Fate of Imperial Valley charter school hangs in the balance

Last fall, Imagine School, a charter school that’s attended by more than eight hundred students, was denied a re-newal by the El Centro Elementary School District. I spoke with Grace Jiminez, the school’s principal, who says there wasn’t enough data used against them.

“We saw that data was not triangulated. There was only one piece of data that was used to make that determination.”

Grace believes that with teacher shortages across the state, parents should have the option of where their children should attend school and what’s in the child’s best interest. “Now parents have the right to choose and we should give them that right. You know it is their right to know where their child would do best in their educational progress.”

Grace feels that if they’re unable to keep the charter school open, more than eight hundred students would be displaced with no teacher student bond which she says takes time to develop and not have the needs of the students met. “That gives the school districts only two months to prepare for the number of students that will be coming. Not only facility wise and teacher wise, but also knowing the students and where the students are academically, and the help they’re going to need. It takes time to do that.”

The public hearing will be tonight at 5:30 PM, at Southwest High school in El Centro. Parents and from Imagine school will speak. Both the charter school and school district will present their cases. Attempts made to contact the El Centro Elementary School districts were unsuccessful.