The county school board has voted unanimously to do what East Side Union School High School District trustees stubbornly refused twice before: It granted Leadership Public Schools a charter.

Based on a successful prototype in San Francisco, Leadership will be a 450-student charter school that will stress intensive academics and leadership training, serving primarily underperforming, minority students. It's precisely an alternative that the district should have embraced.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education will oversee the school, but East Side must still provide a facility at Leadership's request. In other words, East Side will have obligations but no control -- an unfortunate situation the district brought upon itself.

Still, the district should now reach out and cooperate with Leadership -- for the sake of students who'll choose to go there.