in February for denial, 5 to 2.

Amid uncertainty, Aspire Golden State Prep decided to close in the coming year, aiming to reopen a year from now. Meanwhile, its teachers and families, including rising seniors, have had to look elsewhere for school this fall.

Requirements of the charter reform law

At issue is Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2019 charter reform law, which, after much negotiation, rewrote the charter approval and renewal process to expand the ability of local school boards to reject new charter schools and assure the renewal of well-performing charter schools.

The new criteria assumes that middle-tier charters would continue operating. But a district or county can make the case for nonrenewal by providing evidence that:

• In deciding, the school board gave greater weight to measures of academic performance;
• The school failed to make sufficient progress to benefit students;
• Closure would be in the best interest of pupils.

But there’s a catch. The Legislature also made it difficult for the state board to overrule local charter school authorizers such as school districts and county boards. Simply finding fault or disagreeing with a decision isn’t enough for the state board to overrule a decision not to renew a charter. The state board must prove that a school district or county board “abused its discretion,” according to the law, and that its decision was “arbitrary, capricious, entirely lacking in evidentiary support, unlawful, or procedurally unfair.”

That’s a tough burden for any charter school to overcome, and the California Department of Education has advised the state board to fully defer to the districts’ judgment, said Janelle Ruley, an attorney representing Aspire Golden State Prep.

Selective use of the worst data?

Aspire argued the Oakland Unified board abused its discretion by “cherry-picking the data and ignoring data favorable to” the school, said Ruley. The district focused only on math scores, she said. The scores were an average of grades six to eight, including many students who entered Aspire Golden State Prep two or three grades behind, as well as grade 11, she said. Only 7% of students overall tested proficient in math in 2024, according to the district.

“Yes, our math in particular needs a lot of work, and we were very upfront, that this is a challenge area for us,” said Stacy Thomas, a 23-year Aspire veteran math teacher, coach and administrator whom Aspire hired as Aspire Golden State Prep principal last year to lead the rebound.

But the district all but ignored the other three state academic indicators, he said: English language arts, where scores were better than math; the performance of English learners; and the college and career readiness indicator.

Thomas is particularly proud that 75% of students completed the coursework, known as A to G, for admission to a state university. He is also proud of the school’s requirement that all students pass two community college courses at Peralta College to satisfy the school’s entrepreneurship pathway.

“Whether they go into business themselves or not is not the point,” Thomas said. “We’re trying to give them as many tools as we can in order for them to succeed once they graduate.”

Comparison with other schools

The Oakland Unified staff’s 62-page report compared Aspire Golden State Prep’s academic performance with mostly demographically similar but not all geographically nearby independent charter and district schools.

Aspire Golden State Prep fell midway between the eight comparison middle schools and 16 comparison high schools in math and English language arts. It scored considerably better than Fremont High and Castlemont High, two nearby comprehensive high schools that some Aspire Golden State Prep students may attend.

In asserting that the Alameda County board abused its discretion, Aspire Golden State Prep cited a complaint that alleged a county board member sexually harassed a high-ranking Aspire administrator. An investigator for the county board concluded that the alleged conduct did not affect the outcome of the vote. Aspire’s attorneys question that conclusion.

The charter also charges that the county office of education selectively used 2025 data on the school.

No county board member was available to speak with EdSource. In a statement, the Alameda County Office of Education said it stands by the findings in its staff report. It found:

• Student outcomes in math have declined significantly since 2019 and outcomes in English Language Arts are inconsistent, with insufficient progress.
• There are other neighborhood options with similar demographics that have comparable and higher achievement in English Language Arts and higher achievement for mathematics.
• The school has not demonstrated strong postsecondary outcomes for students, and college enrollment outcomes are now lower than similar peers.

A mother’s plea

The question of whether closing is in students’ best interest is painful for some parents to consider.

One could hear emotion in Monica Anderson’s voice in April, while testifying before the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools, which makes recommendations to the state board.

“Education has the power to transform lives, open doors of opportunities and strengthen entire communities,” said the mother of two students at Aspire Golden State Prep. “That is why I chose GSP. I wanted them to learn in a safe environment surrounded by educators who believed in them and would help them build a brighter future. This school had done exactly that.”

Soleimani, Aspire’s general counsel, said he hopes the state board hears the appeal and defines “best interest for the student.”  “How much weight do you put on the social emotional impact of closure? How much weight do you put on the trauma and the stress caused to families, the relationships they have?” he said.

In June, the state Department of Education said it found no abuse of discretion by Oakland Unified nor the school board of Alameda County and recommended that the board not consider the appeal. But the state’s Advisory Commission on Charter Schools voted 6 to 2 that the state board should hear it.

Voting with the majority, Commissioner Derek King, superintendent of Excelsior Charter Schools in Victorville, encouraged the state board to clarify how academic indicators are used, particularly when, in Aspire Golden State Prep’s case, two of the four indicators were strong.

“It’s heartbreaking to me that we’re even considering not renewing a high-performing charter,” he said. “It’s hard to accept that it will not be in the best interest of students that the opportunity actually exists.”