California Charter School Laws and Regulations: Funding and Facilities

California charter schools are tuition-free public schools that operate independently of their local school district under a written charter with an authorizing entity. California charter school laws and regulations, built around the Charter Schools Act and Education Code Section 47610, give these schools wide operational freedom from the rules that govern traditional districts while binding them to a stricter accountability framework covering petitions, admissions, facilities, funding, special education, and renewal. A few district rules still apply, including the California Building Standards Code and minimum-age attendance rules.¹

How a Charter School Gets Approved

A new charter school starts with a petition to the governing board of the local school district. The petition must show real support: signatures from at least half the parents or guardians of students expected to enroll in the first year, or at least half the teachers expected to work there in the first year. Converting an existing public school into a charter requires signatures from 50 percent of that school’s permanent teachers. Each signature has to be paired with a statement of genuine interest in enrolling a child or working at the school.²

The petition itself has to describe 15 required elements, including the educational program, measurable student outcomes and how progress will be tracked, governance, employee qualifications, health and safety procedures, admissions, financial audits, suspension and expulsion policies, and a plan for closing the school if it ever ceases operating. The descriptions must be “reasonably comprehensive.”³ A vague sketch will not survive review.

The district board must hold a public hearing within 60 days of receiving the petition and vote to approve or deny within 90 days, with a 30-day extension available by mutual agreement.² A district cannot deny on general opposition. It must issue written findings tied to at least one of eight statutory grounds, which include an unsound educational program, petitioners demonstrably unlikely to carry out the plan, and failure to meet signature or content requirements. Legislation in 2019 added two fiscal grounds: that the charter is unlikely to serve the interests of the entire community given its fiscal impact on neighborhood schools, and that the district is not in a financial position to absorb the charter’s impact.

If the district denies the petition, petitioners can appeal to the county board of education within 30 days. A county denial can be appealed to the State Board of Education. In counties with a single school district, petitioners may skip the county board and go directly to the State Board.

How Charter Schools Are Funded

Charter schools draw their public funding mainly from the Local Control Funding Formula, the same system that funds traditional districts. Payments are tied to average daily attendance and vary by grade span, with per-student base grants rising from the elementary grades through high school. Transitional kindergarten through third grade carries an added grade-span adjustment meant to support smaller class sizes.⁴

On top of the base grant, schools receive supplemental funding equal to 20 percent of the base for each student who is low-income, an English learner, or in foster care. Schools where more than 55 percent of enrollment falls into those categories receive a concentration grant at 65 percent of the base for the portion above that threshold. For charter schools, the concentration grant percentage is capped at the rate of the school district where the charter is physically located.⁴

Charter schools also receive a share of local property tax revenue in lieu of direct property tax income, and new or expanding schools can draw advance funding during their initial months of operation.⁵ The authorizing entity charges a supervisory oversight fee, generally up to 1 percent of the charter school’s revenue, to cover its monitoring costs.

Rules on Admissions and Who Can Attend

Charter schools must be nonsectarian in curriculum, hiring, and admissions. They cannot charge tuition and cannot screen applicants through academic performance, entrance exams, or interviews. Every student who wants to attend must be admitted.²

When applications exceed seats, the school holds a public random lottery. The law allows certain enrollment preferences: students already attending the school and students living within the district get priority, and the authorizer may approve preferences for siblings of enrolled students and children of staff and founders. No preference may have the effect of limiting access for students with disabilities, English learners, homeless students, foster youth, or low-income students. Mandatory parent volunteer hours cannot be a condition of enrollment or continued attendance.

Facilities Rules Under Proposition 39

A charter petition has to identify a single site within the authorizing district’s boundaries, and if the school proposes multiple sites each one must be named. Operating outside the authorizer’s district is permitted only in narrow circumstances, such as when no suitable facility exists within the district, and both the authorizer and county superintendent must be notified before the school opens.²

Under Proposition 39, codified in Education Code Section 47614, school districts must provide charter schools with facilities reasonably equivalent to those used by other district students. The space must be contiguous, furnished, and equipped, and it stays district property. The district has to make reasonable efforts to locate the space near where the charter wants to be and cannot move the school without cause.⁶

Districts may charge a proportional share of facility costs paid from general fund revenue, and they are not required to spend general fund money to rent or purchase new buildings for charter students. A district can also deny a facilities request outright if the charter school projects fewer than 80 units of average daily attendance from in-district students. A charter school that wants district-provided facilities must submit a written request each year with a reasonable attendance projection for the following year. The regulatory deadline for the request is November 1.⁷

All charter school buildings must meet the California Building Standards Code, whether the district provides them or the school finds its own space.¹ As public schools, charter schools are also covered by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, meaning facilities must be physically accessible.

