A leader of two high-performing, independent charter schools in the San Fernando Valley says she’s “very confident” they can avoid shutdowns by appealing their denied renewal petitions to the county and possibly the state.

The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday refused to renew three Magnolia schools serving 1,400 sixth- through 12th-grade students, including Magnolia Science Academy campuses in Reseda and Van Nuys, as recommended by district staff. Hundreds of students, staff and other Magnolia supporters wore orange T-shirts at Tuesday’s meeting, with some holding signs that read “I stand for Magnolia” and “Stop School Closing.”

“I feel angry and frustrated and concerned, but I’m also very optimistic because I think we’re going to be successful at making our case at the county level or the state level. We’ve done that before,” Caprice Young, CEO of Magnolia Public Schools, said on Thursday.

The district cited the Magnolia schools’ “failure to timely respond” to document requests from LAUSD’s Office of Inspector General, which has been investigating Magnolia Public Schools for more than two years, and the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, an external state agency that provides financial oversight.

LAUSD board member Scott M. Schmerelson, who voted against the renewal, said Magnolia appears to have a great educational program but called it “the most secretive school” he has seen.

“Magnolia has consistently refused to show their records, their books,” Schmerelson said. “I deserve to know how this charter school receiving public funds is spending public money when we are responsible for every penny we spend, every penny is up to scrutiny.”

LAUSD’s Charter Schools Division alleged that the Magnolia Education and Research Foundation’s “continued and repeated failure” to respond in a reasonable time frame to information requests has “limited the district’s ability to fully oversee the fiscal and business operations” of the foundation. The documents listed several examples.

Young defended the Magnolia network, arguing staffers have given the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team or FCMAT more than 1,100 documents so far for its review and they continue to provide information to it. As for the Office of the Inspector General, “they’re in my office now scanning documents,” she said, and “we’ve given them the equivalent of 170 bankers boxes full of information.”

“They certainly have more information to look over than they’ll be able to review in the next three years,” Young said, adding Magnolia staffers are trying to be as transparent as possible. Young is a former president of the LAUSD school board.

Current LAUSD Board President Steven Zimmer said in an email that he takes his role as an authorizer of charter schools, which are accountable for their outcomes as well as their operational and financial practices, “very seriously.” The board also voted not to renew two Celerity charter schools, one in Eagle Rock and the other in South Los Angeles.

“The process that took place on Tuesday was difficult and it was painful,” Zimmer wrote. “But the Board of Education did its job … . The near unanimous vote on both denials indicates how serious the concerns are and have been.”

Magnolia hopes to have its appeal in front of the Los Angeles County Board of Education by the end of December, Young said. If it’s approved, the county would become its authorizer. If not, the petition would go the state, which could take until April or May, she said.

When the Magnolia Science Academy-Santa Ana campus failed to get renewal from the district board there in 2013, the nonprofit charter network appealed to Orange County Board of Education, and when that was rejected, the state. The State Board of Education approved the school, becoming its new authorizer, and in 2015, the state gave it $17.4 million dollars to build a new school, Young said.

“We feel very confident that the state will see that the programs that we run are excellent and that our operational capacity is strong and getting stronger,” she said, noting a series of improvements have been made in recent months.

If the state denies their requests, then the schools would have to close. Regardless, the three Magnolia schools, which includes one in Carson, would stay open through June, she said. There are a total of 10 Magnolia schools in Southern California, eight of which are in LAUSD boundaries.

Both the Magnolia schools in the Valley were in the top 3 percent of all high schools in the nation, according to an April issue of U.S. News & World Report.

The Magnolia school in Van Nuys also was identified as the top-ranked charter high school within LAUSD boundaries.

Curriculums at the schools emphasize science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

The Magnolia Education and Research Foundation filed a lawsuit against LAUSD in 2014 after the district rescinded conditional renewals of two other Magnolia schools and denied renewal of a third. The two parties entered into a settlement agreement in March 2015, which allowed the schools to stay open and required the hiring of a new CEO, changing its board composition and allowing oversight of the FCMAT team, among other changes.

Young argued that the Board of Education’s latest denials Tuesday were disproportionate to what was warranted.

“They’re giving our school a death sentence when what it deserves is a fix-it ticket,” she said.