St. Hope, Sacramento school district to continue negotiating operational agreement
After a round of back-and-forth between the two entities, St. Hope and its charter authorizer Sacramento City Unified School District will continue negotiating the terms of their five-year operational agreement.
In September, the school’s charter was renewed under the condition that it enter into a memorandum of understanding with Sacramento City Unified School District by June 30 of this year that outlined specific accountability measures to address concerns about the school’s various governance, operational and fiscal issues.
The district board approved an MOU a few days shy of the deadline, but St. Hope leaders rejected the agreement, instead approving their own version with adjusted language surrounding personnel and third-party contracts.
This has left St. Hope Public Schools out of compliance with the terms of their charter renewal. Despite an uncertain relationship, monthly meetings regarding the school’s corrective action plan have continued, including a “very productive” July session, according to district charter oversight administrator Amanda Goldman.
Goldman and lawyer Leslie Lacher presented the board with three options at a meeting Thursday evening: one that would accept the MOU the St. Hope board put forward, one that would essentially tell the school to “take (SCUSD’s version of the MOU) or leave it” and one that would direct staff to continue negotiations with the charter school. Lacher and Goldman advocated for the latter.
“We really think that this option… is going to give us the best chance of doing the work, the corrective action work,” Lacher said.
The board ended up choosing the middle ground, but didn’t go into detailed discussion about what provisions they are willing to change and how. The matter will be brought up again at a future board meeting.
What’s still being negotiated
The largest sticking point in agreement negotiations is the fiscal relationship between St. Hope Public Schools and the related nonprofits under the St. Hope umbrella which provide back-office services to the school. SCUSD staff wrote that based on review of recent documents, they “continue to have questions about the adequacy and appropriateness of the services provided through these relationships.”
The relationship between the St. Hope entities was first identified as troubling by a July 2024 audit, which described a number of alleged fiscal violations that “cast serious doubt” on St. Hope Public School’s ability to properly manage the public funds it receives and identified potential conflicts of interest between the nonprofits’ top officers.
St. Hope Public Schools continues to contract with both St. Hope Academy and Development Company. In a letter detailing their Executive Committee Board’s decision to deny the terms of SCUSD’s version of the contract, St. Hope said that they couldn’t “agree to a term in the MOU that would cause SHPS to be immediately in violation of said MOU at the time of execution, nor can it accept conditions that would potentially disrupt payroll for employees.”
The board also wanted to see the school sever its relationship with Kevin Hiestand, its primary legal counsel who led the investigation into allegations that football coach Kimbbie Drayton partied with students. He currently serves on the board of the St. Hope Endowment and previously held dual roles as school founder Kevin Johnson’s personal lawyer and the school’s Title IX officer. He was paid a $4,000 monthly retainer in the 2022-23 school year and continues to contract with the school.
Following a Sacramento Bee investigation which found that St. Hope leadership misled the district about the investigation into Drayton, district board members expressed concern about both the charter school’s complaint and investigation policy and Hiestand’s involvement in the process.
The language of the MOU also requires that an independent party investigate allegations that administrative staff inappropriately engaged with students within six months. The results of the investigation must be shared without redaction with the district.
Hiestand was previously cited by the audit as having a potential conflict of interest in his dual roles, an assertion that St. Hope has repeatedly denied. Still, district staff and board members remain concerned about his ability to investigate a matter involving the school while also providing legal advice or support on the same or related matter.
“When we look up Kevin Hiestand’s name… good things don’t come up,” Trustee April Ybarra said. “Now that doesn’t mean that today there’s active things happening, but it does mean that morally: who are we allowing to represent us as a district or as a community?”
In addition to his involvement with the investigation into football coach Kimbbie Drayton, Hiestand also made headlines after a 17-year-old Sacramento High student reported in 2008 that Kevin Johnson, the school’s founder and then-interim principal, inappropriately touched her. A Sacramento Bee investigation found that Hiestand, also Johnson’s personal lawyer, questioned the student before the authorities were notified. This was a violation of a school administrator’s responsibility as a mandated reporter. The lawyer was also a part of what St. Hope referred to as “an impartial three-person panel” that determined the claims unfounded.
Hiestand has not returned a request for comment.
The path toward an MOU
In a public comment, interim superintendent Elisha Ferguson Parsons said that amid an exciting new school year (Public School 7 Elementary will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new campus later this month) she looks forward to working with the school district.
“Like Amanda and Lesley said, we’re not that far apart and we want to be able to work together to find an MOU and have an MOU that works for both of us, provides oversight that is necessary and also allows us to continue to operate St. Hope Public Schools,” she said.
Board members also expressed a willingness to collaborate despite a difficult renewal process.
“It does feel kind of rough at times, but I think at the end of the day my hope is that we are actually building a better relationship between our two entities than we’ve had since their charter was created,” Trustee Taylor Kayatta said.
“As we move forward, I request that we strive to align our actions with our values, with who we want to be as a board, but also who we want to be as an entity that serves our students. It is crucial for us to reinforce our dedication to our ethical practices,” Ybarra said. She went on to say, “how do we align our morals and our ethics in a way that reflects ‘yes, we are coming together, yes, we are being collaborative, yes, we are sending a message together.’ Not SCUSD sending one message, St. Hope sending another message.”
While SCUSD and St. Hope’s respective leaders emphasized collaboration, Sacramento City Teachers Association, which represents St. Hope teachers, came to the board about their trouble engaging new leadership at the charter school.
Vanessa Cudabac, a former St. Hope teacher and now Second Vice President of the Sacramento City Teachers Association, said Thursday that the progress made toward establishing a union contract has regressed since former St. Hope superintendent Lisa Ruda’s death in May, who she said had a “bold and optimistic vision for St. Hope.” Cudabac said that current St. Hope leaders are now refusing to honor nine tentative agreements that Ruda had already signed off on.
Cudabac said that 25 St. Hope teachers so far have signed a petition in support of a 5% raise, financial support for teachers pursuing a credential and the end of at-will employment.
In an email, Parsons said that they “look forward to coming to an agreement that benefits our scholars, families and teachers” and that St. Hope “continues to honor all ratified agreements it has with SCTA.
This story was originally published August 7, 2025 at 10:36 PM.
