Local school boards that have experienced increased costs or inefficiencies due to programs and policies enacted by the Orange County Board of Education (OCBE) should submit formal reports detailing these impacts to the newly authorized audit of the OCBE by the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC). 

Retired Judge Lynne Riddle and Andy Thorburn’s Contemporary Policy Institute (CPI) have shown how the OCBE wasted millions, justifying JLAC’s authorization, but ultimately local school districts have paid the true costs of the OCBE’s actions.  The audit will benefit from comprehensive evidence mapping the flow of money and influence from the California Policy Center to OCBE board members, the current county superintendent, and locally elected school boards, especially those associated with the Capistrano, Orange, and Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School Districts.

On April 8, Sen. Tom Umberg announced that the JLAC had approved his request for a state audit of the OCBE and its public administration practices. Umberg said the audit is intended to strengthen transparency, accountability, and stewardship of taxpayer dollars amid longstanding concerns about OCBE governance, litigation practices, and policy decisions. The request cites a pattern of actions raising these concerns including disputes over implementing the California Healthy Youth Act, Title VI and Title IX violations, COVID-era reopening efforts and related litigation, controversial charter approvals, and multiple lawsuits involving state policy and internal governance. The audit will examine issues tied to transparency, fiscal stewardship, civil-rights compliance, and adherence to statutory responsibilities.

• Here is a fuller list of the scope and objectives of the audit. 
• And here is a summary of some of the wasteful use of taxpayer dollars recently documented by Senator Umberg.

Any effort to trace the money flows and waste associated with the OCBE, however, should focus squarely on the downstream impacts on local school boards and the districts it oversees.  While Lynne Riddle has performed an enormous public service by documenting various abuses occurring within the operation of the OCBE, local school boards and taxpayers need to further document those impacts in their districts. 

Judge Riddle has set something of a template for such documentation, but one does NOT need to be a federal judge to perform the civic duty she once provided.  The Public School Defenders Hub, associated with the CPI, trains people in conducting the types of documentation Riddle provided to warrant that JLAC.  Please support the Public School Defenders Hub in whatever way you are able.

Local school boards, working with concerned taxpayers, can communicate their findings to the California State Auditor to help thoroughly evaluate the damages caused by the OCBE to neighborhood public schools.  Obviously, the more formal the report, the better. 

Such reports will both facilitate and enrich the CSA investigation.  The JLAC has authorized about 4,200 hours of investigation at a cost of a little over $800,000.  The more evidence local districts can provide, the fuller the picture the audit can have.

I recently encouraged the PYLUSD to undertake such a formal investigation in a letter I wrote to Board President Carrie Buck.  I included Trustee Marilyn Anderson in this appeal because at the April board meeting, she expressed concerns about the cost to the district of the recently OCBE imposed Magnolia Science Academy.  Its current enrollment is four students, but the costs imposed on the district by this imposition represent a potentially significant burden on the district’s budget.  We need to quantify the current per‑pupil and total district costs associated with these four students and identify steps the district can take to ensure those costs do not further undermine the operations of our 23,000‑student district. 

Open Letter to the PYLUSD

April 15, 2026

Carrie Buck, Board President
Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District

CC: Marilyn Anderson, Board Member, Area 2

Re: Request for Public Report Submission to the State Audit Committee

Dear President Buck:

I am writing to formally request that the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (PYLUSD) prepare and submit a comprehensive public report, along with all relevant supporting records, to the recently authorized California State Joint Legislative Audit Committee as part of the Committee’s ongoing review of the governance and oversight exercised by the Orange County Board of Education (OCBE).

The requested report will assist the Audit Committee in evaluating the district’s experiences related to OCBE’s actions, with a focus on transparency and accountability. Providing these documents will help clarify the evident harms to the PYLUSD that have resulted from the operations of the OCBE and ensure a thorough and accurate review process by the state authorities.

Concerned citizens have convinced the state legislature that the OCBE may not be complying with state law regarding Brown Act requirements, charter authorization, appropriate litigation, misuse of public funds, grant requirements, and civil-rights obligations. With two county-imposed charter schools and past misconduct by county and district leadership, a report from PYLUSD would provide evidence to the Audit Committee and help the public understand the waste, fraud, and abuse experienced in the PYLUSD over the last five years.

