After weeks of intense and emotional Discovery Charter School and the Moreland School District have forged a long-term lease for the K-8 school in West San Jose.
The lease ends an acrimonious dispute that had culminated in the school district threatening to remove one-third of the portables occupied by the popular school.
Under the agreement, Discovery will pay the district $207,500 annually for a nine-year lease, about triple what it has been paying. The school also will pay a one-time $32,000 administrative fee.
Both sides hailed the agreement.
" This allows us to take a step in the right direction for our students and establish a period of stability in the relationship between DCS and Moreland," Superintendent Glen Ishiwata said.
The agreement is "a win-win situation," Discovery board President Barbara Eagle said. The charter school will draw from its general-fund budget and step up fund-raising to pay the lease on its 29 portables, one more than it occupied this year, she said. The school was willing to pay market rate for some of the portables in exchange for the long lease.
Typically, she said, charters spend six months a year trying to arrange the following year's facilities.
"We're aware it's going to be a little tight for us, but we are willing to do this so that there will be some peace," Eagle said.
Fewer than half of Discovery's students live within the Moreland district's boundaries, and by law the