When the Tail Wags the Dog: How Tiny Districts Like Dehesa Are Raking in Millions While Educating Almost No One

EL CAJON, CA—Charter schools were created to spark innovation in public education. But in California, a growing number of tiny districts have turned this mission on its head—authorizing sprawling charter empires that serve tens of thousands of students while educating only a handful of their own.

Welcome to Dehesa School District, population: 80. Not 56,000. Just 80 students enrolled in its single brick-and-mortar school. And yet, Dehesa oversees more than 13,000 charter school students throughout Southern California. This isn’t an administrative coincidence. It’s a deliberate strategy—and a lucrative one. Dehesa also hosts a ‘program’ on campus, in partnership with a charter school, feeding more students onto the brick and mortar campus, along with newly renamed Method Summit Academy, another charter school in which utilizes Dehesa’s neighborhood school campus for their charter operations. In all this little neighborhood school houses less than 80 actual students that physically reside in the bounds of the school, and hundreds of charter students, and ‘program’ students on their tiny neighborhood school campus.

The Charter Oversight Business Model

Thanks to California law, school districts can authorize charter schools and collect 1% to 3% of each student’s state-allocated ADA (Average Daily Attendance) funding as an oversight fee. For districts like Dehesa, which educate very few students locally but oversee massive charter operations, these oversight fees can amount to millions annually.

In both the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 school years, Dehesa acted as authorizer for roughly 13,000 charter students—more than 98% of whom were not enrolled in its local school. That puts the district’s charter-to-district student ratio at a staggering 235:1. While Dehesa does not itself receive charter ADA, it does receive and pass through in-lieu property-tax payments that are calculated off each charter’s ADA and collects the statutory 1–3% oversight fee tied to those charter revenues. Functionally, that means Dehesa’s charter-related revenue rises with charter ADA even as only ~80 Dehesa enrolled students attend its brick-and-mortar campus. (Under Ed. Code, authorizers (a) serve as conduit for in-lieu property-tax payments determined by charter ADA and (b) may collect a 1–3% oversight fee; Dehesa’s revenue exposure thus scales with charter enrollment.)

And that number is conservative. For 2025–26, Method Sports Academy—originally listed as a CDE school slated to open—was rebranded to Method Summit Academy, which now appears as an officially listed charter under Dehesa, while ‘Method Sports Academy’ continues to operate as a program on campus. In other words, Dehesa now hosts two programs (Method Sports Academy and SoCal Scholars Academy) and one newly listed, rebranded CDE charter school (Method Sports Academy rebranded to Method Summit Academy), increasing the practical charter footprint. Based on those additions and reorganizations, the charter-to-district ratio appears closer to 13,377 charter students to 80 Dehesa enrolled students that are not affiliated with Method Sports Academy, or Method Schools, a figure which includes interdistrict student transfers. Parents report the campus is being repurposed for additional instruction—citing the media center and other non-traditional rooms—amid the charter presence on site. They say the resident student population feels “displaced,” crowded out of core spaces, and deprioritized on their own campus.

In a separate clarification, Superintendent Bradley Johnson stated that the current on-campus count of approximately 80 Dehesa-enrolled students includes interdistrict transfer students, not solely children who lawfully reside within Dehesa’s boundaries. That admission leaves the number of true resident students unclear and, in parents’ view, reinforces their concern that a very small resident population is bearing the brunt of on-site charter activity. That is the entire glaring issue, a small neighborhood school, is hosting hundreds of students, not neighborhood students, the disproportionate amount of charter students to neighborhood students is highly problematic and validates the core issue that resident families and students are experiencing, reporting feeling like their neighborhood school is overrun with strangers, dangerous school drop off and pick up procedures, multitudes of transplant families completely displacing their once small neighborhood campus. 

A Land Deal Built on Questionable Priorities

In a new development raising fresh concerns about Dehesa’s priorities and financial stewardship, the district is reportedly entering into a joint agreement with Method Schools to purchase land for a new school site. According to public documents and recent board activity, the deal involves shared funding between Dehesa and MethodSchools, with both parties contributing to the cost of land acquisition and future development, and a 99 year lease joint use agreement.