Teacher Credentialing

Charter school teachers must hold the appropriate credential, permit, or other document issued by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing for their assignment. Those documents stay on file at the school and are subject to inspection by the authorizer. Charter school boards can use the same local assignment options available to districts and can request emergency permits or waivers from the Commission.²

For classroom-based instruction, the law ties funding eligibility to credentialed supervision. Students receiving classroom-based instruction have to be supervised by a charter school employee holding a valid certification document, and failure to meet that requirement can affect the school’s attendance-based funding.⁸ Teachers must also obtain a certificate of clearance and meet the state’s professional fitness requirements, including background checks.

Governance and Open Meetings

The petition must describe the school’s governance structure and how parents will be involved in decision-making. Most California charter schools are organized as nonprofit public benefit corporations with a governing board.²

Charter school governing boards are generally subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act. Under Government Code Section 54952, a board that governs a private entity is covered if the entity was created by an elected legislative body to perform governmental functions, or if it receives funds from a local agency and has a member appointed by that agency. Because charter schools are authorized by elected school boards and receive public funds, most charter boards must hold meetings in public, post agendas in advance, and allow public comment, the same transparency rules that apply to district boards.

Special Education and Disability Access

Charter schools are public schools, and that status carries the full weight of federal disability law. Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with disabilities at charter schools must receive a free appropriate public education through a properly developed individualized education program. The responsible local educational agency cannot unilaterally limit services, and the program must be delivered in the least restrictive environment appropriate to the student’s needs.⁹

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act adds another layer. Charter schools must provide accommodations that allow students with disabilities to participate as fully as their non-disabled peers, including equal access to extracurricular activities and counseling services. Whether a charter functions as its own local educational agency for special education purposes or relies on its authorizing district depends on how it is organized, but either way the obligation to serve students with disabilities rests with the school.

Renewal, Revocation, and Closure

A charter is granted for a term of up to five years. After that, the school has to apply for renewal, and the authorizer evaluates its record.¹⁰ Performance on the California School Dashboard drives the outcome, through a tiered framework based on statewide assessments, English language proficiency measures, and college-and-career readiness data:

High-performing schools. If a charter earned the two highest performance levels on all state indicators for two consecutive years before the renewal decision, or scored at or above the state average on all academic measures with strong subgroup performance, the authorizer cannot deny renewal.
Low-performing schools. If a charter landed in the two lowest performance levels on all state indicators for two consecutive years, the authorizer generally must deny renewal. The only exception is written findings that the school is taking meaningful steps to address the causes of its low performance and has adopted a written improvement plan.¹¹
Middle-performing schools. Schools between those extremes can receive a five-year renewal. The authorizer may deny only by making written findings that the school has failed to meet standards or make sufficient progress and that closure would serve students’ best interests, and must give greater weight to academic performance.

The authorizer can inspect or observe any part of a charter’s operations at any time. A charter that wants to expand to additional sites or grade levels at renewal must request a material revision, reviewed under the same standards as an original petition, including the community-impact and fiscal-impact grounds.

A charter can be revoked before its term expires through a performance-intervention pipeline. When subgroups consistently show poor results on the state’s evaluation rubrics, the county superintendent provides technical assistance to identify weaknesses, implement evidence-based improvements, and document progress. If the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence finds that the school has failed to implement recommended improvements, or that performance is so persistent or severe that continued operation is untenable, the authorizer must consider revocation. Before acting, the authorizer must consider whether student academic achievement has improved for all subgroups and must follow the hearing procedures set out in Education Code Section 47607. A charter school cannot appeal a revocation made under this process.¹²

Whether a charter school closes voluntarily, loses its renewal, or is revoked, it must follow specific closure procedures. State regulations require notification of parents, the authorizer, the county office of education, the special education local plan area, any retirement systems covering the school’s employees, and the California Department of Education. The notice must include the effective closure date, a contact person, the students’ home districts, and instructions for parents to obtain transcripts and records showing completed coursework and credits toward graduation. The school must transfer all student records, state assessment results, and special education files to the entity designated as responsible in its closure plan. Remaining assets after debts are settled are handled according to grant terms and state law: restricted grant funds return to their source, and donated property is returned under the original donation conditions.¹³

1
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47610 – Charter School Exemptions
2
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47605 – Establishment of Charter Schools
3
Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 5 11967.5.1 – Criteria for the Review and Approval of Charter School Petitions
4
California Department of Education. Funding Rates and Information, Fiscal Year 2025-26
5
California Department of Education. Charter School Funding – Principal Apportionment
6
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47614 – Charter School Facilities
7
California Department of Education. Charter School Use of School District Facilities
8
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47612.5 – Charter Schools
9
U.S. Department of Education. Know Your Rights – Students with Disabilities in Charter Schools
10
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47607 – Charter Schools
11
California Legislative Information. California Code EDC 47607.2 – Charter School Renewal
12
California Legislative Information. California Education Code 47607.3
13
Legal Information Institute. California Code of Regulations Title 5 11962 – Definition of Procedures for School Closure