A 2025 state audit found that Highlands Community Charter and Technical Schools — which runs six adult-education campuses in Sacramento — may have wrongly collected close to $180 million in state funds tied to inaccurate attendance reporting, plus spending that included a six-figure luxury hotel bill and international staff trips. Instead of resolving those findings, Highlands is now asking Yuba City Unified School District to grant it a brand-new charter under a brand-new name: California Learning Academy.

Yuba City's school board already said no once, unanimously rejecting the request in July over the school's troubled academic and financial record. Highlands is now appealing that denial to the Sutter County Board of Education, hoping a fresh county-level review will succeed where the local board would not.

Changing a school's name and moving it to a new district shouldn't be a way to outrun accountability. As Yuba City school union official Mercedes Geraldo put it, "What are Highlands' intentions here? And what are they spending their money on?" according to Geraldo. Real answers to that question — starting with the financial audits Twin Rivers Unified says Highlands still hasn't produced — should come before a new charter is granted, not after.

The Sutter County Board of Education has the power to say what Yuba City's board already said: this school hasn't earned a fresh start yet. Students and families in Sutter County deserve full transparency and proof of real reform first.

Sign the petition to urge the Sutter County Board of Education to reject Highlands' bid for a new charter until real accountability is in place.