But a critical question looms: who actually benefits?

Dehesa currently operates a single, fully functional campus that—based on district enrollment reporting as of 10/8/2025 enrollment figure—approximately 80 total brick-and-mortar students that are not affiliated with Method Sports Academy, or Method Schools, a number the superintendent confirms includes interdistrict transfers—there appears to be no documented facilities need tied to the district’s neighborhood-school an interdistrict transfer population. Absent the Method-affiliated operations now present on campus (Method Sports Academy as a district program and Method Summit Academy as an authorized charter), the existing Dehesa site appears adequate to serve resident students, even with a modest number of interdistrict transfers. In that light, recent steps toward purchasing an additional school site appear driven by charter-affiliated programming rather than by demonstrated capacity needs for Dehesa’s traditional student body. 

There is no documented facilities need tied to Dehesa’s brick-and-mortar population. With approximately 80 total on-campus students that are not affiliated with Method Schools, or fed from charter schools (a figure that includes interdistrict transfers), the existing site appears sufficient to serve resident families without new construction or land acquisition. By contrast, the recent expansion activity—including joint-use/land-purchase steps and added on-site programming—appears calibrated to accommodate charter-affiliated operations and students who are not district residents and were never enrolled in Dehesa’s traditional program. In practical terms, the growth pressure looks charter-driven, not neighborhood-school driven. 

Put bluntly, if the Method Schools / Method Sports Academy pipeline were not in the picture, there would be no credible facilities-driven justification for buying additional land or expanding Dehesa’s footprint. That expansion tracks the growth of charter-linked programs, not any organic surge in neighborhood enrollment or a groundswell of demand driven by Dehesa School’s own academic reputation. Without those charter affiliations feeding students onto the campus, Dehesa’s enrollment would look like what it is at its core: a small neighborhood school serving a small neighborhood population.

Observers familiar with the matter point to an increasingly apparent pattern: the district’s public infrastructure and resources are being leveraged not for local educational needs, but to accommodate the charter system it now enables. Non-traditional classrooms have already sprung up on the Dehesa campus in recent years, repurposed to house the ballooning number of “butt-in-seat” students funneled in through its authorized programs.

This latest land deal appears to extend that trend—charter-affiliated operations expand through Dehesa while public dollars and staff attention follow. Parents point to concrete changes on campus—traditions canceled or pared back, a literacy night replacing the Halloween carnival—and say they were told by the district’s former special education director that ‘Dehesa kids can’t read’, which is evidenced by the California Dashboard reporting showing Dehesa is 76 points BELOW standard, scoring in the RED. Taken together, families cite this as evidence of declining educational quality for resident students, and the California School Dashboard evidences this very clearly, further evidenced by their mathematics scores are 106.3 points BELOW standard, deeply in the RED. Meanwhile, LCFF state aid and in-lieu property tax tied to attendance are being committed toward acquiring an additional site connected to charter activity, even as parents contend the existing campus needs investment and focus. Dehesa enrolled students foot part of the bill through their child’s LCFF attendance funding, and foot the entire cost to their declining education.

Critics argue this is yet another example of Dehesa functioning more as a charter landlord and broker than as a district focused on its own children. And as land deals unfold behind closed doors, the lines between public obligation and private partnership grow ever more blurred.

A3 Scandal Echoes?

To understand the scope of the issue, one must revisit the A3 Charter School scandal, in which a web of virtual charter schools engaged in fraudulent enrollment schemes, ultimately bilking California taxpayers out of $80 million. A3 charter operators manipulated enrollment records, transferred students among multiple virtual schools, and collected state funds for students who weren’t actively attending classes.

That scandal centered around the same structure now seen in Dehesa: tiny districts overseeing massive charter networks across counties, often with little real oversight.

