Education

Remcho, Johansen & Purcell has represented state and local education clients for over 20 years, including:

• California Teachers Association
• California School Boards Association
• State Superintendent of Public Instruction
• Oakland Unified School District
• Alameda Unified School District
• Aspire Charter Schools

• San Francisco NAACP v. San Francisco Unified Sch. Dist., (Ho) 284 F.3d 1163 (9th Cir. 2002). The firm represents the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who is a named defendant in this lengthy school desegregation case.  The District has been under a consent decree since 1983, and the court and the parties are attempting to craft a transition plan to unitary status.



• State Board of Education v. Eastin, California State Court of Appeal, Third District.  This case arose out of the Ho case above.  In addition to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Ho plaintiffs named the State Board of Education and the State Department of Education as defendants in their challenge to the racial guidelines used to desegregate the District under the consent decree.  The State Board and the Superintendent disagreed over what position to take in the case, and each party claimed the right to determine the position to be taken by the State Department of Education.  The firm represents the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, who won at the trial court level.  The case settled but raised important issues about governance of the State Department of Education.



• In Wilson v. State Bd. of Educ., 75 Cal. App. 4th 1125 (1999), the California Court of Appeal for the First District upheld the constitutionality of California’s Charter Schools Act of 1992 (currently Education Code §§ 47600, et seq.). The firm represented intervenor and respondent the California Network of Educational Charters, now known as the California Charter Schools Association, in defense of the Act.



• California Teachers Ass'n v. Hayes, 5 Cal. App. 4th 1513 (1992). The firm represented CTA in the first appellate court decision regarding the constitutionality of legislation implementing the constitution's minimum funding guarantee for K-14 education.
  
  
• California Teachers Ass'n v. Gould.  The firm was lead counsel for a coalition of education groups and the Superintendent of Public Instruction in a challenge to a complex series of loans and reversions in the 1992-93 budget compromise.  The firm succeeded in getting a ruling from Sacramento Superior Court that the state had unconstitutionally attempted to recharacterize as “loans” appropriations of $1.083 billion and $190 million to the schools, and that two additional loans of $973 million and $786.7 million would count toward the Proposition 98 minimum funding guarantee.  Ultimately the firm negotiated a complex settlement and legislation resulting in repayment of the moneys due the schools and certification of the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee.



• Pajaro Valley Unified School District School Reorganization.  In this administrative proceeding before the State Board of Education, an affluent, primarily white, portion of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District sought to split off from the rest of the District, which is generally poor and Latino.  The firm represented the City of Watsonville, which wished to keep the District intact and which spearheaded the opposition to the reorganization, because the school board was split on the issue.  The State Board of Education rejected the petitions on two separate occasions.
  
  
• ABC Unified School District v. State of California.  The firm defended the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in this challenge to California's system of school finance.  The case was a sequel to Serrano v. Priest, the seminal case that required equal per pupil funding in California.  Mr. Remcho and Ms. Johansen were lead counsel for the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in a 1982-83 trial in which the courts concluded that the State of California had successfully complied with the courts' mandate in Serrano.



• San Mateo Unified School District v. State Board of Education. When petitions were brought to allow part of the San Mateo Unified School District to withdraw and form its own school district, the State Board of Education ruled that only the citizens in the part of the district that was seeking to withdraw would be allowed to vote on the proposal, as opposed to the entire district.  The firm successfully represented the District in a lawsuit brought to enlarge the scope of the vote.