Rosander

Real party in interest Cardiff School District (Cardiff) appeals a judgment of the superior court issuing a peremptory writ of mandate on behalf of the San Dieguito Union High School District and its governing board (San Dieguito), declaring a “withdrawal” elementary school election to be invalid. The trial court concluded limiting the vote on the withdrawal election to the Cardiff voters would violate state law as well as disenfranchise the remaining voters of San Dieguito Union High School District.

Facts

Cardiff is an elementary school district within the boundaries of San Dieguito and San Diego’s North County. Cardiff has two elementary schools educating students from kindergarten through sixth grade. San Dieguito educates students from grades seven through twelve. Since 1936 San Dieguito has maintained a junior high school program for students living in four elementary school districts: Cardiff, Del Mar, Encinitas, and Solana Beach. Some Cardiff parents have expressed a dissatisfaction with the education afforded to seventh- and eighth-grade students and seek to withdraw their seventh and eighth graders from the junior high school system operated by San Dieguito.…