As then–San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan emphasized that the success of the A3 fraud was due in large part to a lack of regulatory scrutiny and that fraud flourished where oversight was thin. In Dehesa’s current charter portfolio, public-facing records raise similar concerns: for multiple authorized charters and affiliated school sites that list Dehesa’s address or use district facilities, no independent audit reports are posted; required board agendas, minutes, and meeting recordings required under Education Code §47604.1 and SB 126, are not available on official sites; and tax filings appear late or missing in some instances. Taken together, those gaps suggest a pattern of ceremonial rather than substantive oversight—the same oversight culture that enabled A3 to expand. To be clear, I am not alleging criminal conduct; I am reporting the absence of required documents at the time of publication and drawing a comparison about oversight rigor. Whether Dehesa’s charter oversight would withstand a targeted FCMAT review remains, on this record, an open question.

Today, Dehesa continues to authorize and retain charters with personnel and program lineages that trace to prior operations—often under refreshed branding.

Dehesa’s A3 Legacy: A Scandal That Never Really Ended?

At the center of that fraud, Dehesa School District was a key player, where there were elaborate shell operations that manipulated Average Daily Attendance (ADA) figures, moved students between virtual charters to inflate revenue, and leveraged tiny school districts to rubber-stamp sprawling virtual programs with little oversight.

Not only did former Dehesa superintendent Nancy Hauer face criminal charges related to her role in authorizing A3-affiliated charters, but the district itself ultimately paid a state settlement for its part in the scandal. The real question remains WHO were the key players, and WHO was the mess dumped on? Did Hauer truly know what was going on? Did this scandal happen to harm bystanders? 

Dehesa collected millions in oversight fees for schools it neither supervised effectively nor publicly scrutinized — and in return, those schools helped orchestrate the largest charter fraud in state history. But was this happening under their noses as a willing participant, or an unwitting participant? 

Based on the public record available at the time of publication, Dehesa’s current charter oversight does not reflect real and meaningful corrective measures commensurate with its A3-era exposure, according to the neighborhood families that physically reside in the Dehesa’s district boundaries. Multiple authorized charters and affiliated school sites that list Dehesa’s address or use district facilities lack publicly posted independent audit reports; required agendas, minutes, and meeting recordings (Ed. Code §47604.1; SB 126) are not  posted in a transparent manner, one must dig to find any of those items, sifting through minutes, and meeting agendas to find links for such items, guessing where to find them; and tax filings appear late or missing in several cases. In addition, the same audit firm appears to serve both the district and multiple authorized charters—an arrangement that may be lawful, but from a governance perspective raises independence and “check-the-checkers” concerns. Read solely through those public-facing records, the oversight posture appears more ceremonial than substantive. That resemblance to the oversight culture in which A3 flourished is the comparison being made here. If Dehesa has adopted robust, written corrective protocols, and the charters they authorize published audits, tax returns, and meeting minutes and full recording that legally should have already been public, publishing those materials would clarify the record; this analysis will be updated upon verifiable posting of those materials once they comply with the legal requirements per Ed. Code §47604.1; SB 126. Remember, publicly accessible without restriction isn’t the same as in an agenda or minutes, somewhere. Readily available, publicly accessible, means one should not have to search through a mountain and years of agendas or minutes to locate the item in question, simply hyperlinked in an agenda ‘somewhere’ is not the same as publicly accessible. 

Recent approvals, co-location arrangements, and continued reliance on a lean oversight apparatus suggest a continuation of the same authorizing model—scaled up—rather than any publicly demonstrable break from it. In this journalist’s opinion, a clear break would mean not authorizing charters at all. Given Dehesa’s history, that seems like the only meaningful and sensible approach. This assessment relies on documents (and the absence of documents) that, by law, should be publicly accessible, and on statements from witnesses, my attendance at board meetings, and my own personal experience having to request documentation after a Brown Act violation and witnessing day-of agenda additions.

