But County Counsel John Beiers sent a letter to Daytop Executive Director Orville Roache informing him that the Office of Education may not have jurisdiction to approve the charter. Instead, Beiers recommended they attempt to get their school sponsored by the Sequoia Union High School District.

A charter petition can be directly submitted only to a county office of education if backers want to open a countywide school, or if they plan to serve students the county would serve otherwise, Beiers said.

Roache said he approached the Office of Education with the petition because the population the county serves is similar to Daytop's. With its court and community schools, the Office of Education provides classes for troubled youth that school districts cannot serve.

"We didn't go to Sequoia first, because we thought we were serving students the county would otherwise serve. They serve kids that have been expelled, and we serve troubled youth," he said.

Based on the program's current population, Daytop is anticipating that 80 percent of its students will be wards of the court, 12 percent county residents referred by drug and alcohol services, and 8 percent placed there by a hospital or teens who voluntarily admit themselves into the program.

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