Bridges Of Promise Academies Withdraws Appeal To Operate Charter In Menifee Union School District

Bridges of Promise Academies (BPA) this month withdrew its appeal to the Riverside County Office of Education (RCOE) to operate a charter school within the boundaries of the Menifee Union School District.

“While this process didn’t end as we hoped, I remain deeply grateful to every person who engaged with our application,” said Colleen Mullen, founder and chief executive officer of Propel, A Charter Management Group, Inc., at the November 5 RCOE meeting. “This initiative was never about a single petition, it was about expanding opportunity for children and families who deserve more.”

Mullen called the outcome “deeply disappointing,” and said that she hoped Propel, which submitted the petition on behalf of BPA, would be able to come back to the board in the future in support of the proposed charter to “participate in a more collaborative review process, one that emphasizes clear and direct communication.”

Menifee Union Superintendent Jennifer Root also spoke at the meeting, thanking the board for helping the district move through the charter petition appeal process.

“This was a new process to our board and to us as a cabinet, and we really respected the work that the county staff did in keeping us informed of the process, what we needed to do and how we needed to respond,” she said. “We think they did an excellent job, and we just wanted to be able to convey that to you tonight.”

Earlier this year, the Menifee Union School District Board of Education rejected Bridges of Promise Academies’ petition to operate a charter school in the district. Less than a month later, Bridges of Promise appealed that decision to RCOE.

“As the community of Menifee and the surrounding Temecula Valley area are growing, more schools are needed to serve our community,” Brandon Franklin, BPA board president, said in an August 18 news release announcing the appeal. “We want Bridges of Promise to be a unique school for families to choose alongside the other quality options currently available in the community.”

Last month, BPA presented its charter school plan to the RCOE board. The proposal included a school providing TK through eighth grade educational opportunities for students in the Menifee Union School District boundaries and surrounding communities starting in the fall of 2027. The school would educate students using a project-based learning approach across all grades, according to BPA’s petition.

The TK program would be inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach, with the middle school program focused on career exploration and added emphasis on place-based education, according to the petition. Across all grades, social emotional learning would be the “bedrock.”

“We all have a goal that our kids are empathetic, responsible, charismatic, but we also want them to understand student reflection,” proposed BPA Principal Jennifer Hunter said at the October 1 RCOE meeting. “We want them to be able to have authentic innovation, and having project-based learning that’s focused on community development is the avenue in which we’re looking to do this work.”

At that same meeting, Ronald Wenkart, an attorney with Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo representing the district, said the board denied the charter petition because the program was unsound for students, the petitioners were likely to be unsuccessful in their implementation of the program as presented and the petition lacked reasonably comprehensive descriptions. Wenkart further said that the proposed charter school lacked local support.

“They have not presented any documents with parent signatures showing that they’re interested in enrolling their children in the charter school,” he said. “Most of the charter schools that I’ve worked with over the years, have presented petitions that show that the parents are interested. This is the first one I’ve seen that has such a lack of parental support.”

Those concerns were shared by RCOE staff, who in a report to the Charter Schools Committee identified a number of deficiencies in the application, including in its descriptions of the proposed charter’s activities, educational program and implementation plans.