What’s the obvious next career move for a principal who has been drummed out of high schools in Pasadena and Modesto? A virtual charter school in Oakland.

Oakland Unified School District’s Governing Board will hear a charter petition Wednesday evening for California Connections Academy @ VIMS, a proposed online “learning community” that’s similar to a petition Sacramento’s Board of Education nixed earlier this year.

The petition calls for a non-classroom based K-12 school serving students in Alameda and nearby counties. The school’s president is Melda Gaskins, a school administrator with a history of being shunted into district office positions after running afoul of parents and teachers at schools where she was the principal.

In 2005, she quit as principal of Modesto High School following a no-confidence vote from the school’s faculty. Gaskins arrived in Modesto from Pasadena where she had been principal of Muir High School until pressure from dissatisfied parents and teachers forced her to take a job in the district office.

The proposed charter school will contract with Connections Academy LLC, a Maryland company that provides tools for online learning to schools in 13 states, including two in California. According to test score data, students at the Central California Connections Academy perform better than their peers at the chartering Alpaugh Unified School District in the Central Valley. However, students at Capistrano Connections Academy perform worse on standardized tests than students in Capistrano Unified’s traditional schools.

In March, Sacramento City Unified School District’s Governing Board denied a petition to the Visionary Institute Math and Science Academy on the grounds that VIMS’  charter petition “presents an unsound educational program for the pupils to be enrolled in the charter school.” First submitted in November 2008, the VIMS charter petition was for a traditional charter middle school in Sacramento.

The California Connection Academy @ VIMS petition to Oakland comes as the school district is granting fewer charters. There was a time when things were faster and looser, making Oakland a great place for someone looking to get a fresh start. That's not true anymore. For the past year, the Oakland charter office has been taking a close and hard look at existing charters and new proposals.