California School District Trying To Oust Christian School Citing Building Safety

[Valin]

The Daily Wire

The school calls the safety concerns "baseless."

Mairead Elordi

Sep 4, 2022 

A California school district is trying to shut down a private Christian school, citing building safety concerns the school says are baseless.

The Ventura Unified School District (VUSD), just northwest of Los Angeles, is demanding Ventura County Christian School (VCCS) vacate the school’s premises, claiming one of the buildings is structurally unsafe for students.

(Snip)

On August 29, the school decided to defy the district and welcomed students back to begin the school year anyway. The district responded with a three-day notice to vacate the premises.

The school has leased the buildings from the district for more than two decades, but the lease expired in June. At the time, the district told VCCS it wanted to do another safety analysis before agreeing to another long-term lease. As recently as September 2021, the district commissioned a safety analysis that found the school was safe for occupancy.

In the meantime, during negotiations for the new lease, VCCS noticed that the district had included a “Non-Discrimination and Equal Opportunity” clause in the new lease that the school was concerned might prevent it from hiring only Christian teachers or teaching a Christian curriculum.

(Snip)

“VCCS has been at that location for 22 years with no issues or concerns ever being raised about the safety of the school,” Bamieh told The Daily Wire.

“This is subterfuge,” Bamieh said. “VUSD just lacks the courage to be perceived as closing a Christian school because they want to sell that property so the City can build low-cost housing: or because they know those kids will have no reasonable alternative but to re-enroll in public school and they will benefit from the boost of enrollment of 200 kids in their school system.”

Meanwhile, the school is weathering a rent hike from the district, although this was expected, according to Bamieh.

(Sni)