The district now oversees more than 13,000 charter students while physically educating fewer than 100 of its own neighborhood (and interdistrict transfer) children. It continues to approve far-flung adjacent charter petition renewals, partner with large virtual operators, and expand infrastructure not for its own resident student population — but for the charter empire it seems to be quietly rebuilding.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. The A3 scandal and prosecutions detailed how key executives operated a network of virtual charters, leveraging small authorizers and thin oversight to grow large, remote enrollments with minimal local scrutiny which enabled large, remote operations to flourish. To my eye, Dehesa’s current authorizing model—tiny district, vast off-site charter footprint, lean public-facing oversight, program rebrands and co-locations—echoes patterns documented in the A3 scandal. That is a comparison about structure and incentives, and oversight culture, not an allegation of criminal conduct. The resemblance I’m pointing to is the combination of (1) a small authorizer overseeing very large remote operations, (2) gaps in posted audits/records, and (3) revenue streams tied to authorization rather than instruction.

And if those key executives were watching Dehesa today?
I imagine, they’d probably give them a high five, and be so proud of Dehesa’s apparent creative ingenuity to continue raking in the taxpayer dollars.  

Based on public-facing records as of publication, Dehesa’s post-A3 charter posture looks like a structural replay: extreme charter-to-resident ratios, lean publicly documented oversight (including the missing audits/board records noted above), and shared-facility or land-use arrangements with charter operators. To my eye, that echoes the A3 era’s incentive structure and oversight culture. This is a comparison of structure and incentives—not an allegation of criminal conduct.

Cindy White served as board president during the period covered by A3-related investigations and, per contemporaneous coverage, declined comment at the time. A board trustee sitting in a position of power during a scandal of that magnitude, reviewing charter operations, contracts, and renewals, and then remaining in that role without a visible course correction does not, from where I sit, inspire confidence. In my view, by presiding over the A3 era as board president, declining to step aside afterward, continuing to approve additional charters, and now leading a board in which her own household holds a majority, Ms. White is complicit in Dehesa’s leadership and oversight failures, even if she was not personally charged in the A3 criminal case.
She remains board president today; her son also serves on the board, and her current husband serves as well—three voting members from the same family. Those undisputed facts, together with parents’ documented Brown Act complaints and same-day agenda add-ins/late supporting documents I observed on posted agendas, raise serious governance and appearance-of-fairness concerns. In my view, that composition concentrates power and creates an obvious risk of off-agenda coordination that the Brown Act is designed to prevent. To be clear: I am not accusing Ms. White or her family of criminal conduct; I am describing board composition and public-facing process issues and stating my opinion that this setup undermines public trust. 

How did the arrows dodge the Board of Trustees, and aim straight to the Superintendent? Was this by design? Did the board know what was going on, the superintendent works at the pleasure of the board, and all final decisions are a board vote, how did the entire scandal dump on one person, and bypass the rest? How could the final vote casters be absolved, and the entire breadth of the scandal be dumped on one person? How does a board get of without a single ounce of scrutiny, and the superintendent take the fall for everything, when they vote and sign for all the contracts and authorizations?

Does that sound crazy to you? The only change can be to oust the White family, or vote them out by the Dehesa Community, calls for all of their resignations have been made multiple times in board meetings, only to go ignored. With a small voting population of 1793 voters in Dehesa’s district, many voters cast their ballots not knowing the history of the A3 charter scandal and the key players still in power today. 

This isn’t just déjà vu. It’s a reboot.

Rubber-Stamp Authorizing and Shadow Governance

Dehesa is not alone. East of 52 reviewed charter enrollment data across all of San Diego County. Several small or rural districts show high charter enrollment ratios. But only Dehesa demonstrates all the following red flags:

• Massive charter-to-district enrollment disparity (13,377 charter vs. 96 in-seat)

• Continuation of relationships with A3-era operators

• Authorizing virtual charters and programs with little community benefit

• Failure to meaningfully engage in charter oversight (board silence, lack of documentation, public transparency concerns)

Meanwhile, other districts with high charter ratios, such as Borrego Springs, Warner Unified, and Julian Elementary, were found to serve isolated or rural communities and did not show signs of manipulation or mass charter authorization outside their intended scope. San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), while carrying a high number of charters, focuses on continuation, court, or behavioral education programs that serve a distinct student population.

