VALLEY CENTER -- A Rincon Indian Reservation-based charter school that voluntarily closed in July, when it was on the brink of losing its charter from the Valley Center school district, plans to reopen under a different district to the east this fall, school leaders said Friday.

All Tribes American Indian Charter School filed a petition July 21 to start a five-year charter with the rural Warner Unified School District, All Tribes governing board President Sharlyn Potter said Friday.

The district held a public hearing Thursday to discuss the petition. Warner Springs trustees will now have 30 days to decide whether to accept or deny the petition. District officials were not available for comment Friday.

"They were very, very receptive," All Tribes' co-founder and administrator Mary Ann Donohue said Friday about the hearing. "It's just a matter of whether they want to undertake the oversight responsibilities.

"In reality, they need to make their decision fairly quickly for us to get up and running this year," Donohue added later.

All Tribes' school leaders have said they would like to reopen the school in September. If All Tribes had kept its charter with the Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District, classes would have resumed Monday.

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that have more flexibility in their curriculum and how they spend their money than district-run schools, but must report to a sponsoring district that can ultimately close a campus for illegal activity, poor student performance or financial issues.

All Tribes voluntarily closed July 16, the same day that the Valley Center district was scheduled to revoke the school's charter because of concerns about leadership and the management of funds.

Charter school officials have argued that the district was intent on closing the seven-year-old campus and had hopes of re-enrolling in its other schools several dozen of the students that attended All Tribes. School districts receive the majority of their funding based on how many students are enrolled and attend classes daily -- the more students a school has, the more money it will receive.

Donohue said that in making a move to Warner Unified, school leaders hope to re-establish All Tribes in a more "charter-friendly" district and institute some changes, such as opening the school to kindergarten through fifth-grade students, that they have been pondering for years.

In the past All Tribes has only served students in sixth through 12th grade.

"Perhaps this is just the push I needed to get the little guys in," Donohue said.

If Warner Unified approves All Tribes' charter, the school will not have to move off the reservation, Donohue said. The school has three empty buildings on campus that it could use for the additional grades, she said.

While charter schools typically only operate within the boundaries of their sponsoring district, state law allows an exception to that rule when the sponsoring district does not have a large enough facility to house the charter program within its boundaries.

Warner Springs is a small, rural district that runs three schools -- an elementary, middle and high school -- on one site. The district enrolls about 200 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

The kindergarten through 12th-grade school All Tribes is proposing would be at least that large, Donohue said. With only middle and high school grades in the 2007-08 school year, All Tribes had 65 students.

Contact staff writer Shayna Chabner at (760) 740-5416 or schabner@nctimes.com.