Key items that the report should address include the district’s experience with county-imposed charter schools, legal compliance and governance issues, use of revenues, civil-rights implications, litigation trends and associated attorney fees, board actions that may conflict with voter intent or legal requirements, campaign and ethics disclosures, and the role of outside consultants.

The report should quantify the total costs to date and projected long-term financial exposure associated with county charter schools imposed on PYLUSD, including the Magnolia Science Academy and the California Republic Leadership Academy, with particular attention to facilities renovation and maintenance obligations, insurance, and Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) impacts.

It should also address misrepresentations and any preferential treatment given to the Orange County School of Computer Science (OCSCS), including a review of legal advice from Orbach, Huff, and Henderson and the role that advice played in misrepresentations about the proposed charter revision disclosed at the January 14, 2025 board meeting. As part of that review, the report should analyze the OCSCS lease proposals included in the revision (estimated at approximately $800,000 lost per year) and explain whether any per-square-foot lease arrangement offered to OCSCS would have had to be extended to other county-authorized charters operating in PYLUSD (e.g., Magnolia and CRLA).

In addition, the report should explain the district’s use of developer fees in connection with the Universal Sports Institute (USI), including the factual basis and legal rationale for using fees intended to mitigate construction impacts on school sites to fund a program designed primarily for homeschooled youth, and whether this use was unlawful or, at minimum, indicates that legislation should be strengthened to prohibit similar expenditures in the future.

Relatedly, the report should address civil-rights compliance concerns, including whether access to USI created unequal benefits for families who could afford to homeschool and thereby violated elements of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The report should further summarize district litigation costs, including how repeated violations of the Education Code, Labor Code, and district by-laws under the previous superintendent contributed to staff claims and costly lawsuits. It should also describe the fiscal and operational impacts of district leadership’s support for pandemic-related litigation and challenges to state policies affecting gender-nonconforming students, and it should provide a longitudinal analysis of attorney-fee trends from 2015 to the present.

Additionally, the report should document the cost and impact of the supermajority requirement adopted by Trustees Blades, Frazier, and Youngblood to dismiss seven specific managers, including whether the action was unlawful and/or whether similar measures should be prohibited because they undermined the will of voters as expressed in the 2024 school board elections.

Finally, the report should address campaign and ethics disclosures by verifying trustee-candidate FPPC filings for completeness, and it should describe any use of district resources by former Superintendent Cherniss to interfere in the 2024 school board campaigns.  An examination of the legality of certain fundraising practices associated with the Yorba Linda Taxpayers Association might be included as well.

The report should also include an assessment of the performance of Hazard, Young, & Attea & Associates, particularly regarding any failure to notify the board of well-documented violations attributed to Superintendent Cherniss in his previous positions.  This includes reviewing the claims from Keith Butler v. Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (Case No. 21TRCV00016) and the findings from the investigation contracted between PVPUSD and Douglas P. Dickerson. Although the Dickerson report cannot be obtained through a public records request, our district may be able to conduct a confidential review to identify behavioral patterns within both PVPUSD and PYLUSD.

We respectfully request that the Board ensure the Audit Committee is provided with all relevant documentation necessary to assess both the practices of OCBE and their impact on our local school districts. Additionally, the Board may wish to consider engaging Douglas P. Dickerson to conduct an investigation comparable to the one previously commissioned by Palos Verdes following their experience with Dr. Cherniss. According to available reports, Palos Verdes was extremely satisfied with Mr. Dickerson’s work.  

I understand that this letter includes many requests, some of which may fall outside the Board’s responsibilities. My intention is not to add to your workload. However, the JLAC could offer a chance to resolve issues unique to our county. Any efforts we make to support it may prove valuable for the future success of all public schools in Orange County.

Samuel T. Myovich

Barke and Williams Trial Updates

In closing, here is an update regarding ongoing lawsuits involving Mari Barke and Ken L. Williams. 

Lynne Riddle, acting as a Private Attorney General, has sued Mari Barke for failing to report around $14 million on her FPPC Form 700 over a period of five years.  Failing to report this one year might be excusable.  Failing to report repeatedly over five years involves either gross negligence or intentional disregard for the law.  The submission of final arguments is scheduled for this week in the ongoing bench trial.  Judge Colover is expected to deliver her verdict in May.

The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution has elapsed following the violent incident on Crystal Canyon Road in Silverado, which took place on March 11, 2023. This allows Caden O’Malley’s civil suit against Ken L. Williams to move forward. The Case Management Conference for this trial is set for July 27.