Top Charter-Heavy Districts in San Diego County (by % Charter Enrollment)

The districts that did not have any red flags emerge did not appear in my investigation to flag any major discrepancies, although, would require audit and further review to verify their charter footprint.

In contrast, Dehesa’s approach appears to prioritize revenue over relevance. Its board continues to greenlight far-flung charters, most of which have no physical presence within the district’s borders and serve no identifiable population tied to its geographic community.

Money Without True Accountability

California’s charter funding structure lets authorizing districts like Dehesa collect oversight fees tied to charter enrollment, even when those students never set foot on the authorizer’s own campus. In Dehesa’s case, that arrangement routes large sums of charter-related funding through the books of a tiny elementary district while its lone school serves only a fraction of the students associated with its charter portfolio.

On paper, Dehesa’s oversight responsibilities are clearly defined by statute, and after the A3 scandal the district adopted new policies that outside consultants have praised as more robust. From a public vantage point, however, that oversight is hard to see. Board agendas and minutes often show charter approvals/renewals, and major financial actions moving with limited on-record discussion and on tight timelines, sometimes with key supporting documents posted only shortly before a vote. Parents who have raised Brown Act concerns describe a pattern of brief deliberation followed by swift approvals, with little visible probing of financial or governance risks.

Questions also remain about how potential conflicts of interest are identified, disclosed, and managed—particularly in a district where a small number of families and administrators hold multiple positions of formal power. Those conflict and disclosure issues, and the specific examples that illustrate them, are examined in detail in a companion article published alongside this one.

A Broader Statewide Pattern

The numbers tell a larger story:

• Of all districts analyzed, only Dehesa exceeds a 200:1 charter-to-local-student ratio.

• Dozens of districts operate at ratios of 10:1 or higher, often with minimal in-district enrollment.

• In some districts, board members and staff have overlapping family or business relationships, leading to further ethical concerns.

Yet none exhibit the layered red flags, past history, and disproportionate growth of Dehesa.

Policy in the Shadows

Dehesa’s story illustrates how California’s permissive charter laws can be exploited. Districts are given extraordinary authority to approve charters, collect funding, and operate with little oversight themselves. And when a district does overreach, as Dehesa appears to have done, the consequences are limited or delayed. No cap is enforced. No investigation is automatically triggered. No financial clawbacks occur.

Meanwhile, taxpayers foot the bill.

When Public Education Becomes a Private Benefit

The impact of this setup goes beyond paper numbers. For local families, it can mean fewer resources reaching traditional public classrooms, increased administrative overhead, and a higher risk that public education dollars are absorbed by layers of authorizing, management, and boutique programming rather than core instruction. Because California funds schools based on average daily attendance (ADA), every student who leaves a neighborhood campus for a charter takes a share of LCFF-driven funding with them, while many of the district’s fixed costs remain—and research in other communities has found that this kind of charter growth can create real fiscal pressure on district-operated schools in the short run. 

It also raises concerns about the equity of access, especially as charter schools offer boutique programs (surfing lessons, private dance studios, tech pods) that often cater to families with more time, transportation, and flexibility to take advantage of them.

These perks come with a price. That price is borne by the state, and by extension, the public.

A System Crying Out for Reform

What Dehesa shows is that California’s charter school authorization process is broken. While charters have a place in public education, the current structure enables small districts to act as high-volume charter mills with minimal transparency.

There is a path forward. It begins with:

• Capping the number of out-of-district charters a single district can authorize

• Linking oversight revenue to demonstrated compliance and supervision

• Requiring annual third-party audits of districts with high charter ratios through Fiscal Crisis & Management Team (FCMAT).

• Increasing state-level monitoring for districts that cross key thresholds (e.g., 10:1 charter ratios or more)

• Radical idea that ONLY County Offices of Education may authorize charter schools, no charter authorization from Districts AT ALL.

Dehesa is not just an outlier. It is a case study. And if California fails to respond, others will follow.

This is not a story about one district. It’s a story about how a loophole became a business model. And how children, communities, and public trust were left behind in the process.