To support charter schools affected by the Los Angeles wildfires, CSDC is making the full contents of this article available to all regardless of CSDC Membership status. To gain full access to other CSDC resources and tools, please consider joining/renewing.
Yesterday (January 14), Governor Newsom issued executive order N-6-25 clarifying and relaxing a few laws for schools in Los Angeles County that have been impacted by the wildfires.
CSDC’s initial, charter-specific analysis of the executive order determines that the following may be helpful to charter schools in Los Angeles County. The order:
- Identifies that school fire closures qualify for protection from penalties that would apply to schools that fail to offer 175 days of instruction per year or the required annual number of instructional minutes, “so long as necessary to address the direct impacts of this emergency.” This presumably streamlines the approval process for schools that file a Form J-13A (read "School Funding During Emergencies and School Closures" from January 8).
- Streamlines the process to file a Form J-13A by allowing a school director to certify the form without meeting the usual requirement for individual board members to also sign the form (presumably because board members may have left the local area and are not able to sign the form, as is the norm).
- Suspends the Transitional Kindergarten class size and adult-to-pupil ratio caps—presumably to give schools a bit more flexibility if squeezing into smaller or different facilities and/or class configurations.
- Encourages unions/management to work together to waive any class size ratio caps in their union contracts as needed.
- Relaxes some state facilities requirements, notably the state’s laws on handicap access and, ironically, plan checks for fire safety. These appear to be relaxing the laws that generally govern school districts, and those charter facilities projects funded with state school facilities bonds. These flexibilities may not provide much, if any, additional flexibility to charter schools. It provides that the general California Building Code applies to temporary facilities in lieu of the usual restrictive state requirements that govern school districts (and a few charter schools in state bond-funded facilities). CSDC’s initial read is that this provides school districts with flexibility to use “generic” facilities that otherwise meet Building Code requirements and does not provide much additional flexibility to charter schools, which are generally already governed by the Building Code.
- Allows charter schools to locate their temporary facilities outside of district boundaries, provided they remain within Los Angeles county limits, notwithstanding current law that generally requires charter schools to locate inside the boundaries of their sponsoring district.
- Relaxes the usual requirement to forward student cumulative files to a new school within 10 days.
- Pushes back the deadline to provide an annual update to the school’s board regarding their LCAP to March 31, giving schools an additional month relative to the usual deadline.
- Extends the deadline for existing nonclassroom-based charter schools to apply for a renewal of a “funding determination” back to February 28, giving one additional month.
- Encourages the State Board of Education (SBE), Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), and the Department of General Services to engage with schools whose sites were destroyed to provide support in developing temporary housing, “as appropriate.”
The above applies to schools in Los Angeles County only.
Previously (January 10), the governor had issued another executive order (N-3-25) addressing several topics, flexing a few items for K-12 schools in both Los Angeles and Ventura Counties:
- Extending the usual February 1 deadline for publishing and website posting of School Accountability Report Cards by 45 days.
- Extending the deadline to conduct English language proficiency assessments by 45 days “for those local education agencies that have been directly impacted by this emergency.
- Suspending statutory requirements to offer specified physical education time and facilities. CSDC presumes that charter schools were exempt from these statutes in the first instance, but we include it here because some charter schools opt to follow them voluntarily.
CDE Wildfire Resources Webpage
The California Department of Education (CDE) posted a 2025 California Wildfire Resources webpage that may be useful for impacted schools.
CSDC Wildfire Resources
CSDC has also posted the following resources to assist schools affecting by the wildfires:
- School Funding During Emergencies and School Closures by Eric Premack on January 8, 2025
- California Wildfire and Emergency Support Resources (PDF): Continually updated, this document contains links to facilitate donations to the official portals of the affected schools we have been able to reach. If you are a leader at an affected school or know of other vetted resources, please let us know.
