Westlake private school clashes with Conejo Unified over lease

Parents and students from Carden Conejo School brought pompoms and buttons to a Conejo Valley Unified School District board meeting Wednesday night in their bid to convince district leaders to reconsider their position on the private school's lease.

The 160-student school has rented the former Triunfo School at 975 Evenstar Ave. in Westlake Village for 35 years, but could lose the campus in summer 2025 after Conejo Valley Unified leaders decided in December 2021 to terminate the school's three-year rolling lease.

Negotiations between district and private school leaders to draft a new lease stalled in April.

Before the meeting on Wednesday, a group of Carden students, parents and leaders gathered outside district offices, kitted out in the private school's deep blue and bright red.

"We want to restart the conversation," said Kevin Doohan, a first grade parent and member of a nonprofit board that is hoping to take over the school from its current owners.

Bob Fleming, one of those owners, waited with the group.

"We don't want to go anywhere," he said. "We want to continue to do great things for this community."

Fleming and his wife Holly have owned the 50-year-old private school since 2005. In fall 2021, Fleming told Conejo Valley Unified leaders that he planned to retire and asked the district to transfer Carden's lease to a nonprofit led by some of the school's parents.

Instead, during a district board meeting on Dec. 14, 2021, trustees voted to terminate the lease at the end of the next three-year cycle.

District Superintendent Mark McLaughlin said in an interview Thursday that the district had drafted the terms of the school's lease, signed in 2017, specifically for the Flemings because of their long relationship with the district and long tenure running the campus.

McLaughlin said the district wants more control over the property in part because of large housing developments slated to go up near to the campus — including the 420-unit T.O. Ranch project less than a mile away.

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"The district has to protect its assets," McLaughlin said.

Unable to transfer the lease, Fleming has yet to transfer the school's ownership and remains in his role as the school's director and business manager.

The district and nonprofit group Carden Conejo Parents Association began negotiating a replacement lease in fall 2022. McLaughlin said the district remains open to Carden as a tenant under a year-to-year arrangement, but talks stalled when the group's attorney objected to a proposed clause stipulating that the lease would terminate "in the event of any transfer of district’s fee title or interest in the premises."

"We cannot sign a lease in which our rights to possession could be terminated within weeks or months of signing the lease, if the district sells the property, including in the middle of the school year," attorney Steven Rosenfeld wrote in an email to Robert Feldhake, the district's attorney, on April 18. "This is not a shop or store that can be closed for several months while we find alternative space to rent. This is a school that educates children."

Without a proposed set of fixes, Rosenfeld wrote, "We really do not see a path forward for getting this lease done."

McLaughlin said Thursday that district representatives told the Carden group that they respected their decision and moved on. By that point, he said, Conejo Valley Unified had spent months of time and more than $100,000 in legal fees on the negotiation.

On Friday, McLaughlin said that the district has "no intent" of selling the property and that he believed the clause to be standard language. If the district were to sell the property, he said, the process would include a series of public notifications under state law in advance of the actual sale date.

"We'd have to put it out to the public," he said. "For school districts to sell property, they have to follow (state education code). We would follow that code."

Nasi Peretz, president of Carden Conejo Parents Association, said the sale clause is the group's only objection to the most recent proposed lease and that an attorney for the group told them the clause was not normal for commercial leases.

Peretz said the group "wouldn't stand a chance" in a bidding war if the property went up for sale and worried that the public notice required in the state's sale process would still not be enough time to find a new home.

The private school has explored backup options, Peretz said. Two were described at a school town hall meeting on Friday. He declined to share details on what his slide presentation called a possible lease for a "gorgeous, upgraded campus" for which Carden submitted a "proposal."

The school's "ultra contingency plan," the deck says, is renting a different former campus in Moorpark. Peretz said the school is waiting on the result of an in-process sale for that property but that Carden could lose students if it moved to Moorpark.

"We're never sitting idle," Peretz said. "We will continue to explore anything and everything."

Toe to toe

Carden supporters have been a semi-regular feature at district board meetings in the last few years as the school's lease has gone from termination to negotiation to stalled talks.

On Wednesday, Conejo Valley Unified added a discussion item to the end of the board's meeting. After more than a half hour of comments from Carden backers and a brief presentation from McLaughlin, board president Lauren Gill addressed the group for taking the district's resources and time.

"It is my expectation that (lease) negotiations will not drag out for months on end and cost tens of thousands in attorney fees," she said. "Those resources belong to the children of Conejo Valley Unified."

Peretz said Friday evening that he found Gill's comments insulting.

"We're all taxpayers, every person there," he said. "We're your voters. If that doesn't intimidate you, I don't know what will."

He had shown a slide presentation to parents that claimed a modicum of victory, saying lease negotiations with the district reopened Thursday night because of Carden's "ample presence."

Kimberly Gold, a district spokesperson, said in a text Friday that the district "has never closed negotiations." Gold also said that the latest version of the lease is "still on the table. Finalizing a lease agreement is part of the negotiation process."

Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. Reach him at isaiah.murtaugh@vcstar.com or 805-437-0236 and follow him on Twitter @isaiahmurtaugh and @vcsschools. You can support this work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Westlake private school clashes with Conejo Unified over lease