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Second and third grade teacher Tricia Bagnas, middle, has a book report... ( KAREN T. BORCHERS )

With enrollment growing annually, Discovery Charter School in San Jose hoped to add two classrooms at its West San Jose campus this fall. Instead, the 4-year-old charter school has received a letter from the Moreland School District's attorney declaring that nearly one-third of the school's portable classrooms would be removed by the end of June.
"We've reached an all-time low in communication," said Barb Eagle, Discovery's board president.
Discovery isn't alone in its sometime fractious relationship with elected trustees. The financial vise squeezing California schools has intensified friction between charter schools and nearby school districts. In the South Bay, a dispute over parcel tax revenues in Alum Rock and ongoing lawsuits in Los Altos have roots in the pressing search for dollars and in the vague rules governing charters, which are public schools allowed to operate independently of local school boards and California's education code.
State law unintentionally pits charters as financial adversaries to school districts, which lose per-pupil funding for each of their students who attend a charter. Additionally, a district granting a charter is usually obligated to provide the school a campus free of charge. In some cases, even a district denying a charter application may end up on the hook for providing facilities if the charter is granted on appeal.
As Sacramento has cut back school funding and delayed paying what it owes
schools, districts are searching for cuts. Charter supporters say they are feeling the pinch.
Parents in the Moreland elementary district, which runs six schools in San Jose, have grown resentful of Discovery Charter, Superintendent Glen Ishiwata said. The animosity precedes the school's founding in 2006, when the Santa Clara County Board of Education overrode Moreland trustees and granted the charter.
The school operates in 28 portables, most provided by Moreland and located on the district's Leroy Anderson campus in the Blackford neighborhood. Requiring parent participation and offering multigrade classrooms, the school has grown steadily.
Now, as Moreland faces cutting nearly $3 million of its $36 million budget for 2010-11, and as parents are desperately raising funds to salvage programs, "Parents are saying the district should not be subsiding out-of-district students," Ishiwata said. State law requires a district to provide a charter school with facilities sufficient enough to educate those students residing within the district's boundaries. Because only 52 percent of Discovery students come from the Moreland area, the district is providing below-market-rate space for nondistrict students, he said.
Discovery parents take issue with the accounting. "Moreland does not subsidize