November 13, 2012 Joaqun J.

Rivera, Trustee Alameda County Board of Education 313 West Winton Avenue Hayward, CA 94544 Dear Mr. Rivera, I am writing to ask you to Deny the Portola Academy Petition for the following reasons: 1) The finances do not add up. The petition has a starting balance with no explanation of the source. This leads me to a concern I have had often with Tri-Valley Learning Corp (TVLC): are they using funds from one school to support another. They also claim the same money for more than one school. The recent bond offering indebted two of their existing charters and they appear to be using those funds there, here, and their petitions in San Joaquin County. It is difficult to know because of the lack of transparency. 2) The push for this school is coming from the charter corporation rather than the community. The leadership has used families and staff from their existing schools to show support. If there was community support it would be evident, and there would be no need for deceit. There are no students in the petition and the teachers are not from the Livermore schools. 3) TVLC has made no progress in integrating their existing campus, Livermore Valley Charter School (LVCS), which does not match the demographics of the Livermore community. Rather than integrate the existing school, TVLC wants to segregate a population of ELLs in a separate campus at Portola Academy. TVLC has not made progress in increasing its diversity at its existing LVCS. From LVCSs own charter renewal document, LVCSs white population was 72% of enrollment for the 2011-2012 school year, while LVJUSDs white population was only 59%.

I would like to make it very clear that I am not against all Charter Schools, but Portola Academy would only serve to further segregate TVLCs students. If they want to serve all students, they should have diversity in their existing schools. I ask you to deny the petition for Portola Academy. Nothing of substance has changed since the last time you considered this petition. Sincerely,

Kate Runyon Trustee, LVJUSD