Board grants 'educational center' status to Rancho Santiago criminal justice academies amid objections from neighboring district

The Board of Governors voted to approve educational center status for the Criminal Justice Academies operated by Rancho Santiago Community College District (RSCCD), despite formal objections from neighboring South Orange County Community College District (SoCCD) officials and public commenters who warned the designation could shift enrollment and funding.

RSCCD representatives described a long‑standing partnership with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and said the academies train law enforcement, corrections, probation and related public safety personnel year‑round. Rancho Santa Ana College Chancellor Marvin Martinez and Santa Ana College President Annabelle Neri told the board the training program serves thousands of students annually and provides an expanded pipeline for law enforcement and related first responder jobs across the region. They said the campus’s academies operate extensive partnerships with local police departments and the county sheriff, run large cohort classes (some 600–900 hour academies), and provide mandatory community engagement and wellness training embedded in their curricula.

Opposing testimony came from SoCCD officials including Leticia Clark (chief communications officer) and Ann Marie Gable (vice chancellor of business services), who argued the center designation would allow Rancho Santiago to expand instruction beyond public safety and could duplicate nearby offerings. They also told the board that the center designation, under SB 361 rules, was intended for full satellite campuses that provide a wide breadth of instruction and student services and generate 500 or more FTES; they said the site in question was largely dedicated to academies administered under instructional service agreements and did not meet the original intent. SoCCD officials also said awarding the designation would change the statewide deficit factor and reduce funding for other districts.

Chancellor’s Office staff and the board’s reviewers said they had applied the statutory/regulatory criteria for center designation and that Rancho Santiago’s application met those technical requirements. Executive Vice Chancellor Chris Ferguson told the board the district’s materials showed the location met the regulatory standards used for prior center approvals and that he recommended approval on that basis. The board discussed whether staff should add explanatory narrative to the item to highlight intercollegiate objections, and President Aguinaldo invited a short staff response to the concerns raised.

After discussion, the board approved the center designation in a roll‑call vote. Joseph Williams recorded an abstention; the motion otherwise passed with recorded ayes from other members. The board’s approval will allow RSCCD’s criminal justice academies to be recognized as a state educational center, which can affect how services are catalogued and how some programmatic funding calculations are treated, according to staff.

Why it matters: Educational center designation changes how a college’s off‑campus site is treated under state funding and institutional recognition rules. For specialized training sites — such as criminal justice academies that serve multiple local agencies — center status can enable program growth and regional coordination. But neighboring districts argued the designation could reallocate FTES or allow expansion into non‑public‑safety programs that would duplicate existing offerings and affect the statewide funding distribution.

What’s next: Rancho Santiago may proceed with center‑status operations under state rules. SoCCD said it would request the chancellor’s office revisit the application and urged the board to reexamine the criteria. The chancellor’s office will incorporate the objections in the official record.