Proposed North Las Vegas charter school sues state of Nevada

A public charter school network, Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy of Nevada, has filed two lawsuits against the state after trying for two years to get approval to open a North Las Vegas campus.

The school and its Colorado-based charter operator, SSS Education Corp., filed the complaints Wednesday in District Court against the Nevada State Public Charter School Authority and Executive Director Rebecca Feiden.

The school alleges it has complied with statutory requirements to obtain permission to operate a campus in North Las Vegas, but has “unlawfully been denied the opportunity to do so,” according to a Monday news release.

“We are incredibly frustrated that after two years of tedious hard work preparing to open a school where we have documented and planned family and community support, the SPCSA continues to move the goal posts of what it considers to be the required criteria to approve our application,” Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy of Nevada Board President Rudy Pamintuan said in the release. “We are here to serve students and families with an exciting education opportunity and need to get to work as soon as we can to provide this need.”

In a Monday statement, Feiden said: “The SPCSA is focused on providing equitable access to diverse, innovative, and high-quality public schools for every Nevada student. Ensuring high-quality schools that meet the needs of Nevada students requires a rigorous application process for those interested in opening new schools. We stand behind our decision to deny the resubmitted application submitted by Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy of Nevada.”

The school is seeking, in part, a mandatory injunction that would require the state to immediately issue approval to the campus, damages in excess of $15,000 and attorney fees.

A hearing is scheduled for March 22, according to online court records.

The school wants to open in August on North Bruce Street in North Las Vegas.

It would initially serve up to 648 students in kindergarten through eighth grades, and gradually expand to as many as 1,404 students through 12th grades, according to charter authority online meeting materials.

The school has tried multiple times to get approval but the charter authority’s board has rejected applications, saying minimum state requirements were not met.

Most recently, the board rejected a resubmitted application by a vote of 4-3 in late January.

The denial was focused on the school’s identified facility “not being feasible for the long-term goals of the school,” the school said in the news release, but it alleged that wasn’t a concern raised in response to earlier application submissions.

Court documents say the school secured a lease for a facility in a “historically underserved area” of North Las Vegas for $1 a year that’s currently being used by St. Christopher Catholic School.

The charter authority said in a late January recommendation memo that “some deficiencies within the school’s original application had been addressed,” but “a number” remain.

The charter authority said the applicant hasn’t demonstrated that there is sufficient demand for its proposal “outside of the relationship with the operating private school.”

Also, there’s a “lack of clarity” regarding the roles and responsibilities of the proposed charter management organization, according to the memo.

The charter authority said the concern was magnified “by recent authorizer action for a school within the SSS Education Network in Arizona, which was directed to enter into a Consent Agreement due to failure to meet operational performance expectations and violation of the school’s charter contract and state and federal law.”

In court documents, the school said it submitted a detailed response to Nevada’s charter authority “which addressed the Arizona school issues” and “outlined a number of inconsistencies” in how the school was being treated compared with other applicants.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.