4 years later, Nueva Vision looking for final approval from Sacramento County

Rosendo Garcia describes his efforts to establish a charter school for Hispanic students in Galt as a roller coaster and says finally opening the school will be like reaching the top of Mount Everest.

Although the school's charter has been approved, Garcia and other community members of the proposed Nueva Vision charter school still have some requirements to meet before they can open their doors.

Garcia, who supervises student teachers at California State University, Sacramento and other community members have tried to start a school for struggling Hispanic students in Galt for four years now. The project has met with numerous hurdles, delaying the help that Garcia hopes to bring to Galt teens.

That help would include specialized instruction and counseling for Hispanic students, who Garcia said are at risk of dropping out or becoming involved in drugs or gangs.

The school also plans to help Hispanic parents guide their children toward the right path, and assist high school students to meet all state requirements as well as the prerequisites for applying to University of California schools.

The Sacramento County Office of Education approved the school's charter in April on three conditions: that the school have at least 100 students whose parents will tell the county about their intention to go to Nueva Vision; that it provide special education services; and that it have a county-approved building.

Garcia said the school has about 100 students ready to start in September should the school meet the county's requirements. The school also has a temporary site picked out in a strip mall on Carol Drive in Galt, said Louise Perez, the executive director of Community Resource Project, a non-profit organization in Sacramento that filed the initial petition for the charter around four years ago.

Perez said that by the time the charter got approved in April, it was too late to build on the property Nueva Vision bought at Third and F streets in Galt, so they had to find another place.

Garcia and Perez are hopeful that the school will open in midto late-September.

Dave Gordon, superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education, has said his office hasn't been able to confirm the 100 students required to make the school financially viable.

"So far, as of today, we've only verified 37 students," Gordon said.

The county office confirmed whether or not students are actually going to Nueva Vision by calling and asking the families about whether they intend to send their children to the school.

Gordon said the phone calls were made in Spanish to accommodate non-English speakers. Still, out of the 86 names Gordon's office received from Nueva Vision, his staff have only been able to confirm that 37 students will show up to school on the first day.

Some, he said, have said that they plan to go to the regular high school. The county hasn't been able to get ahold of approximately 10 to 12 families because of invalid phone numbers.

Gordon also said he doesn't know for sure if Nueva Vision has a county-approved place to hold school or if they've met the special education requirements.

"I can tell you that our number is very different than that," Perez said about the number of students who have said they are going to attend Nueva Vision.

Perez said she has 94 students lined up to go to the school. She realizes that that's still six short of the county requirement, but said she's working on recruiting more students.

Perez also said that the school has contracted their special education services out to an agency that will provide the type of services that will meet the school's needs.

Perez said she's unsure why Nueva Vision is having to meet extra requirements, which she says aren't asked of other charter schools.

"Quite frankly, I don't think they want the school," she said.

However, she's unmoved in her and other community members' determination to get the school started.

What has made her efforts worthwhile, she said, are the parents, some of whom have supported the school even after their children left the school system.

"They have not abandoned us," she said. "We are working hard, and if any agency can do it, we can do it."

Contact reporter Amanda Dyer at amandad@lodinews.com.