BrightStar Learning Centers could leave Huntington Beach after rent increase
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Judy Coglianese came to the Ocean View School District board meeting earlier this month first offering thanks.
The longtime operator of BrightStar Learning Centers, on the former Glen View Elementary School site in Huntington Beach, has been in business with the district for nearly 40 years.
“I love Ocean View,” she told the school board during public comments. “I live in this area. My kids went to these schools, my grandkids, my nieces, my nephews … I’ve appreciated this district and all you’ve done, so thank you.”
But Coglianese could be saying adieu and moving BrightStar elsewhere, after the district advised her it wanted to raise her rent by what she said is an untenable amount of 25%.
She said she received a letter from the Ocean View district in late May notifying her that her lease was up and that she couldn’t expect to stay more than an additional year. Additionally, BrightStar was paying $26,000 a month rent, and she said the district was asking for nearly $33,000 a month to continue operating the center for infants, toddlers and preschoolers at the current location.
Coglianese said that instead of renewing for a year, the current agreement is that BrightStar will close at the end of August. The district is not charging the learning center rent for August, she added.
“It is not financially or ethically feasible for us to continue, knowing there is no future here,” Coglianese wrote to BrightStar preschool families on June 29. “This would only prolong the inevitable.”
She said she doesn’t want to paint the district as the bad guys. But, in another note to parents and supporters sent to BrightStar parents and supporters on July 14, she said she resented that the district was portraying the situation as if she were simply walking away.
“I’ve enjoyed being here, I’ve enjoyed being the red-headed stepchild of this school district,” she told the board during that night’s meeting. “But I do feel like it’s wrong to let my parents think I quit. I’m not a quitter. I thought they’d have to carry me out in a box.”
Coglianese said in an interview with the Daily Pilot that BrightStar currently has about 65 to 70 infants and children that attend. She said she would have been open to having a school running on the site on a smaller footprint.
“A 25% [rent] increase kind of seemed to me like, you want me gone,” she said.
Coglianese said she has had meetings with Keith Farrow, the Ocean View School District’s assistant superintendent of administrative services. A representative of his office called her again this week to set up a meeting, she said Thursday, but she declined the invitation.
“I just don’t have anything to say to him,” she said. “I’m just moving forward with my life. I’m not trying to start any trouble … I can’t be in the newspaper as a rabble rouser fighting. This is the district’s land. One way or another, they have a right to do what they want to do. They could have done it in a much kinder, less painful way to all the people involved, and they could be more upfront and honest with the people in the neighborhood. But that’s not my circus. Those aren’t my monkeys.”
Questions sent to the district via email were forwarded to Supt. Julianne Hoefer and Board President Gina Clayton-Tarvin. Clayton-Tarvin said in a phone interview that BrightStar has been a great tenant of the property for many years, but had been paying below market value.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the lessor, for anybody really, to be housed in such a big property when they’re having a hard time getting students into their own program, per their own statement,” Clayton-Tarvin said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re not willing to look at moving forward with them in some other way. We have open and ongoing talks with them, and of course we’re willing to figure out an extension.
” You know, we offered them an extension actually, so you know we’re waiting to see what they want to do to see if we want to formalize next steps. But it was their decision to vacate the premises abruptly at the end of August. It was initiated by BrightStar, not by the district. We actually wanted to retain them as a tenant.”
Jenn Belch, director of the learning center, said she reached out to three other district sites to see if it could switch locations. She reiterated that BrightStar, which formerly operated under the names Under the Rainbow and the Learning Circle, does not want to close.
“I’ve been there 30 years,” Belch told the trustees during the school board meeting on July 14. “Most of our staff have been there 25 to 30 years. We don’t want to go anywhere. We want to stay in this community and continue to serve these families.”
Though the Huntington Beach City Council has no purview over district affairs, Councilmember Don Kennedy said at Tuesday’s council meeting that he had met with both Coglianese and Farrow.
“Although I don’t think there’s a deal yet in place, I’m not going to completely give up,” Kennedy said. “There’s one or two more conversations that I want to have … I’m hoping they can come together, even if it’s just for another one-year deal, which would be great for the students, great for Judy, great for the school district. [It would] give everybody time to look for alternative solutions, as opposed to a vacant building.”
Clayton-Tarvin said the district has no plans to develop the former Glen View site at this time.
A few BrightStar parents came to the OVSD board meeting on July 14. Emma Knowles, who lives in Westminster, has a 2-year-old boy who has been at BrightStar since last November. She said her son has enjoyed the school and the teachers have been excellent.
“I think it’s a little unfair,” Knowles said of the situation. “I know that it’s going to take time, it’s going to take years for a decision to be made regarding [the property], so now it’s going to sit empty for who knows how long. All that time, at least it could have given BrightStar a little bit more time to figure out another option.”
