The LBUSD School Board faces a heavy schedule tonight as they will discuss the possibility of placing a parcel tax on the November ballot in order to raise revenues, and could also vote to close the district’s longest running charter school, Constellation, citing financial mismanagement.

With public school funding being slashed across the state, the LBUSD finds itself in dire financial straits. Tonight, the Board will discuss and vote on an idea to put a tax on the November ballot that would collect $92 per year for five years. That money would go to LBUSD to buoy the district as its budget has been hit hard by the recession.

Measure K passed easily last November, which allowed the District to purchase $1.2 billion in bonds for infrastructure improvements. But this upcoming vote will be different because Long Beach residents will pay directly for the measure. Will voters feel the same way about the two measures?

Also, keep an eye out to see if Long Beach’s oldest charter school is still around tomorrow, as the Board may vote to shut down Constellation Community Charter School tonight.  The Press-Telegram‘s Kevin Butler weighs in on the Constellation issue in today’s paper, explaining that District officials are frustrated over a financial loan gone bad and low test scores, both of which Constellation administrators say can be fixed. Sayeth Butler:

Constellation borrowed about $1.7 million to acquire a warehouse facility at 1955-1965 Long Beach Blvd., with the aim of opening a new school last fall with about 360 students.

The school put down about $520,000 of its own money in the deal, Constellation Principal Daphne Ching-Jackson said.

But enrollment fell short of that 360 target. Cost increases during the city planning process forced the school to abandon the project and stop payment on the loans in January, she said.

Ching-Jackson expects that a bank auction planned for next month will help resolve the financial issues.

The district does not have adequate assurance that an auction would solve the problem, said James Suarez, who reviews charter petitions for the LBUSD as assistant director of special projects.

Constellation obviously needed some kind of expansion/improvement – since students and teachers use portable restrooms – so can you fault school administrators for attempting to expand, even if the deal went bad? But with some District officials pointing to other financial mismanagements as well, on top of testing scores that put Constellation in the nation’s bottom five-percent, the School Board tonight may see it more useful to just cut their losses with the charter school and shut it down.

And of course, the School Board continues to conduct their business without member Michael Ellis, who has been absent from six of the past seven meetings.  The Press-Telegram last week explained that the District is basically helpless to do anything about it.  We’ll keep you posted in case Ellis shows up tonight.

The meeting begins tonight at 5:30pm at 1515 Hughes Way.